Probes Definition

Probes — is all about the part of UX design and qualitative user research when you communicate with participants openly, vis-a-vis. However they can be provided in digital form — you can imagine a digital diary. Moreover users can record how they are using your solution using a smartphone camera which makes this method one of the most widely-used.

Since it’s one of the qualitative methods, the number of participants depends on your goals – most commonly the number varies up to 12 users. Remember that you can ask for records of their interactions with a digital solution. You have to engage users with your product or service to ensure that the result will be aligned with your expectations from such a research.

Why are probes important?

UX research is not just a nice to conduct process but a defining factor that will impact the way you interact with your customers and if their needs are met. Probing commonly means diving deeper, and that’s whatyou have to do when it comes to understanding what pain points you are able to cover and how you build relationships with end-users.

Here are some benefits you will meet when implementing probes in user experience:

• Learn expectations from your clients and address them in the most efficient way as your goal is not just to make a product but receive revenue and motivate your users to make an action: buy, register, or else.
• Explore the context of your clients’ lifes and receive a deeper understanding of what you have to offer them to fulfill their needs and make a strong connection.
• Get insights about daily interactions with technologies and how to make them more accessible for your users as not all of them may be engaged in the daily usage of apps or other software.

Typically, you can limit yourself with interviews and that may be enough but probes come into play when you need more insightful information, deeper than simple “No” and “Yes.” You will investigate triggers, motivation, emotions, and so on.

What are the types of probes?

Diving deeper into this topic, you will meet terms like:

• “design probes” which indicates the method of a research of daily lives in common situations so that you can research more about end-users’ values, what drives them, engage and make move on.
• “technology probes” for better usability as you receive feedback from real people who are interested in your solution and they will make the engineering process more straightforward, less costly, allowing you to build only must-haves.
• “experience” type for UX design is used to explore more contexts, but it can also be implemented like a part of engineering that makes the workflow less confusing.

You can also meet liveness, readiness, and other kinds, for example, when you are coding with Kubernetes and you will learn about their differences so it depends on your requirements.

For now, you are aware of the fact that the core goal is to make such probes insightful for your project idea, and study them to make a better product.