Borrowing methods: Improve user
research by taking a page from
someone else’s book
ross C. Teague, Ph.D., Director of research, Insight Product Development
( rteague@insightpd.com)
New product developers should not feel hemmed in by traditional front-end techniques when it comes to “ideation,” according to the
author. Instead, they should feel comfortable borrowing, just as everyone, including Shakespeare, has for centuries. This article gives
practitioners some guidance on how to “borrow” successfully.
Stealing is always something that people want to avoid, but “borrowing” methods from other disciplines can improve the quality of user research and increase the ability to pro-
vide the design team with all the information they need for the
design process.
Borrowing is not new. Think about what your toolkit would look
like if focus groups (market research), contextual interviews (an-
thropology), and cognitive walkthroughs (human factors) were not
adapted and used for product development. Although the idea of using
methods from other disciplines isn’t new, most research practitioners
rely on the tried-and-true methods that they already use and don’t
actively seek out new processes. Sure, there will always be people who
will use methods across disciplines and publish their experiences for
others to learn from, but modes of operation that meet your specific
research needs may never arrive if you aren’t proactive about it.
Working backward
The statement that “If all you have is a hammer, everything
looks like a nail” is a fairly accurate way to think about the
methods many practitioners use. Too often companies approach
research questions by using the same small set of procedures. A
company that relies exclusively on focus group testing or surveys
is often tempted to start with that approach to answer all of their
questions. It’s only when that method totally fails that they are
forced to consider something else.
It’s not often that you want to be called a “backward organiza-
tion” but working from the back forward is a good way to approach
research. Start first with the end point: What questions are you
trying to answer and in what form should the data be? Move next
to identifying who can provide you with this information (and
it’s often not just one group of people but a mixture of users,
purchasers, and “key informants”), followed only then by deter-
mining what method will allow you to collect this information.
In my experience, I have often reached a point in planning when
I realize I don’t have a specific approach that will give me what
I want, therefore my team and I need to adapt a current method,
combine methods, or look for a new method elsewhere.
Where to start
I’m often asked by research practitioners for a list of domains
or disciplines that they should look at for methods to fill their
toolkit. My response is there is no list—every field should be
looked at and nothing is off-limits. If you’re at your dentist’s
office and notice a scale or diagram on a sign-in sheet used for
patients to indicate pain levels and think it would be useful for
getting people to communicate their difficulty using your product,
try it out. Obviously, domains that deal with collecting informa-tion from people are going to have more tools for collecting this
information, but nothing should be overlooked.
Some Tips on
Expanding Your Methods
Keep your eyes open—Everything you read and see can be
inspiration for a new method.
