Ux Research
Confidence in Action
This is a user research project about confidence in action for the Design Studio Plot. The aim of this research is to provide insights and inspiration for the Upstarter project which is a nomadic incubation service occurring in different venues with the ambition to inspire design entrepreneurship. The purpose of the Upstarter is to help designers to create their own startups and to promote innovative ideas about services and products. The aim of this research is to explore the notion of confidence as a practice as it is considered to be a significant ingredient in terms of taking action in order to achieve goals and aspirations in life.
Questions to answer
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People may appear confident, but do they have the confidence to act and make their ideas feasible?
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Where people draw their inspiration from to be confident in order to take action?
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What are the mechanisms that overconfident people use in order to overcome barriers and fears that they may hold them back?
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What are the aspects of low confidence?
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How can we help low confident people to surpass their fears and cultivate confidence to believe in themselves and their idea?
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What is the relationship and connections between self-value, self-belief and confidence in taking action?
Role /
Ux Researcher
Agency /
Upstarter
Year /
2015
Research Methods
User Selection
I had decided to work with extreme users; high confident and low confident people because their characteristics and contrasts among them would be more evident and strong. These differences would provide me with richer insights about confidence. Unfortunately, it was difficult to find a sufficient sample of extreme low confident people. For this reason I decided to work with various participants and to type them afterwards.
User Interviews
The methods I employed to uncover meaningful insights and provoke storytelling was the qualitative interview, while using design research tools I decided to use the qualitative interview as my main research method because it would give me the opportunity to draw more insightful and richer data. The form of the interview is open-ended and semi structure, with the purpose to stimulate dialogue. It will help the participants to tell stories, to express their thoughts, feelings and experiences. The interview is assisted with research tools that will make the participant to feel more engaged and will give him time to reflect. The duration of the interview is 30 minutes. Most of the times the interview is made in pairs; the participant together with a close friend that he feels comfortable with, that he will assist with the flow of the interview when the participant hesitates to reply and provide another point of view.
Ethnography
I decided to practice participatory observation in a meet up group called “Skyrocket your self-confidence”in order to recruit and observe low confident people to interview, as well as to hear the opinion of an expert about this subject.
Data analysis
This the phase where the material from the interviews and research
tools is translated into research findings. I divided the process
in these steps:
1. Documentation of the data.
2. Categorisation of the data to identify significant concepts,
patterns and themes.
3. Identifying connections, drawing conclusions
4. Evaluating the conclusions.
Outcome
People have different models of perception regarding themselves and the external environment. They perceive and filter external stimulation in a unique subjective manner depending on their Personality and life experiences. As a result, these different modes of perception lead to different modes of agency. The outcome of the project is a typology confidence leaflet. which will help in providing quality services to the participants of the upstarter incubations service.
