ASKING CUSTOMERS
You ask people questions to learn about their experiences, opinions, and needs.
What is an Interview?
A fictional, research-based representation of a typical customer to help teams understand their goals, needs, and behaviors.
What is a Persona?
You ask people to complete tasks using a website or product while you observe.
What is Usability Testing?
A collaborative session to generate as many ideas as possible.
What is Brainstorming Session?
A team dedicated to improving customers' experiences who can help with research efforts.
What is Customer Experience Team?
A group discussion led by a facilitator to hear several people's opinions at once.
What is a Focus Group?
You review customer feedback such as open-text comments to identify common themes, patterns, and concerns.
What is Customer Comment Analysis?
This method compares two versions of a webpage or design to see which one performs better.
What is A/B testing?
A flow chart to understand the order, decisions, and actions involved in completing a task.
What is Task Analysis?
A cross-agency committee that focuses on understanding our customers better.
What is Customer Insights Committee?
A set of questions sent to many people to collect feedback or opinions.
What is a Survey?
A visual map that outlines the steps a customer takes when they are interacting with a company/service, including their experiences, pain points, and emotions.
What is a Customer Journey Map?
Any content (web pages, forms, letters) is reviewed against plain language principles, best practices, and DOL standards.
What is Plain Language Review?
A review of similar websites and/or services to identify common patterns and opportunities for improvement.
What is a Comparative Analysis?
This group will review surveys that are sent outside of DOL and/or to the entire agency.
What is Voice of Customer Subcommittee?
You ask users to organize information into groups that make sense to them.
What is Card Sorting?
You talk to employees or subject-matter experts who regularly interact with or understand customers.
What is a Stakeholder Interview?
You check if a web page works for users with disabilities, using tools like screen readers and keyboard-only navigation.
What is Accessibility Testing?
A collaborative session that actively involves customers when creating early concepts and/or co-designing an experience.
What is a Co-Creation Session?
A handbook with resources to help us understand who our customers are, feedback they have provided about DOL's products and services, and what we've learned about their behavior.
What is Customer Insights Handbook?
This method removes the visual design of a website to evaluate whether the navigation and information architecture make sense.
What is Tree Testing?
You observe and interview customers in their natural, real-world environment as they do their tasks.
What is Contextual Inquiry?
This method involves identifying design problems of a user interface by reviewing a list of established usability principles.
What is a Heuristic Evaluation?
A visual map that organizes a team's knowledge about what customers are saying, what they're thinking, what they're doing, and what they are feeling.
What is an Empathy Map?
A dashboard that brings together multiple sources of customer feedback.
What is Customer Insights Dashboard?