Imagine this; you are super excited to begin your first ethnographic research project, and you start by dumping assumptions into a document to make discovery-related questions about the user. "How does the user interact with X, Y, and Z devices? When does the user interact the most with the X feature? Is the user making its shortcuts?" and more... You are thrilled to learn about how they function in their environment.
The day of the research comes, and you prepare yourself to do some "fly on the wall" techniques. By the end of the day, you have over 50 photos, ten videos, and endless voice notes. Now you might ask yourself, "How will I condense this information into a report?!"
UX Designers may struggle with this question when they engage in observation research because not all resources out there will point out frameworks for decompressing highly qualitative behavioural data. These frameworks help designers evaluate and classify their findings, prioritise specific discovery questions, and create a more rounded evidence-based ethnographic note to share with stakeholders.
AEIOU and POEMS frameworks
There are two observation frameworks you can use to decompress your findings:
- AEIOU:
- Activities: the actions and behaviours people take to reach their goals.
- Environments: The architecture, lighting, furniture, temperature, atmosphere, and anything related to the space.
- Interactions: how people interact to achieve goals and how activities and the environment are affected by people.
- Objects: The tools, software, or anything the user handles.
- Users: The type of user or participant and how they communicate.
- POEMS:
- People: Demographics, roles, behaviour, and quantity.
- Objects: Anything people interact with, such as furniture, devices, machines, appliances, and tools.
- Environments: The architecture, lighting, furniture, temperature, atmosphere, and anything related to the place.
- Messages: Tone of voice, social or professional interactions, and environmental messages.
- Services: Software, apps, tools, and frameworks.
Both of these frameworks have labels where you can identify and mark your user, their environment, and the tools they use, but depending on the goal of your research, you need to use one or the other.
The AEIOU framework is excellent for:
- Getting to know more about the user journey.
- Learning how the user navigates or communicates in their environment.
- Understanding which user interacts with which particular objects.
The POEMS framework is ideal for:
- Discovering who your user is based on their demographics and behavioural traits.
- Learning what services or other tools they have around them.
- Finding out how they express themselves or communicate in their environment.