OBSERVATION

(method)

Brief description

Step into the user´s “native habitat” and capture its full context, without judgement. It is a way to eliminate our own biases. Helps us to understand and uncover unexpected attitudes, behaviors, and embedded meanings. Minimize your impact in the situation, try not to interrupt the flow of their activities. The sample size for your observation can be small (8 to 20 subjects). Pay careful attention to people´s tasks and workflow, taking notes of the information, tools, and people they rely upon to do what they do. Also, be aware of the surrounding environment, understanding the peripheral objects, sounds, and people that may affect outcomes.

Step

Empathize, Prototype Improvement, Prototype Testing

Input

Research and Discovery Plan

Output

Understanding of user context

Time

several hours or days

Difficulty

3/5

People

2 – 3 (to execute)

Quick Guide

  • Identify a subject area or situation to study.
  • Develop a plan to guide your investigation.
  • Consider which people and activities to watch.
  • Choose a location to visit.
  • Obtain the necessary access and permission(s).
  • Prepare materials for capturing what you see.
  • Go out and observe.
  • Record your findings in video, photos, and notes.
  • Analyze information and share with team the findings.

Benefits

  • Challenges your assumptions.
  • Informs subsequent research activities.
  • Helps to learn about the discrepancy between what people say and do.
  • Produces crucial clues that will allow to generate new solutions.

Helpful Tips

  • Make every effort to blend into the background.
  • Look at the situation form several vantage points or different perspectives.
  • Compensate people for their time.

Application

Observation Analysis Techniques

What? How and Why?

Brief Description:

Helps you think about the most abstract emotions and motives that are in play in the situation.

Quick Guide:

What is the person you are observing doing in a particular situation?
How is he doing it? Does it require effort? Does he appear rushed? Pained? Happy? Is the activity impacting the user in either positive or negative way?
Why is he doing what he is doing, in the way he is doing it? This step will reveal assumptions that you should ask users about.

Helpful Tips

Try to find common threads that weave a similar story.

5 Factors

Brief Description:

Look for the physical, cognitive, social, cultural, and emotional elements present in a situation and how it affects people overall experiences.

Quick Guide:

Physical. How do people experience their physical interaction with things and
other people?
Cognitive. How do people associate meanings to things they interact with?
What do they read, research, process, assess, and decide?
Social. How do people behave in teams or in social settings?
Cultural. How do people experience shared norms, habits, and values?
Emotional. How do people experience their feelings and thoughts?

Helpful Tips

Look for problems as well as surprisingly positive observations about each factor.

POEMS

Brief Description:

Look for the physical, cognitive, social, cultural, and emotional elements present in a situation and how it affects people overall experiences.

Quick Guide:

  • People. Who are the different kinds of people in the context? What appear to be their reasons of being there?
  • Objects. What are the various objects that populate the context? What is their relationship to one another?
  • Environments. What are the different settings where activities take place?
  • Messages. What messages are being communicated in the context, and how are they being transmitted?
  • Services. What are the distinct services offered in the context?

Helpful Tips

Think about the context as systems of related elements.

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