How to Define User Behavior Using Methods Like Grouping, 2x2 Matrix, and Venn Diagram.

Saturating the Space

When to Use This Method?

The goal of this method is that, by sharing stories about users, team members can reconstruct a picture of events that is as robust as possible, collect the maximum number of the user's contextual and behavioral details, and thereby "saturate the space".

During the sharing of stories, other participants can highlight the client's contextual and behavioral nuances and formulate new insights. Furthermore, despite the fact that all of the team's participants observed the same events, their interpretations may differ.

By sharing stories, participants can put together a unified opinion about what they heard and saw.

Every sticky note is a small piece of information. Saturating the space is a way to visually show all details of the user experience, arranging all our sticky notes on the board or on a sheet of flip chart paper.

Thereby, we assemble all of the different pieces of information into one. Later on, we will work with this information by grouping the sticky notes and drawing out patterns.

How to Use the Method?

1. Prepare. Before you start telling a story, advise participants to prepare all materials that they will use during the story in advance: photographs, sketches, and other artifacts that will help reach the listeners.

   
   

2. Share stories one by one. While one participant is telling his or her story, have others make notes on sticky notes. This will allow them to record interesting details and their insights; participants should always be asking, "How could this information be useful in the context of our project?"

   
   

3. While telling stories, do not generalize to a great extent, and do not stray off-topic. Begin with a description of the events (what happened) and follow the structure of "Who, What, Where, When, and How".

   
   

4. When telling a story, make it interesting by fully reconstructing the series of events, the context, and the character traits of individuals and objects.

   
   

5. Interpret. While listening to other participants' stories, interpret what you hear. Always ask the questions, "why does a character behave one way and not another?" and "what significance does each detail have?" Write down on sticky notes what events you found especially surprising during the story while also formulating your insights.

   
   

6. Saturate the space. At the end of sharing stories, all participants should have the original sticky notes they made during research and the sticky notes they made during other team members' stories. Ask the participants to "saturate the space" - to place their sticky notes on the board and eliminate duplicates.

Groping Method

When to Use This Method?

After having recorded all interesting contextual and behavioral nuances about the client on the sticky notes and having saturated the space with them, we move on to the grouping method.

In this method, the participants put sticky notes into groups based on their characteristics, which will help us highlight common topics and regularities among the received information.

At the end of working with this method, we must formulate insights based on the groups we have singled out. Each insight will be dependent on one group.

For instance, in a group with the general name "Security," you can find interconnections that lead to the insight: "A client feels secure when he or she feels that he or she has control over the situation".

How to Use the Method?

1. Group. Look at all the sticky notes that you have in your possession and think about how you could group them. Consider whether common themes exist or if patterns can be observed. It is quite possible that there are several ways to put the sticky notes into groups; new insights may emerge from regrouping the sticky notes according to new criteria.

   
   

2. Analyze. Find as many interconnections as possible. After having put the sticky notes into groups, observe how the elements relate to each other internally. Pay attention not just to the interconnections but also to the differences between groups and what red flags they could signal.

   
   

3. Formulate Insights. Do not forget that our main task is to formulate as many insights as possible into a situation after having analyzed and made conclusions about why certain elements of it are connected.

2x2 Matrix Method

When to Use This Method?

2x2 Matrix is a good way to revitalize the discussion and think about the users and the problem domain that we are researching in a novel way.

This method helps us find unexpected interconnections among the elements of the selected group and understand how they interplay with each other. 2x2 Matrix is often used for the analysis of the competitors' market to determine new business opportunities and open niches.

How to Use the Method?

1. Choose elements for comparison. People most often compare different products, services, types of technologies, types of users, kinds of activities, places, brands, or companies.

   
   

2. Define what the axes designate. Look at which characteristics are inherent to the group of elements you are examining. For instance, if we are analyzing users of a particular service, then we may be confronted by such pairs of polar opposites as "experienced users vs. beginners" and "the most commonly used features vs. features that are used rarely".

   
   

3. Discuss the results of the analysis and write down relevant insights. You will most likely have to consider different combinations of polar characteristics to discover consistencies. The discussion during the attempts to arrange sticky notes inside a certain quadrant frequently leads to more insights than the study of the whole diagram.

   
   

4. Distribute sticky notes. After choosing two polar characteristics, arrange them on the opposite ends of the axes and place sticky notes inside the four quadrants on how they correspond to a certain characteristic. You may use the system recommended by the American design consultant Vijay Kumar in his book 101 Design Methods:

   
   

• Polarity. Look at which elements surfaced at the polar ends and explain why.

• Groups. Inside the diagram, groups of elements could form that are connected with or similar to a particular pattern. Determine the groups of elements within the diagram by drawing a circle around them.

• Gaps. It is just as important to analyze quadrants that are not filled in as those that are filled in. Disparities could point to unmet client needs or an open niche in the market.

• Migrations. Is it possible that the position of some elements in the diagram could change over time or as a result of some factor? Use arrows on the diagram to show how these elements shift. Think about how similar migrations could affect other elements.

• Quadrants. What unites elements that end up within a given quadrant? How do they differ from elements in other quadrants? Do the elements in one quadrant suggest any characteristics of that quadrant besides those that are defined on the axes?

Venn Diagram

When to Use this Method?

This method is especially good for the comparison and analysis of elements that pertain to one field. For instance, you can compare different types of mobile payment systems or three different organizations offering services in one industry.

A Venn Diagram is a visual depicted by intersecting circles. As a rule, three groups of elements (four maximum) are used for comparison and analysis. Otherwise, our diagram becomes too confusing and complex to read or understand.

Sticky notes that characterize each of the analyzed parts are placed into the corresponding circle, and sticky notes that do not pertain to any of the groups are relegated to the outside of the circle lines.

Sticky notes that pertain to two categories (on a diagram of three circles) will be placed at the circle intersections. In the center are placed those sticky notes that pertain to all groups.

How to Use the Method?

1. Determine the groups of elements you are going to compare. They can be products, services, types of technologies, types of users, places, brands, and companies. If you are starting the process using elements that you already formulated during previous analysis, find out if there are any among your groups that are connected by something or that possess any common characteristics.

   
   

2. Merge these groups by the principles of the Venn Diagram.

   
   

3. Study the diagram, and explain how and why the groups are interconnected. If groups are not connected, think about why that would be the case.

   
   

4. Formulate insights starting from the items listed above.