Research

Different research techniques are appropriate for each phase of a projects lifecycle. Depending on your specific needs, Chili can give you a clear picture of your situation and an actionable path towards your goals.

Ideation

Focus Groups:
Focus groups are suited to starting conversations about desirable functionality, the perceived value of services and features, and prioritizing ideas for further study. These groups can be helpful in the ideation stage to investigate new concepts, but aren't recommended for later stages of the development process. Since these groups are conducted in "artificial" settings, a certain level of understanding can be achieved, but it may be inaccurate when applied to a more natural usage environment. It is difficult for most people to imagine how they would want something to work when they are in these artificial situations.

Situation Audit:
Many different techniques can be used to understand how users are currently addressing the problem that you propose to solve with your new idea. It is often beneficial to go watch these users in a natural setting and gather ideas for the new product's direction. This methodology allows us to take a look at the full user experience by conducting observational evaluations, mystery shopper activities, and analyses of all of the touchpoints between you and your customer. The same methodology can be used to look at existing products for a new line extensions or enhancements.

Surveys and Interviews:
Surveys and interviews, whether they're conducted online, in person or over the phone, are useful ways to gather information on user's needs and goals as well as a means to get feedback on your new idea.

Requirements

Competitive Evaluation:
Chili can evaluate competitive or related products or web sites to determine the features offered, terminology used, look and feel, and any information relevant to the requirements and design of the idea under consideration. Other things - the way that the company appears to generate revenue, for example - can be included in the evaluation as well. The results of this scan generally describe the competitive landscape, but do not involve the target market's opinion of particular ideas or features. It is generally used as input to other research.

Task Analysis:
A detailed analysis of the potential users' current method of completing a task can be analyzed to determine the correct order for completing each step and the correct flow of information to build into your new product or site. Supporting a logical workflow often is a key factor in the acceptance of a new idea.

Design

Participatory Design/Storyboarding:
This type of research allows a designer to gather a group of consumers in the target market and ask their assistance in designing the feature, product, or site. Often using tools as simple as sticky notes, the users and the designer work through the tasks that need to be performed to accomplish the primary goals, the order in which these tasks should be done, and elements of the design layout, terminology, help, and navigation. The end result of this process is generally a storyboard describing the design based on the requirements and user input. This technique can also be adapted as a team design tool. The designer and team members from other disciplines to design or review a design together to make the trade-off decisions necessary to implement and support the product.

Expert Review:
In this technique, one or more usability experts evaluate a prototype, website, or product and provide comments on potential problems and issues. This technique is often used to quickly check design decisions. Expert reviews are also useful when time or budget does not allow full usability testing.

Usability testing:
In this more formal methodology, researchers determine a list of tasks to perform and a specific set of goals. The user is asked to do things in a particular order and to talk about specific issues. The goal of this type of study is to get feedback from potential members of the target audience as early in the development process as possible. It is important to do this kind of testing in the design stage for validation of design decisions before they are actually developed. Once coding begins, fixing problems with requirements or design becomes much more costly.

Implementation

Content Evaluation:
Often content is being written while the code is being developed. It is often useful to review the content either through an expert review or user testing to ensure that it is readable, correct, and clear.

Support Evaluation:
Product support is an important part of the user experience. It must be consistent with the product, accurate, and meet both the user's and the business's needs. Chili has experience writing users guides, designing support documentation and training, and in setting up call center processes and tools. With that experience, we can evaluate the support options and recommend ways to end prove customer service and reduce support costs.

User Validation:
Once development is nearly completed and the quality assurance process begins, it is often helpful to have representatives of the target market participate in usability tests in the lab or in the normal context of use. These users will often make errors or proceed down paths that aren't accounted for in test cases. They can be instrumental in finding bugs, problems in the navigational flow, or help or error messages that don't make sense.

Test/Trial

Acceptance Testing:
There are subjective aspects of a product's interface that are not always checked through unit, regression or other kinds of testing. These subjective attributes, such as voice prompt clarity or attractiveness of the graphics, can be evaluated through user testing or expert reviews designed to represent the consumer's and/or management's viewpoint

User Feedback:
Surveys and interviews with actual users during the beta test or technical trial can be conducted to measure the success of the product in the real usage environments. Usability testing during development cannot possibly mimic usage of a product over a long period of time so different issues may come up at this point.

Field Trials:
Beta and technical trials can be used for more then just validating the technology and implementation. An organized assessment of the user experience can be conducted looking at user feedback on the product, support options, documentation, installation, and everyday usage. By designing your trial with the goal of collecting user feedback, you can determine the success of the product in meeting the customer's needs as well as starting your planning for the future looking for enhancements and new functionality. You can also test different implementations with different groups of participants, perhaps offering different functionality or support levels to measure the impact on their in opinion of your product. By thinking of your trial as a test of the whole user experience instead of just that product launch, you can have a bigger impact on your company's bottom line. Chili has expertise in recruiting users for trials, collecting user feedback, analyzing usage and performance data, and monitoring and assessing call center activity.

Log File/Performance Data Analysis:
Log files and reports are generated by most systems. These data are important means to understanding how your customers are using your product or website. Evaluation of usage data during trials and after your product is launched can reveal important information about performance, functionality, and sizing/load balancing.

Lifecycle Management

Situation Audit:
This methodology allows us to take a look at the full user experience by conducting an evaluation of all of the touchpoints between you and your customer. The intent is to measure customer satisfaction, look for usability and usage issues, identify opportunities for new products or features, and gauge consistency for your brand and your product. This audit can include reviewing company/product press, conducting competitive product reviews, acting as a mystery shopper, interviewing customers and noncustomers, evaluating log files and other reported data, monitoring help center activity, reviewing sales, marketing, and support documents, and going along on technician visits.

Log File/Performance Data Analysis :
Log files and reports are generated by most systems. These data are important means to understanding how your customers are using your products. Evaluation of usage data can reveal important information about performance, functionality, and sizing/load balancing.