Service Design Masterclass - User Research Fundamentals

Embark on your research journey by defining good research questions and shaping the scope to ensure you solve the right problem before choosing methods.

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Formulate well defined research questions to focus on the right problem and align stakeholders. Start broad from client briefs, narrow to questions; use open and closed items, test, and revise.

Define research scope by selecting methods that address questions, balancing exploratory and confirmatory research. Evaluate whether you study existing services or new ideas, using fieldwork to inform prototypes and experiments.

Refine your research question through iterative testing with your team to uncover the right question for service design, and select exploratory or confirmatory methods based on the question.

Plan your research to provide structure and direction, enabling systematic work and better collaboration. Define participant criteria and select appropriate methods—focus groups, surveys, ethnographic research—to generate actionable service design insights.

Choose participants to ensure reliable research, avoid sampling bias, and apply probability sampling for large quantitative studies with a representative data set or non-probability sampling for qualitative insights.

Explore probability sampling techniques for large samples, including maximum variation sampling, cluster sampling, systematic random sampling, and stratified random sampling, and tailor diverse, representative participants for service design research.

Define the research setting by selecting where, when, how long, and who, and align interviews, observations, and contextual interviews with participants' natural environments to capture authentic insights.

Learn how to conduct iterative research loops in service design, starting broad and narrowing through observation, interviews, and synthesis, using pilot interviews to refine questions and reduce uncertainty.

Define your research sample size by identifying recurring patterns and reaching theoretical saturation in service design. Start with a small, culturally diverse group and confirm patterns with additional participants.

Apply sampling insights, including self-selected methods, and consider probability methods like cluster, systematic, and maximum variation sampling, while controlling for setting, using iterative loops, and sizing samples by patterns.

Master qualitative service design research by exploring desk research, autoethnography, participant and non-participant methods, and co-creative workshops, apply triangulation across interviews, observation, mobile ethnography, journey mapping, and system mapping.

Explore method triangulation to reduce biases and improve research quality by mixing methods that observe, interview, and ethnographically study users, informing user-centric service design decisions.

Address researcher bias in ethnographic research by using peer reflection and triangulation with a diverse team, while involving participants as co-researchers through diary studies or mobile ethnography.

mix data outputs across text, visuals, audio and artifacts to triangulate service design research, linking primary and secondary data, and balancing first and second order concepts for richer insights.

Compare overt and covert research when engaging with participants, noting transparency, informed consent, and biases like Hawthorne and social desirability, while considering ethics and the option to switch approaches.

Explore desk research, including preparatory and secondary research, to refine questions, gather insights, and synthesize data into mood boards, mind maps, and visual outputs.

Explore self ethnography and online ethnography as practical methods in service design, using autoethnography, diary studies, mystery shopping, and field notes to capture online and real-world experiences.

Explore four participant approaches in service design research: participant observation, contextual interviews, in-depth interviews, and focus groups. Note outputs like transcripts and field notes, and distinguish raw data from interpretation.

Master non-participant observation, mobile ethnography, and cultural probes to capture authentic user behavior, plan ethically, and analyze rich data for informed service design decisions.

Explore co-creative workshops for service design, including persona creation, journey mapping, and system mapping, with practical guides, iterative validation, and tangible outputs like drafts, visuals, and quotes.

Review five data collection methodologies and best practices for mixing methods and researchers, and preview desk research, self ethnography, participant observation, non-participant observation, and co-creative workshops.

Explore how to synthesize and analyze qualitative data using academic and practitioner approaches, including content analysis and coding, and learn eight data visualization methods, including journey mapping and user stories.

Visualize data to reveal patterns, gaps, and empathy for your audience, and use peer review to improve traceability. Apply inductive and deductive codification to transform raw data into insights.

Explore how to synthesize and analyze qualitative data through academic and practitioners approach, including content analysis, coding, and methods like mapping journeys and compiling research reports.

