ERICA KREINDEL Survey Says
A thougtful product meets a user need, but how do we under- stand what those needs are? UX Researchers like Erica Krein- del ask them. We sat down with Erica to understand how she learns about our users and why it matters.
eX: What is UX research? How do you explain it to friends and family?
Erica: The way I describe it at parties to friends and family is I try to understand how users use things. So, mostly, it’s digital interfaces, but it can also be broad, like how do people identify the company ‘LearnVest’ and how would people use our services.
eX: Tell me more about the research you do?
Erica: I try to understand how people currently use different things, and what could be improved. We do all sorts of different types of methodologies incluidng usability testing — actually watch- ing someone use an interface or product and understanding how it could be better improved — as well as surveys and focus groups. There’s also card sorting, and tree testing, where we try to understand how people group things, and where they expect things to be within an information architecture. Erica: I make it a point to meet with the product owner and designers from the beginning, like at the kick off, and try to understand what their goals are in the project and what they want to ac- complish with research. And then I will kind of come up with my own goals as well and see how to design a test plan and guide for me to get at those goals. I also like to try to understand from them, ok so you want to accomplish x, y, and z. What if people are saying this. How is that going to affect your decisions? What if they’re saying that? Would you still make that change? Would you not? How would you take that? eX: When does research come in to a project map?
eX: So you also forecast potential risks or barriers that can result from research?
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