User Research

For this project, I went to the Engineering Library in University of Washington to observe people's practices, identify flaws in the products the students are using, and to come up with a design that would help solve or improve their problem.

I chose to observe on the third floor of the Engineering Library, which is the quiet area for individual studying. I sat on the rear end of the hall next to the buildings window and bookshelf TA-174D (see Appendix). I soon realised the three practices that students happen to do in common:

1. Having computers opened while studying practice, whether they are using the computers or not.

2. Drinking from beverage practice — most of the students bring their own food and drinks because there are no vending machines or stores inside the building.

3. Lastly, the slamming door practice that occurs whenever someone enters or exits the floor, which leaves a loud slamming noise. This is the practice that I chose to challenge the designers.

Field sketch

During the observation I realised that there aren’t enough people in the library to create an accurate sample and therefore a few questions came up to mind: “Should I observe only one floor of the building or as a whole?”, “What kind of practice is considered significant enough to be focused on our design?”, and also “Does the design that would solve my problem already exist?”. Maybe next time instead of observing only one small portion of the people, I will observe the whole building to create more accurate data.

What kind of product is considered significant to be redesigned or challenged to designers? One of the crucial points to me that would be considered significant to be focused on is whether a product would distract and affect peoples’ living quality and cause inconveniences. The fundamental purpose for a design is being useful, before considering whether it’s entertaining or pretty. Therefore, I think the priority in choosing what product to be focused on is whether its usability and reliability are well designed.

When observing I walked through the bookshelves next to my seat just to take a closer look at the elevator design; however, because people tend to notice more when it’s very quiet the walking motion probably caused slight distraction to students I’m observing. The student sitting in front of me even lifted his head to see what I was doing. Even though there weren’t really that many things I did that would influence or cause the students to act differently, but it’s still importance to notice just the slightest marginal error that I might’ve cause to affect the accuracy of my observation. Another example when the reflexive issue is important to address is when personal emotions are involved with your observation. Personal emotions can be detrimental in future observations because it creates bias. So, it is best to stay in an objective setting while observing.