[Sigia-l] oursourcing research?

[Marc Rettig]

Toms,
Sorry for this late response to your post. Bizzy times. But this is
something I feel pretty strongly about, so I thought I would pass along a
couple of comments.

I have found that when research is made an integral part of the team's
work, there are two key products of the effort: the field data (which is
what you would expect), and a transformation in the minds of the team
members (which is not usually listed as a research goal). Involving the
team in the research, even a small amount, changes the way they think
about the people they are designing and building for. Reading a report or
listening to a presentation by a marketing research firm is well,...
barely a shadow of the real thing. I've been on both sides of those
presentations, and now believe that it is an utterly broken model.

Say you've been asked to create a site that describes what it's like to
eat pancakes. Which do you think lead to a better result: having your team
eat pancakes, or having them hire people to eat pancakes and write a
report?

So yes, I think you are correct in saying that outsourcing user research
is a bad idea, if that implies the team will have no involvement other
than receiving the data.

Another point to ask about: how will the research data be *used?* What
will happen to ensure that the end result is actually shaped by
understanding of the people who will use it? Will you be able to follow a
chain of influence from research to finished product? The best I have been
able to do in this regard is to facilitate the team through a process of
"translation" -- working together to find patterns and themes in the data,
then creating design a design framework and a set of guiding principles.
These serve as *tools* through the rest of the project, during
brainstorming, concept refinement, design, assessment, communication
planning, and so on.

When I work in the position of the marketing firm you mention -- that is,
when someone wants to outsource research to me -- I tend to take the role
of research and translation facilitator rather than external source of
data. This leads to scenes like the following:

o  designers, developers, content people, marketing folks,... all out
doing field observation or watching interviews, going on field trips,
watching videos, having show-and-tell, looking at photographs taken by
users, listening to tapes that users made while doing the target activity,
etc, etc. ...

o  the team gathered in a room, reading field notes aloud while the walls
become covered with points of data on sticky notes

o  the team gathered around a wall-sized affinity clustering, discussing
patterns of attitude and behavior, adding a new layer of stickies that
contain design implications

o  a brainstorming session whose agenda is driven by research implications

o  a set of diagrams that describe the research and serve as maps on which
potential solutions can be placed and evaluated

And so on.

If you get good research help, they will want to involve your team in
*product research* or *research for design.* If you find someone
interested in providing you with a research report, you found an
old-school *market research* firm.

Much success with your project. The fact that you asked this question says
you're on the right track.

Cheers,
Marc Rettig

. . . . . . .
Marc Rettig
mrettig at well.com

www.enteract.com/~marc (old, wilting site)
www.marcrettig.com (new, unfinished site)


Toms Stephens wrote:

> I'm looking at a proposal for an IA project which
> entails a large chunk of identifying and profiling the
> different types of users of the client's website. It
> has been suggested here that much of that discovery
> process could be delegated to a market research firm,
> where they would handle all the rounding up of
> participants, interviews, focus groups, and so on. Not
> all the work could be handed over to them of course,
> but maybe the demographics/ethnographic/affinity
> portion could.
>
> Is this a bad bad bad idea? Should we be trying to do
> all this user research in house, so that we develop a
> deep and intimate understanding of who we are
> developing for?
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Regards,
>
> Toms.
>
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