Stage one: Research - Adobe XD Tutorial

- [Instructor] Whether it be developing anything from your personal webpage to a broadly distributed app on a smartphone or tablet, what you don't do is start designing. That is a surefire recipe for failure. In today's environment, you need to answer a few questions before you get rolling such questions in no particular order could be, who will use the site or the app? Why are they there? What do they need to learn? How will they use it? Is there any competition? And so on. This is where research comes into play. Research will give you insights into your target market that could be invaluable. Now here's why. Go to your local mall on say black Friday or some other major shopping day, grab a bench and watch thousands of people wander by. They are your potential users. Now let's assume you're creating a project designed to help tourists explore Barcelona in Spain, a family walks by and you discover, they're thinking of a trip to Europe this summer. Does Spain factor into their plans? Have they thought about Barcelona? And as you continue the conversation you'd discover the following. No, they hadn't thought about Spain, they were traveling to Paris. They have heard great things about Barcelona from family and friends. They're also on a tight budget for a number of reasons. One of them is they have two children. What would appeal to the children if they were there? And how would they get from Paris to Barcelona? And what you have here are some data points. You talked to another couple in the mall and learn when visiting another country, they like to wander the city and hotel location is important to them. They prefer to avoid the tourist areas and find small places where the locals hang out. They want to get there quickly. So they prefer direct flights to the location and not transfer all over the place. When in a city, they tend to plan out their day because they prefer to walk. You again, have added to your data point collection. The next group loves traveling to Europe and Barcelona is on their list. And what you learn is they're interested in the history and culture of the city they're in. Before traveling, they thoroughly research hotel reviews on travel sites and reviews on Airbnb. Museums and churches and other cultural institutions are a high on their list of sites to visit. They prefer to use taxis and public transportation to get around. When it comes to food, they will check out the reviews of a particular restaurant on the smartphone before even entering the establishment. So let's stop there and review what we've just discovered. Travelers have heard of Spain but are not terribly familiar with Barcelona. They need to know how to get to Barcelona from wherever they are. Local public transportation information is important. Lodging location and price is also important. Where to stay and eat is based on reviews. Cultural sites are high on the list of places to visit. Finding local places away from the usual tourist stops is appealing. So the research has uncovered a potential path for the project. Each one of those data points reveal something that might be included such as how to get there, where to stay, where to eat, potential walking tours based on location. How do you use public transportation and what makes Barcelona so appealing to a broad demographic? I am willing to bet that when I mentioned the project was explored Barcelona, many of you already had a mental picture of what the project would look like. I am also willing to bet that picture radically changed as we went through the research. This is important because sitting in a mall, watching your potential users walk by is rather exciting. There are thousands of them start doing the research and that cohort shrinks to hundreds. This is a good thing because you have learned a lot about the people that will use your project and by doing so you have a clear focus around how to make their experience a positive one, because you now know what they like, what they don't like, what they know, what they don't know. You know their demographic, you know their travel preferences and so on. All of this has revealed by sitting in a mall and talking to potential users. That is the importance of research to identify user needs. If your budget is large enough, retain a firm to do the research. If it isn't, there is up to you to go to the mall and start talking to people, not users, people, because in the final analysis, anything you do is designed for people. And by talking to people, you design for people and you can't have one without the other.