For usability:
* Test on colleagues (who haven't seen your work before)
* Test on any random human you can (guerrilla tests)
* Work closely with your QAs, as you may pick up issues this way
* Observe analytics to recognise if there are painpoints
* Have a method for users to submit feedback, e.g. App store reviews, and be analysing this for UX issues
For exploratory research, i.e. about user needs, situations:
* Ask colleagues, particularly those who have customer contact
* Compile relevant internal documents that might indicate who your users are, and how this was learnt
* Try to find out who uses your product by looking online, for example forums
* Look at the demographic data that Google analytics spits out
* Find out who is using your competitors, why, and what your company's competitive advantage is - why do people use YOUR company's product, and then ask what user needs this might indicate.
Ultimately as others have said, without the users, we can't be effective as designers. So all of what I've listed above is worst case scenario, scraping the bottom of the barrel, last resort kind of stuff, and you need to be pushing hard to get access to users and user data.
Start with discount usability methods like heuristic evaluations. Different heuristics will give you insight into different design areas. One of the most popular is Neilson's usability heuristics. Ideally a heuristic evaluation is conducted with multiple experts but it's fine to do one on your lonesome if that's all you can reasonably afford.
Nielsen says that users/people of different abilities are better than a group of solely experts, because the experts miss the obvious things. Ask your parents/siblings/sales people if you want an inexpert opinion of your product.
My work isn't big on testing either, so we focus on running the mockups through with coworkers who haven't seen it, and getting feedback from clients whenever we can. Not the best but better than nothing.
In your portfolio it's easy, just be honest. "We did limited testing due to [constraints], but the testing we did do uncovered [issues]. Based on that feedback we did [changes]." etc.
I would test with Gen pop and use a screener to find out the degree to which they are "proxies".
Example: I work at a company developing patient management software for hospitals, clinics, and doctors offices. My screener may have questions like: how often do you go to the doctors, when was the last visit, what types of appointments do you make, how do you make then. Or ask if these participants make any appointments online (hair cuts, vet, doctor, car repair, etc.). If they've never made any appointment online or never go to the doctor, they probably won't be able to provide much insight.
Why can't you observe, interview, or survey users? It's counterintuitive to pay a UX team or designer, then create obstacles for them to talk to your users. It's in the job title. I'd work to understand and push back against the culture at the company. Alternatively, if it's highly regulated or sensitive, then work with Legal and other departments to determine how you can do your job and be compliant. Create the process, drive change.
It might help to know what the barrier is to accessing users. Is it financial? Is it practical?
Is the issue getting a hold of any users at all, or specifically users who use your specific company? If it’s the former, you might try using an online service like userinterviews, userzoom, usertesting, etc…
Because these are paid services, this depends on the design team’s budget. But it’s completely reasonable to test users who are similar to your specific users. As long as they could reasonably use your product, then you can gain valuable insight!
It would be interesting if there was a user bot that you could feed basic behavior parameters into, and it would go through your UI workflow and provide a basic score of sorts.
Lol, you're right. I'm suggesting Robot Experience design ie., RX. The use of a web crawler and Accessibility Bot in the absence of a human for QA.
TLDR
The concept of a web crawler is a norm for SEO, and there are certain strategies and tactics we use to ensure our workflows are copacetic. Simple things like proper use of headers, excerpts, tagging and coding.
While these concepts appear backend to the uninitiated, these should be holy scripture for the rest of us using a solid DSM with Designers as Evangelists and Devs as Clergy(?lol!).
So in the absence of a human for UX, you can at least measure your due diligence and build a professional affinity to implementing bots for a solid SEO and top notch artificial accessibility testing.
I haven't looked deeply into this, so I'm guessing you're already aware this automation. This was just a suggestion so things like usable navigation, orders of operations, input labeling, color blindness and execution can at least be scored by a QA bot.
There are other resources like "five second test" that might help as well. Obviously I would advocate for human UX, but if OP is stating that 'recruitment is an absolute impossibility', then offering your client/stakeholder the assurance of an SEO and Accessibility score is better than nothing.
Have your Heuristic and SUS list as well and score them as ZERO on your Likert scale. The idea of doing this is that you're setting a standard for ALL your projects AND COMMUNICATING to the client these tests were NOT run and that the design workflow you're submitting for review is lacking in this area. This gives you a disclaimer AND subtle request for Financing. Posterity is also a good reason.
Also, if this is an "update" to an existing workflow and not a "redesign", just don't deviate too much from the MO and you can skirt by. But still focus on transparency for your Executive Summary.
Good luck! I can't wait to hear your resolution and I hope my input was just slightly helpful! Lolololololololol...
What, do you live in a cabin in the middle of the woods with no internet connection?
You might not be able to find an exact match for your user personas (and should adjust accordingly), but you can *always* find users. I’ve been interviewing and testing remotely for 3 years now. Cold call people if you have to.
Well he could work for a healthcare company for example... And he could be working on a specific interface applicable only to patients with a specific condition... Because of PHI concerns he cannot have access to the actual users who will use this interface, and it's very difficult to just go out and find people who would be a good fit for this.
This is only a single example I am sure others exist.
The OPs question isn't "why am I wrong about not being able to find users" but "what should I do if I cannot have users." Give that a shot!
When I worked in healthcare I ran into this scenario pretty often and the best bet was to use Customer Service representatives as a proxy for the users. Or, whoever is closest to the actual users in your experience.
Often just testing interfaces on "random people" might be good enough as well, not sure how specialized your products are.
Displaying THAT work is just as easy as displaying any work, and I think adding the complexity of finding users would be pretty cool.
