User Studies – Iteration, Creativity, and UCD Techniques
Setting the scene:
During my Master’s program at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, I had the opportunity to collaborate with the School of Medicine on a project that became the foundation for my dissertation. This collaboration allowed me to design and conduct three separate user studies, with each one building on the insights of the last. Throughout the summer, I watched my approach to design evolve as feedback from each study directly shaped the next and served to sharpen my understanding of the users’ needs and redefine my design instincts. What began as a straightforward research exercise became an essential learning experience, teaching me the value of iteration, adaptability, and user-centered thinking.
The Users:
A group of four students from a local high school
The parents of these four students
Iteration
The User Centered Design process (UCD) really revolves around the idea of iteration and adaptability. Over the course of the summer, I grew accustomed to learning, changing, and improving at each stage as I organized, designed, and led three user studies. Each study informed the next, helping me refine my methods and build stronger connections with participants.
From Study 1, I learned that large-group activities could make some students hesitant to engage. This insight led us to adopt smaller group and one-on-one formats in Study 2, creating a more comfortable setting for deeper, more candid conversations.
It was also during the first study that a casual comment from a student, about using Snapchat’s Bitmoji, sparked my personal focus for the project. I realized that avatar creation could be a fun, relatable way to encourage interaction, and I carried that thread into Study 3. In that session, participants explored a working prototype featuring an avatar-building tool, allowing us to observe both usability and engagement.
This process showed me how iterative design is shaped by both structured feedback and unexpected user insights, and how following a single promising idea across multiple studies can lead to richer, more user-centered results.
The Double Diamond of UCD (Nessler,2018). This idea of constant iteration shaped the User Studies and provided the backbone to my dissertation
Creativity
As a painter, my mind is rarely far from drawing. The rolling hills outside my window, dramatic clouds on the horizon, even simple still life scenes; everything seems to demand a quick sketch. But beyond artistry, sketching is a powerful tool we all have to capture what we see. A tool I believe that is often overlooked and underutilized. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so why not use sketching to gather richer data in a user study?
In our first study, our group had different goals and areas of focus, which meant I had limited time to engage students and extract meaningful insights efficiently. That challenge led me to embrace sketching as a solution. By asking students to sketch a “day in their life,” I created a dynamic, hands-on activity that made participation easy and engaging. Using a simple template, I collected their sketches in about ten minutes without hesitation from the students. The drawings revealed insights I doubt I would have captured as openly through traditional group or individual interviews.
In the final user study, I revisited this sketching technique with a playful nod to our first session by asking students to sketch their ideas for an application. Having participated in all three studies and just tested a working prototype, they brought valuable insights and creative suggestions that I welcomed openly. Looking ahead, I might incorporate this activity earlier in the process to capture user ideas sooner and explore which elements could be integrated into the design from the start.
The template for the 'Sketch a day in your life' activity
Adding in words helped many of the participants with the sketching; and was useful for us as researchers!
Some participants did not sketch as much as write down their answers - but the idea was much the same
This participant may not have revealed how little she eats in a day had we asked her directly
A student's response to the final study when asked to design their own app
Another student's final app design
Moving forward, I plan to continue incorporating sketching as a core part of my user research. This creative tool not only engages participants in a meaningful way but also reveals insights that might be missed through traditional methods. Reflecting on this experience, I’m reminded of the power of thinking creatively about research techniques. By blending artistic expression with structured inquiry, we can uncover richer, more nuanced data that ultimately leads to better design decisions.
UCD Techniques
Colloboration
Starting as a group of four and later splitting into pairs, we knew strong collaboration would be essential. For the first user study, we used a shared Miro board so everyone could contribute ideas, track updates, and stay aligned. Miro proved invaluable for organizing concepts, data, and observations in a clear, accessible format.
After the first study, we returned to Miro to share findings across the team and begin grouping and analyzing the data. My partner and I extended its use further, creating a mood board to capture ideas and themes for the app inspired by our initial findings. This visual exploration naturally evolved into a mind map, outlining how the app’s different features and components could be structured.
The collaborative Miro used to plan the first user study
Information from the first user study organized with certain trends highlighted
A mood board created after the first user study to group ideas
An up close on the avatar section of the mood board
A mind map of a potential app
Interviewing
Conducting an interview is a skill that develops with practice. In our second user study, each of us was responsible for interviewing a student one-on-one; a setup that required building rapport quickly. Looking back now, with more teaching experience, I can see the beginnings of my ability to put students at ease.
We used insights from the first study to guide our talking points with each student. For example, one of the quietest participants had mentioned in passing that she played the violin. I made a point of bringing this up in our second session, using it as a segue into a discussion about her other hobbies. This small act of remembering and connecting over a personal detail showed her that we were paying attention and valued her contributions. The shift was noticeable; she became more engaged and confident in sharing her thoughts, and our conversation yielded richer, more detailed insights.
Questionnaires
In our final user study, we needed more quantitative data to compare two different prototypes. To achieve this, we incorporated questionnaires using both a Likert scale and the NASA Task Load Index (NASA-TLX).
Likert Scale: Captured participants’ ratings on specific aspects of the prototypes, such as ease of use, visual appeal, and engagement.
NASA-TLX: Measured perceived workload, including mental demand, effort, and frustration, providing a structured way to assess usability beyond subjective preference.
These tools gave us measurable insights that complemented our qualitative observations, helping us make informed design refinements.
Final Thoughts
This project only scratches the surface of my dissertation, but it represents the foundation of many skills I still carry today. More than anything, it deepened my fascination with the user—what they think, feel, notice, ignore, and rely on when interacting with software. They are the true experts; our role as designers is to learn from them and refine processes so they can do what they do best; only better.
The lessons from that summer shaped my entire approach to UX. I now approach every project with a sense of duty to understand the user’s needs and experiences, whether through asking the right questions or using creative methods like sketching to uncover hidden insights. I may not be an expert in every domain, but with the right tools, I can immerse myself in a user’s world long enough to design something that truly works for them.