Research walls visually synthesize and analyze data by clustering quotes, photos, websites, screenshots, videos, statistics, and artifacts into themed patterns, enabling collaborative insights across personas, journey maps, and system maps.

Visualize a persona’s current and future experiences with journey maps, detailing steps and scale, while preparing data and defining goals to ensure research-based insights.

Create 3 to 7 core personas and edge-of-the-curve personas using templates and empathy maps, built from behavioral data rather than demographics, to guide empathic service design and solution development.

Define user stories as concise, user-centric requirements that bridge research and software development, enabling collaboration, guiding epics and initiatives, and delivering measurable customer value.

Master the jobs to be done framework by defining the customer's job as a functional process, guiding product decisions, market sizing, and segmentation from the customer's perspective.

Visualize data, co-create with peers, and codify insights, then explore seven deliverables: research reports, research walls, system maps, journey maps, personas, user stories, and jobs to be done.

Explore a structured, human-centered approach to user research, deriving actionable insights from ethnography and visuals like personas, journey maps, and ecosystem maps to guide the next service design phase.

Distinguish problem space from solution space in service design research, translating insights into personas, journey maps, system maps, and user stories while avoiding premature solutions and guiding brainstorming and prototyping.

See how user research deliverables fuel the service design process from problem statements to testing, using banking app examples to illustrate journey maps, personas, and jobs to be done.

Identify why you should not rush into solution mode, distinguish the problem space from the solution space, and see how user research grounds problem statement definition, ideation, prototyping, and testing.

Explore real-world bank cases illustrating user research fundamentals, from invoicing tools for business clients to value propositions for accountants, startup guidance, change management, cash back in apps, and digital marketplaces.

Explore how a bank can help business owners with invoicing tasks through user research, including quota sampling, journey maps, personas, and co-created e-invoicing solutions with accountants.

Explore how a bank designs a collaborative platform for accountants to streamline document exchange, real-time data access, and high-value advisory, using extreme case sampling and co-creative workshops.

Quantifying trader resistance and co-creating mitigation plans, this case explains shifting from an execution to an advisory model in a bank’s financial markets under MiFID II, with research loops.

Analyze how a bank researches cash back incentives via surveys and interviews to build personas, journeys, prototypes, and deliver user stories, business requirements, and notifications to boost payment solution adoption.

Explore how banks transform digital channels into a digital marketplace by integrating non-banking services for retail users, guided by surveys, interviews, and system and user journey maps.

Apply user research to redesign the international airport check-in experience, turning a stressed, confusing process into a relaxing, efficient, passenger-friendly service by following five research steps.

Discover why stakeholder management matters and learn to build a stakeholder management plan by identifying stakeholders, defining roles, setting collaboration levels, planning communication, and governance.

Identify internal and external stakeholders and map their influence using techniques like organograms, process mapping, mind maps, brainstorming, and documentation review.

Define and assign roles and responsibilities for stakeholders across business and it sides using the Rocky Matrix to clarify accountable, responsible, consulted, and informed tasks.

Map stakeholders' influence and interest with the power–interest matrix to determine collaboration levels for decision making across quadrants.

Create a stakeholder communication plan to align departments, define message and delivery, audience, detail level, transparency, formality, and frequency, while coordinating internal and external stakeholders under non-disclosure agreements.

Learn to report to management via a governance plan, covering validation, decision, prioritization, and change request processes with criteria, escalation, and documented benefits and risks.

Map stakeholders and apply a power-interest matrix to tailor collaboration, then deliver a communication plan guiding engagement with internal and external stakeholders.

Identify stakeholders with organogram and process techniques, apply the Rocky framework for roles and responsibilities, and guide collaboration via a stakeholder communication map and governance reporting for validation.

apply stakeholder management techniques to plan a multi-step activity, identify tasks and stakeholders, assess involvement levels, and organize results in a task-by-stakeholder table for practical assessment.

Finish the course and conduct user research by defining scope, formulating questions, and setting parameters; collect data with five methods and transform it into six deliverables for service design process.