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Notes of Unconventional UX Researcher PDF

This document is a compilation of articles written by Indian UX researcher Santhosh Gandhi on topics related to design thinking, UX research, and systems thinking. It includes an introduction and table of contents, followed by chapters that discuss why design thinking is important, how systems thinking can help inform design thinking, and the value of understanding users' mental models and the system context around them. The goal is to provide simplified explanations of these concepts for managers, researchers, and students seeking to apply them in their work.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
168 views93 pages

Notes of Unconventional UX Researcher PDF

This document is a compilation of articles written by Indian UX researcher Santhosh Gandhi on topics related to design thinking, UX research, and systems thinking. It includes an introduction and table of contents, followed by chapters that discuss why design thinking is important, how systems thinking can help inform design thinking, and the value of understanding users' mental models and the system context around them. The goal is to provide simplified explanations of these concepts for managers, researchers, and students seeking to apply them in their work.

Uploaded by

Abata Joshua
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 93

Notes of

Unconventional
UX Researcher
Compilation of articles on Design Thinking,
UX Research, and Systems Thinking written by
Indian UX Researcher Santhosh Gandhi.

SANTHOSH GANDHI
DEDICATION

Dedicate this book to UX Community, My family, and


the following people Dr.Balaramadurai,
Dr.Cassie Kozyrkov, Dr.Derek Cabrera,
Dr.Susan Silbey, Uthra Lakshmi, Varun Anbarasu,
Neelanjan Sinha, Jahnavi Mirashi, Anand Yadav,
Kasa Samanth , Vasudha Shah, and Aona yang!
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments i

PART 1- Design Thinking

1 Why Design Thinking is 1


Important?

2 How does Systems Thinking help 6


Design Thinking?

3 Why Understanding Collective 13


Intelligence is important in the
Design Thinking Framework?

4 Futures Thinking and Design 19


Thinking (Future Proof)

5 Decision intelligence and Design 27


thinking

PART 2 - UX Researcher

6 Why UX Researcher = Ancient 42


Spy?

7 Methods for UX Researchers 45

8 Being Freelance UX Researcher 65


9 Things you need to know before 67
Conducting UX Research in India

10 Similarities Between Techniques 73


used in UX Research and
Filmmaking.

Sources & References 81

6
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In this book, I have tried to share my knowledge &


perspectives related to Design Thinking in a simplified
way for Managers, Researchers, and Students who want to
implement these approaches in their work process.
PART I

Design Thinking
1. Why Design Thinking is
Important?
People are not rational actors. Many of you know,
brands like Apple, Nike, or whatever, and people pay
more for those things. Why are they paying more for
that? It’s just that the value that’s being derived is not
on the quantitative column, But on the qualitative
column.

The above product adds something valuable to their


life which can be subjective to every individual.
People dont buy physical products they actually buy
mental outcomes which they receive via those
products. And that’s the process of design thinking,
but it requires reframing your mindset because you
never really know what people need and react to.

Basically, Design Thinking is nothing but a roadmap


to humanizing the products, it is a human-centered
approach to product building that is anchored in
understanding users/customers. It is a process for
essentially understanding your user’s needs,
motivation, goals, and context without any bias. It is
not just assumptions made using sticky notes sitting in
a room.

By using design thinking, you make decisions based


on what customers/users really want instead of relying
only on historical data or making risky bets based on
instinct instead of evidence.

1
In Nutshell, Design thinking brings together “what is
desirable from a human point of view with what is
technologically feasible and economically viable”

What exactly is ‘Desirability’? It is not quantitative


data. It is a subjective experience that includes three
main things: sensations, emotions, and thoughts. At
any moment those experience is built by everything
we sense (heat, pleasure, tension, etc.), every emotion
we feel (love, fear, anger, etc.), and whatever thoughts
we rise in our minds. The flow of the user’s subjective
experiences when they interact with a product is
known as User Experience.

Good User Experience means when the user interacts


with technology, they can do what they want to do
and need to do without difficulty and without any
frustration.

2
Design Thinking

To provide a good user experience, the products and


services should be designed in a way to fit the needs
of users.

To design a better user experience, there is a need for


a thorough understanding of users, their needs, goals,
the context in which they will interact with the
product, and how well the product caters to their
needs. The process done for this kind of deeper
understanding of the user is known as User
Experience Research (UXR).

The objective of UXR is to understand everything


relevant between the User and the Product. It’s a
general awareness of the user, not only their needs,
wants, and motivations but also their environment,
what it looks like, sounds like, feels like, and more.
UXR allows product builders to take a critical look at
what they’re creating and figure out whether or not
it’ll generate the desired outcome because we all don’t
have the same mental model.

All don’t Have the Same Mental Model

A mental model is a simulation in one’s mind about


how something works in the real world. There are two
kinds of mental models to consider. System models
and interaction models. System models are models of
how things work. Interaction models are models of
how to use or interact with something.

3
Product builders will have strong system models but
typically have weak interaction models. For example,
Generally, Programmers know how exactly their
software applications work computationally but they
do not exactly understand how other people will use
and understand their software application. Vice versa
Users can develop very strong interaction models but
typically have weak system models. For example, a
person can be a great best PC game player but have
no idea how it computationally works and is made.

From a systems model point of view, Product builders


will think they had made the best product and it will
work, but if their product violates the well-established
conventional interaction model and then the result
will be a bad user experience.

There will be always a natural Gap between the


product builder’s system model and the user’s
interaction model.

We can build bridge the gap between these two groups


by deducing the interaction model of the user. If
product builders understand the mental model of the
user, then they can alter their system model
accordingly.

One of the biggest motivations to employ the design


thinking methodology is that it can help save
development costs and time because it helps product
builders that they are building the right thing which is
well resonating with users.

4
Design Thinking

From the business perspective, understanding the user


interaction model prevents mistakes in the design
stage itself and so reworks after deployment can be
prevented. From a competitive perspective, new
opportunities can be discovered. Understanding the
Interaction model uncovers the user's true needs, so
one can put his valuable time & effort only on
features valuable to users. So Product builders can
earn more passionate customers.

5
2. How does Systems Thinking
help Design Thinking?

What is a System?
A system is a group of elements that are
interconnected and interact with each other in which
changing one part of the system affects other parts and
the whole system, with predictable patterns of
behavior.

6
Design Thinking

What is Systems Thinking?

Systems thinking is a holistic approach to analysis


that focuses on the way “how elements in a system are
interrelated?” and “How does this interconnectedness
of different elements synthesize to create a new effect
in the system over time?”

