UX field Study - How exactly to do for any problem in the world

Doing a field study is a very crucial step for a product designer or even a UAE designer. So even the starting freshers and even experienced people sometimes really miss this process. Sometimes even they don't understand how to exactly do it right because field study is something like which a marketing people does or maybe a guy who does a population survey or something like that but let me tell you there is a big misconception. field study is a reality, how a product and the services behaving in the customer and how you can really understand them and how you can even find the need of a product when it is not created before right this is a very important part cost and I am going to give you exactly 10 steps how we can do field study irrespective of any problem whatever you are going to face or do in your design studio or freelancing work okay. So take definitely lot of notes and we are going to break that into 6 different problems and how the 10 methodology is going to approach in different different problems okay like let's say if it is a creativity problem like let's say if it is a healthcare related problem or let's say if it is relating to wealth and finances if it is related to relationship problem if it is related to career problem if it is related to business whatever problem you take it will fall in the air of the 6 categories okay so with that let's jump into this podcast welcome to this design for change podcast I am really happy to engage with you and thank you so much again for the overwhelming support and response and I would really like you to recommend to your friends if you find this podcast useful and there has been a very good responses and interactions as well happening in the podcast and particularly today we are going to discuss very important topic which is how to do a field study when it comes to product design and UI you have to send right. So if you really take very closely if any design studio is really doing this to be very honest 80% of the design studios don't take this very seriously they are under estimate the power of doing and even some of the big studios sometimes do it because of various reasons like they say they have timeline constraint they have financial issues they don't have a process or a provision to make a field study right let me tell you guys the more do you skip this process the more problems you will find at the end what happens is you will have to reiterate to do the product and solution again because you have not understood the customer and the business in a real time right. So what happens is it will lead to version 2 it will lead to version 3 customer will not be happy your businesses and sales will not go what happens you will have to make another version to really perfect it out why to do that instead you can use that money now and invest in the field study and what happens if you do it you will make excellent product and service which is irresistible for the next 2-3 years or even 5 years that is the power of doing a field study right if you do it properly people will understand the depth and the impact of how it can really play a vital role in the customer. People will love the brand and the revenues and profits will go high like anything it's not the other way around you cut the cost because of this reason and then later you do it again a lot of big design studios also make this mistake so the very first step what you can do for doing the field study is define the objectives very clearly okay. So I've already told you there are totally 6 areas guys you can note it down like let's say if it's health okay the second is relationship the third is businesses and finances maybe a wealth and finances the fourth is creativity problem the fifth is business related problem the sixth is wealth related okay financial so sorry the carrier related problem the sixth one so lot of areas are there what about problem you choose guys it will either fall in this category all the 10 parameters what I'm going to tell you know the steps it's going to be in relation with the sixth field because you will be doing a problem or you will be working on a problem statement 100% it will fall in either one of this category if it is not falling probably you have not taken a problem itself properly you have to redefine that first okay yes so the very first point is defining objectives if you really understand what is the objective of your particular product or the solution whatever you're doing it's very very vital to take the step one accordingly okay like let's say if it is a health care product or a service or maybe if it's a health related thing so understand the health care need properly try to get more clarity in how people are able to react it okay like let's say maybe if you're doing any problem related to clinical or hospital or like let's say if it's a long waiting time of the hospital patients or if it's a communication gap between the doctor and surgeon and nurse and the patient or it's a complex process likely whatever you are particular problem related to health care please define that the first step is defining the objective clearly if it's relating to financial and will understand the behavior of that financial recruitment or the kind of management what is being done because behavior and understanding and then clearly setting the objective is very important right it applies for even creativity field or even relationship what are the patterns what you can see right see if you observe this pattern and if you understand the need of the customer then you can define that objective very clearly even before