About

The EMPATHISE stage of the design thinking process is for the student-designers to learn about their design topic, and to understand the needs of the users of their product or service. User Research is when you question, talk to, and observe the actual users for whom you are designing. User Research can be done in a number of ways, such as through surveys, interviews, observation, and so forth. There is nobody better than a user to help you understand why they use a product or service, what they want from it, and their experience when using it. In this way, you might learn about difficulties that they have when using products or services, and you might discover that the product or service is not meeting their needs entirely. The EMPATHISE stage teaches you to be a better designer by having empathy for users.​​​​​​​
 

What you need

• A4 notepad and pen.
• A smartphone to record interviews; or to take photographs and videos of your observations.
• Your Mind Map (IV) of the EMPATHISE stage, and your Research Questions (IV).
• Two or three students designers to conduct user research.
• A day or more to do user research properly.
   

Method

There are a few different ways to do user research. You can survey people’s opinions on the design topic with a questionnaire; you can interview users for their opinions and insights; or, you can observe users while they use a product or service related to your design topic. Before you begin, it is important to discuss and be clear in your mind about what you want to learn from the user research. If you are designing a playground, you may ask children about their favourite playground equipment; you may ask parents for their opinions about playgrounds; you may observe children at play; and so forth.
Discuss your plans for user research with your teacher, get their advice, and get their permission if you intend to approach members of the public.
 

Survey

You can write and print a survey questionnaire to be filled in, or you can post a questionnaire on the internet, or send one by email.

• Decide which questions you want to ask.
• Decide who you will ask, and how you will contact them.
• Compose the survey questions carefully, avoiding spelling or grammatical errors.
  • Your questions may be closed-ended, which can only be answered in specific ways. For example, simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ check-boxes; or a scale with three to five possible answers, such as, ‘agree,’ ‘neither agree nor disagree,’ and ‘disagree.’ Closed-ended questions are easy to complete, and easy to tally up at the end, you simply count how many people ticked ‘yes,’ and how many ticked ‘no,’ for example.
  • Your questions may also be open-ended, where the participant is free to answer as they wish. For example, you may ask a question such as, “How do you feel about the design topic?” The respondent must write down or record their response. Open-ended questions might give you interesting results, where you learn something that you were not expecting.
• When your questionnaire is ready, you may print it, post it on the internet, or email it to the participants.
• Once you get the responses to your survey, you and your team must analyse them to understand what they mean for your design project.
   

Interview

Interviews are often done in-person, but you may also do them by telephone, or by video call.

• Two students or more are needed to conduct an interview.
• Decide which questions you want to ask.
• Decide who you will ask, and how you will contact them.
  • Politely ask respondents to take part in your interview. Note that some people will have no interest in taking part, and others may not have the time. So be respectful and patient while you try to find participants for your interview.
• Compose the interview questions carefully, avoiding spelling or grammatical errors.
  • Closed-ended questions are not really suitable for in-person interviews.
  • Open-ended questions are best for interviews, but you must write down or record the person’s response, and be aware that responses can be lengthy.
• When your interview questions are ready, write them down, or print them out.
• Once the interview is completed, you and your team must analyse the responses to understand what they mean for your design project.
   

Observation

Observe the users of a product or service that is similar to the one that you are designing.

• Two students or more are needed to do an observation.
• Decide what you want to observe about the product or service.
• Decide how you will observe the participants and whether you will record their speech or video them.
• Decide whom you will observe, and how you will contact them.
  • Politely ask participants to allow you to observe them using the product or service. Note that some people will have no interest in taking part, and others may not have the time. So be respectful and patient while you try to find participants.
  • Get permission to record or video the participants, if that is what you plan to do.
• While the observation is going on, ask the participants questions, if they permit. You can ask:
  • “What are you thinking?”
  • “Are you experiencing any difficulty or inconvenience right now?”
• Once the observation is completed, you and your team must analyse the event to understand what happened, and what it means for your design project.
   

​​​​​​​Tips

• Surveys
  • There are free survey apps on the internet, that make it easy to prepare and distribute questionnaires.
• Interviews and observations
  • If you record a long interview or video a lengthy observation, it will take just as long to re-listen or re-watch the entire thing. Therefore, by taking good notes, you can save you a lot of time searching for something on the audio or video recordings afterwards.