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Nielsen Norman Group

User Experience Research For PC reading Pattern Around the Globe

Date | Aug. 12 2019 - Aug. 16 2019 (1 week)

Supervisor | Feifei Liu

My Role | User Experience (UX) Research Assistant

 

Due to NDA, I can’t share a whole lot.

Here is an overview and what I think is important to me growing as a UX designer when working at Nielsen Norman Group.

 
 

HIGHLIGHT

Facilitating and synthesizing for professional user research

Untitled_Artwork 14.gif
 

 

OVERVIEW

We researched the PC reading patterns for the Chinese audience. Our objective of the research is to 1. Confirm if the previous research findings  (such as F-shape pattern and layer cake pattern shown on the picture to the right) are also valid in China. 2. Research on audience reactions to unique and interesting web designs under Chinese culture context. 

Image Sources:
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/layer-cake-pattern-scanning/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/
layer cake pattern eye-tracking image from nngroup website

layer cake pattern eye-tracking image from nngroup website

F-shape pattern from nngroup website

F-shape pattern from nngroup website

 

MY process

I collaborated closely with my supervisor, set the eye-tracking devices' configuration, accommodated 12 participants for ninety-minute sessions, learned the facilitation techniques, and facilitated 5 of the testing sessions. My final deliverables are qualitative feedbacks organized in google sheets, data including voice recordings, eye-tracking heatmap, and gaze plot findings, ready to be further analyzed at the end of my assistance work.

 
My work process @nngroup

My work process @nngroup

 
 

OUTCOME

Research Outcome demonstrated by supervisor Feifei Liu: https://www.nngroup.com/videos/website-design-high-context-cultures/

 

WHAT I lEARNED

1/ Have a system, it doesn’t have to be complicated

User research is a rigorous process, and every opportunity to interact with a matched participant is precious. A system can significantly help in ensuring a fruitful result. Meanwhile, the focus is on the research itself. It doesn't have to use rocket science to build an effective system.

Instruction header in the sheet for notes taking

Instruction header in the sheet for notes taking

2/ Curiosity & Patience enables knowing the users for real

Stay hungry; stay calm. As a user experience designer, I always want to know the users. However, before I stand in their shoes, I need to know the “shoes.” Not until I performed these real user research sessions that I realize how to see and feel their “shoes. “ In this process, the desire to know “what, why, how“ gives me a start to dig deeper, while being patient, calm, and letting the user flow their thoughts connects me to their experience.

During Testing Session.

During Testing Session.

 

acknowledgement

I would like to thank Rita Ai for recruiting the participants, and thank all of our participants. I am also grateful to Nielsen Norman Group folks for giving me the opportunities to take important part of the work and practice, and especially many thanks to Feifei Liu for her intellectual mentorship and helping me improve on both observing and facilitating research sessions.

 
 

Thank You for Reading!