參考答案
Users are not always aware of what they really do and how they do it. When you ask users to describe how they do their jobs, they will likely have a hard time being precise details that might be missing or incorrect and they may come up with logical, but wrong explanations. Often this is because tasks are complex and it's hard to remember every minute detail. In other cases, it is because users are so familiar with executing a task that they can't articulate everything they do. Perhaps the task is so habitual that they don't even think about it. Sometimes you can learn a lot by observing exactly how users perform their tasks.
Observation vastly improves your knowledge of the current work and some of the associated work problems
User observation can be either passive or active.
Active observation: asking questions of users while observing them, is the best approach for gaining an understanding of an existing process.
Passive observation is more effective when gathering user feedback on a design prototype. Silent observations are appropriate when busy users cannot be interrupted.
Some things to keep in mind when conducting user observation:
- Construct a visual of the end-to-end process a person follows to do their job daily.
- Be mindful when asking questions to not disrupt seeing a natural work environment.
- Observe, take notes, remain unbiased and keep from making judgments.
- Gather any documentation that helps you find out procedures, like a user training manual.
- Observe well enough to understand fully what a platform, software, or device is capable of.
3 Phases of observation process:
Before the observation: You need to determine the purpose of the session, the main idea is to conduct the observation session to understand the current process. In the second step, you need to identify the participants and this phase is very important because normally a process can have other sub-processes involved and all stakeholders must be covered, so once you had identified the participants, you need to have a word with the stakeholders and set up some time for these observation sessions.
So we have the third step which is creating a schedule, you can space out the sessions or you can have a couple of sessions on the same day, it all depends on the stakeholder availability.
This is is basically a preparatory phase for the observation technique, you know what is the purpose, the participants are identified and they are engaged and you have a schedule with all the meetings.
During the observation:
You would give your introduction, where you are from, what you are doing, and also briefly explain to them the purpose and agenda of the session, after that, the stakeholder starts to demonstrate how he performs his tasks and you would be sitting there next to him asking questions and making notes. The main idea is to get a clear picture in your mind of why and how the stakeholder is doing it.
After the observation: You must clearly state all your notes, data, process flow, tools, stakeholder responses and send them for validation.
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