In Traditional Thinking, we analyze by dissection of


complexity into manageable components. Analysis
fits into the mechanical and reductionist worldview,
where the world is broken down into parts.

But all systems are dynamic and often complex; thus,


we need a more holistic approach to understanding
any phenomena.

Systems mapping is one of the key tools of the


systems thinker. There are many ways to map, from
analog cluster mapping to complex digital feedback

7
analysis. However, the fundamental principles and
practices of systems mapping are universal.

Identify and map the elements of ‘things’ within a


system to understand how they interconnect, relate,
and act in a complex system, and from here, unique
insights and discoveries can be used to develop
interventions, shifts, or policy decisions that will
dramatically change the system most effectively.

Systems thinking facilitates a shift in mindset, away


from linear to circular. The fundamental principle of
this shift is that everything is interconnected.

While Design thinking is anchored on understanding


customers’ needs, System Thinking helps to
understand the whole system which influences the
customer.

In Design Thinking, research is done to understand


the user’s mindset, In Which a lot of effort has been
taken to understand the context of the user.

Systems thinking allows a researcher to understand


multiple levels of factors that affect the user.

The customer’s world is a system that is mappable


and from there can be found the root cause(s) of their
pain points, problems, and needs.

8
Design Thinking

Example: The image above typically shows the


various first and second-order causes of Traffic
violations in Chennai city. It is created by me for one
of my projects which is done for understanding the
favorable context of the traffic violation. From this
diagram, you can notice varieties of elements like
socio-cultural, environmental, demographic,
technology are interconnected to a traffic violation.

Like the above example, Essentially, everything is


reliant upon something else for something.

Humans need food, air, and water to sustain their


bodies, and trees need carbon dioxide and sunlight to
thrive. Inanimate objects are also reliant on other
things: a chair needs a tree to grow to provide its
wood, and a cell phone needs electricity distribution
to power it.

9
So, when we say ‘everything is interconnected’ from
systems thinking perspective in understanding the
user. We not isolating the user from the context.

The clarity one gets by using systems mapping is


enormous. It gives a broader view. It will highly
helpful for researchers while they construct theory,
write recommendations, and do analyses with
qualitative data.

I would recommend using a systems map in any


foundational research.

Archetype from movies that are loosely


based on these concepts!
(Experts can skip it, it is mainly for students & newcomers)

Let's Consider, Marvel Cinematic Universe =


System

10
Design Thinking

Each Marvel Movies = Elements (Like Ironman 1 is


one element, Avengers Endgame as one element)

All elements are interlinked in a system = Storyplot of


all movies are Interlinked & Interconnected.

Consuming this whole set of movies, having a clear


overview understanding of all characters, overall story
plot & each subplot is Systems Thinking.

11
In the same Marvel Universe,

Ironman’s close superhero friend Warmachine was


paralyzed by falling from the sky. And once Ironman
had to make a fire to make him warm after he fell into
the deep sea.

Understanding these pain points from past & present


experiences of other superheroes, Ironman designed a
user-centered superhero suit for novice superhero
spiderman with a parachute to avoid falling from the
sky and a heater to get warmer after falling into the
sea. This is Design Thinking.

12
3. Why Understanding
Collective Intelligence is
important in the Design
Thinking Framework?

What is Collective Intelligence?


Collective intelligence (CI) is shared or group
intelligence that emerges from the collaboration,
collective efforts, and competition of many
individuals and appears in consensus
decision-making.

13
Wisdom of the Crowds

Case Study 1: In 1907, Sir Francis Galton (English


Victorian era polymath) asked 787~800 villagers to
guess the weight of an ox. None of them got the right
answer, but when Galton averaged their guesses, he
arrived at a near-perfect estimate.

This is a classic demonstration of the “wisdom of the


crowds”, where groups of people pool their abilities
to show collective intelligence. Galton’s story has
been told and re-told, with endless variations on the
theme. If you don’t have an ox handy, you can try it
yourself with beans in a jar.

Case Study 2: Ian Couzin (British scientist, Expert in


Collective Behaviour) has found an example of a
more exciting type of collective intelligence — where
a group solves a problem that none of its members are
even aware of. Simply by moving together, the

14
Design Thinking

members of the group gain new abilities that they


lack as individuals.

It is interesting that our individual intelligence can be


boosted significantly just by the simple act of
collaboration with other individuals. It is not even
needed to be a direct collaboration, where the people
know each other.

Collective intelligence is an emergent intelligence


arising from the conscious/unconscious collaboration
of many people.

From the above case studies, it is evident that


Collective intelligence (or CI) is a phenomenon that
has long existed and evolved in human cultures.

Especially in this Fourth Industrial Revolution,


Facilitated by Internet technology, CI has emerged as
a powerful, economical, human resource.

15
Some of the best-known internet-based Direct CI
applications, (often referred to as crowdsourcing)
including Wikipedia and Github, involve hundreds of
thousands of participants interacting, collaborating,
and learning with each other.

We can social media platforms like Facebook,


Twitter, LinkedIn, etc as Indirect CI applications.
Most of you would be aware that Many job aspirants
of UX Design, Data Science & ML, etc learn about
their field from their Industry seniors by
direct/indirect communication via social media
platforms.

Immediately, it might look like one individual person


“A” learning from“B”. But the reality is that
Individual person “A” is knowingly/unknowingly
influenced by many people/factors in that Group or
Community.

Understanding the context of the user is the primary


job of a UX researcher.

Qualitative UX Research is not only about collecting


user feedback & opinions. (What do users say?)It is
more about understanding the user’s mental model
(Why do users say? How do actually users do?) and
also about understanding the context, and customs of
the target user population.

We are not building products for individuals, we are


building products for a Community of like-minded

16
Design Thinking

people. And Individual users are more likely always


directly/indirectly influenced by the community he
belongs to mentally & physically.

So the more you learn about the community’s


practices & preferences, the more you understand the
context of the user. This understanding will help you
to build more user-centric products across your target
user population.

Collective Intelligence in B2B UX Research


The importance of Understanding Collective
Intelligence is very relevant in B2B products than in
B2C products.

From the above case studies, we are aware that


“Whenever any group of people unknowingly/
knowingly collaborate for some objective, there will
be the emergence of shared intelligence across every
group member which might individually lack”

Also, you need to be aware of these facts,

1. The highest collective intelligence emerges from


groups made up of diverse opinions and beliefs acting
independently.

2. Strong, authoritative, or social influences within a


group affect its collective intelligence.

17
So in spite of the existence/non-existence of
technologies, a particular community working
together will always have its own Collective
Intelligence (practices, workflows & beliefs) that
would be followed across that community. And it is
likely to be influenced by strong, authoritative
factors/players in that system.

