Portfolio: Interactive & Transactional Systems

Etnography in Product Development

This is part of a standing room only presentation (made into a video) to Market Researchers in Atlanta, GA as part of the the Atlanta Chapter of the American Marketing Association, Market Research SIG lecture series. This was one of the best attended lecture EVER! I promise to add a sound track with commentary in the next version (as soon as possible)

Don Rickert and Jay Heisler Delivering the Presentation (Photo Montage)

Ideation Session to Identify Problems and Solutions with a New Remote Control Device

...and Discovering Consumers’ ideas about an ideal product

• Definition of Ideation & Brainstorming

• Brainstorming and ideation are commonly used names for a set of processes which companies use to generate creative ideas for new products, services, or process improvements.

• Generally a group process
• Dozens of variations on how to generate ideas

• The ‘Universal’ Rules of Ideation

• Quantity is paramount
  • More is better – generate as many ideas as possible in the allotted time.
• Out-of-the-box’ thinking is encouraged.
  • Pragmatic concerns are not appropriate in the idea-generation phase (being ‘out-of-the- box’ is encouraged)
  • Criticism is forbidden during idea generation!
• ‘Piggy-Backing’ is OK
  • Participants are encouraged to build on other participant’s ideas (often called ‘piggybacking’).
• No discussion of ideas (AT ALL) until there are no more ideas
  • Discussion of the merit of ideas during idea generation slows things down to the point of frustration for everyone, including the Facilitators.
• Capture all of the ideas in some manner
  • Various methods are employed.
  • The demo shows how ideas are captured in ‘mind-maps’.

• The Remote Control Device

Click on the thumbnail image for a full-size view.

 

• 5 Top-Priority Problems

Click on the video window below to see the beginnings of a mind map.

Click on the mind-map thumbnails below to see full-size views

• Problems: Battery Related

 

• Remotes often have no power, even with fresh batteries
  • Batteries often not 'seated' correctly
  • Batteries easily 'unseated' when unit is jostled on dropped
• When a unit is dropped hard, the battery door comes off
  • This is a general durability problem
  • Result: Batteries often fall out
  • Customers often put the batteries in backwards (e.g. children)

 

• Solution Ideas: Battery-Related

• Keeping batteries seated
  • Fill space between the batteries and the battery door with a shock-absorbing material
• Keeping the battery door from coming off easily when dropped
  • Too much 'play' in battery door latch
  • Filling space between batteries and door will decrease 'play' in the latch

 

• Problems: Button-Related
  • Hard to find the button you want
  • Poor Grouping
    • Buttons not grouped into intuitive categories
  • Too Many Buttons
    • Seems to have too many buttons (more than needed for the typical use scenario)
  • Buttons are too small
  • Abbreviations
    • Labels are also small and often abbreviated (Users don't understand the abbreviations)
  • Buttons are too close together
    • A real problem for Users with larger hands

 

• Solution Ideas: Button-Related

• Logical Groupings
  • User study to group buttons more logically
  • Use color coding where it would help
• Increase size of buttons
• Increase distance between buttons
• Distribute buttons between back and front of the remote
• Reduce number of functions
• 'Virtual' Buttons (touch screen) approach

 

• Problems: Mysterious (Just Doesn't Work Sometimes!)

• Does not work in many offices
• Sometimes, just plain doesn't work regardless of location (even when other problems are not present)

 

• Solution Ideas: Mysterious Problems

• May not work in office due to florescent lighting (same # of cycles as IR pulse)
  • Change IR pulse to something other than 60 hz
• Adopt RF rather than IR approach
  • Will require an RF to IR converter on the set-top box
• Maybe Installation Technicians are not setting up the remote codes
  • This should be researched in 'ride-along' with Installers study

 

• Typing Text: Problems & Solutions

• Problems
  • Almost impossible to enter text using chording technique

• Typing Text: Solution Ideas

• T9 chording algorithm (used on phones and PDAs)
• Mini-keyboard on back of remote
• 'Roll-up' keyboard
• Voice recognition

• Aiming: Problems & Solutions

 

• Problems
  • Has to be aimed 'just right' in order to work
• Solution Ideas
  • Change shape of IR dispersion pattern (the 'cone' shape)
  • Use RF instead of IR

 

• The Whole Mindmap With all the details

 

• Ranking and Sorting Solution Ideas

• Some Ideas are Better Than Others
  • There are many ways to classify and rank solution ideas.
  • Among the many methods is an online prioritizing exercise...see the video clip below.

Ethnography Examples: Don Rickert Research & Design

The document, which you may download, describes a number of ethnographic studies (WITH THE IMPORTANT DESIGN INSIGHTS) conducted by Don Rickert Research & Design or in which we participated significantly.

Download Don Rickert Research & Design Ethnography Examples with Design Insights (PDF file)

 

Depth Interviewing

Depth Interviews are actually one of the many methods used in the course of Ethnography. They are lengthy interviews that are unscripted. To the User, they are simply a long conversation about them, their needs and desires.

The purpose of Depth Interviews are an essential reality check on what the Ethnographer thinks that he or she is observing by "just watching". Knowing when and how to conduct a Depth Interview takes much skill, honed by experience in observational field research. Depth interviews allow for developing much more accurate Persona and Scenarios. They also help immensely in developing the the formal test scenarios that will be used in Usability Testing.

The biggest risks in Depth Interviewing are:

1. Avoiding interruption of the "flow" of non-verbal observation
2. Annoying the Participant
3. Leading the Participant to do or say things that are not quite true

View the video to see some photos taken of a Participant (brown hair) who is showing the Researcher  (red hair) how she transfers pictures from her telephone to her computer. This particular artifact review is interesting because there were lots of work-arounds the Subject had to invent to compensate for bad user interfaces on the phone as well as the computer.