Ikea researchers explore Kiwi homes before opening first NZ store Christine Gough, head of interior design at Ikea Australia, is one of 40 Ikea researchers visiting hundreds of Kiwi homes to gauge what products to stock in its Auckland mega store.

Whilst you’re shaping the problem space and then during the first diamond of understanding and defining which user needs to focus on, you should ideally get out of the lab or the office. When you have defined your solution and are iterating on it, that’s the best time to use your go to method — lab usability testing in a lot of cases, remote interviewing is mine. This is because you are likely needing cycles of quick feedback and iteration so you need a tried and trusted method so you can spin up a sprint of research quickly and efficiently. So how about when time and efficiency isn’t quite so important and the quality and depth of understanding or engagement of stakeholders are the key drivers? Here are some examples from my toolkit:

How many interviews are enough depends on when you reach saturation, which, in turn, depends on your research goals and the people you’re studying. To avoid doing more interviews than you need, start small and analyze as you go, so you can stop once you’re no longer learning anything new.

resources on diary studies

This idea, that five to eight users will reveal 85% of all usability problems, is an old myth. It’s not true. It’s never been true.

20 5-minute Speed interviews with super fans - Amy Jo Kim 1. Day in the life - walk me through the parts of your day with relevant activities 2. What's working with your current approach? What have you already tried to address your pain points? What's working best for you right now? 3. What could be better? What would you change?

At Dropbox, we’ve found that metaphors are a powerful tool to help people explore and share their experiences in more creative and meaningful ways. We use metaphors in research so people can talk about their experiences through a different lens. We can do this simply by inviting people to make a comparison through a single question. Or we can facilitate entire interviews by using tools to symbolize and explore meaning together.

Small, medium or large — what sample size of users fits your study is a composite question. The magic number of 5 users may work magic in some studies while in some it may not. It depends on the constraints put on by project requirements, assumptions about problem discoverability and implications to the design process. Assess these factors to determine the number of users for your study: What’s the nature and scope of research — is it exploratory or validatory? Who and what kind of users are you planning to study? What’s the budget and time to finish the study? Does your research involve presenting statistically significant numbers or inferring behavioural estimates for the problem statement?