going to the field you have to do this sometimes there is a flip side also you can define objective and go but while you conduct the field study it may little bit differ you need to have the openness to receive it okay the second important step what you can do is select the participant see if it's a health care setting choose wisely who's going to give you proper information either the doctor the surgeon or the the caretaker or or sometimes even the what boy okay or the person who is lifting the bed and carrying that particular patients to the bed can give you information if it's a you might be solving a problem of people having a lot of bed source or maybe something like that you can very well ask them their input also what do they really think about what is the problem you know what better than a doctor sometimes these people can give you a lot of input so that is selecting a participant is very crucial even in financial sectors or even the will management sector you need to find out what are the various income levels and whom you can exactly target to get more information okay let's say if you're solving a relationship problem or if it's relating to more particular application what you're developing you can find out a crucial family member or a couple so whoever let's say if you're solving a dating a problem like you can able to understand the couples in which region are they and what is the kind of ethnographic perspective they have selecting participants is a very very crucial step if it's a if it's a creativity problem what you're solving like let's say an entertainment or something like that you can find out the artist or designer who really makes this if it's a business go and ask a person who is the decision maker go and ask the person who is really going in and going out out of this particular problem of the business they can able to give you more clarity and information okay because a lot of people don't understand they just choose the participant who is very comfortable for them what happens if you do that big problem will come for you you will not be able to find out the real need on the real problem what is happening that's why you need to talk to professionals in that okay so then you can get more clarity on that the third important step is plan your interviews and observations okay so let's say if you're doing an interview if you're doing a physical interview if you do a virtual interview or if you do a sometimes your settings might be a little different like because of covid or some health reasons you cannot go for that particular field in that case plan the interview very properly through which you'll call or through phone call or through physical interviews or whatever try to absorb the interactions and record each and every information because a lot of people don't record anything and sometimes people record it without a permission both are problem you should ask a consent permission hey I'm recording your voice hey I'm recording your video hey I'm recording your conversation is that okay sometimes people will be skin in that case you can follow a nuance okay you can record all this information and finally you can tell them hey see with your permission I have recorded whatever happened let's say if you're a recording audio you can ask them a permission is it okay if I can use this or if you say no I will not use it the reason why I didn't tell you is because a lot of time finish say to the people that I wanted to record your voice they get really nervous natural answers will not come I really appreciate that you're given a very natural honest feedback thank you you should be able to tell your participant about this interview recordings and everything then you will get more confirmation see guys privacy is very important whenever you're when you're asking a person you should get that consent before posting okay if it's a hospital setting like you can ask the patient doctor health care related if it's a financial make sure to talk to some what you call financial decision maker for a proper virtual interview or a physical interview whatever okay so observe that communication dynamics how it's really happening if it's a business maker if it's a creativity process whatever you're sewing so any any six problem you can able to understand how the decision making really happens and you can able to plan the things well better okay so this is about getting into planning the interview in a in a well advanced way okay the fourth important thing is create a script now so once you plan this interview you have to create a question but you need to create a kind of module or if you have to create a kind of steps you cannot go talk to people randomly and draw right you need to have one two three hey first what's your name like let's say if you're talking to a doctor here hi doctor I'm so what's your name like what are you really doing how much experience you have it should not be very difficult question it should not be very trustworthy so it should be very flowing in that communication that's why you'll have to keep a script lot of times people don't create the script and then they do it on the spot no that's absolutely wrong the moment when you do it on the spot then you will not observe what the person is saying right you'll be focusing only on the uh asking next question next question you will not really observe what they say sometimes your questions will be little bit changed based on the answers what they say that's why you need to observe what they say. For that you can be able to correct that question. So, but 95% you should have a script properly with you like to say, if it's a financial