In-Depth Interviews: Feature Prioritization
Asking customers to prioritize features and content that they would like to see offered on a web site is similar to card-sorting, but is different because the emphasis is more on overall user experience than site structure. The researcher creates a set of cards or a table with existing content and features and presents them to the customer to re-sort in prioritized order, based on some criteria. For example, “Place these cards on the table and order them according to the features that are most important to you when shopping for a vacation stay.” Depending on the goals of the research, the research team may create cards with existing content and features, future content and features, or a mixture of the two. These two types of explorations are discussed below.
Current features and content
If the content and features to be offered on the site are relatively closed, without much chance of adding completely different features, then the research team may choose to focus on prioritization of existing site elements. In this case, researchers would ask participants to prioritize potential features according to importance and/or anticipated frequency of use.
Future features and content
When asking participants about preferences for future functionality and content, one approach is to present them with cards, a list, or a table of possible features and content, and ask them to rank them based on their importance or their anticipated frequency of usage. Another method is to ask participants to develop such a list unprompted. If the feature set and content is well understood and somewhat closed, then the first method is most appropriate. If there is some room for invention or the solution set is more open, then the second approach is better. Responses can be compared qualitatively across participants to find trends according to user type.
When asking about future functionality, the researcher should also ask participants how they expect to access it and how they expect it to work. Their expected task path can be used to support the mental model and current or proposed interaction model.
Copyright 2009, Paul Bryan, Usography Corporation (http://www.usography.com)
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