User Research Workshops – Sway Them Righteously

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User Research Workshops - Sway Them Righteously

Today, a UX design consultant, Kelly, met her client Mary at her office. Kelly invited Mary to attend her user research workshops. However, Mary was managing a startup business and hired Kelly to provide her with software consulting services to create a website and web application for her startup business.

Mary is unaware of many software industry terms, and she is also unaware of user research workshops. Therefore, she asked Kelly about the user research workshop.

Kelly replied, “Arranging user research workshops is a part of UI/UX design, and it is often arranged at the beginning of a software development project. Be it website development; be it web application development; be it software application development; be it mobile application development. We need it at the initial stage of any software development process.”

 

In Fact, Don’t Persuade User Research Workshops to Carry User Research

Elaborating on the information, Kelly added, “In the software design industry, user research is an essential procedure to follow before doing anything. Knowing your target audience along with business requirements is an initial step in software development.”

Kelly explained, “BA (Business Analytics) team and UX design team, both carryout user research but with different perspectives yet apply the same methods and techniques to reach their goals.”

“Most software design and development teams are insisting on arranging user research workshops and run several brainstorming sessions during workshops to the client-side mentoring team and other stakeholders.”

She clarifies, “These user research workshops are not running user research but prepare stakeholders to conduct real user research using real methods and approaches.”

She added, “These are informative sessions in a sense and provide complete guidance to the clients or client-side team to carry user research with true soul.”

 

Significance of UR

Kelly said, “Lack of UR (User Research) is one of the prime reasons for failure. Moreover, assumption-based user persona and needs are leading to failure to meet the expectations of actual software product users.”

“If you are missing the actual UR, you’re leaving a gap and hardly reaching your goals.”

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How to do Workshops Aid in UR?

According to Kelly, workshops aid in the following ways.

  •  UR workshops help you obtain costs and timelines for UR.
  •  They also help in doing actual planning to carry UR.
  •  You will save your team from making biased interventions.
  •  You will have a complete user persona to meet your requirements.
  •  It saves you from assumptions about being a user.
  •  UR workshops teach you how to carry UR by asking the right questions in the right ways.
  •  They also help in implementing the right techniques to carry UR to reach your goals.

 

Possible Outcomes of UR Workshops

Kelly depicted what Marry will gain out of attending UR workshops arranged during UX design.

Ourcomes of user research workshop 1

User Persona

After carrying out UR in true meaning, we can get user personas near actual users and express traits that help you define your real users at the end. However, at the end of the UR workshop, you will have a user persona based on users in the minds of the client-side team. That helps telly with the user persona you create after actual user research.

 

User Journey

Once you get the assumption-based user persona, you probably have some options for illustrating the user journey. During UR workshops, we help you define different user journey paths.

 

User Journey

Problem Statement

During the workshop, we came up with a problem statement together. It helps us establish concerns and direction in UR, and you can validate them during user interviews/research.

 

Problem Statement

Value Proposition Canvas

VPC is a technique that helps us to match our software product with clients’ values and requirements. Therefore, it must have the following elements.

 

User profiles:

Gains Pains User Jobs
What benefits does the user gain after using the software product? What tasks must a user accomplish using a software product? Functional Social Emotional What tasks must a user accomplish using a software product? Functional Social-Emotional

Value map:

Gain Creators Pain Relievers Products & Services
How software products or services can create gains for users. How can software products or services alleviate users’ pains? What software solution alleviates users’ pains, and do you think of them as features and functionality?
Value Proposition Canvas

Finally, Find the Scope

After attending the UR workshop, you can get ideas/scopes about:

  1. What kind of useful knowledge do you need to ensure your product meets users’ expectations?
  2. What indication will you get regarding genuine user journey instead of assumed user journey?
  3. What pains can you eliminate associated with user journey and challenges?

 

Who Can Help You User Research or Carry It On Behalf of You?

However, Mary was a part of the busy team, and they could not spare time to carry out user research by themselves. But, they have the fund to give that job to an appropriate User Research team. Therefore, Kelly has suggested they take the help of RP UXCollab, an agency in the USA with a pool of talented user experience designers.

Kelly suggested Mary make a call and discuss the matter with the team at RP UXCollab so she can get ideas about the timeline and charges for the project.

 

Summary:

User research workshops are a kind of brainstorming session we arrange for clients. We are not carrying out any UR or user research during these workshops. Instead, we prepare clients mentally to favor user research for their UX design. It makes the project realistic and efficient for actual users in the long run and devotes success. This article is meant to remove misconceptions regarding user research workshops and establish their importance in the UX design process.

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