User Research Is Storytelling

I’ve been fascinated by movies since I was a child. I loved the heroes and the excitement—but most of all the reports. I aspired to be an artist. And I backed up the idea that I would get to do the things Indiana Jones did and have interesting activities. I also dreamed up suggestions for videos that my friends and I could render and sun in. But they never advanced more. However, I did end up in the user experience ( UX) field. Today, I realize that there’s an element of drama to UX— I hadn’t actually considered it before, but consumer research is story. And to get the most out of customer studies, you must tell a compelling story that involves stakeholders, including the product team and decision-makers, and piques their interest in learning more.

Think of your preferred film. More than likely it follows a three-act construction that’s frequently seen in story: the layout, the fight, and the quality. The second act provides an overview of what is happening now, and it also serves as a primer for the heroes and the difficulties and issues they face. Act two sets the scene for the fight and the action begins. Here, issues grow or get worse. The solution comes in the third and final work. The issues are resolved in this area, and the figures grow and change. I believe that this architecture is also a great way to think about customer study, and I think that it can be particularly helpful in explaining person exploration to others.

Use story as a framework when conducting analysis.

Unfortunately, some people now believe that study is unprofitable. If finances or timelines are small, analysis tends to be one of the first points to go. Some goods managers rely on developers or, worse, their own judgment to make the “right” decisions for customers based on their experience or accepted best practices rather than investing in research. That might lead to some groups getting in the way, but it’s too easy to overlook the real problems facing users. To be user-centered, this is something we really avoid. Design is enhanced by consumer study. It provides opportunities and problems while keeping it on record. Being aware of the issues with your product and reacting to them can help you stay away of your competition.

Each action in the three-act structure is crucial to telling the complete story, and each action corresponds to a specific stage of the process. Let’s examine the various functions and how they relate to customer study.

Act one: installation

The setup consists entirely in comprehending the history, and that’s where basic research comes in. Basic research ( also known as conceptual, discovery, or preliminary research ) assists in understanding users and identifying their issues. You’re learning about what exists now, the obstacles people have, and how the problems affect them—just like in the videos. You can conduct contextual inquiries or diary studies ( or both! ) to conduct foundational research. ), which may assist you in identifying both challenges and options. It doesn’t need to get a great investment in time or money.

Erika Hall discusses the most effective anthropology, which can be as straightforward as spending 15 hours with a customer and asking them to” Walk me through your morning yesterday.” That is it. Provide that one ask. Opened up and spend fifteen days listening. Do everything in your power to keep yourself and your pursuits out of it. Bam, you’re doing ethnography”. According to Hall, “[This ] will definitely prove quite fascinating. In the unlikely event that you don’t learn anything new or helpful, move on with more assurance in your way.

This makes total sense to me. And I adore how customer research is made so simple. You can simply attract participants and carry out the recruitment process without having to make a lot of paperwork! This can offer a wealth of knowledge about your customers, and it’ll help you better understand them and what’s going on in their life. That’s what action one is really all about: understanding where people are coming from.

Jared Spool discusses the significance of basic research and how it may make up the majority of your study. If you can pick from any further user data that you can get your hands on, such as surveys or analytics, that can complement what you’ve heard in the fundamental studies or even time to areas that need more research. All of this information helps to give a more in-depth picture of the state of points and all of its flaws. And that’s the start of a gripping tale. It’s the place in the story where you realize that the principal characters—or the people in this case—are facing issues that they need to conquer. This is where you begin to develop compassion for the characters and support their success, much like in films. And hey, it looks like everyone else is doing the same. Their love may be with their company, which could be losing wealth because people didn’t complete certain tasks. Or perhaps they feel the problems of the customers. In any case, work one serves as your main strategy to pique the interest and interest of the participants.

When partners begin to understand the value of basic research, that is open doors to more opportunities that involve users in the decision-making approach. And that can help product teams become more user-centric. Everyone benefits from this, including the product, stakeholders, and users. It’s like winning an Oscar in movie terms—it often leads to your product being well received and successful. And this might encourage stakeholders to carry out this process with additional products. Knowing how to tell a good story is the only way to convince stakeholders to care about doing more research, and storytelling is the key to this process.

This brings us to act two, where you iteratively evaluate a design or concept to see whether it addresses the issues.

Act two: conflict

Act two is all about approving the issues you raised in act one. This usually involves directional research, such as usability tests, where you assess a potential solution ( such as a design ) to see whether it addresses the issues that you found. Unmet needs or issues with a flow or process that are making users uncomfortable could be the causes. More issues will come up in the process, much like in act two of a movie. It’s here that you learn more about the characters as they grow and develop through this act.

Usability tests should typically consist of five participants, according to Jakob Nielsen, who found that that number of users can typically identify the majority of the issues:” As you add more and more users, you learn less and less because you will keep seeing the same things again and again… After the fifth user, you are wasting your time by observing the same findings repeatedly but not learning much new.”

The plot may get lost if you try to tell a story with too many characters, which also applies to storytelling. Having fewer participants means that each user’s struggles will be more memorable and easier to relay to other stakeholders when talking about the research. This can help to convey the problems that need to be addressed while also highlighting the significance of conducting initial research.

Usability tests have been conducted in person for decades, but you can also conduct them remotely using software like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or other teleconferencing software. This approach has become increasingly popular since the beginning of the pandemic, and it works well. You might consider in-person usability tests like attending a play and remote sessions as more of a movie watching experience. Each has advantages and disadvantages. In-person usability research is a much richer experience. The sessions are conducted with other stakeholders in mind. Additionally, you get real-time reactions, including surprises, disagreements, and discussions about what they’re seeing. Much like going to a play, where audiences get to take in the stage, the costumes, the lighting, and the actors ‘ interactions, in-person research lets you see users up close, including their body language, how they interact with the moderator, and how the scene is set up.

