User Research Toolbox

What techniques do you find most valuable in eliciting User Needs and Validating Proposed UX designs?

Card Sorting is a Personal Favorite of mine and over the years I've developed illustration techniques that have allowed me to collaborate with others Including Business Analysts, Information Classification Specialists, Content Authors and Content USERs to perform what we liked to call 'Virtual Card Sorts' when several members of the group need to join into the meeting remotely we can utilize illustrations of several proposed menus with pre and post session groupings by topic, task /activity set and color to help users do cognitive walk-thru of their daily information access needs and 'think aloud' exercises that allow for a bot of synergistic 'group think' to guide the team to question themselves and existing content / product placement (reviewing labeling and indexing) to arrive at improved Information Architecture, more intuitive menus, easier access to the information then need to answer customer questions and perform typical job tasks on a daily basis.

It really involves several working sessions with each representative group to fine tune and rework KM entry points / user paths through the information to support their desired workstyle / workgroups' needs and improve findability and usability.

I plan to revisit the User Research toolbox again in a series of articles, and I welcome your comments and input on what tools you'd like to see me discuss next.

Cognitive Walk-thrus ?

UI / UX Review of Wires ?

Comparison 'A - B' testing?

what's the diff between 'Usability Test Plan' and

'Usability Test Script'?

what's a Usability Research 'Readout' and when is it most liable to be WRONG?

How do You do Leaner User Experience In an Agile dev lifecycle?

What are story points and how can they help us prioritize feature / user story dev?

and what about Backlog Mgmt.? how does that fit in with UX Design Sprint Zero?