7. Activities and Exercises

1. Ethics Role‑Play: Simulate an interview, focusing on informed consent and confidentiality.

This activity involves participants acting out an interview scenario. The main focus is on understanding the ethical principles of informed consent and confidentiality. Participants will take on roles as both the interviewer and the interviewee. The interviewer must explain the purpose of the interview and ensure that they have obtained permission to conduct it, emphasizing the right of the interviewee to withdraw at any time. This exercise helps students grasp the ethical considerations in user research.

Think of this like a doctor explaining a procedure to a patient before getting their consent. Just as patients need to understand what is happening and have the choice to say no, interviewees also need to know what will happen during an interview and agree to participate.

2. Interview Coding Drill: Given a transcript excerpt, practice thematic coding and affinity mapping.

In this exercise, students will receive a transcript from an interview that has already taken place. The task is to identify key themes and topics within the conversation. Thematic coding involves highlighting repeated ideas or subjects mentioned by the interviewee. Affinity mapping is then used to organize these themes visually, typically using sticky notes. This helps in recognizing patterns across multiple interviews and in synthesizing user insights.

Imagine sorting through a collection of colored beads. Each bead represents a different theme or idea from the interview. By categorizing and grouping similar colors together, you can see the bigger picture of what users are saying, much like sorting themes in a study.

3. Survey Redesign: Critique a poorly worded survey and rewrite it following best practices.

This activity involves students analyzing an existing survey that has issues in its wording. The participants will identify confusing or biased questions and suggest improvements based on principles of clarity and neutrality. The exercise emphasizes the importance of designing surveys that are easy to understand and yield accurate data. By practicing this, students learn how to create effective surveys that gather valuable insights.

Think of this as a cooking lesson where you taste a dish that is overly salty. You identify the problem and then adjust the recipe to create a more balanced flavor. Similarly, by critiquing a survey and refining the questions, you aim to improve the 'taste' of the data you collect.

4. Empathy Mapping: Work in groups to build an empathy map for a chosen persona.

During this exercise, students will collaborate to create an empathy map for a specific user persona. The map consists of different sections where students capture what the persona says, thinks, does, and feels about their experiences. This activity enhances understanding of user perspectives and helps to identify their needs and emotions. By visualizing user sentiments, students can better empathize with the persona and create solutions tailored to their needs.

Consider this like preparing for an important interview where you try to understand the candidate's background and motivations. The empathy map allows you to gather a holistic view of the persona, much like preparing a comprehensive profile before meeting someone important.

5. 5 Whys Exercise: Identify a common symptom in daily life and apply the 5 Whys to find the root cause.

In this activity, students will select a common problem they encounter in their daily lives and apply the 5 Whys technique to trace back to its root cause. This method involves asking 'Why?' repeatedly, up to five times, to peel away the layers and reach the fundamental issue. This exercise is valuable for developing critical thinking and problem-solving skills, enabling students to approach complex issues systematically.

Think about it like a puzzle; you start with the pieces scattered and ask questions to fit them together. If the final image isn’t what you expected, you keep asking why you didn’t get it right until the underlying reasons are clear, revealing what's missing in your approach.

6. OKR Planning: Draft an OKR for improving an educational app feature and define three quantifiable key results.

This activity involves students setting up objectives and key results (OKRs) for a feature in an educational app. An OKR is a goal-setting framework that consists of a clear objective aimed at improving user experience or engagement, paired with measurable key results that indicate success. Students will brainstorm relevant objectives and identify three specific, quantifiable outcomes that can be tracked to measure progress. This exercise emphasizes goal clarity and accountability in project management.

Consider this like planning a sports season. The objective might be to win a championship (the overarching goal), and each game becomes a key result that contributes to that goal. Tracking wins, losses, and improvements makes it easier to see if the overall objective is on track, just as tracking OKRs does for project goals.

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