Write to the product managers and designers who hesitate in "How to work with the research"

Product Manager and designer, Hello!

On mutual understanding, products and designers often mix love and hate intertwined, every day to buy a designer breakfast product manager is not uncommon. But for the use of research staff, we always feel a veil, do not know what the big pile of dizzy data behind what they are doing. Before cooperation, both sides often need to cross a great gap called "how to work with product design cooperation". Under this gap, many problems often arise.

Problem

Didn't do the research

Because it is not clear which problems can be solved through the use of research, many disputes were patted the head of the decision, and so on after the release of the bad comments before the regret, this time to change, pay the price is big.

Become a tool

And so the plan is out, just thought to find use research to "verify see right", "I want to convince the boss to do so, help me find the basis." With research on product creativity participation is less, the contribution is low, the existence feeling is weak.

Research lag

and other products and designers come to think of the need to do. And so hard to finish with research, we have unfortunately move to the next point, do not care about these conclusions.

Reason

The causes of these problems arise from many aspects.

A lack of understanding of the role of the research

I heard my colleagues say the most to me is "what to do with research?" I have a problem, do not know whether to do with research ... "even long cooperation of product managers and designers, the role of the research is mostly vague and fragmented." Only know that there are problems can be found to use research, but what kind of problems suitable for the use of research to solve?

The penetration of the product with the research is not enough

The depth and effectiveness of the research itself is general, the team to use research conclusions of the promotion is insufficient, with research like a scratch, finish a project transferred to other products, lack of continuous tracking, may cause the use of research and did not stand in the forefront of the product.

Lack of planning for the research work itself

With the development of planning more long-term and rough, simple according to the product focus on the direction of research, often not keep pace with the product version. But in fact, the planning of this matter, not with the research themselves closed the door can be listed, it needs to work closely with the product cycle.

What to do with research

As mentioned earlier, many products and designers are not clear about what needs to be done with user research. My understanding is that the research is good at solving typical users ' typical problems in typical scenarios. The key words of most questions (with exceptions, of course) include who, What, when, Where, Why, and how.

Let's take a look at an example. The following figure lists the research projects that have been carried out at different stages of a product. Guess what the product is?

You can see that at different stages, product managers and designers want to understand the different aspects, which will lead to the use of research focus with the product cycle and the regular changes.

In the early stages of planning, the issues you want to understand often revolve around product goals.

What is the market possession (and what else is the opportunity)? What are the target users (what are the priority requirements)? What are the main problems with previous versions? What are the potential needs of users? What are the priorities? A variety of methods can be used to depict a typical user community, using a variety of channels to collect users ' problems and needs.

At the beginning of the product and demand discussion, some problems will be highlighted and become a key issue to determine the role of users.

For example, on the hand Q, we are concerned about a lot of user feedback QQ group messages on the phone side more harassment. So, how to let users neither miss their own care group message, but also to avoid QQ group "saliva" caused by harassment? QQ Mobile phone version of the group settings, users have no and will not use? What are their understanding of the various settings and the use of the scene? On the PC side and the handset side, the concern level of the group message is consistent?...... Through some research and development of user behavior and data, it can bring the practical reference for the following QQ group message strategy and design.

In the concrete design process, the product and the designer also has many uncertain details question.

What is the user's workflow for this task? What about the mental model? can users find the entry for this feature? Do you understand the icon user?...... The usual approach is to solve the problem by using user interviews and DEMO usability tests for new scenarios.

Prior to the release of the product, the essential link is usability testing.

In addition to the availability problem collection, it is possible to estimate the risk point of the product: the user's attitude towards the change is readily accepted, or stunned, not understood, rejected or directly ignored? For more significant issues, it can also be a later version of the improvement point.

After the release, you can conduct a satisfactory survey of the release to investigate the user's views on new products and features.

and independent of the product cycle, but also need to do something not urgent but important things.

For example, to guide how to better design on the device, as well as industry research and so on.

believe that for different products, focus and confusion points are different. For example, for paid products, the user's willingness to pay and the charging mechanism may be more concerned. In addition to product characteristics, affect the "different stages to do what", there are product iterations speed, the scale of human resources and so on. Therefore, here, there is no comprehensive model, pointing out what needs to be done under the general category. A more recommended approach is to develop models that are part of the product and their own characteristics.

Of course this is not to draw a box, so that the use of research is confined to this box. It's about getting people to think and build this concept:

What can be done with research? At different stages, the focus of the research can be what?

Get involved in the discussion ahead

Let the research close to the product and improve the understanding of a good way: for the key tasks, early involvement with the research staff to participate in the discussion. Increasing the participation of research on product discussions is beneficial to the needs of product managers and designers by using research results.

The use of research in the day-to-day user contact, often accumulated a large number of users (or even different products) the usage behavior. They can help to judge based on these experiences. For example, using the researcher to observe the use of many handheld products, found a common: users can easily ignore the phone interface button in the upper right corner. Especially when the button is a plain icon without text, the user is more likely to be ignored. When discussing whether to place a key function in the upper-right corner, the research will give some empirical insights and suggestions.

In addition, the researchers will be involved in the design of the discussion of the benefits of the research can be at any time to collect products and designers of confusion, if through the use of research to solve, can be started in the later stage with research projects.

Problem solving and legacy

Let's review the first three questions.

At this point, can we understand a little bit about what we can do with research? Or, we can according to their own product cycle characteristics, to summarize the product needs of the research can have?

In the use of research has a systematic planning and continuous concern, strengthen the cooperation with various roles, enhance infiltration is constantly running-in and enhance the impact of the process.

In addition, when planning a research project, it is also necessary to focus on solving the current problems, more need to think about, how to plan to reach the future, rather than simply answer the List of requirements.

But we still have some problems with the cooperation with product designers.

What kind of effect does the research need to achieve?

How to tap the demand for research?

How to discriminate with research needs?

How to improve customer participation and trust in research?

......