Contextual Observation & Best UX methods to adopt - Practical approach

Question

Contextual observation is done at the user environment and i am aware of it.

But in the banking sector, the users profile would be general public. what is the screening methods and who is this been conducted? Assume we have 20 task flows and who many users do you guys recommend to conduct the usability testing.( I mean Concurrent thing allowed method and traditional in person usability test, setting up few scenarios)

Also One more clarification i would like to know is, Do we really have to do heuristics for the whole app and conduct usability test for the current application, when the stake holder knows that his app is not good and there are lot of UX work to be done.

What do you thing that i should do

1. explain the client about the UX benefits and start with research?
2. Or first do the heuristics for my reference to understand the current app and start talking to the user profiles to understand what they thing.
3. Or involve only those users who have started working on current application as part of my research for the initial draft.

Answer 1

You should definitely do the heuristics on the current app for the following reasons:

1. You may find good things in that app, things that poeple were familiar with. Yes, a new app is good, but you shouldn't simply expect people to totally adapt to a new thing, maybe take into account their old practices on the current app.
2. You will have stronger arguments for the design of the new app. You will be able to also use some sort of before and after measurement if you do the heuristics for both.
3. While you do this, you should also explain the client the benefits of UX.

On the user thing, I think that you can get valuable information from the stakeholders, who do they think the user is. Then maybe some data from their website, if available, about the people visiting and using their services. If you combine these with a few contextual observations, you should have a strong feeling of who the users are.

Answer 2

based on general observation of how certain users would use atms and online banking i could come up with a few types of users based on their behaviours.

• user who withdraw cash from every couple of days to once a week. these users prefer using cash to credit card

• users who deposit cash via cash deposit machines daily to several times a week. these are sme business owners

• users who do most of their transactions online, from shopping to transferring money.

these might differ from city to city. while all these belong to your general public. the actions they regularly perform could be a way to classify them.