Evolution of Field Research

Tracy Lovejoy is an Ethnographer at Microsoft. Her job is to do in-depth research on whole segments of existing/potential user populations. Her research is different from typical usability testing in that usability testing looks at a user's behavior in an artificial setting, doing artificial tasks, using tools with which he/she may not be familiar. An ethnographer may go into the user's environment and gather information about the user's world for the purpose defining a culture. There may or may not even be a design-related goal for the research. She at times collects information just to learn more about a group such as the 'active aging' population (new industry term for the elderly population).

She uses a number of tools and techniques, some of which we use and some we don't (but might be valuable). Some examples:

• focus groups
• site visits
• shadowing/observation
• journals/diaries
• longitudinal studies
• collage of technology

I found Tracey's talk interesting because her research is very relevant to those of us in a design-oriented UCD group but she tackles her research from a different perspective. She typically doesn't launch a study to solve a specific design problem. Her research is focused on discovering the relevant information about a population that could impact the way they use Microsoft products. Often, the outcome or product of these studies are personas which appeared to be used extensively throughout Microsoft.

I would like to see our group do more of these observational type studies. From past experience, I've always found them to be worthwhile efforts releaving some nuggets of insight into the users' world that I hadn't expected. The downside is that they can be very time consuming and are highly qualitative.

Day 2: MSN home page with UCD...and Ajax at MS !

Most people actually missed the best part of the 2 days as they all fled to the airport...the final part of day 2 was from the marketing department and all about MSN home page. Essentially they listened to user feedback, realised that it was too busy, too many links and too many Ads. So they drastically reduced it - they watched the traffic, saw where people went and then put a line in the sand. If a link wasn't being accessed a certain amount it couldn't go on the home page....you can imagine the internal battles that caused.

Hopefully most of you know that MSN - like Google and Yahoo - parrallel test their new designs. And they did this to be able to guage feedback on a daily basis. Interestingly the biggest reaction? Emotional! They took away the over-whelming dark blue, went white and everyone was mortified. So they put the blue back and then gradually changed it so you could choose between white background or blue. Check out the home page - there's a switch at the top for claissc blue or white. Also interesting was how long it took to see changes in traffic...things stayed fairly level for the first 4 months (good in itself because they could have seen a drop) ...but then after that it scooted up as it really addressed users needs and new users came onboard. So - lesson learnt - be patient when you make a change!

However - THE thing I wanted to tell you about is www.start.com - its a play site that MS have put up to let peopel play around with Ajax. Its basically a portally type page - not artistic or aesthetically amazing BUT its simplicity shows how well ajax works - you can close elements off on a page and to reopen them it doesn't load the entire page...leaving you free to do stuff on another part of the page. It's very RSS-y at the moment - but go...play. And if you feel so inclined you can attach code behind it...even CSS....to manipulate it. I was just blown away that a) MS were calling it Ajax and hadn't tried the "world domination approach" to owning this and b) that rather than labelling it a fad, they're on to it and realise it is the next best thing.

Helmer Wierenga, the tech officer from the Reed Business Amsterdam office is also keen on Ajax. He pointed out to me that in Business 2.0 this month they're outlining the 7 technologies that change everything ....
http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1107751,00.html and Ajax is number 1. What he also shared with me is that major players in software are already adopting this including Tibco http://www.tibco.com/company/news/releases/press679.jsp which wil help us propel our conversations with engineering. i.e. it has to be taken seriously. Has anyone heard what the engineers think about it? If its part of our game plan?

anyhoo - i'm off to work out how we can get a VPAT or 3 in place and fiddle with my new friend smart.com...