consultant you shall have questions regarding that. Like say if he is a growing financial consultant, it's not very experienced. You can ask questions like that. You don't have to ask a complex question. If you're going for a financial vice president like let's say if you want to solve a financial problem then you can ask a very complex question. So, understand your participant and then plan your interview and then create a script accordingly. If it's a relationship problem. So, try to ask them emotional questions. Try to try to create more what you call communication preference question like how do they really want to communicate. Sometimes if it's a relationship problem what you're solving. People will be will be not very comfortable to talk. So, choose a method accordingly. Okay, script will not work. You can prepare a script but your method itself needs to change it. Like you can say here, okay, we don't have to meet each other live. Can we have a phone call? I will not use your name. I will not use your any other information. I just need your info. Is it fine? People will be sometimes okay because they're not seeing their face. They're not giving their name or anonymous thing. So, they will be able to. So, you should be very smart enough to do it. Okay. The fifth important thing is choose the right environment. See, this is very, very, very crucial. Even though if you have followed clearly defining the objective or even if you're selecting the right part or if you're planning the interviews or creating a very good script, if you're doing it in a playful way, not in the hospital admins for you say if it's a health care, you will not get the reality. Sometimes you can observe a lot of many things in the reality. Apart from people what they say because I'll tell you one golden tip. People don't do what they really say. People do things very differently. While you ask for an interview, they'll tell you I'll do be I'll be this. I'll be perfect. I'll do this steps protocol. Well, I do the operation. But when you go and reality, they see the operation. They've been doing it entirely differently. They've been doing some mistakes. That's totally fine because we are humans, not robots, right? We are prone to make mistakes errors and we cannot really do that in a robotic way. That is why your design should also compensate for the errors and the tolerance, what your customer is talking. Don't no one always talks about it. Okay. We need account for the errors what users are making. That is why observation is very important. It's not like you also become a robot and then you just ask your doctors or your health care provider and then you write it and then you make a solution, that's not going to solve any problem in reality. How does the real change happens? But how do you really go and understand that and how do you even design for that, right? That's why observation the field is important. If it's if it's a business space and go and travel to that. If that particular person is saying no, we'll have to go to a financial institution to understand that you don't have to travel to that. Sometimes you need to go to a public space. Sometimes you can find an online space. Sometimes you have to go to the home of the people. You should be able to schedule an appointment. You can even to talk to them in front before, hey, I'm coming for an interview. Is it okay? Get all these things very clearly done before you go. Don't surprise that person on the go. That will itself make them very uncomfortable and they will not give you any information. They'll say, okay, okay, this is a relief. That's it. Five minutes they'll close the interview. You could have planned one hour script. So you should be very careful while doing that. So choosing the right environment is very important. The sixth important step is observing and documenting it. Now comes the documentation. You will have to be very, very, very observant while you are listening to the people, right? I've recorded a separate podcast on listening skill for a designer. You can do that. I'm really bad at listening when start of my career during my engineering days and even start of the design field, but I'm very well understood by talking to a lot of many students when I started mentoring, right? More than 12,500 students I've talked with. I really understood when we are silent and when we are listening, people really pour out a lot of many things and your way of approaching them will totally change. Your way of understanding the problem will totally change. You would have understood, oh my god, this is what this person is trying to say. That level of clarity will emerge once if you listen, observe carefully and then document it. Whether if it's a healthcare environment or if you're solving creativity problem or business or whatever, try to observe very carefully their strategies, try to understand what are their challenges they face, try to understand their experience what they've faced while failing or maybe becoming success, try to observe that pattern. See, if you're not able to get the pattern clearly, what happens is you won't be able to make any big creative or prototyping, okay? This is a very important step. The seven step is feed that session. Now, having said all these points, you've talked to people, got the feedback. Now, I mean, you've talked to people, you've noted down the thing. Now, you have to ask them, hey, what do you really think about it? Okay, the interview is done. It's completed. So, you tell me, what do you feel? What happens is people can sometimes give you very free inputs now and many times this is more, more pro guys because you're not setting