Think Like a Design Thinker: Practicing Qualitative Inquiry in the Study of the User Experience (UX)

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research focuses on the user experience (UX) and interaction design of everyday technology. I teach students what it means to design the user experience based on what we learn to observe and understand about users themselves, what users do, and what they want to do. We need input from users early on in the design process -- this also assumes that an iterative process is being followed that includes user feedback throughout the design lifecycle. My students can code and are ready to get coding right away, but they need to learn how to think like a design thinker before prototyping begins. In my courses, we apply qualitative inquiry practices to discover different aspects of the user journey and the essences of the user experience. To design for the user and to design a good user experience, students learn ways on how to experience what other users experience. They learn ways to observe, record, listen, retrace, think, process, analyze, reflect, describe, and do what we say we practice in UX--- learn how a user thinks and design a user experience around our understandings about users. This presentation will share my reflections on how to engage students in learning about and practicing qualitative research in the study of the user experience (UX)