The Context:

One core focus of my Master’s dissertation from the University of St Andrews was the User Centered Design (UCD) process and more specifically; user studies. Over the course of this project, I led, in collaboration with three other Master’s students, a total of three user studies with a focus group of adolescents. The information we gathered from these three studies directly impacted the content, design, and even overall scope of the project and my dissertation as a whole. Learning how to plan, lead, document, and analyze the results from these user studies has massively contributed to my growth as a User Experience designer. User studies are a designer’s best chance to get direct insight into the people that will directly use the product, but it can be difficult to lead them productively and be able to gather the useful information for the designs of applications. My experience with this project has allowed me to grow the skill of leading a productive and impactful user study.

My Involvement:

The overall scope of the dissertation was focused around designing an application that could be used to help track adolescents health habits and gather data that could be used to track patterns and identify commonalities and changes across time. The project was intended for local use at first, but with the potential for expansion. I joined a group of three other Master’s students to help tackle this project. My specific focus was on ensuring the design of an application with teenage girls in mind specifically in order to reduce any potential negative impact on this user base. Throughout the course of this project, the information gathered from the user studies would directly impact my focus and goals as I narrowed down further. Stay tuned to see what my final area of focus was at the end of this journey.

The Users:

• A group of 4 students from a local high school. 3 attended every study, 1 attended only 2 (this was during the summer making it difficult to recruit students)

• The parents of these 4 students