1. Identify your users

Before you can learn from people, you need to decide whom to learn from. You could create a screener based on demographics and psychographics to determine who to observe and talk to and who not to.

There are many ways to filter out people and focus on those who are relevant to a project. A combination of factors usually determines the criteria of a screener. (Image: Steamfeed²) (View large version³)

Traditional research on market segmentation is a good place to start. If a user base is already established, then you might have a source of data on demographics; if there is no such source, then you could send out surveys to current users to obtain more information. If you have no user base (which will be the case if your company is new), then find out more about the users of your competitors or of similar companies or products.

2. Decide what to ask

The most common way to learn from users is to interview and/or observe them. An interview script or research protocol will ensure that you obtain the same information from all research subjects, so that the data set is homogeneous. The process of developing a script or protocol forces you to think about what you will need to learn from research participants. Interviews and observation aren’t just about acquiring raw data, but about gaining a thorough understanding of participants and their perspectives.

Learning everything about participants is impossible within the limited time available for interviews and observation, so try to ask the most advantageous questions and observe the most relevant behavior. To determine what information is most needed, think of your knowledge gaps, which details would best inform your design decisions, what your team members are curious about, and what would give the team a common frame of reference regarding the participants’ needs and goals.

The questions and areas of observation need not be exhaustive at this stage, because the goal is to gain a fundamental understanding of users, from which the team can extrapolate in future and answer new questions on their own. By thoroughly understanding users, team members should be able to put on the persona’s shoes and walk in uncharted territory. Users won’t have a seat at the table during the product’s development, but a persona created from the right kind of information is the best proxy. By capturing the essence of their perspectives from asking the right questions, you will be able to create a persona that brings their voice into the conversation.

The exact questions you ask will vary according to the project’s goals, the types of people being interviewed or observed, and the time constraints. No matter what you ask, though, keep the following in mind:

•Ask primarily open-ended questions.

•Ask participants to show more than tell.

•When possible, ask for specific stories, especially about anything you cannot observe.

Ask roughly the same questions of all research participants. A script will help with consistency. (Image: Sam Sweitz⁴)

Don’t be afraid to ask seemingly naïve questions either because you’ll want to find out as much as possible. (Naïve questions are never stupid; they show an eagerness to learn, and they establish a non-authoritative tone in the interview, which is great for building rapport with participants.) Following these guidelines will result in a rich set of answers and a firm foundation on which to build a persona.

You could create your own interview script from the following template, which I have used in many enterprise software design projects. I have found it quite useful as a jumping-off point in new projects.

OVERVIEW

•Give us a little background on your job.

•How and why did you take on this job?

•How long have you been working in this capacity?

•Why do you work for this company and not another?

•Tell me a bit about your industry and your role in it.

DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE

•What skills are required to do your job?

•How do you stay up to date and get information on your industry and profession?

GOALS

•What are your responsibilities in your job?

•How do you define progress or success in your job?

•How do you measure progress or success?

ATTITUDES AND MOTIVATIONS

•What are the most enjoyable parts of your job?

•What do you value most?

•Do you have any external (i.e. extrinsic) or internal (i.e. intrinsic) motivations for doing a good job (such as rewards, promotions, perks)?

PROCESSES

•Describe a typical workday. What do you do when you first get into the office? What do you do next?

•How do you do [a certain task]?

•How long does this task typically take?

•Where would you start?

•What would you do next?

•Can you show me how you do that?

•What activities take up most of your time?

•What activities are most important to your success?

•Of the things you do during a typical workday, are any of those processes or tasks mandated by your company or industry?

•What processes have you developed on your own?

•Have you learned to work better from your colleagues?

ENVIRONMENT

•How is your office organized to help you accomplish your tasks or goals?

•Show me how you use your office to accomplish your tasks or goals?

PAIN POINTS

•What are the most difficult, challenging, annoying or frustrating aspects of your job?

•After a typical workday, what about your job (if anything) is still on your mind? (In other words, what issues keep you up at night?)

TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY

•What traditional (i.e. analogue) tools do you use to accomplish tasks in your job?

•What digital tools do you use to accomplish tasks in your job?

•Where do any of your tools fall short? (What do you need them to do that they don’t do or don’t do well?)

MENTAL MODELS

•What kinds of people do well in your position? Why?

•Describe a process and how it has changed or not changed over time.

RELATIONSHIPS AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE

•Besides clients and customers, who else do you interact with in your work?

•Who do you report to?

•Who reports to you?

•How often do you collaborate with others?

•How do you collaborate?

PROJECTING INTO THE FUTURE

•If we came back in [x number of] years to have this conversation again, what would be different?

•If you could build your ideal experience, what would it be?

WRAPPING UP

•Have we missed anything?

•Is there anything you want to tell us?

• Is there anything you want to ask us?

3. GET ACCESS TO USERS

This step will largely determine how effective your personas are. Finding an adequate number of people will determine whether your personas are an accurate and useful representation of the research participants. Experts recommend finding anywhere from just 5 to around 30 participants per role. The exact number isn’t important, as long as trends and patterns emerge. These number might seem too small to be of any reliable use, but the data set isn’t intended for statistical analysis, but rather for qualitative analysis that will inform the design process.

Trends are often observable from just five people. Build on that to gain a deeper understanding. The number of participants does not matter as much as whether you gain new information from interviews and observation. The law of diminishing returns applies here; at a certain point, new interviews or further observation will elicit little to no new information because all relevant patterns have been unearthed and the researcher has reached a level of understanding known to ethnographers as “verstehen⁵.” At this point, no more research is needed.

The benefit of observation in addition to interviews is that a relatively small number of participants is needed for it. If you can’t find enough people on your own or with help from people you know, then consider a recruiting agency.