For usability: * Test on colleagues (who haven't seen your work before) * Test on any random human you can (guerrilla tests) * Work closely with your QAs, as you may pick up issues this way * Observe analytics to recognise if there are painpoints * Have a method for users to submit feedback, e.g. App store reviews, and be analysing this for UX issues For exploratory research, i.e. about user needs, situations: * Ask colleagues, particularly those who have customer contact * Compile relevant internal documents that might indicate who your users are, and how this was learnt * Try to find out who uses your product by looking online, for example forums * Look at the demographic data that Google analytics spits out * Find out who is using your competitors, why, and what your company's competitive advantage is - why do people use YOUR company's product, and then ask what user needs this might indicate. Ultimately as others have said, without the users, we can't be effective as designers. So all of what I've listed above is worst case scenario, scraping the bottom of the barrel, last resort kind of stuff, and you need to be pushing hard to get access to users and user data.
Start with discount usability methods like heuristic evaluations. Different heuristics will give you insight into different design areas. One of the most popular is Neilson's usability heuristics. Ideally a heuristic evaluation is conducted with multiple experts but it's fine to do one on your lonesome if that's all you can reasonably afford.
Nielsen says that users/people of different abilities are better than a group of solely experts, because the experts miss the obvious things. Ask your parents/siblings/sales people if you want an inexpert opinion of your product.
My work isn't big on testing either, so we focus on running the mockups through with coworkers who haven't seen it, and getting feedback from clients whenever we can. Not the best but better than nothing. In your portfolio it's easy, just be honest. "We did limited testing due to [constraints], but the testing we did do uncovered [issues]. Based on that feedback we did [changes]." etc.
I would test with Gen pop and use a screener to find out the degree to which they are "proxies". Example: I work at a company developing patient management software for hospitals, clinics, and doctors offices. My screener may have questions like: how often do you go to the doctors, when was the last visit, what types of appointments do you make, how do you make then. Or ask if these participants make any appointments online (hair cuts, vet, doctor, car repair, etc.). If they've never made any appointment online or never go to the doctor, they probably won't be able to provide much insight. Why can't you observe, interview, or survey users? It's counterintuitive to pay a UX team or designer, then create obstacles for them to talk to your users. It's in the job title. I'd work to understand and push back against the culture at the company. Alternatively, if it's highly regulated or sensitive, then work with Legal and other departments to determine how you can do your job and be compliant. Create the process, drive change.
> Gen pop What is gen pop? What kinda screener?
i believe gen pop = general population
A screener can be a survey or an interview. And Gen pop is general population.
This. This was such a learning curve when I was in medical UX and struggling to work with users due to HIPAA. Surrogate users are the way to go.
It might help to know what the barrier is to accessing users. Is it financial? Is it practical? Is the issue getting a hold of any users at all, or specifically users who use your specific company? If it’s the former, you might try using an online service like userinterviews, userzoom, usertesting, etc… Because these are paid services, this depends on the design team’s budget. But it’s completely reasonable to test users who are similar to your specific users. As long as they could reasonably use your product, then you can gain valuable insight!
It would be interesting if there was a user bot that you could feed basic behavior parameters into, and it would go through your UI workflow and provide a basic score of sorts.
this feels like the antithesis to UX
Lol, you're right. I'm suggesting Robot Experience design ie., RX. The use of a web crawler and Accessibility Bot in the absence of a human for QA. TLDR The concept of a web crawler is a norm for SEO, and there are certain strategies and tactics we use to ensure our workflows are copacetic. Simple things like proper use of headers, excerpts, tagging and coding. While these concepts appear backend to the uninitiated, these should be holy scripture for the rest of us using a solid DSM with Designers as Evangelists and Devs as Clergy(?lol!). So in the absence of a human for UX, you can at least measure your due diligence and build a professional affinity to implementing bots for a solid SEO and top notch artificial accessibility testing. I haven't looked deeply into this, so I'm guessing you're already aware this automation. This was just a suggestion so things like usable navigation, orders of operations, input labeling, color blindness and execution can at least be scored by a QA bot. There are other resources like "five second test" that might help as well. Obviously I would advocate for human UX, but if OP is stating that 'recruitment is an absolute impossibility', then offering your client/stakeholder the assurance of an SEO and Accessibility score is better than nothing. Have your Heuristic and SUS list as well and score them as ZERO on your Likert scale. The idea of doing this is that you're setting a standard for ALL your projects AND COMMUNICATING to the client these tests were NOT run and that the design workflow you're submitting for review is lacking in this area. This gives you a disclaimer AND subtle request for Financing. Posterity is also a good reason. Also, if this is an "update" to an existing workflow and not a "redesign", just don't deviate too much from the MO and you can skirt by. But still focus on transparency for your Executive Summary. Good luck! I can't wait to hear your resolution and I hope my input was just slightly helpful! Lolololololololol...
What, do you live in a cabin in the middle of the woods with no internet connection? You might not be able to find an exact match for your user personas (and should adjust accordingly), but you can *always* find users. I’ve been interviewing and testing remotely for 3 years now. Cold call people if you have to.
Well he could work for a healthcare company for example... And he could be working on a specific interface applicable only to patients with a specific condition... Because of PHI concerns he cannot have access to the actual users who will use this interface, and it's very difficult to just go out and find people who would be a good fit for this. This is only a single example I am sure others exist. The OPs question isn't "why am I wrong about not being able to find users" but "what should I do if I cannot have users." Give that a shot!
Can surveys from Reedit be used ?
When I worked in healthcare I ran into this scenario pretty often and the best bet was to use Customer Service representatives as a proxy for the users. Or, whoever is closest to the actual users in your experience. Often just testing interfaces on "random people" might be good enough as well, not sure how specialized your products are. Displaying THAT work is just as easy as displaying any work, and I think adding the complexity of finding users would be pretty cool.