Planning a Site Visit

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Planning a Site Visit
Rob Houser rob_at_userfirst.net
www.userfirst.net
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Introduction
To make technology that fits human beings, it
is necessary to study human beings. But now we
tend to study only the technology. As a result,
people are required to conform to technology. -
Donald Norman
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Introduction

• The challenge of system design is to fit into
  the fabric of everyday life.
  - Beyer and Holtzblatt

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User-centered Approach
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Goal of Design

• Products should be created to help users do their
  jobs (without making their jobs more difficult or
  frustrating)
• Our job is to create user assistance

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User Assistance

• User assistance should be designed to maximize
  user performance
• Based on the users goals
• Transparent to the users task
• Accommodates different stages of use
• Focuses on performance, supports learning
• Adjusts to real-world constraints

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Getting Closer to the User

• The closer we can get to the user, the more
  valuable the data we can collect

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What is a site visit?

• Method for gathering information about users,
  tasks, and environment
• Asking questions of users and watching them work
  in their workplace
• Foundations are in the ethnographic interview and
  contextual inquiry

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Why perform a site visit?

• Marketing data is not enough
• Focuses on what people will buy
• Buying behavior does not determine success with
  the product
• Customers are not always the same as the users

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Why perform a site visit?

• Reveal all of the real users
• Identify tasks that users perform
• Discover questions that users ask
• Reveal true flow of the work
• Set benchmarks for measuring usability (usability
  objectives)

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Who should perform site visits?

• Everyone on the design team should be involved
  early in the planning process to increase buy in
  and improve the quality of the site visit
• May limit the number of people who actually go to
  a single site
• Everyone involved with the design of products
  should go on-site sometime

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When do you perform site visits?

• Early in the development process, during the
  analysis phase
• Ideally before design
• Its possible to perform them even before the
  product exists

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The Planning Process

• Planning a site visit requires answering several
  questions
• Why are you going?
• What do you need to find out?
• Who will you visit?
• Where are you going?
• What will each person do at the site?

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Get Permission

• Persuade your manager
• Increases the value (contribution) of your
  department to the company
• Gets your department involved earlier in the
  development process
• Helps your department design and prioritize
  documentation projects

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Get Permission

• Persuade development
• User/task information helps design more usable
  products
• Information gathered can be shared, benefiting
  multiple departments
• Identifying real world use and constraints up
  front reduces redesign
• You can help collect data to allow them to
  investigate technical issues

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Get Permission

• Persuade sales and marketing
• You are going to observe and ask questions about
  the users and their tasks, not to discuss cost or
  direction
• Listening to users will make them feel that your
  company cares about them
• Designing a more usable product will make it
  easier to sell (part of sales story)

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Get Permission

• Persuade the customer
• Information will be confidential
• Every attempt will be made to minimize
  interruption to the users work
• Gathering user/task info up front helps design a
  product that makes users more productive and
  requires less training

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Review What You Know

• Use traditional heuristic methods of audience
  analysis
• Read all existing survey data, trip reports, and
  usability reports

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Review What You Know

• Query customer support knowledge bases for common
  problems
• Interview trainers, product managers, sales, and
  marketing

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Brainstorm Questions

• Create a list of questions that need to be
  answered during the site visit
• What do you still need to know about users and
  their tasks?
• What pivotal assumptions do you need to verify?
• Are there any design assumptions that need to be
  validated already?

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Select Target Areas

• Pick the most important questions to help set
  goals for the site visits
• What category of users are most important for the
  products success?
• What tasks are the most critical?
• What tasks are the most environmentally
  dependent?
• How many different environments exist?
• What would improve the product most?

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Identify Potential Sites

• Work closely with marketing, sales, and product
  management to identify potential user sites
• Emphasize the difference between users and
  customers (buyers)
• Try to get a representative sample of your user
  group (3-5 for each type/site 10-20 overall)

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Prepare To Record Data

• Create data collection sheets
• Decide if you will use audio or video recording
• Consider taking a disposable camera
• Create release forms for pictures
• Develop any additional surveys you want users to
  complete in person

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Assign Team Roles

• Decide who will ask questions and who will
  record data
• Divide the work into focus areas
• Front End v. Back Office
• Training/Documentation v. Performance
• Cashiers v. Supervisors v. Managers
• Pair inexperienced with experienced
• Create checklists for each team member

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Create a Schedule

• Decide how much time you can spend with each user
  (2-3 hours)
• Break down the time into each activity that you
  need to complete
• Be prepared for variations adapt to the
  situation as it unfolds
• Keep your eyes open for unexpected opportunities

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Write a Test Plan

• Goals for the visit(s)
• List of users and sites to visit
• Method you will use to gather data (process, team
  members and rolls, tools, schedule)
• Timetable for all site visits
• Explanation of what will happen after the visit

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Practice

• Run through the list of questions for the
  interviews
• Practice observing a work situation in your
  company and compare notes about the observations
  you make
• Fill in the data collection sheets
• Test all equipment

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Prepare the Customer

• Make sure the customers know when you will be at
  their site
• Emphasize that you will be observing and
  interviewing users doing their jobs, not just
  talking to the supervisors
• Ask the customer to provide access to all levels
  of users (not just experts)

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Whats Left?

• Conducting the site visit
• Analyze the data
• Report your findings
• Use the data to create or improve the design

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Conclusion

• There is no direction without customer
  data--data about how work is structured, what
  matters to people, and real characterizations of
  the market.
• - Beyer and Holtzblatt