Also in B2B, the buyers will primarily buy the


product that helps achieve their organization’s
business goals, and that product will be used by many
stakeholders across the organization.

So to build a B2B product for a certain


community/domain (Ex: Designer, Academic
Researcher, Civil Engineering), you need to
understand the customs, traditions, and unwritten
rules of that community/domain which are practiced
by different stakeholders in that community.

18
4. Futures Thinking and Design
Thinking (Future Proof)

What is Future Thinking?

Future thinking is a future-centered approach to


Long-term strategy which is anchored in
understanding the driving factors and context of
different possible scenarios that could happen in the
future, creating future artifacts, and generating
creative ideas that will enhance the way you do
strategy for products, services, processes, and
organizations.

By using Futures thinking, you will have a forward


view to avoid future shocks and create disruptive
innovations.

19
Examples of situations where Future Thinking will be
highly useful:

● A CEO looking to lead their company into the


future and to avoid being disrupted by new
technologies or competitors. What should the
company start doing differently, to survive
shifts and disruptions in the marketplace?

● An entrepreneur inventing a new service for a


changing world. What kinds of help will
people need in the future, that no one else has
created a way to provide yet?

20
Design Thinking

Future thinking methodology foresight multiple


scenarios in which, what is desirable from a human
point of view with what is technologically feasible
and economically viable in the future.

● Desirability in the Future: What makes sense


to people and for people in the future?
● Technological Feasibility in the Future: What
could be technically possible in the future?
● Economic Viability in the Future: What could
likely become part of a sustainable business
model in the future?

21
Steps Involved in Futures Thinking

1. Choose a specific Future: Inspire your team


to choose a specific future that is directly
related to your product, service, process, and
organization.

2. Gather Future Signals: Identify the events


(Inventions, Discovery, Policies, Startup, etc)
in the recent past that have a greater
probability to affect your chosen future.

3. Look Back History: Identify the events in


history that directly affected the field of your
chosen future and signal.

4. Find Drivers: Identify the drivers of your


signals that belong to you. Eg: If the “2021
Western North America heatwave” is a signal,
then climate change is a driver. If
“Neurograins” is a signal, then
Brain-Computer Interface and “Cyborgs” are
drivers.

5. Create Future Scenarios: Based on the


drivers & signals, Simulate multiple possible
scenarios that could happen in the future
which explore Insights like advancements,
changes, supports & constraints in your
chosen field.

6. Generate Ideas: Use the scenarios which you

22
Design Thinking

simulated to help to come up with a fresh


long-term strategy, vision, and future artifacts.

7. Share the Story: Once you’ve arrived at the


right strategy, vision, and future artifact then
share the story to introduce it to your
colleagues, clients, and customers.

Future thinking is subject to iteration. So If necessary


Iterate Scenarios according to newly gathered signals.

Why do we need Futures Thinking in the Design


Thinking Framework?

Future thinking focuses more on macro forces, and


Design Thinking focuses less on macro forces. To
make future-proof products we need to focus on
macro forces also.

Because the future is becoming more important to the


present than it has ever been. We have now entered an
era in which the pace of change is accelerating
rapidly. At the same time, the scale of impending

23
change is increasing. Therefore, the risks and
opportunities that confront us justify expanded efforts
to lead, rather than be led by, the course of events.

Conventional strategies may not be able to prevent


this disparity or contain its consequences, without first
acquiring a better understanding of its complex
causes. So there is a need for a systematic effort

1. To explore important future alternatives for


your organization, product, services, and
process.

2. To ascertain which among these possible


futures appears to be more desirable than
others, and why.

3. To seek means by which the probability of


their occurring

In my perspective, Design Thinking and Futures


Thinking are complementary to each other. Futures
Thinking paves the way for quality long-term strategy.
It helps get future-proof product insights.

Insights from Future thinking can be employed in


Design Thinking. Same way Insights from Design
Thinking can be employed in Futures Thinking. As an
Industry researcher, I see both these approaches will
be helpful for strategists and designers to create
successful valuable products & services.

24
Design Thinking

Futures Thinking Vs Design Thinking

25
Movie Example for Futures Thinking:
In the Marvel movie series, Ironman understood the
context of one of the possible scenarios where he dies,
so he wanted to safeguard his teenage mentee
spiderman.

So he created E.D.I.T.H (AR glasses that have access


to arsenals & drones) that will help spiderman in very
adverse situations. E.D.I.T.H is the result of future
thinking done by ironman.

26
5. Decision intelligence and
Design thinking

5.1 What is Decision Intelligence?

Decision intelligence is both a very new and also a


very old discipline. Many of its elements such as the
language of assessing assumptions, using logic to
support an argument, the necessity of critical thinking
to evaluate a decision, and understanding the impacts
of bias are ancient.

Yet the realization that these elements can form a


coherent whole that provides significant benefits to
organizations by focusing on a common methodology
is relatively new.

Cassie Kozyrkov, the chief decision scientist at


Google, describes Decision Intelligence as a new
academic discipline concerned with all aspects of
selecting between options.

27
It brings together the best of applied decision theory,
data science, social science, and managerial science
into a unified field that helps people use data to
improve their lives, their businesses, and the world
around them.

It’s a vital science for the AI era, covering the skills


needed to lead AI projects responsibly and design
objectives, metrics, and safety nets for automation at
scale.

“Decision intelligence is the discipline of turning


information into better actions at any scale”

28
Design Thinking

Overview of Decision Intelligence Concept


(Subject to Improvement)

29
One can also see decision intelligence as Managerial
Science augmented by applied decision science and
data science.

1. Managerial Science

Managerial science is the broad interdisciplinary


study of problem-solving and decision-making in
human organizations.

30
Design Thinking

And it is concerned more with designing, developing,


and applying new and better decision models of
organizational excellence in all aspects.

Managerial science research can be done on three


levels
● The fundamental level lies in three
mathematical disciplines: probability,
optimization, and dynamical systems theory.

● The modeling level is about building models,


analyzing them mathematically, gathering and
analyzing data, implementing models on
computers, solving them, and experimenting
with them — all this is part of management
science research on the modeling level. This
level is mainly instrumental and driven mainly
by statistics and econometrics.
● The application level, just as in any other
engineering and economics discipline, strives
to make a practical impact and be a driver for
change in the real world.
What if this model construction is empowered by
applied decision science & data science, then one call
this Decision Intelligence.

2. Decision Science

While most fields of research focus on producing new


knowledge, decision science is uniquely concerned
with making optimal choices based on available
information. The disciplines making up the qualitative

31
side have traditionally been referred to as the decision
sciences.

