Ethnography (Field Studies)
A redesign with personas can provide a return of investment up to four times more than without.
(Forrester Research)
Unlike market research, traditional requirements gathering, or surveys, Experience Dynamics ethnographic field studies focus on observing, capturing and analyzing user behavior (not opinions). The focus is on how users solve their problems (tasks). User interviews capture artifacts, goals, motivations and attributes of your company’s target customers.
Definition:
A fundamental design tool in shaping your UX Design, an Ethnography (Field Study) consists of day-in-the-life user interviews and behavioral observations. Through this process, a deep sense of empathy and comprehension regarding users, tasks, goals, culture, and contextual nuances emerges. This becomes a catalyst for identifying the most valuable personas, charting pain points throughout user journeys, and extracting crucial insights into users’ authentic feature requirements.
This strategic approach is critical in cultivating a comprehensive understanding of how your users truly engage with your product or service. By immersing ourselves in users’ daily experiences and interactions, we gain profound insights into their needs, preferences, and pain points. This empathetic vantage point enables us to tailor design decisions to genuinely cater to user requirements.
Incorporating Ethnography (Field Study) into your design process allows you to get to the voice of the user at its core. By identifying personas, journey bottlenecks, and feature priorities, this method helps in the creation of user-centric solutions. Through this holistic perspective, Ethnography (Field Study) enhances not only the efficiency of your UX Design but also the overall satisfaction and resonance of your offerings to your users.
See our Ethnography Methods Training
Benefits:
Refine or define your design strategy.
- Understand your users’ key preferences for a more aligned design.
- Provide clear direction during the design phase for smoother progress.
- Identify authentic user needs to meet their requirements effectively.
- Uncover the right features and functionalities to enhance your design.
- Discover potential opportunities by examining competitor offerings and novel user approaches to problem-solving.
Methods we use:
Personas. Field Studies. Ethnography. Diary Studies. Journey Maps.
See our Personas Training
Deliverables:
- Comprehensive report detailing the findings from the expert field study.
- Well-defined personas that capture user characteristics and behaviors.
- Informative Journey Maps illustrating user experiences.
- Actionable design recommendations to enhance user interactions.
- Service includes recruiting, user incentives and management, project management, moderation, data analysis and reporting.
Desirability beats usability any day. Find out what lights your users candles and you can build the right thing. Field Studies help avoid poor decisions, focus your feature set and help you elevate the most valuable functionality. Personas capturing user roles and intentions help transmit empathy as a UX design aid.
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Get in touch and see if we can help you with your next User Experience consulting project!
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Ethnography (Field Study)