Creating a User Experience "Nuggets" Database

Mariana Almeida

Hi folks, 

This article about a SmartSheet competitor, Airtable, has been making the rounds in my little universe of technology products researchers. https://medium.com/@WeWorkUX/the-atomic-unit-of-research-insight-17d619583ba

As user researchers, our job is to understand users of our products - their unmet needs, current struggles, points of delight. We do this by interviewing them, watching them, etc. 

The usual output is a report, but it can be just a little unit of insight about a user... that's where the database comes in. 

I think the database Airtable put together can be better in Smartsheet. Airtable seems pedestrian compared to Smartsheet. But I need help in translating the requirements into actual Smartsheets. 

Airtable offers up a template for this: https://airtable.com/universe/expShuhNMi0Oc0xpb/polaris-ux-nuggets?explore=true

I'd like to build something similar, and use Sights to create some dashboard-like views. 

Also very important is the ability to search the data, per this article: https://medium.com/@tsharon/democratizing-ux-670b95fbc07f#.5d9dxkqva

Any thoughts about how to proceed?

 

 

J. Craig Williams

Are you looking to pay someone to help?

My experience with Airtable has been that is does not meet the requirements of my customers. I keep checking back periodically. Last I checked, it still doesn't.

Craig

 

Mariana Almeida

I'm not sure yet what I need. I think you're confirming my feeling that Airtable is less extensive than Smartsheets.

Should be actually looking at AppSheet and not Smartsheet?

J. Craig Williams

It depends on your use case and requirements.

I just created a solution in Smartsheet without third party tools (like AppSheet or Zapier) that I could not have done easily before the 2018-02-06 release.

In general, every design I have ever done in Smartsheet is worth revisiting for improvements. I'm seeing 10-15% efficiency gains without a tremendous amount of cost. I know there is more as I go forward.

Craig

Eric Morrow

@Mariana Almeida I have been using Airtable for customer research but am now switching over to work with a colleague who prefers Smartsheet. Were you able to replicate the Polaris airtable format into Smartsheet?

Andrée Starå

@Eric Morrow

Hi Eric,

Depending on what Mariana answers, I think that it wouldn’t take to much work to replicate the solution from Airtable in Smartsheet because it’s possible to import information to Smartsheet.

What are you need to have and nice to haves?

I hope that helps!

Be safe and have a fantastic week!

Best,

Andrée Starå

Workflow Consultant / CEO @ WORK BOLD

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