User research note taking is the process of recording information while conducting user research studies such as customer interviews, usability tests, stakeholder interviews, ethnographic studies, contextual inquiries, etc. It allows you to keep track of what you learned from each session, and what you need to do next.
Why take notes when we have recordings?
Taking notes during the research sessions can help you keep track of what to ask next, which topics have been covered, which one’s to follow up on, as well as, gives you the ability to record non-verbal observations, add your reflections, and make sure that you’ve gathered the required information.
Be intentional in how you store your notes
Create a consistent naming convention, and folder structure to the data that you gather from each research session
- The more you do, the more you learn, the harder it gets to keep track of learnings from previous sessions
- Keep track of your notes by following these conventions
Familiarize yourself with the research topic
Familiarity with the topic means that information gathered “makes sense” more easily, and a structured framework gives you the ability to quickly record relevant information without getting overwhelmed
- Good note takers are able to take notes in a way that is easy to understand and remember
Practise active listening during the research session
Have at least one person being assigned the role of a dedicated note-taker
- Rephrase what you hear from the participant
- Get comfortable with long pauses
- Record the session and refer back to points that you may miss out
Prepare a discussion guide with blank spaces
A discussion guide is a set of questions and topics that you would like to discuss with a participant during your research session.
- You can use it as a reference tool to help facilitate conversation and take note of key points that come up during the session.
Elaborate your notes right after each research session
Immediately after each session take 10 mins to review the discussion guide and add notes
- Synthesize everyone’s observations in a shared document, format its content and disseminate the notes so everyone walks away with the same picture of what they learned
Keep track of what you learn from your research
Adopt a dedicated solution for your user research that makes it easy to organize learnings in your notes and share them with your team
- By organizing learnings from each session into buckets, you can start finding patterns in what’s common across your research
AEIOU stands for Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects, and Users
Activities includes actions with specific goals in mind, and the processes performed to achieve them
- Environments details the context and characteristics of the space where activities are being observed
- Interactions includes both interpersonal and person-artifact interactions
- Objects catalogues the items within the environment and how they are used
- Users includes the people within the environmental that is being observed and their values and biases, behaviors, needs and relationships
POEMS stands for People, Objects, Environments, Messages, and Services
People: The demographics, roles, behavioral traits, and quantity of people in the environment
