This is the second lecture of the “Designing Interactions / Experiences” module I’m teaching at Köln International School of Design of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences (by invitation of Professor Philipp Heidkamp) in which I cover topics related to User Research:

Learning Outcomes

• You will understand all the preparation necessary to conduct user research;
• You will understand the basics of conducting Contextual Inquiry Studies;

Outline

• Understand the Design Challenge
• Define Your Audience
• Prepare for Research
• Contextual Inquiry

Slideshow

Recommended Reading

Beyer, H., Holtzblatt, K., (1997), Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems, Morgan Kaufmann; 1st edition (September 15, 1997)

Holtzblatt, K., (2001). Artifact Model of a Car in Beyond the Tower of Babel, retrieved September 21st, 2011 from http://incontextdesign.com/articles/beyond-the-tower-of-babel/

Huang, K. H., & Deng, Y. S. (2008). Chinese Tradition of Tea Drinking Artifact Model in Social interaction design in cultural context: A case study of a traditional social activity. International Journal of Design, 2(2), 81-96.

IDEO (2011), Design Thinking Process in Design Thinking Toolkit for Educators, retrieved September 1st, 2011 from http://www.designthinkingforeducators.com/

Kolko, J., (2011), Thoughts on Interaction Design, Second Edition, Morgan Kaufmann; 2nd edition (February 8,2011)

Kuniavsky, M. (2003), Observing the User Experience, Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (April 22, 2003)

Medeiros, I., (2010), People, Tools, Process & Artifacts in User Research, retrieved 5 November 2013 from http://designative.info/project/user-research/

Portigal, S., (2013), Interviewing Users, Rosenfeld Media; 1st edition (May 2, 2013)

Tomer, S., (2012), It’s Our Research: Getting Stakeholder Buy-in for User Experience Research Projects, Morgan Kaufmann; 1 edition (April 2, 2012)

Tomer, S., (2014), Tools for Entrepreneurs: Flying Cars, UX Research, Attitude and Behavior, retrieved 4 May 2015 from http://youtu.be/KlSgWT2Nbak

Young, Indi. 2008. Contextual Inquiry notes in Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior. New York: Rosenfeld Media.