The design team at PayMaya had the opportunity to have a two-day workshop with Elizabeth Baylor—a senior UX researcher at Google.

Day 1 topics covered the following:

• UX Process
• Usability and Usefulness
• Generative and Confirmatory Research

The Curse of Knowledge

We assume that others think like we do but that is only an assumptions. Here is where research comes in handy—to test our assumptions.

UX Process

Two keywords in UX: effective and delightful. People’s experiences in using a product or service must be effective (doesn’t waste time while achieving their goals) and delightful (makes them feel good while doing it).

In UX Research, the effectiveness and delightfulness of solutions must be backed by insights and data. Success metrics is measured.

1. Discover What’s the problem?	2. Explore Conceptualize on the possible solutions
4. Iterate Polish the solution	3. Design Implement solution based on a concept that works

When you’ve invested time in discovery and exploration and the solutions failed during implementation, it is easier to look into the implementation phase for improvements rather than attributing the failure due to a bad concept.

During the design and iteration phase, you’re already testing for usability and polishing the solution.

Usability and Usefulness

During the Discovery and Exploration phases, it is better to test for usefulness, then during the Design and Iteration, the usefulness and usability. Test them separately in order to easily attribute where the problem lies

1. Discover Usefulness	2. Explore Usefulness
4. Iterate Usefulness and usability	3. Design Usefulness and usability

Usability (Problem)

Imagine an ice cream dropped and melting on the group—generally inedible and it’s a problem when the goal is ice cream consumption.

Can users successfully reach their goals while using the product or service?

Six to eight users (anyone) could be recruited to test the product—enough to uncover 85% of usability problems.

Usefulness (Preference)

Imagine your favorite ice cream flavor—each person has his/her own. Flavor, in this example, is a preference.

In testing for usefulness, sampling matters. Recruit who’s in scope and know who’s out of scope. Identify your primary and secondary target users.

Generative and Confirmatory Research

Generative: Discovering new ideas

• Literature review
• Contextual inquiry (observation)
• User interviews (open-ended, ethnographic)
• Focus groups
• Free listing
• Card sorting (open, unconstrained)
• Photovoice
• Diary studies

Confirmatory: Selecting right idea

• Behavioral observations (quantitative)
• Structured interviews
• Rating and ranking tasks
• Card sorting (closed, constrained)
• Usability studies
• A/B testing
• Surveys

Conclusion

Test your assumptions.

Put pain points to a test.

Avoid self-centered design.

You are not the user.

Your solution is only as good as your understanding of the problem.

Research’s effectiveness lies in the right sample and the right method.