IxDA SF: In The Moment: UX research about life instead of just interfaces November 14, 2007

6:00 – Social Hour
7:00 – Presentation
FREE

IxDA SF returns with its third event in our design tools series. This month we present Nate Bolt, CEO of Bolt | Peters, as he presents UX research about life.

Not all UX research is about the interface. It’s about the habits, moods, location, and motivations of the people using your interface. Unfortunately, that junk is unpredictable and difficult to measure, but can make or break the accuracy of your research. Here are three examples of how we’ve structured research to uncover where peoples’ real lives meet technology:

(I) Web Apps. Live intercepts and remote research. Get on the user’s time, instead of forcing participants to follow your time as a researcher.

(II) Video Games. Simulated native environment testing and six-on-one moderation with TeamSpeak. Sounds crazy, and it is. We’ll show a short documentary on what all that means and how much better it is than standard video game research.

(III) Cars. Getting into people’s cars to film them while they drive, smoke a cigarette, flip open their laptop, check traffic, and then play an iPod. Also, how to double-check safety and liability waivers.

All three examples preserve the authenticity of users’ moods and behaviors by maintaining a native environment, allowing us to understand relevant background information about a user, and using a relaxed, non-sterile environment to conduct the research-preferably, the comfort of their own homes (or cars). Users also have a much bigger role in choosing their tasks and structuring the interview than the researchers. We’ll talk about splitting our scripts into passionate themes and backup questions, watch actual video and audio from recent research and explain what we found.

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Have a great idea for a future event? Interested in sponsorship? Get in touch! sf-local at ixda.org

Presented by IxDA San Francisco and Yahoo!

Official Website: http://ixda.org