How to run 


design research
remotely

To share feedback, or to contribute,

contact keremerdem.goc@ingka.ikea.com

Only for internal use

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 Welcome

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Picture by Pixabay
Purpose

Design research is an important part of what we do at XD chapter,


no matter where and how we work.

Remote working or lack of physical access to people shouldn’t

mean that research activities have to stop.



Running research activities and sessions remotely requires
some adjustment, but there are simple tools and practices that
makes this possible. This guide shares some of our insights and
best practice for all designers who now need to work remotely.

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Contents

General guidance
Building consensus
Recruiting participants
Documenting consent
Surveys
Interviews
Usability testing
Gathering feedback
Synthesis and analysis

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General guidance

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Considerations for remote design research
There are some general
considerations for
planning and running
remote research activities.
1. Technology
Most remote work is reliant on other
people’s technology. Be prepared for
technological issues.
 workshop etiquette may be unclear
Confirm your technology choices with
people in advance and put fall back
plans in place for if things go wrong.
Put a pre-call in place -if possible- to
check the technology works for
everyone.
 members) which might interrupt or


Participants may have older technology
or unreliable internet connection. They
might not be familiar with the tools you
provide or not feeling comfortable with
using suggested way.
2.Etiquette
Many people will still be unfamiliar
with remote work. Meetings and
for participants. For example, camera
on or off or mute by default?

Set out the expectations and any rules
for remote sessions clearly in advance,
consider participants may have caring
duties (e.g. children or disabled family
disrupt sessions. Other disruptions
can occur at home like doorbell or in
store like announcements.



Allocate more time than you would for
face-to-face activities as
communication and understanding
may be slower.
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Considerations for remote design research
3. Preparation
Consider pre-interview materials for
participants and anything that you
want people to read, think or know
before joining the session at least
couple of days in advance.
 
 techniques to make sure everyones


Again, plan more time around setting
up your remote work. Check video and
audio connections before any sessions
start in advance. Also allow extra time
in activities for participants to sort out
tech issues, or access collaboration
tools and shared links, documents.
4. Communication
Non-verbal communication is
important. Ask participants to keep
their cameras on so you can pick up on
cues and facial expressions.
 You can use dot voting and similar
If you have more observers in the
session, start with team members
introducing themselves.
5.Collaboration
Ensure that everyone gets an equal
voice when running group activities. 



opinion counts. You can also ask
people to prepare questions or
comments and submit them at the
same time to ensure everyone has
equal opportunity to feed in. 

Ask people to work individually by
putting themselves on mute, and
then share their thoughts back to
the group.
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Considerations for remote design research
6. Explaining
When working face-to-face you can
scribble, point, and draw out quick
examples if something is not clear.
When working remotely it can be
harder to explain and communicate
concepts.
 
 connection might take longer time
Think about whether you can use slides
or print outs (e.g. how to share your
screen on Teams) with explanations,
prepare these in advance of running
sessions and activities.
7. Focus
To replicate the levels of concentration
you would get when working face-to-
face, ask people to switch off any
notifications that might interrupt them
(e-mail, phone etc.)
 Keep in mind building this
Of course this applies for yourself as
well (Slack, Teams).
8.Personal connection
We need to build a personal
connection and trust to make
contributors feel comfortable and
share their ideas, stories with us.
when working remotely.



Don`t skip ice-breakers. Consider
using check-in&check-out activity
which we apply in mini-critique
sessions.
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Activities

and 

Tools

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Building consensus

Approaches
When you need to agree something
or get to a shared understanding of Collaborative documents: Digital whiteboards can
replicate most activities that you would do in-person
something with a group or team
 with post-its notes and whiteboard. 


 Recommended tool: Miro

Common activities
 

- Defining vision, goals and objectives Capturing ideas and comments: Chat tools or apps
- Framing the problem
 like Slack can be used to share ideas and feedback
- Creating a research plan simultaneously in threads. They can also support
voting (aka emoji reactions)



Collaborating in real time: Live documents let
teams work together, add comments and feedback.
Recommended tool: Teams-Files.


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 Objectives
What do we need to do?

Synthesis
Organize and analyse results

Methods
What are the methods to use?

Conduct
Starting the UX research
EXAMPLE: OBJECTIVES

What do we want to learn?

DEVICE TOOLS

What is the preferred device? Where do we have a need of change- looking at todays
• •
How are they experience the authentication to enter the app tools&solutions?
•
What tool are the most used ones?
DAILY TASKS •
• What would improve co-workers daily way of working? What do co-workers think about tools and solutions provided
•
• Find out about pain points and needs across co-workers workday from IKEA today?

