Start by telling us about your research objectives and what you hope to learn. We want to hear your program design ideas (number and type of units, days field etc.) and initial thoughts on the target audience. We will want to know dates and will also ask you about the team traveling. We’ll help you plan your plan and layout a proposed calendar. Your reporting requirements and timing will help us further lock down the details. Typically when teams are visiting we handle all the logistics during the day and will work with you to plan other aspects of your trip to keep the team on task and happy!

Multidisciplinary teams typically get the most out of an immersion. Most of our clients are flying into India from overseas and a typical team size is about 8, although we’ve worked with teams up to 80 people with multiple concurrent streams in the field. There are often practical reasons for keeping the team size smaller. These include “team dynamics”, managing debriefs, and how many can go in-home, fit in a lab etc. Often we mix streams running concurrent lab sessions while sending another team in-home and rotating and inserting different types of visits and locations based on the research needs.

We’ve developed our own kit for mobile UX work. We use it in both lab settings and take it quickly on-site – in-home, on business premise even into “dark” rural villages etc. All sessions are captured on two or more cameras, typically with both local language and translation simultaneously. Files are all time-stamped and uploaded overnight and sent for transcription. In most cases we can arrange some form of live streaming for remote research needs.

There is nothing quite like going to a location, understanding the context in which the mobile device is being used while still being able to see what the respondent is seeing without crowding them or looking over a shoulder.

Workshops take many formats. Some of our most successful long term projects have begun with field research including diaries (online too) and in-home interviews. We may also meet experts as part of the lead-up. Over time we’ve learnt respondents become very vested and interested in new product efforts. When we can bring the respondent group into a venue (example at the end of a week) along with the research team we find in four hours magic can happen. We’ve worked programs like this in-country and across multiple countries on subjects as diverse as baby products, autonomous vehicles, design for the unconnected etc. These strategic conversations are often the most gratifying projects of all.