• Usability test
• Eye tracking test
• Expert review
• Concept test
• Context and needs research
• Card sorting
• Usability Metrics
• Playability research
• Overview of methods

Context and needs research

Any idea which websites your target group uses and what they think of them? And do you know what they expect from your site? What they want to find or what they absolutely don't need at all? Context and needs research shows what your visitors think matters.

The wondrous world of the user.

A website stands or falls by its visitors. So you have to know who they are, what they do and what they want. Be honest: you are not an average user of your own site. You'll get acquainted with your visitors or know them better using context and needs. You get on the same wavelength and become inspired. When you understand what makes users tick, you can test new and existing ideas against reality.

Context and needs research in the picture.

The real user.

Together we'll discuss who your visitors are or could be. We'll see to it that the right test users are invited. We'll often implement a combination of methods:

• Focus group.

  Users discuss their needs, desires and experiences with each other. We often ask them to recreate their daily life in photographs, video or notes. This is wonderful material for discussion. You get a good picture of your target group and a great deal of inspiration.

• Context mapping (ethnographic research).

  Do you want to see how the user lives? Where he lives or works? Statements and behavior fall into place when research is done in your target group's natural surroundings. We record this in photographs or video. Or we get people to keep a diary for a week. All to map the user's world.

• Online quantitative research.

  Have you concrete questions for your target group? You can reach a lot of people in little time with an online questionnaire. You can't go into the subject deeply, but you do obtain hard figures on the characteristics and the preferences of the target group. A good way of testing the results of context mapping or a focus group.

• Persona development.

  We can translate target group preferences and characteristics into personas. A persona tells the story of a typical visitor to the website and describes his objective, motivation and expectation. You use this to test your ideas during ongoing development: "What would Mandy think of this?".

Why combined testing?

The various methods of context and needs research may be implemented separately. Although a combination makes the results much stronger. For example: by using the results of context mapping and an online questionnaire as input for developing personas.