Is user research all Greek to you?
A look at user research through the lens of the Twelve Olympians.
I’ve written previously on the vital role of user research in design, but as it’s such an important discipline I thought I’d publish another article on this topic.
Earlier this year, two of my User Researchers, Jake Volz and Toni Aguilar, gave a great talk as part of our San Francisco Design Week at IBM event and at a local Bay Area UXPA chapter meeting. Their talk was titled The Greek Gods of UX Research and the two of them — dressed in laurel wreaths and togas — provided an entertaining account of how the 12 Greek gods from Mount Olympus can teach us a thing or two about how to best approach modern-day user research.
Their talk was so good that I’ve asked them to share some of their observations here so that others can benefit from them. But first, let me introduce Jake and Toni properly:
- Jake Volz is one of our IBM Design Researchers, with an academic background in Human Factors and Psychology. Like the Olympians, Jake feels at home in the mountains — although in his case, it’s typically the mountains of northern California. Jake is currently working on IBM’s Microclimate project.
- Toni Aguilar is also an IBM Design Researcher, with an academic background in Human Factors and in Philosophy. Before joining IBM, Toni once worked in a store called Succulence that grew and sold, well, succulents (Demeter would’ve been proud!) Toni is currently working on IBM Watson Studio.
Right, over to them!
Jake and Toni: Thanks, Arin. We should probably start by mentioning that in order to tie in the original Olympians with modern-day user research, we occasionally had to abstract or tame some of the Olympians’ personality traits. Also, to keep this article from becoming too long, we’re only going to cover 8 of the original 12 Olympians here. If anyone wants the full pitch, we’re always open to speaking engagements (especially those in exotic climes 😉).
The gods of the sky and the sea
On keeping an eye on the broader picture and remaining adaptable…
Zeus is one of the best-known of all the Greek gods, being the ruler of Mount Olympus, the god of the sky, and the father of many of the other gods (but we won’t delve into that aspect here…). From the sky, Zeus always had a great view of what was going on beneath him, and it’s this aspect that we think we can all learn from. As a researcher, there are many times when you need to focus on small, specific details, but it’s also important to always keep in mind the bigger picture.
There will be times when your colleagues will be myopically focused on designing and building a certain feature or interaction, and it may well fall to you to remind the team to think through the user’s end-to-end task flow to ensure that the feature or interaction in question will be a good fit. Broader still, you should even be thinking about the experiences that the user might have just before and just after using your product or service. These broader goals, pain points, and tools might lie outside the scope of what your team can control, but these details form part of the user’s overall experience and so are vital for you to know, understand, and communicate.
Poseidon is the god of the sea. Now, as we all know, seas are characterized by having tides, which cause the water to ebb and flow, and it’s this aspect that we think is applicable to user research. However well planned you are, people and circumstances will often change, and you need to be able to adapt accordingly. Going with the flow means being able to adapt a study, interview, script, or design as needed, even on-the-fly.
Now, there’s certainly a lot to be said for being organized and having a well thought through plan (as we’ll see later), but as a researcher, the chances are that you’ll find yourself working on fast-moving projects, where priorities and directions change. Sometimes teams need research findings delivered quickly in order to meet new delivery demands. We’ve both worked on projects where teams needed user research findings delivered within a week, and from such experiences we’ve learned the importance of having a good research toolchain and process in place. For example, you can often get on and recruit remote research participants before you’ve worked out all details of the research activity. Similarly, you can get on and schedule evaluative research sessions before designs are totally ready — and remember to always have backup interviews planned.
The gods of war and travel
On battling for your users and doing the necessary research legwork…
Poor Ares had rather a tough time of it: he was the son of Zeus and Hera, but both apparently despised him, and his sister, Eris, was the Goddess of Discord — so he didn’t exactly have a happy home life. He then became Aphrodite’s lover and was held in contempt by her husband, Hephaestus, who humiliated him whenever he could. Perhaps it’s no surprise then that Ares vented much rage and became the god of war, entering into battle with many different people.
A bit like Ares, as a User Researcher, you will often need to battle for your users. What we mean by this is that there will often be many competing voices, suggestions, and agendas being put forward in the business, but they will not all serve the user equally well. Now, it’s unlikely that any of your colleagues intentionally want to frustrate your users and their goals, but ignorance, inaccurate information, and assumptions can all threaten to take the business down paths that are not optimal for your user. This is where you must stand strong and wield your user research weapons to challenge assumptions and false information and boldly advocate for your user.
Hermes is perhaps best known for being the messenger of the gods. He was quick and wise and had the ability to freely move between the mortal and divine worlds, often acting as an intercessor between different people groups and the other gods. Similar to Hermes, a good User Researcher needs to be able to communicate well with all sorts of different people — from project stakeholders and colleagues within the business to various different types of user out in the big, wide world.