Decision science seeks to make plain the scientific


issues and value judgments underlying these decisions
and to identify tradeoffs that might accompany any
particular action or inaction.

32
Design Thinking

The decision sciences concern themselves with


questions like

● “How should you set up decision criteria and


design your metrics?” (All)
● “Is your chosen metric incentive-compatible?”
(Economics)
● “What quality should you make this decision
at and how much should you pay for perfect
information?” (Decision analysis)
● “How do emotions, heuristics, and biases play
into decision-making?” (Psychology)
● “How do biological factors like cortisol levels
affect decision-making?” (Neuroeconomics)
● “How does changing the presentation of
information influence choice behavior?”
(Behavioral Economics)
● “How do you optimize your outcomes when
making decisions in a group context?”
(Experimental Game Theory)
● “How do you balance numerous constraints
and multistage objectives in designing the
decision context?” (Design)
● “Who will experience the consequences of the
decision and how will various groups perceive
that experience?” (UX Research)
● “Is the decision objective ethical?”
(Philosophy)

It also includes decision analysis, risk analysis,


cost-benefit, and cost-effectiveness analysis,
constrained optimization, simulation modeling, and

33
behavioral decision theory, as well as parts of
operations research, microeconomics, statistical
inference, management control, cognitive and social
psychology, and computer science.

3. Data Science

Data science is an interdisciplinary field that uses


scientific methods, processes, algorithms, and systems
to extract knowledge and insights from noisy,
structured, and unstructured data, and apply
knowledge and actionable insights from data across a
broad range of application domains.

Data science is related to data mining, machine


learning, and big data. Since It is a hot topic in today's
time, I don't want to explain much.

But I like to dig Machine Learning, n the traditional


programming approach, As a computer programmer

34
Design Thinking

will write the rules that tell a computer exactly how to


solve a specific problem. And the programmer would
think hard about the inputs and the outputs,
communicate with the universe, channel inspiration,
and finally handcraft a model which is a recipe or a
set of instructions your computer has to follow to turn
inputs into outputs.

ML is Labelling of Stuff Using Examples.


Machine learning is a new programming paradigm, a
new way of communicating your wishes to a
computer. Simply, It is the idea that there are generic
ML algorithms that can structure & label a set of data
without you having to write any custom code specific
to the problem.

Instead of writing code, you feed examples. Machine


learning algorithms will figure out how to perform
important tasks by generalizing from examples.

It is all about fitting a function to examples and using


that function to generalize and make predictions about
new examples.

Machine Learning Engineer will take care of building


the ML algorithms. As a Quantitative UX Researcher
& Data Scientist, you need to make use of these ML
algorithms to turn data into Actionable Insights.

35
Why do we need decision Intelligence?

Humans are not optimizers, we’re satisficers. Many


business leaders don’t think they require science for
decision-making and also they think they’re being
data-driven when they look at a number, form an
opinion, and execute their decision. Unfortunately,
such a decision will be “data-inspired” at best.

Data-inspired decision-making is where we swim


around in some numbers, eventually reach an
emotional tipping point, and then decide. There were
numbers near that decision somewhere, but those
numbers didn’t drive the decision. The decision came
from somewhere else entirely. It was there all along in
the unconscious biases of the decision-maker.

To be truly data-driven, order matters! You need to


frame the decision model context upfront, then you
need to collect data.

Now you are able to sense the scope of application of


Managerial Science, Decision Science, and Data
Science which I discussed earlier in this article.

Decision Science is Important To Your Organization


as much as Data Science. It focuses on finding
insights and relationships via statistics.

36
Design Thinking

Decision Science is looking to find insights as they


relate to the decision at hand. Many businesses that
invest in data science teams then load their plate with
decision science problems. So it is clear that at some
point in time considering both decision science and
data science while building decision models will
become inevitable.

The umbrella term for all this process together is


Decision Intelligence. Simply, Decision intelligence is
the discipline of turning information into better
actions at any scale.

Computers are the ultimate reliable workers. They do


only what they are told. No more and no less. They
don’t think for themselves. They don’t think at all!
They don’t want anything except what you told them
to want.

Machine learning and AI are so powerful. Unlike


traditional programming, they allow you to solve a
problem even if you can’t think up the solution’s steps
yourself. AI allows you to automate what you can’t
express.

In the Decision Intelligence model, Data & Insights


collected from quantitative and qualitative research
will be used for applied AI purposes. Simply Decision
Intelligence is a lever that scales the wishes of human
decision-makers.

We need to learn to think from systems thinking

37
perspective to understand this kind of
multidisciplinary field and its benefits.

Empowering Design Thinking via Decision


Intelligence

Traditionally Design thinking has more relied on


qualitative research. But due to the internet revolution
and abundance of data. The role of quantitative
research becomes vital now.

Bringing actionable Insights by Triangulating


Insights from Qualitative data and Quantitative
data without any bias is a herculean task. That's
where decision intelligence plays a crucial role.

Clustering of data is a very important task in Design


Thinking. After turning large sets of data into clusters.
One can draw connections between these individual
clusters to join the dots and develop new and deeper
insights.

38
Design Thinking

They will help define the problems and develop


potential ideas for solutions. In other words, you go
from analysis to synthesis.

Affinity Mapping is the name for this clustering


activity in Design Thinking.

Affinity Mapping is mostly done manually, It has its


own limitations when comes to Quantitative Data. It
will take more time and effort. Also, It is most
preferred for qualitative data.

But The amount of data generated by machines and


humans are mind-boggling and it’s growing faster
than it ever has. According to IBM, 90% of the data
ever created was created in the last two years.
Imagine, all the power that exists in that data.

But do you think manually clustering & structuring all


this huge amount of data is feasible?

If your answer is Yes, I appreciate your confidence. If


your answer is No, Then Welcome to the world of
Machine Learning & Decision Intelligence.

Machine Learning basically automates the process of


Data Analysis and makes data-informed predictions in
real-time without any human intervention. A Data
Model is built automatically and further trained to
make real-time predictions. This is where the Machine
Learning Algorithms become very useful in the
Design Thinking Cycle.

39
Machine Learning Models which are trained on
Customer Behaviour, Past Purchases, Browsing
History, and any other behavioral information about
consumers will be highly helpful in understanding
complex user problems and also useful in delivering
powerful User-Centric solutions.

So again Design Thinking is a human-centered


approach where decisions are taken in a way that
outputs are aligning with human desired choices and
behaviors. Similarly, Decision Intelligence is a
decision-centered approach that helps the
decision-makers to analyze, make & implement those
decisions that are aligning with customers desired
choices and behaviors.