them in a context right. They're not in the context of interview or something. So, now they'll give you real honest answers also with this, you have to correlate with the information, whatever you had. It applies for even healthcare field or financial field or creativity problem relationship, anything. So, you'll have to find that particular thing using your feedback session, okay? So, having your free session on feedback is very important in the field study. Eighth important point is analyze the data, okay? Don't do the analysis there itself. Please take it to your home or maybe take it to your office or wherever. Do it on the same day with the next one hour. I'll tell you one. 80% of the information you will forget it in next 24 hours. Remaining 20% to 80% you will forget in second day. Third day, you will not remember at least one per two percentage. After a week, you will not be sure which place you really went. That's the reality. When you do a lot of field study and design this becomes a problem and even if you do one field study you cannot re-collect information after a day. In people take it very likely. I've seen in my design institute as well. There was a team which worked on a very system design project, okay? They did a very intensive study but the point is they didn't document any point. While presenting, it doesn't seem like these people have collected that much of information. Luckily, I was there next to the team, I kind of observed what they did and I know. But people are looking at that presentation. They cannot even convince like this people have did this much of work because they're not really analyzed and they're not really synthesized their information properly. Just like that presenting. Oh, there are a lot of tools to analyze. There are feedback, I can have a five-way analysis. There are six sigma methods, an AD approach, root cause analysis. A lot of methods are there to analyze and synthesize your information. Here only you will have to find out the patterns. Here, you'll have to find out more what you call information which is relating to. How does this people really, what you could talk about? How does this people really get the thing? Why is this people talking about this topic? If I'm asking you this question, what is the commonality we stay repeating? What is the group experience and what is the individual unique experience? You'll have to analyze this, right? Let's say the user could have told like I didn't like this tool to be operated in hospital. Where other people would have said I like it. Other people would have not reacted. So you have to understand why is this person saying this tool is not comfortable? It's because of handle, it's because of the way in which it is designed or it's because of the weight or it's because of the touch and feel or it's because of something else, right? If you analyze what happens is you will have to really confirm it again with your user again. A very good way to do field analysis is to do it one more time with the insights what you corrected first time. This will really close your look properly because people don't get this clarity. You know they do it on their own what you call assumption and this that and what happens I'll tell you. There will be absolutely no correlation between what you collected in the field and what you summarized and what your project needs because you have not really analyzed it understood. You're just keeping the raw data, right? So converting the raw data only you will have a lot of questions and second time if you go for the fear you will have to confirm lot many things. While you're doing the analysis you can also check with secondary information whatever you had the facts the statistics the information what you got in your journals or your website or the numbers and the data whatever you have and you can able to check in the online and now there will be some gaps available to close that gaps you will have to travel. Let me tell you honestly guys for my hospital project I went almost to six seven times for different different hospitals for the same context even three times I've been to the same hospitals to really observe and get it back because then I was learning to do a research and a field study there so it's very important and vital to recognize that and you know what this will be the very crucial factor for you to take decisions in your particular problem statement what are you working. Once you do the step eight then you can go for nine steps okay so which is called iterative design. So now you can work on iterating the process maybe you can do two times maybe you can do one more time field maybe you can talk to people maybe you can iterate and you can get a expert support maybe you can talk to a different user needs or if you if you find this is little distracting or if you find this is more engaging you can go deep into that particular thing and iterate the process. I trade the field study I trade the video call I trade the interview process or I trade the audio recording whatever you did that is at least why should I iterate it. If you're not iterating let me tell you guys you will not be able to go deeper into that particular insight it's not like they're doing it for sake of doing right we need to understand this here okay so this is a ninth important thing is iterative design. 