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12.3 User Research

Before you can ideate about new feature(s) for your product, you need to better understand your users. This is a key step in the process and will inform your designs and your priorities.

In this stage of the project, you will need to do the following.

  1. Create a SWOT analysis for your product. What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of your product? You don't need to also submit a version that turns these into strategies, but you will want to consider what those strategies might be and use them to inform your prioritization of the feature list.
  2. Create a survey for users of your product. What do you need to know in order to decide on your priorities? Go back to the checkpoint where you learned about user surveys. Create a survey to collect information about your users and product—from likes and dislikes to user demographics. Create the survey in a survey app of your choice (such as Typeform or Google Forms). Be sure to include at least 10 questions. Note that due to the niche nature of the audience of users in the scenarios, you are not required to administer your survey and collect responses. Building it is enough.
  3. Write an interview guide. Script the interviews you would conduct with your users. These meetings don't need to be long—20 or 30 minutes should be enough. Focus your questions on gaining an understanding of what frustrates users and what features they wish were available in the product.
  4. Schedule your user interviews and conduct them. It's best if your interviews are in person, but you can use video conferencing (such as Hangouts or FaceTime) or a phone call if necessary. Remember that you will also need a user to do usability testing with later on. Confirm with your user interview subjects whether or not they will be willing to do user testing of your MVP mockup. If none can, it's okay to recruit someone else for usability testing, but it's often easier to schedule another meeting with the same person rather than find an additional test subject.
  5. Document your interviews. If you can—and only after getting your interviewees' explicit permission—record your interviews. If you can't record, it's preferable to take notes in a printed copy of your interview guide rather than writing on a blank page or taking notes on your computer. Having a laptop between you and your subject can disrupt the natural flow of an interview, and a printout saves writing time and allows you to make notes next to each question. After the interview, these notes should be typed up to capture the interview findings.

Here are some general guidelines to keep in mind:

  • Save all of your work.
  • Take detailed notes at each step.
  • Use an appropriate type of file (such as slides, text documents, and drawings) for each item.
  • Keep everything well-organized so you can find it later. You'll refer to these documents and summarize your findings for your final presentation.

Assignment

Create a notion page/ document containing the following:

  • Your SWOT analysis
  • A link to your survey
  • Your interview guide
  • Notes summarizing your three user interviews

Please make sure that this document is easily readable and clearly labeled so that everyone can follow along on all your submission items.

There is nothing to submit here, you will submit everything together in the end