“Decision Intelligence makes you and your systems


smarter only when they are performed properly”

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PART II

UX Researcher

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6. Why UX Researcher is equal to


Ancient Spy?
In ancient times, Kings used spies for collecting public
opinion to understand reality like the needs, wants, and
problems of the people.

Because many clever kings know most of the people in


the palace will do eulogy and their opinion will be
highly biased. So to make a good decision they need to
understand the reality. For these works, spies were
used.

Similarly, UX Researchers will bring very unbiased


opinions collected from Target users to the product
team like the needs, wants, goals, and pains of the user.

UX Researchers, not only just collect opinions, but they


also analyze the data and share the result in an unbiased
and structured way.

Good UX Research will enable you to make good


design decisions. If you are a manager, be a clever king,
and avoid Eulogy. Seek constructive criticism and talk
with your most dissatisfied customer.

Researching users’ relationships with products is User


Experience Research.

If UX Researcher = SPY, Then UX Designer = COP

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First, UX Researchers ≠ UX Designers

I have seen many companies still have misunderstood


these roles interchangeably.

UX researchers systematically study target users to


collect and analyze data that will help inform the
product design process.

UX designers create satisfying or compelling


experiences for users of a product, often drawing on
results from user research and workflow analysis.
Basically, they are solution providers.

Both the UX researcher and designer are expected to


have a common ground and understanding.

However, the roles are different in the same way that a


Spy differs from Cop. Both fight against crime. But
different in a way that spy concentrates on Research
and Analysis, collecting secret information. And cop
with or without the information collected by spies, they
will try to solve the problem and maintain law & order
by catching criminals.

With the information collected by spies, it is always


easy for the cop to maintain law and order or catch
criminals. They will not waste their time investigating
others.

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In the same way, with the help of UX researchers, the


work of UX Designers will be close to accurate. UX
designers will not waste their time designing irrelevant
features for the user and it will not be a work of
assumption.

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7. Methods for UX Researchers


Selecting UX Research methods should depend on the
research questions of the project. And the UX Research
questions vary according to the different phases of the
product development. These are the different phases of
product development.

1. Discovery Phase
2. Design Phase
3. Delivery Phase,

However, practically UX Research methods are


selected based on the budget and requirements of the
client or product management team.

1. Discovery Phase
We basically do foundational research in this phase to
help with product strategy. By doing quantitative and
qualitative research, we can understand the needs,
goals, preferences, motivations, and behaviors of
different persons in the population sample.
Operationalization of qualitative concepts and
grouping, and sampling of quantitative data play a
major role here to give true Insight.

● Field study: It refers to research that is


undertaken in the real world, where the confines
of a laboratory setting are abandoned in favor of
a natural setting. This form of research generally

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prohibits the direct manipulation of the


environment by the researcher.

● Diary study: It is a research method that


collects qualitative information by having
participants record entries about their everyday
lives in a log, diary, or journal about the activity
or experience being studied.

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● User interview: It is typically performed with


the potential users of a design, as part of a
Discovery phase or during early concept
development. User interviews follow a
structured methodology whereby the interviewer
prepares a number of topics to cover, makes a
record of what is said in the interview, and
systematically analyzes the conversation after
the interview.

● Stakeholder interview: It is a one-on-one


conversation with people who have a vested
interest in the success of the product you’re
working on. A stakeholder is anyone within an
organization who can offer useful advice about
the product and ultimately help simplify the
design process.

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● Competitive analysis: It is an assessment of the


strengths and weaknesses of current and
potential competitors. This analysis provides
both an offensive and defensive UX strategic
context to identify opportunities and threats.

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● Persona building: It is building fictional


characters based upon your research in order to
represent the different user types that might use
your service, product, site, or brand in a similar
way. Creating personas will help you to
understand your users’ needs, experiences,
behaviors, and goals.

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● Journey mapping: It is a visualization of the


process that a person goes through in order to
accomplish a goal. In its most basic form,
journey mapping starts by compiling a series of
user actions into a timeline. Next, the timeline is
fleshed out with user thoughts and emotions in
order to create a narrative. This narrative is
condensed and polished, ultimately leading to a
visualization.

2. Design Phase
In this phase, we do research to validate the design
decisions. It will be mostly qualitative. Like by showing
wireframes, design prototypes, and MVP to users and
collecting their opinions for validation & enhancing the
existing design system.

Methods like surveys & desirability studies that collect


quantitative data can be also used here.

● User story: It is a short, simple description of a


feature told from the perspective of the person
who desires the new capability, usually a user or
customer of the system. This typically follows a
simple template: As a < type of user >, I want <
some goal > so that < some reason >.

● Card sorting: It is a method used to help design


or evaluate the information architecture of a site.
In a card sorting session, participants organize
topics into categories that make sense to them
and they may also help you label these groups.

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● Design review: It is a usability inspection


method in which (usually) one reviewer
examines a design to identify usability
problems. The phrase “design review” is a broad
term that encompasses several methods of
inspection in each, the level of inspection varies
depending on who is doing the review and the
review’s goals.

Common types of design reviews include

Heuristic evaluation: a type of design review in which


the design is evaluated for compliance with a set of
heuristics such as Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Usability
Heuristics.

Standalone design critique: a design review in which

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an in-progress design is analyzed (usually as a group


conversation) to determine whether it meets its
objectives and provides a good experience.

Expert review: a design review in which a UX expert


inspects a system (such as a website or application, or a
section therein) to check for possible usability issues.
The distinction between heuristic evaluations and
expert reviews is blurry in many organizations, and it’s
okay to think of an expert review as a more general
version of a heuristic evaluation.

● Prototype feedback & testing (clickable or


paper prototypes): It is the process of testing
your prototype with real users to validate design
decisions before development starts. The goal is
to identify problems and areas of improvement
early so you can make the necessary changes
prior to development and build a product that
meets users’ needs and expectations.

3. Delivery Phase
In this phase, the product will be used by its target
users. So the team can get user activity data. and create
insights from it. Here it will be more quantitative. For
attitudinal Insights, we can use methods like usability
testing which will collect qualitative data.

● Usability testing (in-person or remote): It


refers to evaluating a product or service by

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testing it with representative users. Typically,


during a test, participants will try to complete
typical tasks while observers watch, listen, and
takes notes. The goal is to identify any usability
problems, collect qualitative and quantitative
data and determine the participant’s satisfaction
with the product.

