UX Practice NOTES: Some applications of the mapping method

On the concept of mapping

The concept of mapping is found in the fields of logic, linguistics and psychology. The simplest understanding is that mapping refers to the realm of another concept through a conceptual field, such as "Love Is a Journey". A mapping relationship is established between love and travel.

In the design research, the user is invited to complete the process of mapping, it can be understood that by means of visualization, the mapping relationship between abstract and representational is constructed, and the problem Space (problem-space) or design space (http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/ Aggregation/29798.html ">design-space). It helps to identify patterns on the one hand and assists in enquiring.

Several applications of mapping

1. Object Mapping

Refers to the object mapping attitude, life form and so on. For example, ask the user to show some objects, and discuss the objects, to understand the user's daily behavior, values, and life patterns. In Nokia's mobile research, the researchers asked users to display their wallets to see what role they play in people's lives, and how they relate to other communication tools.

Photo Credit:jan Chipchase

Ideo's method card also has a Dharma for personal Inventory (personal Items library), which is essentially a mapping.

2. Relationship Mapping

In the study of social relations prior to Google Ur, the mapping method was used to quickly understand a person's social network. The research process is probably as follows:

The visualization of a virtual social network by having users list people associated with TA, group them, and identify the tools used to communicate with these people

Then, we can find the interview point from the Atlas. At the same time, through the analysis of different user's map (below), some behavioral patterns can be summed up.

In addition to the study of human and human relationships, a similar process can be used to study the relationship between people and things, the relationship between people and information, and the relationship between things and things. As researchers have explored in the same way: (1) How people consume news, and (2) how people consider and manage money;

3. Groceries Mapping

This approach is to allow users to map their own history in a physical or virtual space (such as a Web site) to an image, and to show how they "walk" and navigate in the diagram to understand which elements and paths are critical to the user.

The figure below shows ideo let some bike enthusiasts draw their own cycling routes in different parts of the city, and mark out which points they get from the route, and how they get the water.

The customer experience process of service industry (customer groceries mapping) is a typical mapping application. For example, the following figure is the "Business origami" method invented by Hitachi, which uses origami to help complete a process map.

Of course, the course mapping can be applied to the analysis of the Web site usage course completely.

Practice of mapping Law

To sum up, the mapping method creates a mapping between abstract and representational content, and visually visualize the problem/design space (problem/design spaces) in a cartographic manner, thus assisting in the inquiry and subsequent analysis. The author has recently tried to use this method in the research practice of TB Assistant, an EC commodity and transaction Management client software.

The software has many years of history, is in the revision period, the demand side to consider the seller to use the situation of the sellers do not know much, hope that through a simple (referring to time and scale) of the investigation to raise awareness. The author takes into account that the software has several features: 1 functional points of a wide range of 2 function points distributed in the user shop a series of links, 3 of the same type of software/applications (competitors) a lot of 4 problems. For this reason, you want to try a mapping exercise to achieve two goals-

1. Let the project team (including PD, designers, development testers) more intuitive understanding of users, as well as the role of software in the user's business process (that is, which features more than the power, which does not give force);
2. Assist in identifying problem points and more effective inquiry.

The process is roughly as follows:

1. The user manages each process step of the shop to make the card, first lets the user select oneself to have the step and the reorganization order. The steps that are not covered by the card can be supplemented by a post-it note.

2. Ask the user what official tools to use in this step, and then put the tool icon (such as Amoy-page version of TB, the assistant logo printed out to cut into pieces of paper) next to the step card. For other software/applications and other tools, because the predictability is not high, so the user immediately after the answer to write on the post-it release.

3. After the formation of the general map (below), ask the user in a certain step why use the tool? Why don't you use an assistant?

4. For the steps that have been made by the assistant, ask the user what was wrong with the application (this will open the software on the computer screen and let the user speak to the computer)

When all the users of the research end, the map of each person together, can quickly and effectively extract some common, identify problem points.

The author finds that the whole research process embodies the four advantages of the mapping method:

1. Organize and organize the different concepts/things quickly, and present their relationships in a graphical way.

The ordinary interview is linear, the interviewer and the user ask a answer, although the content is recorded, but can not be presented in real time. The mapping process is a process that constructs the problem/design space and provides a holistic view.

In this example, the user quickly built TA in the shop in the process involved in the steps and the corresponding tools of each step, both the big picture, and Sgt Details, for follow-up inquiries lay a good foundation.

2, graphical means, to explore the shape of the situation, so more effective to find the point of inquiry, for discussion focus

It is also the process of reconstructing the situation that the user exercises mapping and forms a picture. Situations evoke memory and help users to relate. Make inquiry and discussion more concrete, no matter what is empty talk. In this case, because the research environment is far away from the user's real use environment, if only the ordinary repartee, will appear poor because of lack of situation.

At the same time, the user's figure provides the overall view, but also presents a large number of local inquiries into the entry point, which may have many points of entry is outside the interview script new points of revelation, to help diffuse, capture new ideas. In this case, the yellow post-it is a good topic clue. Just point to this post-it note and it will give a meaningful talk.

Thirdly, the process of user mapping is compared with the general interview, the user becomes active participant by passive respondents, and the interaction will improve a lot. This interactive atmosphere helps users to better serve the research environment.

3, the stakeholders of the strong touch

A picture, sometimes better than words. The whole process of forming a diagram is more likely to have an "education" effect than an interview. Usually stakeholders sitting in the observation room is huge boring, so this investigation when the author deliberately put the table to do mapping practice in front of double-sided glass, although see is a flip mirror, but at least more visual stimulation, than the simple language stimulation more touching.

4, post-processing data, can quickly identify patterns

The traditional interview is more time-consuming than the way of audio transcription analysis. Once you have the icon, you can recognize the common patterns more quickly, and the follow-up is very powerful when doing the data display. In this example, we found that in the "price change" process of maintenance, the user needs to use a variety of tools. When you throw a graphical representation of multiple users on a ppt, it's much more dynamic than the phrase "users need to do one thing with a variety of tools."

Of course, mapping also has its limitations, it always relies on the user's memory, and memory often has a surprising flaw.

In a nutshell ...

The mapping method does not have too many fixed rules, as long as you understand its most essential characteristics, and then according to your research topic flexible changes, presumably can have a lot of interesting innovation, and may bring more inspiration for your research.

In fact, User research Toolbox appears to be limited, but there are various possible changes. Each new project's research provides an opportunity for innovation, which, of course, does not mean that every project is trying to be a gimmick, because the premise of all applied research is, what information are we going to get? What does this information do? What is the most effective and trustworthy way to get information? Selection tools, Mix&match,quick but not dirty, are often challenging things.

SOURCE Address: Http://piglili.blogbus.co ... 74905999.html