Brief
Step 1: User Research
Brainstorm some interview questions based on the above scenario.
Take the questions you drafted and try turning them into a discussion guide
Interview 3-5 people using the questions you drafted.
Over a video call, on the phone, or in person (safely)
Ask permission if you want to record them.
Take notes on:
What they are saying (quotes are very powerful).
Non-verbal cues, if possible.
Remember, you can ask your classmates to be interviewed too.
Step 2: Synthesis
‘Affinity map’ the insights from your interviews:
Each Post-it should contain just ONE observation, quote or behaviour.
Organise data by insights – do not go into solution mode.
Make sure you have a critical mass of data for each grouping.
Step 3: Create a Problem Statement
Use the affinity map of your interview insights to create a problem statement for the UX Prototype assignment 😱
Use the templates from slide 30 in the Synthesising User Research deck to help you with this.
I approached this week's challenge activity with some confusion. I wasn't sure if the challenge was a practice run or if would it directly relate to the work we would be submitting. It didn't help that the problem statement appeared to be written already, which the course content had made reference to being formulated after interviews/contextual enquires and during the synthesis process. A comment from LJ further down cleared up the confusion thankfully so I would be looking at the process from start to finish. It was also made clear during the webinar that this would be directly related to the brief we had chosen. I was glad for the clarification - although it came late in the week, and it reinforced my concerns that I still hadn't settled on a brief.
The D& D new blood briefs had been added to the mix and pipped my interest, causing me to be hesitant to take on the official brief which was related to volunteering and donating. I wanted to pursue the D&AD New Blood brief relating to Neurodiversity and finance. After a 1-to-1 with LJ, I decided not to pursue the New Blood brief, mainly due to the timeframes and submission constraints set by D&AD, but also because of the ethical implications of conducting the research with vulnerable individuals. I do feel that all the juicy topics are hamstrung to a certain degree but in the interest of safeguarding participants, I completely understand. In UXO740, while researching the effects of augmented reality selfie filters on Instagram users, I had the time to get ethics approval, and even then at times, I felt I was skirting close to vulnerable topics.
User Interviews and Discussion Guide
I began the challenge by attempting to create some questions for user interviews. at this stage I hadn't decided on the brief yet, so decided to base them on the challenge example (which in retrospect was good as I eventually moved into the volunteer/donation direction). Neisen Norman defines a user interview as:
A user interview is a UX research method during which a researcher asks one user questions about a topic of interest (e.g., use of a system, behaviours and habit) with the goal of learning about that topic and gaining insights into what users think about a site, an application, a product, or process.
(Pernice, 2018)
For practice, Claire Burn, Carie Ng, and I conducted a quick session before week 2's webinar with the questions we had prepared. We each took our turns and only had 15 minutes each. It was really helpful to practice and see how others approached the questions and their interviewing style, I think we were all surprised how the answers we received subverted our expectations and often went in directions we hadn't expected. Claire had fewer questions but was more probing with follow-ups, whereas Carie approached it from a more philosophical standpoint, with questions relating to the nature of charitable acts. In all, there was plenty to take from both my classmate's approaches and hopefully, they felt the same with my questions, although I rushed formulating mine and they had little direction at this stage.
I needed to reassess and get excited again about the donation brief. Through discussions with LJ, I realised that I could focus on a subset of collective giving that I had experience in already, collective volunteering with a particular focus on local organisations. As a member of my local RoundTable, I already knew of an organisation that was struggling to attract members and appeal to its key demographic, men between the ages of 18 to 45. There was an opportunity to explore themes relating to this volunteer space and the attitude of young men on the subject. There's an interesting quandary I had at this stage about the inclusion of demographics outside the scope of Roundtable membership criteria. I didn't in the end include women or older individuals in the study which I regret as It restricted opportunities to pivot later in the project or find insights that may have taken the project in a different direction. I may find I need to conduct additional interviews with an expanded scope at a later stage. In the end, I interviewed 4 men between the ages of 30 and 41.
Learning from the practice session I reformatted my discussion guide and changed some of the questions to focus more on local volunteering. I tried to use the question cheat sheet from week one as a guide when approaching the creation of these questions. I also asked about attitudes about groups who base their membership on demographics, a question I later regretted adding as it was loaded with obvious bias and restricted the scope of the study. Luckily I only asked one question regarding this.
Thank you for talking to me today. My name is Daniel Clarke and I am a student at Falmouth University studying for a Master's Degree in UX Design. This interview will take about 15 minutes. We're going to start talking about issues regarding charitable donations of your time and skills, how accessible and easy you find it to offer your time, and the potential reasons you are reluctant to. I'll be asking questions regarding your own personal experiences, so be as honest and as frank as you possibly can. There is no right or wrong answer, so say what you think or feel. Anything discussed will be totally confidential and anything you say will not be made public. You'll be recorded, but this recording will not be distributed.
Thank you for signing a consent form agreeing to your participation in this study.
Do you have any questions before we start?
What do you consider a charitable act
What does the word volunteering mean to you?
What is your impression of those individuals who do volunteer their time?
How much time could you spare to volunteer?
How would your attitudes differ if you had the ability to contribute digitally?
How would you want to engage with an organisation you volunteer with?
How would you be able to utilise your skills for volunteering?
Tell me about a time you may have volunteered and how did that look? Either physically or digitally.
How did that make you feel?
What was the motivating reason for you to participate?
