How we craft user-centric solutions
The act of conducting a research activity can be broken into three phases: planning, execution, and analysis.
1. Planning
During the planning phase, we'll define the research questions. Everything we do in the planning phase should be geared towards answering our research questions. For example, what research methods should we apply? And what characteristics should our research participants have?
2. Execution
In the execution phase, we carry out the research activity as planned, or as closely as to the plan. The reality is that unexpected things will happen often. And we need to adapt to unforeseen circumstances.
3. Analysis
In this phase, we process, prepare, and systematically engage with the data we have collected to make sense of it and extract actionable insights. Finally, through detailed reports, we'll communicate our findings to different stakeholders to inform their decisions or to advocate for a particular course of action.
How Research fits into the design process?
The Double Diamond proposes four phases of design. Discover, Define, Develop, and Deliver.
During the discover phase, we work on understanding the design problem and its context. During the Define phase, we use the data collected during the discover phase to identify and articulate the design problem. During the develop phase, we come up with as many design solutions as possible. Those solutions are then validated and explored during the deliver phase, during which we discard designs that won't work and improve the designs that may work.
Companies have become increasingly aware of the importance of people centered approaches to design and therefore of user research. Here we'll look at how research fits into the design process. To explain, we're going to use The Double Diamond Model.
Research happens during all four phases
During the Discover phase, research helps designers acquire insights about users and the design context. In the Define phase, Insights from research help uncover and articulate the design challenge or the problem that should be solved. Once in the develop phase, Research supports people to work together through collaborative events like workshops, where users and domain experts join designers in the search for possible design solutions. During the deliver phase, the research team helps evaluate design solutions using methods like usability testing.
How User Research benefits your business
There are three key ingredients for a successful product.
Viability
Feasibility
Desirability
2.Feasibility
Feasibility referee to technology. The product must be buildable. It must to be built at price that makes it viable and a time frame that is reasonable.
1.Viability
Viability concerns money. Every product has to make money or save money for company that is creating it.
3.Desirability
Desirability means somebody has to need or want the product. In other worlds it has to save a problem for somebody. Otherwise it should not exist. And if it is solving a problem and people want to use it, then when they come to use it, it got to create a positive feeling so make them want to use it again. Many companies focus only on the first two variables. That’s why you see many products that are viable and feasible but nobody wants to use them or enjoys using them.