- Use evidence-based design guidelines, especially when you can’t conduct your own research. Usability heuristics are high-level principles to follow.
- Make designs that are universal and accessible.  One of the ways to do this is to make sure any default settings are optimized for user experience, so they are not burdened by having to customize more complicated system controls, but also give them control to customize if they desire.
- Make features easy to find, update, use and change.  Keep in mind that users from different cultural contexts may understand features and interface differently, and may require cross cultural translation to use 
- Consider broader social implications and all the possible ways your system can be used or misused.  All tools and systems can be used for different purposes to harm or help, and measures must be taken to minimize the former and maximize the latter. 


Activities for the Exploring Phase

Exploration methods are for understanding the problem space and design scope and addressing user needs.

- Competitive analysis
- Design review
- Persona building
- Task analysis
- Journey mapping
- Prototype feedback & testing (clickable or paper prototypes)
- Write user stories
- Card sorting


University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Augustana College (IL)

User Research can be done at any point during a project or design project as ongoing research activities can provide valuable information and insight that can always help improve a project, and come in multiple varieties.

- Discover
- Explore
- Test
- Listen



UX Research Cheat Sheet

Nielsen Norman Group. (n.d.). Retrieved April 10, 2022, from https://www.nngroup.com/ 

Nielsen Norman Group

This used primarily to identify, validate, and discard with whatever assumptions, data or insights a team has.  This type of research should ideally be done in the early phases of a project.

- Competitive testing 
- Field Study 
- Diary Study 
- User Interview 
- Stakeholder Interview



User Experience Research Phases: Discover

Be open and attuned throughout the research and design cycle to help understand existing problems and identify new ones. Analyze data to identify patterns and trends.

- Survey
- Analytics review
- Search-log analysis
- Usability-bug review
- Frequently-asked-questions (FAQ) review


User Experience Research Phases: Listen

Testing and validation methods are for verifying and validating the functionality and use of a system in order to determine whether the system works as it was designed to work. 

- Qualitative usability testing (in-person or remote)
- Benchmark testing
- Accessibility evaluation


Learn Before

Related

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