• What are the most time consuming tasks and how can we help CONTENT

Understand what is relevant to co-workers

co-workers to save time? •
What would it take for co-workers to read the news regularly?
• How do co-workers keep track of their daily tasks and working •
schedule? (language, format, content, length)

How would they like to find information about products and

VALUE •
What benefits do they see with a co-worker app information do they need?
•
What do they need a co-worker app for What is absolutely not needed in app?
• •
Where do Hej bring/give most value? What is the minimum requirement of content to be on the app
• •
What is the interest of the co-worker beside concrete tasks? for them to go there?
•
What type of content would they like for engagement?
•
EXAMPLE: OBJECTIVES

Research objectives

Understand what co-workers need in order to feel prepared for the work & to do a better job.

Identify daily issues co-workers often deal with and what can be optimised.

Identify preferred devices and tools&softwares to receive information and run daily tasks.

Describe the value & benefits the co-worker think a single entry point can give.
EXAMPLE: METHOD SELECTION

Selected methods

Survey In-store intercepts In-depth interviews

+
MVP testing

Service office talks

Recruiting participants
When you need to recruit people to
take part in research activities.



Things to consider
 your digital product.
Recruiting takes time and energy, make your plans
beforehand and aim to get approvals at least one
week before the sessions.
 in service offices or existing superusers and ask their


Be careful recruiting participants who have low
digital skills for tech-heavy activities, and be specific
about the technology will work in advance of
session. If appropriate, let participants practice or
prepare beforehand.
Approaches
Digital touchpoints: Instead of directly approaching
people using services, consider approaching them
using digital touchpoint e.g. feedback module in




SPOC: You can connect with single point of contacts
support.



Country managers: If you are planning your
research activities in another country, consider
connecting digital country managers. They usually
have a strong connection with locals, so they can
point out right people and help you to fasten the
process.

Recruiters: Use an external recruitment agency.

Online tools: Ethnio (Participant man. tool) 15
EXAMPLE: SCREENING

Screening criteria
Who do we want to interview?
• Number of participants

12 interviewees (in 2 days)


• Language

Interviews will be held in English.

• Roles 

Sales co-workers (selection of different departments)

Team leads

Logistic manager

Planning manager


• Work experience

Variety of different working experience (years) in IKEA.

(0-2 years, 2-5 years, 5+ years of experience)


• Half time & full time 


Co-workers who work more than 10 hours per week


• Technology

Comfortable with having the talk over Microsoft Teams.


• Demographics

Representation of variety of age groups and gender.



EXAMPLE: ONE PAGER

Let’s build the future together!

How to inform participants?
About Hej!

Hej! is the new Digital Co-worker Entry Point to be used in
everyday work. It brings together your personalised and relevant
communication, tools, HR information, news and more, all in one
place, to make your work day more efficient and engaging!



We want to make it more efficient to find information needed in
order to meet the customers in the best way and give all co-
workers the possibility do a great job and enjoy work.


Time plan (45 min in total)


5 min - Intro about the project.

25 min - Questions about work at IKEA, daily routines,
tools&platforms being used.

15 min - Testing the prototype, getting feedback on ideas.



How will it work?

You will be asked questions about your daily tasks, tools and
overall experience. You will also be asked to several tasks using a
website.


When and where?

The study will be held on (DATES) between (HOURS). Please visit
(LINK TO ONLINE SCHEDULING TOOL) and select the time slots
fits best for you.

You will receive an invitation and be asked to join to an online
session in Teams.
Documenting consent

Approaches

For capturing the consent people


give when taking part in research If you need consent for any activity, clearly
activities.
 communicate what you are asking for beforehand.


 Recording: Ask participants to say outloud “I

Things to consider
 consent to A,B. I don’t consent to C” at the beginning
When working remotely people will not be able to
sign consent forms in person. They also may not
have access to a printer or scanner at home.



Be careful recruiting participants who have low
digital skills for tech-heavy activities, and be specific
about the technology will work in advance of
session. If appropriate, let participants practice or
prepare beforehand.
of a session and record it. If its unmoderated, you
might ask them to record themselves and send you.



Digital signing: Even its not the most convenient
way, you can send participants an image of the
consent form which they can sign with an image
editing app.



Online tools: Consent Kit (Consent man. tool)

Be careful with using random tools which might not
been approved for GDPR compliance.

