A summary experience of internship by Sina Weibo intern

When I was fortunate enough to enter Sina Weibo UDC's user research group internship, there will be many students to ask me: What do you do on Sina Weibo work? My answer is: do project. Then they asked, "Do you think there's anything different about doing projects in a company with a project at school?"

What's the difference between doing a project in school and doing a project in a company? I think that a lot of students are still in school and should learn to be very curious, and here I would like to share with you about my personal feelings and experience, I hope you can give a lot of guidance.

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Suppose to be the soul of the project!

In the absence of Sina internship, has been very skeptical of their research in the postgraduate stage of the value of the work, always feel that these theoretical exploration from the reality too far. But I was fortunate to have been involved in several user experience related projects in Sina Weibo, and I found that there are many things in common with research projects and applications. The research process that has been emphasized in the methodology of psychological research: to ask questions, to form hypotheses, to make research plans, to collect data and materials, to analyze results, to draw conclusions, and to apply them when the project is completed. At work, when faced with a project, it is equally necessary to make assumptions about the problems that the project faces, to envisage the possible answers to the problem, and to choose appropriate methods to validate these assumptions based on these assumptions. Whether you're working on a research project or an application project, assuming you're always the soul of a project, it determines the overall mindset of the project, the choice of subsequent methods, and the framework of the final report.

But research projects and applications have also shown some differences in some ways:

Source of hypothesis: Theory/predecessors Research vs experience

The hypotheses of scientific research projects are based on previous studies, and each assumption must be supported by previous studies. Therefore, in the completion of scientific research projects, to form a valuable assumption must read a lot of literature, find the corresponding theoretical support. But when it comes to application projects in the company, the assumption can be an unprecedented conjecture, an inference based on past experience, or a direct observation based on everyday life, as long as that assumption may be the answer to the question that the project wants to answer, which is valuable and worthy of verification in subsequent projects.

Choice of methods: Quantitative vs. a good way to solve a problem

The Scientific research project attaches great importance to the scientificity and preciseness of the method, so it prefers the quantitative method when choosing the method, and the result of the qualitative method always questions its objectivity and authenticity. But in the company to do the application project, the method is only a means, as long as can solve the problem, any method will be recognized, can be used. User interviews, research questionnaires, on-site observation, to the background planing data, as long as the choice of methods can verify certain assumptions, get the answer, this method is a good way, can also be used. Moreover, the use of methods is more flexible and more diverse. If in the above example, in order to obtain which factors will affect the user whether to pay attention to a certain area, may choose 2-3 users to carry on a simple interview, to find some influential factors, then the online dissemination questionnaire to explore which factor is the main influence factor. Does not tangle the sample quantity which the interview method uses can guarantee to obtain the influence factor is reliable, the online questionnaire in the compilation has followed the scientific compiling process and so on.

Results: Answering questions vs. solving problems

The ultimate goal of a research project is to answer questions raised by the project and find out what factors affect the outcome. But for applications in a company, the answer to a project's questions is often just a part of the project. A good project not only to answer the questions raised in the project, but also to be able to guide the follow-up product design and development, to solve this problem. For example, in the above project, not only to point out that the beauty of the picture will affect whether the user will look at this picture, but also to tell the designer or product manager what kind of picture in the user's view is beautiful. Why do users want to see a beautiful picture or what needs to be met by the user in this picture? Can we use other better ways to meet the needs of our users?