marc.tools

A Product R&D Toolkit

Welcome. I'm Marc and this is a Toolkit to create things.

We can further empathise with users using a number of other tools that can provide further insights.

These tools can help us better put ourselves in the shoes of the user, understanding what they go through when using a product, solving their problem and how they understand things.

Section Tools
  
Tool Info
Category User Insights
Updated 20/09/20
Templates   PDF     Miro
Creator N/A

This is our opportunity to truly understand why a user may choose a competitor's product, and what it is they are looking to achieve.

With a similar focus to the Usability Test but with a competing product we may begin with 2 options;

a) either an existing problem a user is trying to 'fix' and how they are doing that or b) with a specific product and related goal that we then observe the user completing (or trying to complete).

These insights can throw up better understanding of competitor's products as well as better understanding of how a user is currently trying to solve their problem.

  
Tool Info
Category User Insights
Updated 20/09/20
Templates   PDF     Miro
Creator Whiteside, Bennet, and Holtzblatt

A incredibly valuable way of building empathy and understanding with a user is to observe them in the environment they use a product.

As well as observations, this field research method can involve interactions and conversations with the user - by understanding the context of either how they interact with an existing product, how they currently try to solve their goal, and how they experience the problem.

This insight can go a long way when it comes to creating a solution that fits in with the current user's habit, rather than pushing them to create a new habit. It's also a more authentic way of researching, by seeing what a user does rather than what they say they do.

  • 6-20 users, based on scope of project. Recruit participants that are familiar with the product, service, or problem.
  • Conduct at the beginning of a project, or for more insight when creating detailed workflow or specific features.
  • Can be conducted anywhere the user uses a product - a shop, an office, on their commute or in their home.
  • Identify key research areas that align with task, but can still be broad.
  • Ask participants to demonstrate rather than explain.
  • Take notes on the environment to help build further empathy.
  • Reassure users who might be shy, and remind them there is no wrong way or errors - all insights are very valuable for the eventual solution.
  
Tool Info
Category User Insights
Updated 20/09/20
Templates   PDF     Miro
Creator Jakob Nielsen

Information Architecture (IA) is a very important part of the product framework. The structure of the product is completely defined by IA and a large part of that is categorisation.

The absolute hardest part of constructing this Toolkit for example was structuring the content in a clear and obvious way - Card Sorting can help hugely if you are dealing with a lot of information, products or other data that need to be organised. It can also help with further insights about the users, how they think, how they approach things, and what is most important to them.

Taking products that need categorising for example, we can ask users to sort the products in to pre-defined categories by providing them with a set of cards with product names.