Tagging User Research Data: How to Support the Synthesis of Information in Design Teams

In user-centered design processes, one of the most important tasks is to synthesize information from user research into insights and a shared point of view among team members. This paper explores the synthesis process and opportunities for providing computational support. First, we present interviews on the common practices and challenges of information synthesis from people with different levels of experience. Based on these interviews we developed digital whiteboard software for sorting individual segments of user research. The system separates out individual and group activity and helps the team to externalize and synthesize their different views of the data. Through a case study, we explore the differences between computer-supported group interaction and an individual clustering condition. We learned that participants really appreciated an individual working phase before entering a group synthesis phase. Novice designers tended to prefer the structured computer-supported synthesis process that externalizes the different views of each team member. More experienced designers preferred to freely arrange information segments and create clusterings on their own.