{"id":537,"date":"2017-01-06T21:40:19","date_gmt":"2017-01-06T21:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danielleklein.ca\/?post_type=portfolio&p=537"},"modified":"2017-02-11T03:16:47","modified_gmt":"2017-02-11T03:16:47","slug":"user-research-mars-entrepreneurs-toolkit","status":"publish","type":"portfolio","link":"http:\/\/danielleklein.ca\/index.php\/portfolio\/user-research-mars-entrepreneurs-toolkit\/","title":{"rendered":"User Research: MaRS Entrepreneur’s Toolkit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Context<\/h2>\n

This year, I’m working on a Capstone project through the iSchool with two other UX students, Aditi Bhargava and Therese Owusu. The three of us are redesigning the MaRS Entrepreneur’s Toolkit<\/a>. We’re sharing posts about our progress on our Medium blog, UX in the 6ix<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An affinity diagram we created in our research sprint<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Problem<\/h2>\n

The purpose of the Toolkit is to support aspiring and early stage entrepreneurs in Ontario in launching and growing business ventures. MaRS decided to engage my team in a redesign to better leverage the high quality content the Toolkit currently provides.<\/p>\n

We started our project with a user research phase which had four key goals:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Usability: <\/b>What current issues exist with the MaRS Entrepreneur\u2019s Toolkit? What are current strengths of the MaRS Entrepreneur\u2019s Toolkit?<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Context: What are users\u2019 general attitudes towards online learning tools geared towards entrepreneurship?<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n
  3. Workflow: What are some past experiences users have with searching for resources online? How do entrepreneurs actually work<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n
  4. Opportunities: How could the online search process & resources be improved?<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Process<\/h2>\n

    Data collection<\/h3>\n
    \"Conducting
    Usability testing the MaRS Entrepreneur’s Toolkit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Heuristic evaluation:<\/strong>\u00a0Each designer conducted a heuristic evaluation of the product to identify usability issues and compare our findings.<\/p>\n

    Usability testing:\u00a0<\/strong>We ran usability tests on the toolkit with real users to identify usability issues and understand attitudes towards the product.<\/p>\n

    User interviews:\u00a0<\/strong>We conducted user interviews to research entrepreneur’s attitudes towards and experiences with searching for resources. Interviews consisted of a Q&A and a show-and-tell activity.<\/p>\n

    Analogous inspiration:\u00a0<\/strong>Analogous Inspiration is a method described in the IDEO Field Guide which involves designers immersing themselves in settings which resemble those of their users in order to better understand their experience. Each designer was assigned one or two analogous settings and provided with a scenario to research in that setting.<\/p>\n

    Research analysis sprint<\/h3>\n

    To analyse all the data we collected, we held a one-day sprint to quickly and efficiently review all our findings and extract insights. I wrote a full overview of the sprint on Medium<\/a>. Some key activities included:<\/p>\n

    \"We
    We started by writing all our insights on post-its which were colour-coded by the research method they came from.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

    Affinity mapping:<\/strong> With Beyonc\u00e9 blasting in the background, we went through all our research and wrote down insights on post-it notes. We then\u00a0looked for affinities among all our insights in order to articulate the key themes that emerged from our research.<\/p>\n

    Insight statements:\u00a0<\/strong>Reviewing our themes, we discussed what we found and rephrased them into short sentences. This allowed us to transform themes into concise, actionable insights.<\/p>\n

    Problem statement matrix:\u00a0<\/strong>For each persona developed, we created several problem statements. These allowed us to articulate our users\u2019 problems related to our product.<\/p>\n

    User stories:\u00a0<\/strong>We next took those problems and, at a high level, articulated how our product might solve those problems. We did so by creating user stories using a table with two columns: \u201cUser should be able to\u201d and \u201cso they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Personas<\/h3>\n

    We translated our users into three personas. View these personas in full size on xtensio: Molly<\/a>, Hrishi<\/a>, and Almeera.<\/a><\/p>\n