● Accessibility evaluation: It is a subset of


Usability Testing performed to ensure that the
application being tested is usable by people with
disabilities like hearing, color blindness, old
age, and other disadvantaged groups.
● Survey: UX surveys collect customer feedback
to help you make sense of user behavior — they
give you insight into how people are
experiencing your product, in their own words,
so you can learn what works and what doesn’t
and prioritize changes to improve UX.
● Benchmark testing: It refers to evaluating a
product or service’s user experience by using
metrics to gauge its relative performance against
a meaningful standard. Benchmarking involves
collecting quantitative data that describes the
experience. For example, we might collect any
of the following UX metrics: Average time to
make a purchase, Numbers of clicks on a
Submit button, The success rate for application
completion, Average ease-of-use rating for
creating an account, The eight-week retention
rate for an app (percentage of users continuing
to use the app after eight weeks)

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What is Quantitative UX Research? (For Beginners)

Quantitative UX research is the research strategy that


focuses on quantifying the collection and analysis of
numerical data. It can be used to find patterns and
averages, make predictions, test causal relationships,
and generalize results to wider populations.

Why do we need Quantitative UX Research?

Many product companies focus on qualitative research


to understand their user experience. However, when
comes to understanding user behavior on a larger scale,
quantitative UX research is inevitable.

Also, quants research makes sure that the


insights/results you derived in primary research &
secondary research are not likely to occur randomly or
by chance but instead likely to be caused by a specific
reason/factor. (i.e Statistical Significance)

Overview of Typical UX Research Questions and


their Quantitative Research Approaches.

1. How do people interact with Technology?


● Funnel Analysis
● Sequence analysis/Longitudinal Log
Analysis

2. What type of people uses certain technology?


What is difficult for these people to do with a

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certain technology?`
● Clustering/Classification methods

3. What are people’s attitudes and perceptions of


certain technology? How do different designs
affect attitude/thoughts and behavior?

● Sentiment & Intent analysis


● A/B testing

4. How can we add value and improve people’s


lives with technology?
● Data-driven prioritization of needs &
objectives

● Funnel Analysis: The term ‘funnel analysis’


comes from the analogy with a physical kitchen
or garage funnel, which gets narrower along its
length, allowing less volume to pass through it.
Similarly, an analytics funnel helps visualize
how a large number of individuals enter the
funnel, yet only a small proportion of them will
perform the intended actions and reach the end
goal on a website, eCommerce platform,
application, or online game.

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By continuously monitoring and analyzing


funnels, it is possible to assess if changes to an
application or platform are having a positive
effect on conversion. Because it helps determine
the point at which users are dropping off. The
next step is to understand why they’re dropping
off, in order to reduce drop-off rates and in turn
increase overall conversion.

● Sequence Analysis: In social sciences,


sequence analysis (SA) is concerned with the
analysis of sets of categorical sequences that
typically describe longitudinal data.

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Analyzed sequences are encoded representations


of, for example, individual life trajectories such
as family formation, school to work transitions,
working careers, but they may also describe
daily or weekly time use or represent the and
evolution of observed or self-reported health,
political behaviors, or the development stages of
organizations.

The image on the last page projects Typical


American family life sequences. First, they stay
with their parents, then they left home, then
married, then they get a child, then so on.

SA is a longitudinal analysis approach that is


holistic in the sense that it considers each

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sequence as a whole. SA is essentially


exploratory. Broadly, SA provides a
comprehensible overall picture of sets of
sequences with the objective of characterizing
the structure of the set of sequences, finding the
salient characteristics of groups, identifying
typical paths, comparing groups, and more
generally studying how the sequences are
related to covariates such as sex, birth cohort, or
social origin.

● Clustering/classification methods: Clustering


and classification are machine learning methods
for finding the similarities — and differences —
in a set of data or documents. These methods
can be used for such tasks as grouping products
in a product catalog, finding cohorts of similar
customers, or aggregating sets of documents by
topic, team, or office.

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Classifications take a set of data that you’ve


already manually analyzed and labeled and use
that to train a learning model to then examine a
set of new data. This is called supervised
learning. Clustering, on the other hand, doesn’t
require an existing data set that’s been labeled
by humans but still tries to find the groupings
and differences in the data. This is called
unsupervised learning.

Without clustering algorithms and classification


techniques, the Analysis of large data sets
becomes watered down and non-specific, then
researchers have to spend too much time
manually adjusting relevancy and precision. Let
machine learning do the work so you can focus
your time and resources where they matter most.

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● Sentiment & Intent analysis: Sentiment


analysis is contextual mining of text which
identifies and extracts subjective information in
the source material and helps a business to
understand the social sentiment of their brand,
product, or service while monitoring online
conversations.

With the recent advances in deep learning, the


ability of algorithms to analyze text has
improved considerably. The creative use of
advanced artificial intelligence techniques can
be an effective tool for doing in-depth research.

As a Quantitative UX researcher, it is important


to classify incoming customer conversations
about a brand based on the following lines:

● Key aspects of a brand’s product and


service that customers care about.

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● Users’ underlying intentions and


reactions concerning those aspects.

These basic concepts when used in combination,


become a very important tool for analyzing
millions of brand conversations with
human-level accuracy. In the post, we take the
example of Uber and demonstrate how this
works.

Sentiment & Intent Analysis focuses on


analyzing an incoming message and tells
whether the underlying sentiment is positive,
negative, or neutral and also the user’s intention
behind a message and identifying whether it
relates to an opinion, news, marketing,
complaint, suggestion, appreciation, or query.

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● A/B testing: A/B testing is a user experience


research methodology of comparing multiple
versions of a feature, a page, a button, headline,
page structure, form, landing page, navigation,
pricing, etc. by showing the different versions to
customers or prospective customers and
assessing the quality of interaction by some
metric (Click-through rate, purchase, following
any call to action, etc.). Instead of choosing a
feature that you think might work, you can use
an A/B test to know what works. This is
becoming increasingly important in a
data-driven world where business decisions
need to be backed by facts and numbers.

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8. Being Freelance UX
Researcher
Based on my experience working as Freelance UX
Researcher, I have shared my pointers here.

Advantages of Being a Freelance UX Researcher

1. I am not personally attached to any brand. I care


only about the usability of the product and the
mental models of the User.

2. Open License for constructive Criticism. People


collaborate with me exclusively for this.
(Especially no ego clashes, I have heard in some
big firms, product & design teams prefer to do
their user research by themselves instead of
collaborating with the existing UX Research
Team)

3. Understanding different set of users in different


domains in a short time with different business
goals is absolutely a great ride. Also, make me
more unbiased.
4. You get exposure to a lot of industries, office
styles, and people’s work preferences so that
you can form opinions as to what you like best,
and use that info as you shape the future of your
career.

