<aside> 👀 Try observational studies (ethnography). Observing people in real life is a great way to find out what they do and how they do it.

You can: 1) Gather data on the current state of things 2) Check assumptions about how people use a product/service in real life 3) Identify existing pain points 4) Discover common user behaviors

To learn more, see Nielsen Norman Group on field studies.

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<aside> 💬

If you want to interact with your users, try contextual inquiry. It's a mix of observation and user interviews, so you'll gather more context around why they are doing what they're doing.

You first ask users a set of questions and then observe and question them while they work in their own environments.

For more, see usability.gov on contextual interviews.

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