Current UX Research Project

My current UX research project is tentatively entitled “Designing On-the-Water Boat Safety: Mobile UX, Ambient Data, and Emergency Response” and involves helping to develop a free mobile safety application for recreational boaters.

The purpose of this study is threefold:

to identify the user goals, challenges, and pain points involving small-craft recreational boating
to help assess the alignment of a free mobile safety application with user goals, challenges, and pain points
to identify strategies that technical communicators can use to help develop mobile application experiences that improve users’ lives.

The project employs a Lean UX research methodology. Data sources will include user interviews, usability tests, and field studies. This study is an effort to build new models for helping users with everyday problems through the development of technologies that assist them.

Through this initial study, I hope to learn ways to improve the strategies technical communicators use to improve the application development process. My previous professional experience with UX research indicates that many organizations have a high need for these strategies, and don’t know where to get them. My initial hypothesis is that Lean UX can help organizations who don’t have access to a full UX team by helping to inject Lean workflows into their application development process, particularly if that process involves the building of a mobile application that will be released for free to the public.