Analyse information
We take the results of our analysis work and uncover patterns and issues for the design phase.
What we do
Our key tool is called ‘affinity diagramming’. We use it to make sense of the unstructured information captured during workplace interviews, usability analysis or evaluation activities.
We organize large amounts of qualitative data into high-level conceptual groups ('affinities') to reveal underlying issues and structure. These in turn reveal usability implications for a design.
We also use this tool where we have large amounts of stakeholder information to analyse.
Benefits
- We understand the trends and high-level concepts affecting the design, not just the minutiae
- Subtle trends can be far more easily extracted, leading to the discovery of new high-level issues
- These concepts will affect the business goals and usability goals chosen as the foundation of the design work for your project.
Real-life example
In one Hiser intranet project, the affinity diagram showed trust as a key issue related to several problems that staff were having with the intranet. Where the staff felt the information they could access on the intranet was relevant to them, they would feel trusted as employees; where it was not, they felt less trusted. Also, because staff had to repeatedly enter their password they felt their employers didn’t trust them.
Without an affinity diagram, this important HR issue would not have been easily uncovered as a theme among all the other important usability problems we found with that intranet.
Finding it meant that our design could focus on how to build trust between the employer and its employees.
