- Reading Time Required
- 4 minutes
The Recommendation Report Overview explains the basic requirement for primary and secondary research for your report. This guide will help you understand what you need to find to support your analysis and recommendations. First, I’ll explain the difference between the two kinds of research, and then I’ll share suggestions for collecting what you need.
Primary vs. Secondary Research
Primary research is information that you gather personally. It includes data such as the following:
- Observations and notes you take on them.
- Measurements you record.
- Experiments that you conduct.
- Interviews that you do.
- Questionnaires and surveys that you conduct.
What makes these kinds of research different from secondary research is that you (and your group) measure and record the information. It wasn’t collected by someone else outside your group.
Secondary research is information that someone else has found or observed. You had nothing to do with collecting the details. Sure, you searched online or in the library, but the information you found was originally collected by someone else.
Primary Research for Your Recommendation Report
You and the members of your group can gather information on your website that you can then use in your report to persuade your reader why they should consider and accept your recommendations.
As you gather information, remember to collect visual and/or audio evidence of your findings too. Take screenshots or record videos that you can use to illustrate your report and show the reader what you find. Showing your audience evidence is always more convincing than just telling them about what you found.
The list below outlines some ways you and your group can collect primary research.
- Personal Observations
Each member of your group can visit the website and take notes on what they find. You can focus on immediate observations (think of them as first impressions), but you can also decide on some specific questions for each group member to respond to (e.g., What is the first thing you noticed on the page? What first impression does the page make?). Since you are looking at a site with several pages, you can record these observations for each page.
- Readability Tests
Use the same tools you used to test your User Documentation to test out the readability of the pages of your group’s website. Go back to Try-It #7: Calculating Readability Statistics to find links to the tools, and then apply them to your website. You can record things like the number of words on the page, the number of paragraphs, paragraph length, and grade level for each page.
- Accessibility Tests
You and your group can also test the accessibility of the pages on your website. Review the details in the Web Accessibility for Designers infographic from WebAIM (a research institute from Utah State) and record what you find on the site. You can also use WebAIM’s WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tools to test each page in your site and record the data for your report.
- Design Observations
Use the following strategies to observe how the website takes advantage of (or doesn’t) each design tool:
- Usability Tests
Observe people who do not use the site regularly as they complete basic tasks (e.g., searching for something in particular, filling in a form). Use the instructions on the Lesson 1: Conducting a Usability Test page (back-up link) to set up your tests. You can also find help on these pages:
Secondary Research for Your Recommendation Report
You’re probably very comfortable with secondary research. I’m sure you search out webpages, journal articles, videos, and books all the time. For your recommendation report, you’ll want to find sources about writing online content, website design, and usability. Here are some useful sources that I recommend: