Table Of ContentUNDERSTANDING
YOUR USERS
A Practical Guide to User Research Methods
UNDERSTANDING
YOUR USERS
A Practical Guide to User Research Methods
Second Edition
Kathy Baxter, Catherine Courage,
and Kelly Caine
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iv
IN PRAISE OF
UNDERSTANDING YOUR
USERS, SECOND EDITION
“The first edition became my ‘go-to’ book for mastering user requirements gathering. Ten years later, this second
edition is even better. Don’t leave your office without it!”
—Joe Dumas, Editor in Chief, Journal of Usability Studies
“Do you believe in driving while blindfolded? That’s what you’re doing if you design and market a technological
product without studying your target users and tasks. This book is a comprehensive handbook on the “why” and
“how” of user research, illustrated with vivid real-world examples. Don’t drive your design project while blindfolded.
Get this book, read it, and follow its prescriptions. It will repay its cost many times over.”
—Jeff Johnson, author of GUI Bloopers 2.0 and Designing with the Mind in Mind
“Very authoritative, this work combines expertise from industry and academia, with lots of specific guidelines, tips
and examples, and with pointers to other readings for deeper insights. Useful for students and practitioners alike,
this should be on everyone’s bookshelf. The authors do a great job of explaining the importance of business-side
stakeholders (C-suite, marketing, sales, development) and how to speak their language.”
—James D. Foley, Professor, College of Computing, Stephen Fleming Chair in
Telecommunications, Georgia Institute of Technology
v
IN PRAISE OF UNDERSTANDING YOUR USERS, SECOND EDITION
“Understanding Your Users is a thorough guide to user experience for designers both technical and non-technical.
Instructors, students and practitioners will find this book very useful to your success as an user experience expert.”
—Juan E. Gilbert, Ph.D., Andrew Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Chair, Computer &
Information Science & Engineering Department, University of Florida
“Understanding Your Users is handbook of practical wisdom for the serious human centered design practitioner.
This second edition includes updated content around emerging best practices. It is a must have in any design team’s
library.”
—Janaki Kumar, Head of Strategic Design Services, America, Design and Co-Innovation Center,
SAP Labs Palo Alto
“With the massive expansion of digital products, new processes for faster development cycles, and competition
that can appear out of nowhere in days, the product design has become the major differentiator, and key to
success. Understanding your end user is more important than it ever has been, how they really work, and how your
assumptions match up to their reality. This book takes tried and true methodology and shows how any or all of it can
be applied to your products now.”
—Jeremy Ashley, VP, Oracle Cloud UX
“A great introductory book for anyone wishing to understand and engage in traditional user research methods. The
language is clear and straightforward, allowing the reader to try and use the methods on their own project. Each
method is accompanied with an extensive bibliography allowing the curious mind to further delve into any of the
described methods. Samples of forms, letters and examples enhance the practical nature of the book, making this title
a staple for the beginning practitioner.”
—Joseph Kramer is a Service Design Lead at Fjord—Design and Innovation from Accenture
Interactive
“The difference between product success and failure often comes down to the user experience. Baxter, Courage, and
Caine share the methods you need to better understand your users so that you can design delightful experiences.”
—Craig Villamor, Chief Design Architect at Salesforce.com
vi
PREFACE
What Is New in This Edition: Ten Years of Progress
A lot has changed in the ten years since the first edition of this book was published. One of the biggest changes is the
shift from a focus on “usability” to “user experience.” “Usability” is an attribute of a system or user interface (UI). It
refers to the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction with which users can achieve tasks when using a product. “User
experience,” on the other hand, is human-centered and is the co-creation of an interaction between a person or persons
and a product. User experience includes “usability” and all aspects a user encounters when dealing with a product or ser-
vice from the branding to the motion and audio design to customer support. It is about how the product or service makes
the user feel. You can see this change reflected in job titles (e.g., from “Usability Engineer” in the 1990s and early 2000s
to “User Experience Researcher” today) and professional organizations (e.g., the “Usability Professionals Association”
changed their name to “User Experience Professionals Association” in 2012). The result of the change in focus means
that a User Experience Researcher (UER or UXR) must conduct research beyond the UI and think about all of the ele-
ments influencing a user’s experience. This change is reflected most prominently in our new title: “Understanding Your
Users: A Practical Guide to User Research,” but you’ll see smaller reflections of this throughout the book.
A second change in the profession is the popularity of agile development processes and similar lightweight, itera-
tive, project-based approaches. Created in 2001, Agile is a rapid development process used by a cross-functional
team that ideally works together closely and meets daily. While agile development does include continuous cus-
tomer or stakeholder involvement, the competing requirement to iterate quickly in small operable chunks, means
it can be difficult to incorporate user research into the process. This makes conducting early user research to un-
derstand user requirements critical because there may be less time in later cycles to conduct longer-term research.
To address this development, we added content around the importance of and techniques to enhance interactions
with stakeholders and product teams.
A third development is the increasing variety of technology and contexts where research is needed. For example,
products that were considered science fiction ten years ago such as wearables (e.g., smart watches, Google Glass),
self-driving cars, and increasingly complex consumer medical devices (e.g., contact lens that measures blood glu-
cose in tears) are now here or within reach. This means that the research we conduct is less often inside a usability
lab and more often in context. It means we must understand not just whether users can find the feature they want
and whether it meets a real user need, but also how people around those using the device(s) feel and respond to it.
It is this highly complex interplay of technology development at breath-taking speeds and the human response to
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PREFACE
it that makes conducting valid, reliable, and ethical research much more challenging today. With this in mind, we
refreshed the chapter on ethics, updated the example scenarios we use throughout the book and included additional
details about conducting user research in the user’s context.
A fourth development is the dramatically increased availability of tools that enable remote user research. These
tools range from tools created specifically to make the job of a user researcher easier, to general purpose communi-
cation tools like Skype or Google Hangouts that now make conducting interviews across the country as convenient
as conducting them in the user researcher’s home city. Throughout the chapters, we introduce these tools, provide
links to example tools, and include discussions of the pros and cons of using these types of tools in your research.
Besides updating the book to meet these shifts in practice and the profession of user experience research, we
removed two methods that are less frequently used (i.e., Wants and Needs Analysis, Group Task Analysis). We
replaced these with other methods that were not included in the first edition, but have since become increasingly
used to learn about users (e.g., Social Sentiment Analysis, Experience Sampling Methodology, Diary Studies,
crowdsourcing). Another significant change we made, based on feedback primarily from students, was to add a
chapter on evaluation methods (i.e., heuristic evaluation, cognitive walkthroughs, usability testing, eye tracking,
Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation, desirability testing, remote testing, and live experiments). Students and
professors told us they loved the first edition, but for it to be more useful in introductory courses on user research,
it should include a chapter on evaluating a product’s usability. We agree and feel this increases the scope of the
book from just user requirements methods to cover the entire spectrum of user research. We also added a section to
discuss special user types one should consider in their research (e.g., older users, children, physically challenged).
Finally, in the spirit of modernization, we have updated all of the methods to reflect the most recent understanding
about ways to collect data validly and reliably and refreshed the references accordingly.
To make the book easier to use, we ceased relegating data analysis methods to appendices and instead incorporated
one detailed data analysis method per chapter. For user research methods where more than one data analysis method
can be used, we outlined those methods briefly and pointed readers to additional details within other chapters. We
hope this provides a more pleasant, straightforward, self-contained reading experience. Another way we improved
usefulness was by incorporating example data collection instruments, tools, worksheets, and notetaking samples
throughout the book. We anticipate these examples and tools will be especially useful to those readers who are new
to user experience research and/or are working in contexts where these types of examples are not readily available.
Finally, we wanted to make sure the book was fun and immediately practical. Abi Jones’ cartoons provide de-
lightful pictures when words wouldn’t do and add levity. With the help of incredibly talented case study authors,
we have included all new case studies that provide practical examples of these methods in action in a variety of
contexts from software development to banking to medical devices.
How to Use This Book
This book is designed to be a comprehensive, easy-to-read, “how-to” guide on user research methods. It teaches
many distinct user research methods and also covers pre- and post-method considerations, such as recruiting,
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PREFACE
facilitating activities or moderating, negotiating with product development teams/customers, and getting your
results incorporated into the product. To help illustrate the material and methods presented in this book, we refer
to a fictitious mobile travel app called “TravelMyWay.com” throughout the book.
