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Application Design I - Task 2: User Research


22/10/25 - 19/11/25 / Week 5- Week 9
Brendan Fedya / 0376283
Application Design I / Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media / Taylor's University
Task 2: User Research

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 I. Lectures

II. Tasks

III. Feedbacks

IV. Reflections

I. LECTURES

➼    Lecture 4: Introduction to UX Research

Positive UX is more influential than strong advertising. 50% potential sales fall because users can't find the information they need. The process of UX research matters more compared to the beauty of the final artifact. The best products out there focus on clarity instead of bombastic features. 

‣     UX Research Methods
    A good UX research always involves diverse targeted user perspectives and insights. To do research, QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE can be combined to provide rich insights, as some questions could only be viable on either one of the methods.

    • Qualitative could be used at the initial stages—exploring user needs, pain points, and surprising insights. A quantitative method, interviews for example, the interviewer skill is much needed to maintain the conversation hence they could dive deeper into the information that is required.
    • Quantitative could be used in the prototyping and testing stages—measuring satisfaction, usability, feedback, and comparing design options. Quantitative questions are mostly about answers that is already expected, it is more towards validation towards the researchers' hypotheses.
    Avoid leading questions that could be biased as people tend to agree to suggestions from the questions. Hence, questions must be neutral to get better information. Also, questions should be slowly escalated to maintain the flow.

    ➼    Lecture 5: Card-Sorting Information

    How do you group data gathered effectively to navigate through them easily. This method is subjective hence we should find participants to do it.

    ➼    Lecture 6: Synthetizing Research and Affinity Mapping 

    For surveys, find the problem first and take action about the problem. Then, online surveys are used to validate our decisions to see whether it truly works well or not. Not the other way around! 

    Online surveys are used to earn more honest answers due to anonymity and its to earn quantitative data. e.g. 1-5 how important is this, out of these 5 what is the most important, how often do you.... , etc.

    Live interviews are conducted to get a root cause of a problem, and after we get data from our live interviews, do card-sorting to group relevant information together. A designer's own-self ideas in answering the questions could also benefit the data.

    Live interview = user problems, e.g. how do you motivate yourself do go to gym?
    Online surveys = supplementary data, filling the gaps of live interview. e.g. how often do people go to gym every week?

    ➼    Lecture 7: UI/UX Design Document

    Question - transcribe the full answer - extract interesting data into notes - group them in similar information - take 1 sentence to summarize each groupings - take these problems (e.g. 1 problem for each persona) to mix and match to create user persona. 

    Details of the user persona are focusing on the present time, for the problem that is present at that time. These data should be created based on data that has been collected, not assumptions.

    When creating user personas, ask this question to yourself:
    Who are my ideal customers?
    What are the behaviour trends from the current users?
    What are the goals of the users?
    What is getting in the way of them achieving their goal?

    Persona has attitudes, motivations, goals, and pain points. And the scenario is defining when, where, and how the story of the persona take place. This is to describe them as how they behave during the event. Once the goal is fulfilled, the scenario ends. The target users must truly be represented by the user personas that have been created

    ‣     Journey Map

    Creating journey maps for each persona is to know which ones are the high points and the low points for the users during the whole process. This is to minimize the low points as much as possible, and keep the high points. Use graphics to better imagine what is happening throughout the process. Section them into groups to specifically know the parts they experience differently. After this, innovate (at least 3) design solutions or opportunities that cater the different processes of the journey map.

    ➼    Lecture 8: Journey Map & Flow Chart

    Describe the whole journey like stories describe through movies — emphasize more on the significant parts that is happening by splitting them into more parts. Make the high points higher, which creates uniqueness and will attract more customers.

    ‣     Flow Charts

    Include initial steps, action steps, decision making steps that leads to yes and no, and final steps.
    Entry steps does not necessarily start in the same place. Steps must stay at the same level of depth in information.

    ‣     Site Map

    Emphasize more on the hierarchy, what do people usually look for if they initially open the website?