What causes you reluctance in your ability to donate your time to a cause?
What information would you be looking for when contemplating donating your time? What are the key factors or Hooks that would make you decide?
How do you find out opportunities to volunteer?
What is the thing you look for in the volunteering space?
How does technology play a role in your ability to volunteer your skills or time?
Would you be more interested in specific causes or local-based volunteering initiatives?
What would cause you to want to participate in a local charitable organisation?
What are your perceptions of organisations which encourage membership based on a specific demographic?
How are you made aware of local charitable events you can get involved in?
How are you made aware of local charity donations and the impact of the contribution?
Would understanding the direct impact your contribution will have help in your decision to volunteer?
I felt I could have conducted the interviews better. I did not follow up many of the questions with Sigma 6's "5 why's" (Sunny n.d.) as suggested in the video content this week, l as I felt fairly self-conscious about repeatedly asking why and I didn't find an opportunity to do this naturally, which may indicate that my questions were less open-ended than I'd liked to think they were, I did, however, employ the silences, which I found effective. I also attempted to pick up on nonverbal signals, such as tics and inflections in the conversation to gain additional insights, but failing the obvious ironic inflection I found it difficult to obtain anything substantial. I believe this was due in part to the format of the interviews, which were conducted via Teams and recorded. I pour over the recording again and again trying to see anything I may have missed. I'm sure this is a skill that will improve with more interviews I conduct, but overall I feel like there is definite room for improvement.
Synthesis
I've found all of this week's work challenging, and the synthesis of the data was no different. As a Kinesthetic learner, I really do benefit from physical things in the world like using post-it notes for both ideation and prototyping. There's something about the tactical nature that I really find helps stimulate my creativity and free me from the constraints of trying to be neat and perfect. This is a sentiment I would usually agree with, however, it didn't seem to be the case with the Affinity mapping initially and I struggled to see any patterns in the insights. I was also struggling to read my own handwriting and knowing I was being observed as this will be assessed, changed my approach to online.
This reminded me very much of a heuristic I learned recently which has yet to be included in the course content, but will keep me in good stead when I come to user testing, The Hawthorne effect:
(Hawthone Effect) It has been defined as 'an increase in worker productivity produced by the psychological stimulus of being singled out and made to feel important.
(McCarney et al 2007:2)
Basically, an expanded application of this is that if people know they are being observed will modify their behavior, which is what happened during a study on productivity at the Western Electrical Company's Hawthorne Works in Chicago during the 1920s. For researchers, this can be problematic as it can be tricky to trust the validity of your results if users are predisposed to modify them for the occasion. Anyway, that's a problem for Future Dan.
Getting back to the Affinity mapping, Physical post-it notes made it easier to find initial groups but I found moving over to Miro allowed me to refine the groups easier. Although it took some time to transcribe all my post-it group notes to a Miro I immediately felt the benefits and found it easier to modify groups.
I attempted to use some "I" statements to help define the groups but found it trickier than shown in the video for my grouping but managed to define a few from the insights:
"I'm more passionate about causes that have directly affected me directly."
"I'm busy and transient, so I don't feel connected to my local area to consider volunteering."
"I want to see opportunities for volunteering which aren't just charity related"
"I want something for me, for my efforts volunteering, such as a reward or a skill learned "
"I feel the barrier to entry with local volunteer organizations is too high, with little middle ground between nonmembership and 100% commitment. "
"I can see the benefit of building relationships in the local community and making new friends."
"I like the idea I can affect my local area and my voice is heard."
"I feel fundraising is a more visible way of contributing than volunteering, am I missing something?"
"I feel like I need more information about my contributions after I've volunteered."
"I would like to know how my skills might work in a voluntary setting."
Problem statements
Volunteers who spend extended periods away from their local community need an easy way to contribute small amounts of time to volunteering with local causes.
Volunteers need to feel they are gaining additional benefits from their volunteering.
Volunteers need a way to see where they can contribute and how that contribution makes a difference.
Reflections
Due to the changes and the refocus I didn't get around to actually doing the interviews until the weekend. This is two weeks in a row I've been late doing the challenge activity and it's making me feel disorganised and rushed when I do attempt them. I had a lot of other stressors this week, including a large project for work. This may have also been the reason it felt like the subject matter wasn't going in this week as well as I had reached my mental bandwidth. I know I need to strike a balance but I also feel like I have yet to get into a rhythm with this module. I know it's early days but I need that momentum from week to week for it to work for me.
References
MCCARNEY, Rob et al. 2007. ‘The Hawthorne Effect: A Randomised, Controlled Trial’. BMC medical research methodology 7, 30.
PERNICE, Kara. 2018. User interviews: How, when, and why to conduct them, Nielsen Norman Group. [online] Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/user-interviews/ [accessed: 30/01/2023].
SUNNY, Shalvin. n.d. 5 WHYS, Six Sigma Study Guide. [online] Available at: https://sixsigmastudyguide.com/5-whys/ [accessed: 30/01/2023].
Figures
Figure 1: CLARKE, Daniel. 2023 . Practice Interview with Claire Burn and Carie Ng
Figure 2: CLARKE, Daniel. 2023 . User Interviews with David Clark, Luke Humphries, Nathan Flanery and Alex Williamson
Figure 3: CLARKE, Daniel. 2023 . Synthesising user interviews post-it notes
Figure 4: CLARKE, Daniel. 2023 . Digital Affinity mapping on Miro
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