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Surveys
When you need to get data about
your users and potential users in a
quick and relatively easy way.
 your needs. Typeform and Google Forms are the


Commonly used to
 hosting and analysing the data, SurveyGizmo
- Define product direction

- Identify USP`s
- Validate hypothesis

- Refine a new feature
Approaches



Tool: Make sure you choose the right tool for
most popular ones, they offer a compact and
modern look&feel. However, when it comes to
might be a better option.

Test: It’s always a good move to test the survey
with the people before finalizing it.

Capacity: Make sure you have resources to
analyse the results.

Translation: Depending on your target group,
building the survey in participants native
language might be a necessity. Make a plan on
how to gather data and analyse beforehand.
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EXAMPLE: SURVEY

Survey questions
Forming a survey
Questions about you


1. What function do you belong to?


2. How long have your worked at IKEA?


Questions about how your receive information


3. What kind of information do you think is the most important for you to do

your job? 


4. What type of information is most difficult and time consuming for your to find?


5. What would you personally like to access on mobile phone related to work?


Questions about contact information


6. How do you find contact information to other co-workers or functions?


7. What kind of contact information do you think is the most important for you to

do your job? 


Questions about ways of working


8. What are your biggest challenges during your workday and if you have

examples on how they could be solved or improved??


9. Give examples of paper based tasks that could be improved by becoming

digitalised? 

Your dreams and wishes


10. What would make your day even better?

EXAMPLE: SURVEY

Running a survey in SurveyGizmo

How to get access to SurveyGizmo

Interviews
When you need to understand the
needs and experiences of end users
or co-workers
 disrupted, either by the researchers


Common activities

- One-to-one interviews

- Diary studies

- Expert interviews
Approaches



Be honest: Sessions will sometimes be
environment or by the participants. Make it clear
up front that it is ok if happens.



Scheduling: Online apps can help you find
availability for participants. Doodle

If you work with co-workers, they all migrated to
365, so MS Calendar works just fine.

Recording sessions: On a Mac you can record
your desktop and audio via Quicktime. If you
interview a co-worker, use Teams and record the
session on Microsoft Stream.

Note: Ensure you store the file inline with GDPR
guidance.
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EXAMPLE: RUNNING INTERVIEW + USER TEST

MS Teams
EXAMPLE: RECORDING SESSIONS

MS Stream
Usability testing

Approaches

When you want to understand the


usability of a process, product or Moderated vs. unmoderated: Moderated tests
service.
 will allow you to get more depth to your insight

 as you can discuss tasks with the participant.
Common activities
 Unmoderated allows you to rum tests with
- Guerrilla testing
 many more people, and largely removes the
- Prototype testing
 influence of the researcher. 

- Accessibility testing
 Lookback

- Eye tracking 

Heat and touch mapping: Some tools offer
heat mapping which indicates where
participants cursors have spent the most time.

Touch mapping does the same but for fingers
on mobile devices. New tools uses users camera
on mobile device and offer additional insights
somewhat similar to eye tracking.

Hawkeye
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EXAMPLE: USER TESTING TOOL

Lookback
EXAMPLE: USER TESTING TOOL

Hawkeye
Gathering feedback

Approaches

When you need to capture detailed 

feedback about something or Collaborative documents and presentation: 

looking for ideas to improve your MS Teams- File is the most common way in IKEA, in
which you can suggest edits and leave comments.

product.
 


 Web page: You can build your own feedback
Common activities
 module and connect the results to a database. You
- documents and presentation feedback can also consider using coment.me to get
- web page feedback
 feedback on a live page.

- prototype feedback 

Clickstrem Analysis: You can analyse the record
of screens that users click and see as they use your
product. We use Contentsquare in IKEA, contact
CRO team to learn how to implement.



Prototype: Online tools like Invision, Adobe XD
and Axure provide the ability to comment or give
feedback on prototypes.
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EXAMPLE: FEEDBACK MODULE

How to gather feedback?

Synthesis and analysis

Approaches

When you need to analyse and


document findings from research Technology: You will need a video conferencing
and data.
 tool e.g. Teams and a virtual whiteboard tool

 such as Miro. Make sure team members feel
Common activities
 comfortable with using selected tools, you
- Affinity mapping might consider to give a quick demo before
- Empathy mapping
 you start the session.

- User needs generation
 

- Dot voting
 Data gathering: Before you begin your session,
- Prioritization
 make sure one person takes responsibility for
- Insight statements ensuring all data from relevant research
activities is translated onto the virtual
whiteboard.



Roles: During a session, assign roles to
different participants. For example; a
timekeeper and facilitator.
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EXAMPLE: ANALYSIS

How to analyse findings

Bonus

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Thank you

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