If conducting usability testing in the field is like watching a play that is staged and controlled, where any two sessions may be very different from one another. You can conduct usability testing in the real world by creating a replica of the environment where users interact with the product and conducting your research there. Or you can go out to meet users at their location to do your research. With either option, you can see how things work in context, how things develop in ways that wouldn’t have in a lab setting, and how conversion can occur in completely different ways. You have less control over how these sessions end as researchers, but this can occasionally help you understand users even better. Meeting users where they are can provide clues to the external forces that could be affecting how they use your product. Usability tests in person offer a level of detail that is frequently absent from remote testing.

That doesn’t mean that “movies” —remote sessions—aren’t a good option. Remote sessions can reach a wider audience. They make it possible for much more people to participate in the study and observe what is happening. Additionally, they make access to a much wider user base geographically. But with any remote session there is the potential of time wasted if participants can’t log in or get their microphone working.

You can ask real users questions to understand their thoughts and understanding of the solution as a result of usability testing, whether it is done remotely or in person. This can help you identify issues as well as understand why they were initially issues. Furthermore, you can test hypotheses and gauge whether your thinking is correct. By the end of the sessions, you’ll have a much clearer understanding of how useful the designs are and whether or not they fulfill their intended purpose. The excitement is in the second act, but there are also potential surprises in the third. This is equally true of usability tests. Unexpected things that are said by participants frequently alter how you view things, and these unexpected developments in the story can lead to unexpected turns in your perception.

Unfortunately, user research can occasionally be viewed as wasteful. And too often usability testing is the only research process that some stakeholders think that they ever need. There isn’t much to be gained by conducting usability testing in the first place if the designs you’re evaluating in the usability test aren’t grounded in thorough understanding of your users ( foundational research ). That’s because you’re narrowing down the area of focus on without considering the needs of the users. As a result, there’s no way of knowing whether the designs might solve a problem that users have. In the context of a usability test, it’s only feedback on a particular design.

On the other hand, if you only do foundational research, you won’t know whether the thing you’re building will actually solve that problem, despite the fact that you might have set out to solve the right problem. This illustrates the importance of doing both foundational and directional research.

In act two, stakeholders will hopefully be able to observe the user sessions ‘ development, which exposes the conflict and tension in the current design’s highs and lows. And in turn, this can encourage stakeholders to take action on the issues raised.

Act three: resolution

The third act is about resolving the issues from the first two acts, whereas the first two acts are about understanding the context and the tensions that can compel stakeholders to act. While the first two acts require an audience, the final act requires that they remain engaged throughout. That means the whole product team, including developers, UX practitioners, business analysts, delivery managers, product managers, and any other stakeholders that have a say in the next steps. It allows the entire team to discuss what is possible within the project’s constraints, ask questions, and discuss user feedback together. Additionally, it enables the UX design and research teams to clarify, suggest alternatives, or provide more context for their decisions. So you can get everyone on the same page and get agreement on the way forward.

Voiceover narration of this act is typically used with audience input. The researcher serves as the narrator, who depicts the issues and what the product’s potential future might look like given what the team has learned. They give the stakeholders their recommendations and their guidance on creating this vision.

In the Harvard Business Review, Nancy Duarte describes a method for structuring presentations that follow a persuasive narrative. The most effective presenters employ the same methods as great storytellers: By reaffirming the status quo and then revealing a better way, they create a conflict that needs to be resolved, writes Duarte. ” That tension helps them persuade the audience to adopt a new mindset or behave differently”.

This kind of structure is in line with research findings, particularly those from usability tests. It provides evidence for “what is “—the problems that you’ve identified. And your suggestions for how to deal with them are “what could be.” And so forth and forth.

You can reinforce your recommendations with examples of things that competitors are doing that could address these issues or with examples where competitors are gaining an edge. Or they can be visual, like quick sketches of how a new design could look that solves a problem. These can help create momentum and conversation. And this continues until the end of the session when you’ve wrapped everything up in the conclusion by summarizing the main issues and suggesting a way forward. This is the section where you make the most of the main themes or issues and what they mean for the finished product, or the story’s denial. The stakeholders will now have the opportunity to take the next steps, and hopefully the will-power to do so!

While we are nearly at the end of this story, let’s reflect on the idea that user research is storytelling. The three-act structure of user research contains all the components for a good story:

Act one: You encounter both the users and the antagonists ( the issues affecting users ). This is the beginning of the plot. Researchers might use techniques in act one, including contextual inquiry, ethnography, diary studies, surveys, and analytics. These techniques can produce personas, empathy maps, user journeys, and analytics dashboards as output.

Act two: Next, there’s character development. The protagonists face problems and difficulties, which they must overcome, and there is conflict and tension. Researchers might employ heuristics evaluation, usability testing, competitive benchmarking, and other methods in act two. The output of these can include usability findings reports, UX strategy documents, usability guidelines, and best practices.

Act three: The main characters win, and the audience is shown a better future. Researchers may use techniques like presentation decks, storytelling, and digital media in act three. The output of these can be: presentation decks, video clips, audio clips, and pictures.

The researcher plays a variety of roles, including producer, director, and storyteller. The participants only have a small part in the study, but they are significant characters ( in it ). And the stakeholders are the audience. However, the most crucial thing is to get the narrative straight and to use storytelling to research users ‘ stories. By the end, the parties should leave with a goal and an eagerness to address the product’s flaws.

So the next time that you’re planning research with clients or you’re speaking to stakeholders about research that you’ve done, think about how you can weave in some storytelling. In the end, user research is beneficial to everyone, and all parties must be interested in the conclusion.