All language subtitles for 04 - Get to know the seven elements of a research plan.en

Ready to start our journey
through a UX research study?

Let's explore the first
step: planning the study.

Like any good explorer, you need to
have a plan for where you're headed.

There are seven elements that
your plan should include:

the project background, the research goals,
the detailed research questions,

the key performance indicators or
KPIs, the methodology,

the participants, and the script or
questions you'll ask participants.

Let's break them down.

The first element of your plan
is the project background.

The project background answers
the question: What led you to

conduct this research?

You don't have to provide a long drawn
out history, just a few lines is good.

You might explain the project
background like this:

We're creating a new app to help
people find and schedule dog walkers.

We need to find out if the main
user experience, finding and

scheduling a dog walker, is easy for
users to complete.

Next, your plan should
include research goals.

Ask yourself questions like, What design
problems are you trying to solve?

And how will the results of the research
impact our design decisions?

Use your answers to create goals for
your research project.

In our example,
one research goal might be:

determine if the dog walker
app is difficult to use.

We need to consider the ease of use in

order to understand why customers
join our app and leave or stay.

After you determine research goals,

you need to develop detailed
research questions for your plan.

What are the questions your
research is trying to answer?

For example, our research questions
might be, how long does it take

a user to find and book
a dog walker in the app?

And what can we learn
from the user flow or

the steps that users take
to book a dog walker?

Another important element of your plan is
the key performance indicators, or KPIs.

As a reminder,

key performance indicators are critical
measures of progress toward an end goal.

You might ask, how can you measure your
progress toward the research goal?

For our app, one thing we should track
is how many users in the research study

complete their search for a dog walker.

So the KPI would be the percentage
of users who book a dog walker.

The next element of your
plan is the methodology.

This is where you document the steps
you'll take to conduct your research.

How will you collect data and how will
you analyze the data once you get it?

To find out if users are able to find and
schedule a dog walker in our new app,

we might want to conduct
a survey of prospective users.

To analyze the survey results, we will
use a spreadsheet and identify trends.

In addition, your research plan
lists the research participants.

Who will you survey?

What characteristics do
the participants have?

For example, you might want to recruit
participants who are dog owners with

full-time jobs and who go out for
activities more than once a week.

The types of participants you select
should be based on your research goals.

Also, make sure that participants you
select do not bias your results.

To show you what I mean,
let me tell you a true story.

In the 1936 United States
presidential election,

Republican Alf Landon challenged the
Democratic incumbent, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The Literary Digest, one of the most
respected magazines of the era, conducted

a poll of 2.4 million people to
predict who would win the election.

With that large of a sample size,

you'd think the results would
be pretty reliable, right?

You'd be wrong. The Literary Digest
predicted Landon would beat Roosevelt,

with Landon taking 57% of the vote and
Roosevelt taking 43%.

But on election day,
Roosevelt scored a decisive win.

Landon gathered only 38% of the vote and
Roosevelt took 62%.

So why was the Literary Digest
prediction so inaccurate?

The problem was something
called sample bias.

The Literary Digest selected its
participants from contact info they found

in car registrations and
telephone directories.

Can you spot the problem?

Let's break it down.

The majority of people who owned cars and
telephones in 1936 were wealthy.

And at that time, many wealthy
people tended to vote Republican.

That means that the sampling was
biased in favor of Republicans.

So the prediction that Republican
Alf Landon would win reflected that

sample bias.

So what does this teach us?

When conducting research,
we need to choose study participants who

are representative of all our users,
not just a select group.

You'll learn more about different
types of biases later on.

The final step in your research
plan is to script the questions you

ask study participants as
they test your product.

The script is also known
as the discussion guide.

Make sure these questions are specific
in speaking to the KPIs you're trying to

measure.

For instance, you could ask,

did you face any challenges when trying
to book a dog walker in the app?

Now you know the seven
elements of a research plan.

Coming up, we'll continue our journey and

dive into each of the seven
elements in more detail.

We'll start by focusing on the first
three elements: project background,

research goals, and research questions.

Let's cruise on over.