Today I spent the day visiting with, and talking with the people who will ultimately be the users of my current design project. I was fortunate enough to have a mass congregation from around the United States all assembled together at a conference. We could draw on them at will. And we were able to get a diverse sample of their thought and ideas. Here's how we went about it:
We approached our time today very informally. No written script, no surveys, no data to compile afterwords, and no one-way-mirrors.
Our goal was not to obtain empirical data that we could include as bullet-points used to sway the corporate beauracracy. It was not to get specific details, or to find usability issues. Our goal was to talk to our audience frankly about the project, show them what we've done so far, and ask them what they think.
As we talked and showed our prototoype, some design questions became glaringly obvious. Not to them, but to me as an observer. There were other ideas and unique perspectives that were offered. And even better, it was enjoyable getting to know the users.
After we finished the day, the question was asked – "Was it worth it?" – Absolutely.
You can never discount the value of face time with your end users. You can learn more in a 1/2 hour conversation with your users than you might ever learn with traditional user research. Face time also provides the opportunity to learn different types of things, things that you can never data-mine from a research project.
You might hear something expressed the right way, bits of genius in spontaneous critiques, or just get that good feeling that you are on the right track. You also might just get some good music recommendations from them, such as: (1, 2 and 3).
How valuable is that?
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