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UX Researcher

Disadvantages of Being a Freelance UX Researcher

1. Convincing the Insights to stakeholders in the


discovery & exploration phase is not easy,
especially when those insights are against their
current business strategy.

2. Depth Understanding of the users from certain


domains comes only with time by listening to
different experiences of the different kinds of
users. Also, by following up with the user.

3. As a freelancer, most of the time we will get the


opportunity to clear immediate design doubts of
the design team. we might miss the hidden one
or the underrated one.

4. You can potentially spend a lot of time hustling


to find your next gig (when you’d rather be just
working).

5. If you are paid hourly, then you may not be


invited to some meetings where they don’t think
“you’re necessary”, and as a result, you can
miss out on larger conversations or context
which could be both be useful for the project
And make things more interesting for you
personally.

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9. Things you need to know


before Conducting User
Research in India!
India has a population of 1.3 billion. Many
organizations want to put a stronghold on the Indian
market due to its very big market, so many global
companies taking efforts to extend their research team
in India. I can say there is a big hunt for Senior Indian
UX researchers by global companies to lead their
research activities in India.

There are some things you should know about India to


Conduct User Research there.

43% of India doesn’t speak Hindi.

Many think all Indians can speak Hindi but actually,


there are many other major dominant languages like
Bengali, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, etc. In
fact, there are 17 major widely spoken languages in
India.

To have a better idea, In India

● 68 million speak Tamil,


● 80 million speak Telugu,
● 35 million speak Malayalam,
● 90 million speak Bengali.

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By seeing these numbers you will understand that, Even


though Hindi speaking community is a large market in
India, you can’t ignore the other major markets here.

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Diverse culture across states.

Due to India’s diverse geography, diverse languages,


and vast invasion history, one can observe a diverse
culture across India like diversity in cuisine, traditions,
race, etc. But Interestingly not only due to its
geography and languages but also due to the political
movements one can observe the diverse pop culture.

I can share an example here of diversity due to political


movement, It is normal to ask & say one’s name with
their second name (community name) in north India
like “Prashanth Yadav” & “Vishwesha Iyer” (Yadav &
Iyer are community names). But this same thing is not
entertained in Tamilnadu (South Indian State).

Most People from Tamilnadu get offended by asking


their community name. This is the direct impact of the
self-respect movement that happened in 1925. Like the
above example each state, in fact, each district (county)
has its own characteristics.

Uneven Human Development across the


Indian country.

Human Development considering factors like life


expectancy, education, and per capita income is uneven
across the country. Just By studying a sample of users
from Madhya Pradesh you cannot consider it as a
sample for the whole of India.

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However, it doesn’t mean each state is a different


planet. we also observe similarities across India.
Especially similarities across metropolitan cities.

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Impact of English
One of India’s British colonization effects is that India
has its own version of Indianized English called Indian
English (like British & American English). Despite
10% of Indians speaking English, at least half of
Indians can communicate through broken English.

Recommendations for conducting user


research in India

● If you building an In-house UXR team in India,


build it with pan-Indian researchers at least from
4 different linguistic backgrounds (Hindi,
Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam) or reach a
Research/Design agency that could pull of a pan
Indian research team.

● Grouping and sampling of participants based on


geography & linguistics is a very crucial step to
getting unbiased Quality user research insights
across India.

● Conducting user research from Tier 2 and Tier 3


cities is highly recommended. It will help to
have a deep understanding of the difference &
patterns of user experience across geographies.

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● Generally Studying Users below 45 age in Tier


1, 40 age in Tier 2 and 35 Age in Tier 3 will
save you a lot of time. The tech-savviness of
these people mentioned above is very low or
very basic because their mental model belongs
to the pre-internet era. I also like to mention that
in India, Internet & smartphones become
democratic very recently only around 2011.

Hope My observations will be helpful for your User


research activities in India.

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10. Similarity Between


Techniques used in UX
Research and Filmmaking.

Let's finish this ride with entertainment.

Usability Testing Vs Testing movie with


Audience.

We all know that Usability Testing in product software


Development is a technique used in user-centered
interaction design to evaluate a product by testing it on
users. It is more concerned with the design intuitiveness
of the product and is tested with users who have no
prior exposure to it.
Such testing is paramount to the success of an end
product as a fully functioning application that creates
confusion amongst its users will not last for long.

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Karan Johar Talking about Research (Video Link:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNmswr822_4&t=704s)

I like to quote the words of Karan Johar (Indian movie


producer & filmmaker) on Research.

“All middle-order movies need to do research. You


have to do market research. If you have to take the
theatrical leap, then you have to get data”

In the above one, Karan is generally mentioning it as


market reach. But when you read the below one, then
you will understand the context and realize, he is
talking about User Research also.

“I change movies scripts, plot points. All successful


films are ironically ormax researched films. There are
two ways we do it. One is organic way of showing
movies to friends, family, and cold people I dont know.
Show it to a hard-nail critic. Show it to the audience
whose genre was not theirs. Put your trailer to the test.

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Put your posters to the test. Sometimes we believe “we


have a kick-ass trailer”. But it's actually we only
believe in that way.

If you are a budding UX Researcher or someone in the


software product team you can pretty much relate the
above context with usability testing. So it is indeed
User Experience Research. (Well here, we can also call
it Audience Experience Research)

Also, Zoya Akthar (Film Director & Producer) at the


same round table discussion acknowledges that she also
doing some sort of research for her films.

It is quite evident that the film industry is formally or


informally doing experience research.

A Typical Example of Experience Testing In


Hollywood would be the Avengers Endgame movie.

Robert Downey Jr and Kathrine Langford in a deleted scene from Avengers Endgame.
This scene shows Iron Man meeting his daughter
Morgan as a grown-up, after he just snapped half the
universe back to life, sacrificing his own life in the
process.

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The scene was removed as the directors, Anthony and


Joe Russo told

“There was an idea that we had that Tony was gonna


go into the metaphysical way station that Thanos goes
into [in Infinity War]”

“We showed it to a test audience and it was really


confusing for them. What we realized about it where
we didn’t feel an emotional association with the adult
version of his daughter,”

It clearly shows that Hollywood is also doing an


experience testing (That's how I like to call this
activity)

User Persona/Empathy Map vs Character


Sketch

User Personas are fictional characters, which you create


based upon your research to represent the different user
types that might use your service, product, site or brand
in a similar way.

Creating personas can help you step out of yourself. It


can help you recognize that different people have
different needs and expectations, and it can also help
you identify with the user you’re designing for

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Personas make the design task at hand less complex,


guide your ideation processes, and they can help you to
achieve the goal of creating a good user experience for
your target user group.

