APPLICATION DESIGN I - TASK 2: USER RESEARCH
18/5/26 - 26/6/26 (Week 5 - Week 10)
Lim Jia Xuan 0371026
DST60504 Application Design 1
Task 2 - User Research
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.0 Lectures
2.0 Instructions
3.0 User Research Deck
4.0 Feedback
5.0 Reflection
1.0 LECTURES
Week 6/7 - User Persona
< What is the purpose of a user persona? >
- Crafts a clear problem statement
- Addresses real user issues
- Understanding the needs and requirements of users
- Aids in strategising and guiding design decisions
< How do user personas influence product decisions? >
- Comprehensive view of user preferences and pain points
- Align product design with user preferences and solve their problems
- Understanding and documenting user pain points, keeping them engaged
- Reduces user churn
< Qualities of an effective user persona >
- Use real data
- Persona should be backed by data collected and observed, not assumptions
- Include information pertinent to product and project
- Avoid biases
< What to include in a user persona >
- Demographic information
- Personality traits
- Goals and objectives
- Behavioural information
- Needs and pain points
- Scenarios and use cases
- User quotes
Week 8 - User Journey Map and User Flows
< What is a user journey map? >
- Provides a visual representation of steps individuals take to achieve a goal.
- Identifies the pain points encountered by users when interacting with a product.
- Fosters empathy.
Benefits of a user journey map
- Provides designers and stakeholders with a global overview of the whole journey
Value of a user journey
- Identify the steps that users will go through when completing a task/goal
- Define the flow and order of these steps
- Identify high-level content and functionality for completing task/goal
- Capture and understand user behaviour
- Define what to be aware of around these steps
- Define what user might think or feel
- Provide a means for illustrating the vision of site/map
6 Criteria for creating user journeys
- Identify who
- Identify what
- Identify role
- Define style
- Define steps
- Do it digitally
< What is user flow? >
The user's path to finish a specific purpose. It includes each step, from the starting point to the endpoint.
- Visualisation tool of interactions a user has on a site/app
- To design efficient task completion
- Focuses on specific actions users take within a product to accomplish something
- Multiple branches in a user flow depending on the choices the user makes at different points
- Helps designers understand how users interact with a product, identify potential issues, and optimise user experience for better usability and efficiency
Why should we use user flow diagrams?
- Design precision
- Unified team vision
- Proactive issue detection
- Facilitate user testing
- Refine user experience
How to create a user flow for UX design?
- Research on customers
- List the purpose and goal
- List the possible steps
- Create the user flow
- Review and update
Week 9 - Card Sorting
< What is card sorting? >
A method to understand how users group and categorise information. It helps determine an organisation scheme that aligns with users' mental models.
- Informs the design of navigation menus, website or app architecture, and content strategy
- Displays users as a collection of cards, each containing a piece of information (e.g. page title, menu item, or product category)
Types of card sorting
- Open - Participants create their own categories
- Closed - Participants sort cards into predefined categories
- Hybrid - Blends open and closed card sorting
- Remote - Participants sort cards using online tools
Moderated
- Facilitator is present for study sessions
- Qualitative insights (15 samples)
Unmoderated
- Facilitator is not present
- Quantitative data (>50 samples)
Faster and less expensive
Pros of card sorting
- Ease of use and cost-effective
- Efficiency in gathering data
- Direct user input
Cons of card sorting
- Dependency on participants
- Content-centric focus
- Time-consuming data analysis
Week 10 - Sitemap
< What is a sitemap? >
A footprint showing how each page relates to the web/app's hierarchy. It guides the user's attention and organises content meaningfully.
- Visual representation of site/app content organisation
- Hierarchy of boxes representing pages or content
- Arrows or lines indicate relationships between pages/app interface
2.0 INSTRUCTIONS
3.0 USER RESEARCH DECK
4.0 FEEDBACK
Week 10:
Absent.
Week 9:
Public holiday.
Week 8:
No Feedback
Week 7:
Try to minimise the User Persona #2, for others it's ok.
Week 6:
No Feedback.
Week 5:
For the interview questions, don't ask the App itself directly. Use another way to create questions that are related to their daily lives, then only analyse based on their answer.
5.0 REFLECTIONS
This project helped me understand how user research shapes better UX design decisions. From the interviews, I identified key issues such as low trust in product information, weak membership value, and inconvenient shopping experiences.
I learned the importance of simplifying the app structure and focusing on real user needs, such as clear product information, stock availability, and in-app shopping convenience. Overall, this project improved my skills in UX research and designing more user-centred solutions.
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