Leveraging User Research for Taxonomy Design

Leveraging User Research for Taxonomy Design

Sarah Barrett + Rachel PriceTaxonomy Bootcamp 2016

Why do user research?

Why do user research?

You can’t afford not to.

Who does user research?

Who does user research?

You do user research.

Basic steps1. Define objectives

2. Recruit participants

3. Screen participants

4. Conduct interviews

5. Analyze findings

Defining your objectives:What do you really need to know?

Recruiting participants

Recruiting participantsUse a recruiter for large studies, or when your participants are not easily accessible to you.

Recruiting participantsRecruit participants yourself for small studies, or when you have direct access to participants (your co-workers).

Screening participants:Find the best candidates.

Conducting interviews

Learn to improvise.

Learn to get out of the way.

Analyzing for taxonomy implications

The axes on which they want to pivot (taxonomies)

How people need content grouped based on what they usually do (structure)

The language they use (terms)

Analyzing for taxonomy implications

The axes on which they want to pivot (taxonomies)

How people need content grouped based on what they do (structure)

The language they use (terms)

Analyzing for taxonomy implications

The axes on which they want to pivot (taxonomies)

How people need content grouped based on what they usually do (structure)

The language they use (terms)

Finding your implications

1: Collective brain dump least rigorous

2: Closed card sort style moderately rigorous

3: Open card sort style most rigorous

Outcomes of user research

Better for you,Better for your users.

“That makes sense, we should do that sometime.”

Are you thinking this right now? Not sometime. Now. Start small.

“That makes sense, we should do that sometime.”

Sarah [email protected]

Rachel [email protected]

Image credits

Arrows in targets: https://flic.kr/p/5oTsVq

Hitchcock street scene: https://flic.kr/p/qNAnSx

All other images created by the authors.