gagacapon

[gagacapon]

Face to Face with the Beast - Week 8 blog.

Tension, awkwardness, stress, bitterness, uncomfortable, but exciting... These are all traits found in any climax of a book, a movie or even life itself. In this case, the UX / UI bootcamp's long and exhausting final steps to its summit are no different.

As we prepare to face the beast in our personal hero's journey, standing between us and the desired holly grail for knowledge, we begin to unmask this foe which we will defeat with research, dedication, definition, and hard work finally delivering an effective final blow proving ourselves worthy. The time has arrived in which we are slowly jousting at our last challenge which is our final project.

Our fellowship has been assigned the task to deliver a product purposed to help gather information for Economics PHD Researchers within a mobile app. A mobile app meant to enable access to a vast spectrum of research papers. Reaching them with a personalised approach for researchers to easily harvest this information. Two million hundred thousand economics papers in its data base, and one app to easily access them, one app to find them, one app to bring them all together and in the user's feed, bind them all (which are relevant to his research needs).

As our company began venturing in the foggy field in which our product unfolds, this scenario surely lives up to its reputation since economic academic research does convey a respectable level of complexity. With the help of 10 ongoing PHD students (on economics) whom habit these rugged landscapes, and the grace of our insights, we've finally been able to pave the way to the final challenge. We have successfully huddled what we need for this challenge. 

It has been a complex and lengthy journey, but with the whole repository of tools, methodologies, and experiences we have gathered, our guild is confident in this final face off with this last adversary.

To be continued...

[gagacapon]

Remote Contextual Inquiry

Amongst the many tools used by UX designers, amongst the most popular we can use the Remote Contextual Inquiry. It is a great tool for observing and understanding behaviours in specific environments in a remote format.

What Time, What Place (In the Design Process)?

This tool is described to be a great source of information, a great way to collect data. As it is so, then it should be implemented in the early stages for developing a new feature or product as this data will help to define personas, flows, architecture and strategies.

Advantages

This method enables us to match the perspective of what our end users see. By this new perspective, it is possible to see different points of view on how the interaction is taking place. Not only in the empiric scenario there are advantages, but also delivers an advantage to the researcher to access a wider range of users from remote locations.

We gain contextual insights such as personalised settings, hidden fields, and added functionality that are typically not obtained during a usability test.

Disadvantages

As it enables the researcher to place himself in a different perspective, it also limits himself as the physical presence of a scenario provides a different set of details. Provides a more detail scenario and context only visible by the researcher by physically being at sight and provide a better retrospective of the setting.

Closing Remarks

As many of the tools and methodologies found within the UX research field, the Remote Contextual inquiry provides to be a particular one. As many others, it provides a great set of data to be interpreted for a better design, but unlike other tools, it delivers an innovation to the research process as it delivers an unorthodox point of view from the traditional research done before. As this different approach sets in, so will new ideas and solutions. 

[gagacapon]

Pura Vida! My name is Gabriel

Hi, pura vida??

I’m Gabriel, a 28 year old product designer with a masters in business intelligence undergoing a UX/UI bootcamp @Ironhack.

I’m a great fan of the multidisciplinary knowledge that is design and how connecting all the different variables results in a great product. I find great satisfaction when people adopt a product which innovates their life.