I help my clients with target groups analysis for all types of interactive services. I use contextual user interviews to and identify the needs and expectations and frequently use personas to present the results.
In order to get an interactive service right you have to know who is going to use it. When you know who your user is you must find out what their needs and expectations are. To discover this you simply have to ask them. Finally, to get the right answers you need to ask the right questions.
The kind of user research I do most is focused on identifying what an interactive system or service should contain in terms of functionality and how it should be designed in order to attract a certain target audience. Because, if there is no attraction, there will be no users. Without users the system cannot add value to the business.
Focus groups or contextual interviews?
I have found focus groups almost useless for gathering appropriate information for guidance though a design process. It turns out that a group of potential users who discuss their requirements do not give an accurate image of their own behavior.
Interactive solutions are mostly a personal experience. Off course the user often uses interactive services to communicate with others, but he experience itself is still done very much as one person per device. When the user uses a service a lot of the interaction is actually done at an instinctive and unconscious level. The user is there for not fully aware of what is going on. This means that there is only limited knowledge to gain from asking a user a bunch of questions.
To get the most useful results I have found that one-on-one interviews in the users own environment gives much better results. This is called contextual user research. Instead of asking the user a lot of questions I ask them to show me how they work, play or interact today. By watching the subject I get valuable information without them being aware of what I am actually paying attention to. You might say that the old expression “actions speak louder that words” applies brilliantly.
Defining your target groups
If you are considering developing a piece of software or any other interactive service a target group analysis will provide you with very useful information about the people you want to attract as users. A clear image of the target group will lead to better software.
Interestingly enough, traditional target groups used for marketing purposes are not as useful when creating an interactive service. It turns out that gender, religion and socioeconomic context is not as important when it comes down to how the user perceives a particular site or system. It is rather the activities, interests and personal lifestyles that determine the target groups for interactive solutions.
This means that even if your business has a predefined target group used for marketing purposes, it might not be accurate for your interactive channels. It is fairly safe to say that sub groups within your normal target groups are more likely to appreciate an interactive service than others.
Using personas
A persona is a fictitious person used to represent a target group. The person is described with name and given a personality. The goal is to force the development team to think about the users.
There are several ways of presenting the result of user research. In order to present a target group analysis for an interactive project the most common practice is to use the persona model. In this model you choose one fictitious individual to represent the target group. The person or persons are preferably described thoroughly with enough detail for a development team to create a personal relationship with each persona.
The persona are then refereed to when brainstorming or outlining a solution. Used right, a persona will help the developers to think about the users and adapt their solutions to match the intended users needs, wants and abilities. Before each design decision the team can ask themselves if it’s possible that the persona “Anne the attendant” would use a certain feature if it was designed this way? Will she be comfortable having to take these steps in order to get to the page we want her to go to?
We at Box Experience’s wanted to improve our web site. Our web agency called in interaction designer and usability expert Mårten Angner to conduct an eye tracking study on our site. The study fully confirmed our suspicions about usability problems and provided valuable insight into how our customer’s think. Mårten presented clear directions on how to take our site to the next level. Almost like a how-to-guide, created exclusively for us!
I was asked to join the team at Merajobb, the collective job site for three of Sweden’s largest newspapers, to completely redesign their site. My role was to lead, analyze user needs, create a site concept and make sure no greatness was lost in the process. The team, consisting of the developers at HR north, designer Jonas Björkman from The Art of job and I completed the project in record speed. 
Cloud Nine is one of Sweden’s largest independent provider of web solutions. The company has been around since 1999 and apparently they know how the web works. It was therefore quite the honor to be asked to hold a seminar about my sketching techniques in regards on how to not to rush to finished designs before knowing if the functions are as optimal as they can be. The Creative Director Martin Bystedt was quite happy with the seminar and has found use of the technique in the work:
We at NetRelations can absolutely recommend Mårten’s course in sketching technique. This intensive seminar has made an immediate impact on all our staff. Our drawing skills improved instantly and with it came a new and more inspiring approach to both the way we discuss internally to how we communicate with our clients. Almost like creativity-in-a-box!
In an Eye tracking study I conducted for Ginza, users had a hard time getting through the payment process. I was asked to completely redesign the complete check out process. The final solution when published reduced the customer care issues drastically and resulted in an 18% increase in invoice payments, and an over all increase of the payment conversion rate by almost 2%.
Rebtel, the exciting international telecom operator, asked me to make a full scale usage test using eye tracking on their public web site, sign up, and their customer self service area. The eye tracking test immediately brought some totally unexpected errors in the service to Rebtel’s attention as well as provided a solid ground for the strategic design and development decisions in the future.
Ginza is one of Sweden’s foremost media mail-order and e-commerce companies. As a part of the effort to improve their user experience, I was asked to conduct an Eye tracking study on their current site. Although the results were somewhat shocking to Ginza, they were very pleased that their weak points could be addressed immediately. In this post I explain more about how the test was conducted and will also share with you some of the results.
It is now exactly one year since I created the first conceptual sketches for this site. This seemingly simple project was one of the most challenging projects I have ever completed. The site really forced me to use all the methods I have normally use in my projects for clients and have consumed an unbelievable amount of effort to make it perfect in every respect. Here is the story of how it was created.
We at Creuna decided to ask Mårten to give his sketching technique workshop for our design team consisting of both Graphic designers and Interaction designers. What we did not anticipate was exactly how profound effect this little two hour workshop had on our daily design practices!
I was asked by Holiday Autos to help them improve their the web based ordering system for rental cars. I worked closely with the internal development team evaluating the existing solution, and designing a new one. The end result turned out to be a great success when tested on users. The time needed to complete the order was reduced to as little as one third.