An empathy map (which is very similar to a user


persona) is a collaborative method used to visualize the
knowledge about a specific user. It helps users make
informed decisions and build a shared understanding of
their needs.

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Character Sketch in Film Making

Similar to User persona character sketch or a character


analysis is a description that introduces the reader to a
particular character. It includes physical descriptions,
personality traits, habits, strengths, weaknesses, and
history amongst other things of the particular character.

A character sketch is highly helpful for filmmakers to


take creative decisions in screenplay & scriptwriting.

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End of the day, Cinema is also a product. So It is not a


real surprise for me to see the overlap of methodologies
between the two fields.

Apart from fun, there is a reason for ending this book


with this topic.That is transferabblity of skills. Just dont
restrict yourself into moderating & affinity mapping
machines.At same time, In the name of empathy dont
become blind advocate of users.

Be a sherlock holmes, find objective patterns from


subjective opinions. Dont stick with methods, stick with
research questions.

I personally always see UX Research is amalgamation


of many expertise.It will be & it should expand its
territory on whatever concerned with understanding the
user.

Hope you enjoyed this ride, Wish you All the best for
your UX Career!

THE END!

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Sources & References
1. Interview of Nathan Shedoff (Chair of the MBA
in Design Strategy at California College of the
Arts)
2. Tools for Systems Thinkers: The 6 Fundamental
Concepts of Systems Thinking
(https://medium.com/disruptive-design/tools-for
-systems-thinkers-the-6-fundamental-concepts-o
f-systems-thinking-379cdac3dc6a)
3. Futures Thinking and Design Thinking Simply
Explained!
(https://isanthoshgandhi.medium.com/future-thi
nking-and-design-thinking-simply-explained-d6
5716d67651)
4. Systems theory
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory)
5. Traffic Violations
(https://www.santhoshgandhi.com/post/reducing
-traffic-violations-in-chennai-city-using-design-t
hinking-and-systems-thinking)
6. Systems Thinking — What is it all
about?(https://medium.com/systemic-design-gro
up/systems-thinking-what-is-it-all-about-1e5135
de97b3)
7. The Fourth Way: Design Thinking Meets
Futures Thinking
(https://medium.com/@anna.roumiantseva/the-f
ourth-way-design-thinking-meets-futures-thinki
ng-85793ae3aa1e)

81
8. IDEOU Design Thinking Process
(https://www.ideou.com/pages/design-thinking)
9. The Real Wisdom of the Crowds
(https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/ar
ticle/the-real-wisdom-of-the-crowds)
10. Collective Intelligence and Design Thinking
(https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download
?doi=10.1.1.717.5878&rep=rep1&type=pdf)
11. Universal Principles of Design
(https://g.co/kgs/3fXgxK)
12. Design principle: Collective intelligence
(https://uxplanet.org/design-principle-collective-
intelligence-6e15a8c32007)
13. Institute for the Future (https://www.iftf.org)
14. The Fourth Way: Design Thinking Meets
Futures Thinking
(https://medium.com/@anna.roumiantseva/the-f
ourth-way-design-thinking-meets-futures-thinki
ng-85793ae3aa1e)
15. “Introduction to Decision Intelligence” by
Cassie Kozyrkov.
(https://towardsdatascience.com/introduction-to-
decision-intelligence-5d147ddab767)
16. What is Decision Science?
(https://chds.hsph.harvard.edu/approaches/what-
is-decision-science/#:~:text=Decision%20Scien
ce%20is%20the%20collection,the%20individua
l%20and%20population%20levels.)
17. The First Thing Great Decision Makers Do ?
(https://hbr.org/2019/06/the-first-thing-great-dec
ision-makers-do)

82
18. Management Science
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_scie
nce)
19. Why Decision Science Is Probably More
Important To Your Organization Than Data
Science?
(https://comprehension360.corsairs.network/wh
y-decision-science-is-probably-more-important-
to-your-organization-than-data-science-15c1890
df2e4)
20. Artificial Intelligence: Do stupid things faster
with more energy!
(https://towardsdatascience.com/artificial-intelli
gence-do-stupid-things-faster-with-more-energy
-379aa6bac220)
21. Introduction to Decision Intelligence —
Benefits of AI-Driven Decision-Making
(https://www.infopulse.com/blog/introduction-d
ecision-intelligence)
22. Managerial Science Image
(http://www.dspmuranchi.ac.in/pdf/Blog/operati
onresearchanditsapplication-160428055312%20
12.pdf)
23. Mixed-Method UX Research Simply Explained!
(https://isanthoshgandhi.medium.com/mixed-me
thod-ux-research-simply-explained-c18a73d3cc
4b)
24. UX Research Cheat Sheet
(https://www.nngroup.com/articles/ux-research-
cheat-sheet/)
25. Interaction Design Foundation
(https://www.interaction-design.org/)

83
26. Clustering Algorithms and Classification
Techniques for More Precise Results
(https://lucidworks.com/ai-powered-search/clust
ering-algorithm/#:~:text=Clustering%20and%20
classification%20are%20machine,topic%2C%2
0team%2C%20or%20office.)
27. Funnel analysis
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Funnel_analysis)
28. Difference Between Classification and
Clustering
(https://techdifferences.com/difference-between-
classification-and-clustering.html)
29. Sentiment Analysis: Concept, Analysis, and
Applications(https://towardsdatascience.com/se
ntiment-analysis-concept-analysis-and-applicati
ons-6c94d6f58c17)
30. How to conduct A/B Testing?
31. (https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-conduct
-a-b-testing-3076074a8458)
32. FC Producers Adda 2021 | Karan Johar, Zoya
Akhtar, Reema Kagti, Nikkhil Advani, Sameer
Nair
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNmswr82
2_4&t=704s)
33. Avengers Endgame deleted scene shows Iron
Man meeting his daughter after death.
(https://www.hindustantimes.com/hollywood/av
engers-endgame-deleted-scene-shows-iron-man-
meet-his-daughter-after-death-watch-here/story-
rQPdMXekP1Bh04p2hrDBeL.html#:~:text=The
%20scene%20was%20removed%20as,into%20
%5Bin%20Infinity%20War%5D)

84
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Santhosh Gandhi is an Industry 4.0 UX Researcher &


Futurist. He helps the Management & Design Teams to
build successful user-centric products & solutions by
conducting primary research & secondary research. He
is also an upcoming thought leader in UX Research and
Decision Intelligence.

Social Media:
● LinkedIn
(https://www.linkedin.com/in/isanthoshgandhi/)
● Twitter:
( https://www.twitter.com/isanthoshgandhi/)

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