You’ll also need to keep an open mind and humbly remind yourself (and others) that neither you nor they know all the answers. In fact, a truly wise User Researcher knows that oftentimes there will be unknown unknowns and that one must often be willing to travel to meet your users and encounter their worlds first-hand in order to gain insights into them and their needs. Of course, in your role as messenger of user research, it’s equally important that you bring back your research findings and communicate them clearly to your broader team.
The gods of hunting and of wisdom and strategy
On seeking out relevant information and having a robust research strategy…
Artemis is known as the goddess of the hunt and she was well regarded by many of the other Olympians. She spent most of her time roaming the forests with her nymphs, where she foraged and sought out animals — sometimes to protect them, sometimes to hunt them.
As User Researchers, we may not tend to hunt animals, but we certainly need to forage far and wide for relevant research as we further our quest for knowledge and for empathy with our users. Those new to research can have a tendency to want to rush in and start their own fact-finding hunts without first looking at what others have already done, but this can be a mistake. To dive into new research before foraging through existing findings can lead to you wasting time and money doing redundant work. So, it’s important to develop a habit of regularly searching through existing research to see what is already known about human behavior, about what motivates people, about human computer interaction, etc., as well as topics more specific to the work you are doing.
Athena was the daughter of Zeus but no mother physically bore her. Instead, Athena sprang directly from Zeus’s head, fully-grown, wise, and clothed in armor. Athena embodied wisdom and rational thought and, amongst other things, is known as the goddess of wisdom, law and justice, mathematics, and strategy.
Something that we can learn from Athena is to be scientific and methodical in our research. If your research methods are shoddy you will likely end up with unreliable data, which you and others might then draw inaccurate conclusions from. And the reality is that having bad data is worse than having no data — because people think that they are taking business and design decisions based on solid research, when in fact, the bad data might be leading them to incorrect conclusions.
So, as user research professionals it behoves us all to be well informed, to follow best practices, to design our research plans and methods well, to be aware of cognitive bias in ourselves and others, and to be rigorous in our treatment and analysis of data, and to act ethically at all times. Yes, this is a high bar, but with great power and influence comes great responsibility. User research is too important to be done poorly. Let’s aim to be like Athena — full of wisdom and solid in strategy.
The gods of order and chaos
On being structured in your research yet remaining open to exploring unexpected directions…
Hera is the wife (and sister!) of Zeus and is known as the Queen of Olympus. Hera is the goddess of marriage and family and thus represents structure, order, and commitment. If we think about research methods, it’s clear that highly structured and controlled research methods can yield reliable, consistent, and repeatable results. Product A/B tests are a great example of this. You focus on very specific aspects of the design, test them in a controlled manner, and repeat this test over and over with many users in order to yield the good empirical evidence.
In this kind of research method, we seek to understand the impact that changing one variable has on the user by strictly controlling all other variables. On the plus side, following this approach of making small changes and then carrying out A/B testing does tend to provide clear data (e.g. sign-up rates increased by 17% when we changed the call-to-action button label). However, this approach is limited, as (quite intentionally) you are only ever testing the impact of one small change at a time. There will likely be an almost infinite amount of other possible changes and ideas that you will likely never try.
In stark contrast to Hera, Dionysus was primarily known as the God of the vine — and therefore of wine and of drinking. Due to his notorious drunken revelry, Dionysus became known as the god of chaos and is also often portrayed as the Olympian who crosses boundaries between the civilized and uncivilized and known and unknown realms.
While we are not advocating for unbounded chaos, there is a sense in which user research does need to embrace some degree of both order and chaos. Sometimes you’ll need to plan very narrow, targeted research studies that hone in on one particular aspect, but at other times, carrying out broad, exploratory research will be exactly the right thing to do.
The tightly controlled, targeted research activities will often provide you with clear and reliable data — but you’ll typically only learn about the one narrow aspect you are focusing on. In contrast, running broader exploratory research is more likely to lead to you discovering new and unexpected findings by virtue of the fact that you are not controlling as much about the scenario.
In summary
Looking afresh at the Greek gods of Olympus, we’ve been reminded of several useful tips about conducting user research:
- Always keep the bigger picture in mind and be ready to go with the flow.
- Never stop battling for your users and remain inquisitive.
- Hunt out previous research to build upon and keep developing your research methods, strategy, and practices.
- Embrace structure and chaos, as there will likely be a mixture of both in any real user research work you do.
Many thanks, Jake and Toni, for sharing these fun but also insightful perspectives with the rest of us. You’re both modern-day UX heroes!
Arin Bhowmick (@arinbhowmick) is Vice President, Design at IBM based in San Francisco, California. The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
