On the sixth day, God created the biggest problem, us.
A personal genesis to the world of User Research and the other problems.
“I think that‘s a small tree’s worth of post-its there”, a comment made by a friend. I stood still as my head tilted down allowing my eyes to meet the mess of post-its in my hands. Oh no, what have I done. At that moment, I felt like a the child that stole the cookie from the cookie jar with no place to hide his cookie–stained fingers from his mother.
Well, you might be wondering how we got here by now.
So let’s take it from the start then, shall we?
In the beginning
The human taking up more pixels is me.
Seen here using my secret weapon, the smile.
Given the topic, travel by a dear friend. I was tasked with the noble duty to scout the land, come back with findings, analyse and synthesise them and with the insights gathered, birth an idea of a possible solution in the form of a mobile app.
All within a week.
It was already Monday night by now.
I’m horrified.
Feeling like a warrior armed with a list of questions (that I formulated over the night and over lunch), I was ready for the battle as I brought my secret weapon along with me - my smile.
1. Ask and it will be given to you;
seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
These wise words couldn’t be truer when it comes to doing User Research in the form of User Interviews. However, if it was up to me I’ll add a few fine lines if I could.
[Ask simple and simple will be given to you, seek in the common and the common you will find, knock on a wall and you’ll bruise your knuckles.]
Through my process, I’ve come to learn that good questions are the cornerstones of a great research which are the foundations of an amazing outcome. Just like the saying, you reap what you sow. Biased questions would reap biased results, which would give us an ill-informed outcome.
2. The word “Why” is free
Contrary to the impression that many have of the Drax, a character from the guardians of the galaxy. Drax is a wise man, for he used the word why. Be like Drax ask why. Asking why has allowed my candidates to reach and provide me with root issues and data that were key to my research.
“Why is Gamora!”–Drax
3. If they can’t spill the beans,
make them share the beans
I clearly remember how I felt all pumped up like a news reporter all ready to squeeze my candidates dry of data with my arsenal of questions. Fortunately, I came across articles and notes that sounded similar tips to the conducting of user interviews. One really important factor was to have empathy and authenticity when approaching the session. After all, it’s a human you're interviewing, have a conversation!
All I can say that it worked like a charm for me. As it made the process so much more enjoyable for both the candidates and myself. Not to mention, new friends made as well.
Remember, that snatching a candy from a child would only make them cry. On the flip side, if you were to gain the trust of a child, he might just ofter a candy to you and perhaps even a hug.
I guess the same applies when it comes to interviews.
This is apparently, where I killed a young tree.
After going about and having great interviews that felt like conversations with friends. It was time to synthesise these session and data collected for affinity mapping.
Having that weird feeling in my gut, I knew that I was going off somehow somewhere as the amount of post-its I had in my hands was starting to look obscene. After seeking help from fellow designer, Harini , we soon came to diagnosis that I was a compulsive data hoarder. Much of the things that I thought were relevant were not and in that process I also killed a young tree.
“GGGryffindor!”
After filtering out irrelevant post-its, I was finally ready to start my affinity mapping. Affinity mapping is a way of sorting out data collected into trends and commonalities, kinda like the sorting hat in Harry Potter (just that you are the hat). I personally faced a little bit of a hiccup figuring out where I should start as I still had quite a substantial amount of post-its.
I took a step back and decided to sort my findings into 4 categories, pains, pleasure, context and behavioural. Which made it easier for me to form better-defined categories that gave me my insights.
All that was left to do was to,
figure it out.
After the shifting of many post-its and conversations with myself, I’ve come to realise that big insight from my interviews was this.
From,
“I look for hidden jems & off beaten roads”
to
“It’s not a bad thing to be lost”
and even
“It was my first time”
These were data that were pointing towards the trend that people travel to experience discovery. Be it getting lost, finding the hidden or even just it being your first time, the key uniting factor was the experience of discovery. We are drawn to travel as it provides us with an experience that is outside of our everyday lives which instills within us that joy of discovery and wonder just like a child exploring the new world around him.
Well of course with every good there is always the bad.
“I was traveling with two of my friends who were on the verge of a breakup. It was so awkward. It was the worst trip ever”
“I was traveling with two of my friends who were on the verge of a breakup. It was so awkward. It was the worst trip ever”, said one of my candidates.
From making compromises to social tensions, from friends to family. A sore thumb that we often have to suck when we find ourselves having a bad experience when it comes to travel, is people. A lifelong mystery and a bottomless pit the aim was not necessarily finding that all-powerful solution to fix this, for that would take like forever. However, what we could provide would mean to better the experience when traveling.
Coupled with the insights I had, this was my task at hand
The birth of Wandoo
Given the context and understanding of my task. I quickly realised that the app had to be something that people would take joy in as well as not pose a burden to the mind especially when traveling.
This is where Wandoo comes in.
Wandoo is a Quest Generator. Based upon the premise or fostering spontaneity while helping you pass the fuss. It seeks to help provide that childlike experience of discovery while you’re on your trip. Through the approach of firstly anticipating who you are, it then seeks to help you participate in the present. While lastly, helping consolidate the memories of your travel and the things you've experienced.
A quest generator that basically helps generate spontaneous tasks each day based on the length of your travel and destination.
Revelation.