10th important factor is presentation if you have documented everything if you did all this information if you're not about a presented carefully nothing is going to really work guys particularly if it's a healthcare industry you should be able to clearly show what is the need of the people what is the problem which a doctor surgeon anybody is facing right if it's a financial thing how how a financial thing is before and after and you have to show some graphs you can show some data pivotal analysis of it. There are a lot of rules in Excel and PPTU and directly do. We can put the numbers in their favorite chart or pie chart. Automatically, tools will be able to populate that information. The more you clearly present your data or the information on the synthesis, people will be better able to take decision. Who is the people? Is your customer? Is your business? Is your studio? Is your client? Anybody? Then what happens is you will have more upper hand to really make big decisions in your project. Okay. So to summarize all the points, the very first point to do a field research is defining your objective clearly. The second important point is selecting the participant. Third is planning, interviews and observations. Fourth is creating a script or a guide for that. Fifth is choosing the right environment for the field and sixth is documenting an observation. And seventh is feedback sessions. And eighth is analyze and synthesize the data. Ninth is iteration, tenth is presentation of your entire final work. And whenever you are able to do it, guys, definitely you will be able to get more and more things done in your field. Okay. This is really, really important and people don't really take it very seriously. That is a big problem and the closest podcast. I'll tell you some general tips. Please build a very good rapport with your audience or the customer. Many times people will feel awkward. When you're going to a place, let's say if it's a healthcare industry or it's like, let's say if you're solving a business related problem, sometimes the business will be itself very concurrently. People will not allow you to say, you should be more polite, you should establish the trust, and you should tell, hey, I'll sign on a primordial send an email, I'll not send any information, what I'm telling you. With your permission, I'll send you. If you're okay, I'll do it. So build that rapport trust and make a very contextual inquiry. Do not talk random things. Make sure which was interacting with your product. Talk about it. Observe their non-verbal cues because people will sometimes hesitant. Sometimes people will be like, how much time this interview is going to happen here. If you're observing that non-verbal cues, please cut short your interview very shortly. Ask important questions close because people are not able to understand it. People are not able to engage with you much. Observe their body language, facial expression. Because if you're able to do it, sometimes you'll be able to understand people are not very confident to talk or people are not very engaging to talk. This is a very important tip, guys. The fourth important thing is use diverse methods. Don't only use surveys, surveys, surveys, surveys, don't use interview interview interviews. Choose different methods for different tests based on the context of whatever you're having. Please have a mindset of iterative approach. That's the fifth important thing. Always be very open and iterative. Sixth is please consider privacy and ethical. Make sure you follow some legal laws. It's a confidential. It's a ask concern before recording or sharing information, which is more sensitive. Please be very careful about it. If they're not comfortable, you can mask their face. You can even mask their names and details and whereabouts. Seventh thing is you should be more collaborative with stakeholders. Because many times, your stakeholder would have doubts of field study. Your marketing team or sales team, sometimes it will be very useful for you. You need to be patiently observing what they're trying to send you. You have to take it down, right? That's very important. And then the eighth important tip is triangulation. Use multiple source of data to validate your findings. That's what I told you. You can refer it with your secondary information, primary, and then you can able to find out which is going to help you a lot. Ninth is very surprising, guys. Please expect some unexpected events. Sometimes I'll flip your project. Trust me, this works. Nothing is random. Everything happens for a reason, right? So sometimes an unexpected insight will come and that will really change your field study in a few days. So please be a little open also. Don't be very rigid. And the tenth last important tip is, iterate the design based on insight. One more time, okay? Because if you're able to do it, guys, you will be definitely able to crack a very good field study in interview. And this will be fitting for every industry any problem that you saw, okay? So thank you so much, guys, for listening to this podcast. I've gone a little deeper, I think it's 25-minute part, 23-minute podcast, but thank you so much because if you have really listened to this, you're very serious about making some impact in your UX field study or problem or product design field study. Implement each of these things and feel free to iterate and give me about a description of the podcast if you have any changes. I'm also open-ended to that from you, okay? Thank you so much, guys. If you feel this is a value-added podcast, give me a best rating in Auckland, Spotify and so recommend for your friends. And if you need my mentoring and support, feel free to send an email and I'll be able to help you check you for my mentorship program. And right now, seats are filling faster. You can able to check it out quickly so that there is a special offer running for the new year. I'll be able to help you. Okay? Take care on the best, bye-bye.