Usability and User Experience Resources
Idea Market Afterthoughts 2005

Telling (Selling) the User Story: Analyzing Qualitative Data to Construct a Vivid Narrative about the User Experience that is Believable and Engaging to Developers

Activator: Judy Ramey

Major topics we discussed:

1. Coming to grips with data: immersing in the data and the prob lems with “data reduction” with respect to qualitative data (easier to, for instance, calculate an average with quantitative data)
2. Finding topics (sorting/grouping pieces of data); creating affinity diagrams with designers
3. Organizing topics (creating scenarios, identifying problems)
4. “ Eureka moment” – getting a feel for the data vs. tracing ideas back to data (intuitive vs. systematic)
5. How to co llect qualitative data? – best methods:
   • Conduct site visits
   • Talk to the users at user meetings
   • Do thinking-aloud protocols
   • Send out questionnaires to a “facilitator” at a company who ho lds a meeting with a group of respondents
   • Have the participants take pictures of their setting & send in
6. Interpretation transforms data; the challenge of deriving an accurate high-level account from qualitative data
7. Skill in analyzing qua litative data – what is it based on?
   • Knowing your purpose in collecting data
   • Identifying trends & patterns
   • Being clear about what is raw data vs. interpretation vs. recommendations
8. Difficulty of re-using data, “data mining” and creating metadata
9. Basing personas on data & using them in design effort
10. “Just your opinion” problem – getting designers to observe