User Research

User research involves understanding people’s goals, needs and beliefs.

We can use this insight to create better experiences and deliver greater business value.

It is sometimes called; product research, UX research, design research.

Research shows that companies that put the user first do better. Better in the stock exchange, happier employees etc.

User research enables you to stop bad experiences to the user and business right from the start or before production or marketing even start.

User research is not 100% accurate but its the best way to explore things.

User Research is about:

• Asking meaningful questions and thinking critically about the answers.

• Recognizing that we all have biases, beliefs and assumptions. It takes none of them for granted.

• Reducing risk and saving money by eliminating subpar options from decisions early on in product development.

• Identifying opportunities to delight customers.

User Research Helps and Organization:

1. Increase user productivity.

2. Increase user satisfaction.

3. Increase retention.

4. Have more better referrals.

5. Increase sales.

It also Decreases:

1. Development costs through fewer cycles.

2. User errors.

3. Training and support costs.

4. the time to meaningful user activation.

User Research is NOT:

• Just usability testing

• Always right.

• Prescriptive about how to acquire insights.

• Only relevant to designers but to the whole entire organization.

User research is different from other types of market research and design.

Sometimes though it overlaps with product management and Design.

A good researcher should do both user research and market research.

A good research will be both focused on:

What drives a business? and What delivers revenue for a company and how that can be integrated with user needs.

So:

• The lines are blurry between user research and a whole bunch of other functions

• Advice: Work together to create better experiences regardless of title or role.

A). Different research techniques answer different questions:

Research isn’t valuable unless it helps your organization achieve its goals.

1. Start with goals, define the questions. The goals can be in say 3 categories:

• Company-wide goals

• Department goals

• Feature goals.

2. Use “Who, what, When, Where, Why, and How?” to help you develop questions.

3. Open ended Vs Closed research questions.

• The more you don’t know about your users the more open ended the questions need to be.

• The more clear assumptions or beliefs you have and want to confirm, the more closed-ended the questions need to be. If its not backed by data, you can’t rely on it.

Document your assumptions. Assumptions should become testable hypotheses. Assumption and beliefs will be specific to your organization, experience and uses.

B). Different questions require different tools to gain insights:

Qualitative Research: Gives you answers to “Why and How” to fix.

It involves the use of tools like:

• Interviews

• Ethnographic field studies.

Quantitative Research: Gives you answers to “How many and How much”

It involves the use of tools like:

• Surveys

• A/B tests

Never lead with a method.

There is a very huge difference between what people say and what they actually do.

Use different Methods at different times or stages.

Do research at whatever stage you are at. The earlier the more impactful.

The stages involve:

1. Discover.

2. Explore.

3. Test.

4. Listen.

At the Discover Stage use:

• Ethnography

• Diary study.

• User interview.

• Stakeholder interview.

• Requirements gathering.

At the Explore Stage use:

• Competitors analysis

• Design review

• Persona building

• Journey mapping.

• Card sorting.

• Prototype feedback and testing.

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At the Test Stage use:

• Usability testing

• Benchmark testing

• Eye tracking/ Heat mapping

At the Listen Stage use:

• Survey

• Analytics Analysis

How to conduct research with the right people:

If you are not talking to the right people your research won’t be useful.

• New users bring new perspectives. Existing users bring depth.

• The biggest pain researchers have is recruiting.

• Collect email addresses and segment according to user’s stage of awareness.

• Buyers are the ones most interested in talking to you.

• Recruit users who use competitor products.

How to recruit:

You can use agencies to do the recruitment for you. e.g you can use Respondent.

It gets harder to recruit users who play certain roles. Professionals compared to buyers.

1. Don’t make it obvious who you’re recruiting for.

2. Don’t rely on No/Yes questions.

3. Include complete list of responses.

4. Be as specific as possible.

5. Exclude people whose experience will bias them.

6. Don’t use only open ended questions.

7. Design questions where it isn’t easy to guess the right answer.

8. Incentivize according to level of professionals. Pay more professionals higher and just users lower.