This book has five main parts:
Part 1: What You Need to Know Before Choosing an Activity
Often people are not aware of all the factors they should consider before choosing a requirements activity.
Chapters 1 through 5 will introduce you to user research methods and the factors you need to consider. They cover
such critical topics as:
• The difference between user requirements and other types of requirements
• Getting buy-in from the product team to conduct user research
• Product/domain research
• Learning who your end user really is, including creating personas and scenarios
• Special user types
• Legal and ethical issues
• Creating an environment to conduct user requirements activities
• Choosing the best method based on your research question(s) and resources
Part 2: Get Up and Running
Once you have decided to conduct a user research activity, the preparation process begins. Much of the preparation
that must be done is the same regardless of the activity you conduct. Chapters 6 and 7 focus on this groundwork
so that you are fully prepared to execute your activity. This work includes:
• Creating a proposal and protocol for your activity
• Recruiting
• Piloting your activity
• Welcoming the participants
• Moderating the activity
Part 3: The Methods
Chapters 8 through 14 focus on user research methods. Each chapter focuses on a different method and variations
on that method. For each of these methods, you will learn how to prepare for the activity step by step, conduct the
activity, and analyze the data. Materials, templates, and checklists are provided to get you using the techniques in
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PREFACE
no time! Lessons learned and method modifications are discussed as well so that you can adapt a method to suit
your needs and avoid making costly mistakes. The methods covered are:
• Diary studies
• Interviews
• Surveys
• Card sorting
• Focus groups
• Field studies
• Evaluations methods
In addition, research experts have provided real-world case studies that are presented at the end of each chapter,
to show each method in action.
Part 4: Wrapping Up
Once you have conducted an activity and analyzed the data, your job isn’t done. You must communicate results
clearly to your product team/customer or else the data are worthless. In Chapter 15, we discuss how to effectively
report and present your results to ensure they are incorporated into the product.
Part 5: Appendices
We also include appendices with additional information that will be of great value as you begin your user require-
ments methods. The appendices are:
• Requirements for creating a participant recruiting database (Appendix A)
• A report template for your findings (Appendix B)
• Glossary of terms (Appendix C)
• A bibliography of references (Appendix D)
Targeted Readers
This book has something to offer whether you are new to user experience or a seasoned professional.
New to User Experience
You may be a designer, a member of a product development team, or a computer science professor who has heard
about ‘user studies’ but hasn’t conducted one yourself, or you may have a role in sales or marketing and have been
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PREFACE
asked to start thinking about or own ‘user experience.’ Regardless of your job title or level of knowledge of user
experience, this book will enable you to effectively run a variety of user research activities to ensure that your
users’ needs are represented in your product. Because this book is designed as a how-to guide, we take you through
every aspect of the activity, from preparation to presentation of the results.
Students
Students from a variety of fields such as Human-Centered Computing, Human Computer Interaction (HCI),
Human Factors, Psychology, and Computer Science need to understand user research methods. This book may be
used as a textbook for a course, as a supplement to coursework, thesis work, or in preparation for a peer-reviewed
publication that reports results from a user research activity. Because we focus not only on theoretical concepts
about user research, but also include practical tips and examples from industry, this book will be useful to you as
you transition from student to professional.
User Experience Research Professional
If you are a seasoned user research professional in industry or academia, this book can provide you with some
additional user research activities that you may not be familiar with. UER professionals are always looking to add
new methods to their toolbox. In addition, this book can act as a reference guide for some of those methods you
may not have conducted in a while or point to modifications of a method you had never thought of. Finally, we
have packed the book with research to demonstrate shortcomings and strengths of the different methods, as well
as case studies so you can see how your peers are executing these methods.
User Experience Promoter
Many of us within product development organizations are faced with the task of promoting the importance of
user experience and user research. Perhaps, you are a VP of Customer Experience or are in Sales or Marketing
and want to advocate for your customers and therefore promote the need to conduct user research. This book will
help provide you with some ammunition. The real-world case studies located within the chapters demonstrate how
these methods have been used successfully within companies to improve their products.
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