Field Study Importance…CUE’

I think it’s time to break down a little bit of UX Research.

We all know why a good design looks the way it does. But what role do field studies actually play in making the design more ethical and less biased towards the end users? Let's have a look. You have to start by asking yourself the question “Why” and ask yourself that at least 5 times before coming to a conclusion about anything that is UX related. The CUEs are important because they help you unravel Culture…the unspoken and the environment. No…but quite literally…they are the Culture, the Unspoken as well as the environment and that is what they stand for!

Let’s begin with my tale of field studies at a small-medium business. Gathering data from clients and customers, in general, is a very hard and due process however it does leave room for improvement and you are often challenged to implement the best version of your product without room for fault or error. I experienced a lot of user errors within the platform I was supposed to be building UX for. This was a problem. Not only because our users complained but endless amounts of development time and efforts were being redirected towards everything but the root cause of everything.

In UX if you are missing out on the root cause then you will be left in an endless debate with the stakeholders approving your designs as well as the developers that experience unnecessary stress of editing endless code issues that were not in the right direction. So let’s explore the CUE…

CULTURE

What is culture? According to Nielson Norman Group, these are shared beliefs and values that reveal implicit and explicit behaviors. When probing for culture, you have to ask a set of questions such as

→ What and how do users do this specific instance?

→ When do users reach out to others?

→ When do they do the specific instance you are looking at?

→ How does the user explain the specific phenomenon being looked at?

We can now look at the shared behaviors of users through culture. This helps save cost at large because you are grouping behaviors and hence narrowing down the scope of your UX problems while solving and addressing the larger issues at hand that the business is facing.

THE UNSPOKEN

These are practice and assumption observations based on tacit knowledge of how a group or product works. Questions to ask when searching for the unspoken:

1. When was the last time there was conflict within the group and how was it resolved?
2. What languages ​​can you use and what languages ​​can’t you use?
3. What questions are new group members or new users asking but there are no resources available to them?
4. What happens if a group member leaves the group? Having trouble accessing the information you need (files, daily tasks, etc.)?

THE ENVIRONMENT

These are observations related to the physical, social, and online environment of a user or interest group. Questions to ask when surveying your environment:

1. Where am I?
2. How does it look, smell, and feel?
3. Is this the only room with? How long is the access to this location?

Context CUE surrounds us everywhere in our daily lives. For example, the etiquette of various restaurants around the world is a great example of how cultures, unspoken rules, and environments are intertwined. Luckily, in restaurants, written signs, directions from waiters, or the actions of other customers are often helpful in getting around the room.