This week in User Research & beyond

Interested in knowing more about tech user behaviour?We present you with news and insights from across India on how users are making decisions and adapting their preferences.

News of the week:

This festival season e-Retailers are focusing on Bharat users

Fashion buying has changed in India amidst COVID-19 and e-Retailers such as Myntra focuses on Bharat users this festive season. Since many Tier 2,3 shoppers have come on board, <Myntra plans to give them reasons to come back for more.(Source)
To think about: 

Are the products really ready to be used by Bharat users? Follow us to learn more on how to build for Bharat in our next opinion piece.

Product of the week:

Google Meet because they are listening to their users

Google has rolled out a new feature to Google Meet that will allow teachers or educators to divide the participants on a group video call in up to 100 breakout rooms. Customers of G Suite Enterprise for Education can break the class into groups for simultaneous small group discussions. Google said the feature will be added to additional Google Workspace editions later this year. (Source)

Book of the week:

The Elements of User Experience: User-Centred Design for the Web by James Garrett

Elements of User Experience has been widely accepted as reference reading material for UX-ers all over the world. It explains practices and processes of creating a cohesive user experience (combining various disciplines such as usability, interaction design, information architecture) and is a good guide for newcomers and experts. 

To know more about other user research books, check out our blog here.

Opinion of the week:

Understanding the why behind user behaviour

The Why of user behavior is often difficult to find. This is where user research is needed.This article shares answers for some of the why questions. Why do Rajasthan’s Tier 2 town residents like Paytm over Google Pay? Why do they prefer voice messages over text chats? Why is your e-Retailer’s “Page view” divided by “Add to cart” statistics too low? Why is changing the position or orientation of buttons or icons on your app not a good idea? Find out how Prashant Singh found answers to these questions from residents of Bikaner, Rajasthan (Source).
Follow Prashant Singh on Twitter @pacificleo

Quote of the week:

If we want users to like our software, we should design it to behave like a likeable person: respectful, generous and helpful.

— Alan Cooper, Software Designer and Programmer. (Source)

Research paper of the week:

Sociocultural Dimensions of Tracking Health and Taking Care

A research paper on “Sociocultural Dimensions of Tracking Health and Taking Care” written by Neha Kumar co-authored with Karthik S. Bhat won the Best paper award at CSCW 2020. The paper describes the results of an interview study conducted with patients with cardiac diseases in Bangalore, India. Topics discussed include current health management approaches, identifying both motivations and barriers to tracking, attitudes towards online information, as well as cultural and ecological influences on their perceptions of cardiac care. Neha Kumar is an Assistant Professor at Georgia Institute of Technology and Karthik S. Bhat is a doctoral student in the field of Human-Centered Computing. (Source)

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