Studio Brief 02 - Primary user research - Design for screen

To better inform design the initial research to understand the approach of the design and understand the use. An UXD approach requires that the potential users of a new interactive design are considered early in the development of a project.

Its possible to undertake projects without any user research, in this case the design will probably be shaped by the design team and their desire to satisfy the client. 

Two basic questions to ask the beginning of a new interactive project:

1. Who will use it?

2. What will it do? 

Narrowing down the field to 'primary users' Doing so will not exclude other users. but provide a much better focus for the work at hand. 

• Age range
• Ethnicity 
• Experience 
• Gender
• Income level
• Language 
• Level of educational attainment 
• Location 
• Occupation or profession 
• Religion

When responding to the question who will use it? its useful to think about the users main aim in using the system that you are creating. 

Listing what the system needs in order for the user to achieve the aim is a good way to answer this question. 

• The user aim:

• System requirements (What the user should be able to do)

Primary research 

Collecting research 

I used social media to collect useful data, expanding my knowledge of what experiences my target market face, better informing how to tackle the work and the approach to take. 

I proposed the question:

"What are daily problems that you experience being vegan and how could an app help this? Is there an app that could be improved that already exists?"

Responses:

"Perhaps scanning a bar code of an item and instantly being told if it is vegan or not. Including items like food and toiletries! Or type an item name in?"

"Convenience. If I'm out and feeling hungry where can i go to get food"

"an app that gives you quick answers to common questions that vegans get asked and information we may want to give omnies when asked why we are vegan. if it could also sight vegan and non vegan sources that show the facts. trying to remember all the details from memory can be very difficult and i can never remember wot i read were."

"Vegan facts, statistics and FAQs so it's easier to debate with people!"

"There are a couple of apps like this already on the market but I find most of them are useless and don't recognise many items. It would be good to find one that actually does the job"

"Typing in would be better as not all phones can read barcode. This would save so many rows with my boyfriend in shops"

"The problem with apps like this is they need crowdsourcing to compile. No one ever wants to scan, get no result and then manually enter details for other people. Which is a shame as it would be useful!"