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User studies include field studies, user interviews, customer surveys and any other effort to gather information about the people who will use your web site or application. In order to design an effective application we need to find out as much as possible about who will be using it, the environment they will be using it in, and any feelings, prejudices, expectations and so forth they have about the process.
A good "best practices" design is a hypothesis based on the expertise gained from experience; a user centric design is based on evidence.
Gather specific factual information from a relatively large percentage of the user constituency.
Probe into issues related to goals, intentions, expectations, roles, and tasks of the end-users.
Field studies are onsite observations and interviews of intended users doing the work the tasks the system will support in the context they will be using it.
Field studies enable you to design a product that matches the users' needs and expectations by learning about what the user actually does, how they describe it to themselves, and how they think about it. You may also discover unanticipated opportunities for features and products.
User profiles (including demographic information
User goals
User roles and tasks and distributions of responsibilities
Process related flows, including: communication processes; work flow sequences and processes; information hierarchies; data flow;
Environmental Context and Issues, including supports and constraints
Cultural issues that must be taken into account in order to design an optimally usable product
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Laura Malone talks about the importance of research in her telesymposium. "Do you know me?"
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