Real-World Research with Gist Design
The Pittsburgh chapter of the IxDA gathered last night in the historic Terminal Buildings, home of Gist Design. Gist led us through an exercise in which we role-played through a usability research scenario. The attendees were assigned to either the client, the research team, or the pool of respondents. Each person on the client side was provided with a card explaining their role in the company and their motivations, which they had to express in the initial meeting with the research team. The members of the research team had to probe the client for the information they would need to design their study. At the end of this first phase of the game, two judges rated us on our performance, bestowing proclamations of “nice”, “niiice”, or “niiiiiiiiiice”.
The whole exercise centered around a label maker, and the second phase saw the research team fiddling with the device and planning out their approach—what they wanted to learn and how they would go about learning it. During this phase, they were interrupted by a phone call from the client’s head of marketing, asking them to gather additional information about their target market. They were again rated on their performance before carrying out the study. This was the point at which the respondents joined in, acting as study subjects, relating their label-making needs and trying to figure out how to use the label maker. The team was again rated on their performance during the study. Finally, the research team had to organize their findings and present to the client.
We all had a great time mimicking the customers and users we have dealt with so many times in the past, and the exercise led to much discussion about approaches to research, client relationships, and the value of user research in the design process.