    ➼    Lecture 9: Sketching & Wireframing

    Put every ideas that popped out into sketch, then refine it later. Follow the flow of the brain.


    No more lectures are available.

    II. TASKS

    ➼    Class Exercises: Testing Out Interview Questions

    Intro:
    Hello! I'm Brendan and I'm a student from Taylor's University working on an application redesign project, specifically called MUJI, which is a brand that is quite popular out there among the people. Can I have around 10-15 minutes of your time to conduct a short interview with you, as I really need insights to be able to conduct my project smoothly.

    Interview Qs:

    1. Are you buying clothes online? 
    - If yes, how do you do that and how often do you do it?
    - If no, what's stopping you from buying clothes online? (and end the interview as it is not part of the inclusion criteria.)
    2. What makes you want to shop online instead of buying directly in-store?
    3. How do you usually discover new clothes or which clothes to buy?
    4. What matters the most when you are buying fashion items?
    5. What factors make you hesitate or delay purchasing clothes online?
    6. Throughout your experience, what went well and what factors stops you in doing the final purchase of a product?
    7. Hence what makes you finally decide to purchase?
    8. How do you feel in the moment after you completed the order?
    9. How do you usually feel after you’ve received and tried the item? and what made you feel that way?
    10. What kind of experience will make you recommend to shop for fashion items?


    Online Survey Qs:

    https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1BjQbtuZ2DxiNUImnjRl6Yij69mNCZOCtd9HDWOofrTQ/edit


    ➼    Class Exercises: App Feature Card-Sorting

    Try to do card-sorting based on the lecture given! For example you are designing an app, with its goals being:
    1. Plan the trip
    2. Explore the places
    3. Reach community.
     Figure 2.1: App feature card-sorting.

    ➼    Homework: MUJI Redesign Feature Card-Sorting

    Sort out 50+ features gathered from the existing apps, competitor apps, left-field apps, or any common features.



    To refer back to the proposal:

    ➼    Class Exercise: User Persona, Journey Map and Flow Chart

    This exercise aims to prepare us to do the same thing on our projects, so that we know what to do:

    https://www.canva.com/design/DAG4cVmLY_Q/U8PCJiLUmYQNhokoA4rRXQ/edit

    ➼    User Research Board - Figma

    ➼    Presentation Slides: User Research

    This exercise aims to prepare us to do the same thing on our projects, so that we know what to do:

    https://www.canva.com/design/DAG5VpqFWJs/M0QLHAVb0tbRHZFE_2OlqA/edit

    III. FEEDBACKS

    ‣     Week 5
    • As much as possible, questions should relate more personally to the interviewees. e.g. if talking about Grab application redesign, we won't talk about the application itself, but more about the challenges when booking the ride, etc.

    ‣     Week 6
    • Avoid questions that are too harsh (e.g. why do you......) rephrase it into something softer.
    • Maintain good flow of the questions.
    ‣     Week 7
    • No charts, its hard to understand.
    • Bold the word of important information to understand what really matters.
    ‣     Week 8
    • Explain when I did my interview, this is what I found out, what went right, what went wrong, rather than explaining the methods. 
    • The good part of a user journey map could also be improved, to leverage it so that it's more preferred compared to the competitors. To do that, find opportunities for each step in the experience journey map.
    • Flow chart should include probability of certain steps, if things go wrong. It take a specific part of the user journey map, and break it down in more detail.
    ‣     Week 9
    • Label stuff as much as you can when designing interaction through Figma, so clients would know what is happening, this is highly valuable.
    • Search for a lot of references of apps, find features that interest you the most, and fuse them all together to create an original artwork. (Pinterest, Mobbin, Behance, Dribbble etc.)
    • Check new products that are going to be released through Product Hunt — this is to keep up with the current app trends.
    back to table of contents.

    IV. REFLECTIONS

    UX research seems to be the most important part in the design process, it's an iterative process—meaning we refine over and over again to get the crucially grounded data we need before doing the designing part. This will significantly reduce errors at the later stages—and of course making the relationship between designers, users, and business even happier.
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