Now published: Research That Scales by Kate Towsey!

Ten tips for a better survey, UX Bristol

08/01/2011

Bristol is a lively city, the effective capital of the south west of the UK. Its wealth originally came from trade – rather unfortunately, considerably from the slave trade – but these days it’s mostly about aerospace, electronics and creative media.

The Bristol Usability Group has been networking and holding evening meetings for a while now, and they decided to take the next big step and hold a one-day conference, UX Bristol.

I was delighted when my proposal was accepted. I love the city; it’s a
pleasant drive through the Cotswolds instead of yet another
aeroplane to get there; and most of all it was a chance to try out some
of my survey ideas on the bright sparks in Bristol and get their
feedback.

The conference was judged by all to be a tremendously successful.
We enjoyed great talks and plenty of fun networking. We’re hoping that
they’ll organise another one next year.

The tough part was choosing between the parallel tracks. I learned a lot from all the sessions I went to, but the standout for me was Eva-Lotta Lamm. Her workshop has helped me to begin to conquer my fear of sketching. You can get a flavour of the workshop from Bristol UX’s description: Sketching for UX

I’ve posted the slides from my session: 10 tips for a better survey.

You
will see that the opening slide says ’10 slightly different tips for a
better survey’. That’s because this is an updated version of the talk
that I did at STC conference; I thought of a better way of explaining
Tip 2 “Do not ask questions about unremarkable repetitive behaviours”.
Not sure what that means? Well, have a look at the slides and tell me
whether that helps – or leave a comment and ask!

Me talking about surveys at UX Bristol. (Photo credit: James Chudley @chudders)