Introduction to User Research Methods
You know your digital product—website, web app, mobile app—needs an exceptional user experience. But where do you start? If you’ve been part of redesigning or building products before, you know that it’s a complicated process—lots of moving parts, multiple stakeholders. The user experience might seem like just another thing that will derail the already-jam-packed project timeline.
Thankfully, that’s not the case. Focusing on the user experience from the onset of a building a digital product actually saves time by helping you determine what to focus on and provides a much clearer path for how to move forward. Sure, design and development might not start immediately. But focusing on the user experience means that when design and development do start, those resources are used wisely. Imagine if a contractor started demo-ing your house without first talking to you about your remodeling needs. By the end of the redesign, your budget is spent and you’re left with a remodeled house that likely doesn’t address the issues you had with the home in the first place. If you had taken the time upfront to discuss your needs and develop a plan for moving forward, you would have saved time and money overall.
User experience research is required to develop a clear plan for moving forward. And, since digital projects inevitably require flexibility, user experience research will help you adapt your strategy throughout the lifetime of your digital product. So, before you build or re-build a digital product, ask the following questions:
Why are we doing this in the first place?
What assumptions have we made that we first need to validate?
How are we going to measure the success of this redesign?
How will we continue to validate our assumptions?
Why are we doing this in the first place?
First, define your business goals. Why are you even building this product or redesigning this website in the first place? If there isn’t a consensus on what your business or organizational goals are, there’s no point in investing in anything—including the user experience.
At Voice+Code, we tend to hear things like, “We are redesigning our website and we don’t want to make the same mistakes we did last time.” What are those mistakes? What business goals did the redesign fail to address? What new problems did it create? Perhaps your leadership team has decided you need to build a mobile app. Why? What do they hope to achieve by building an app?
It’s critical to get these answers before moving forward. You’ll use the answers to unearth assumptions that you will need to validate through user experience research.
What assumptions have we made that we first need to validate?
Let’s take the example of stakeholders wanting to build a mobile app. They’ve noticed their younger customer base does things differently. These customers are finding ways to digitize outdated systems and always seem to be on their smartphones. Building a mobile app, the stakeholders assume, is the key to becoming a more attractive solution to these customers. And maybe it is the perfect solution. Or maybe it’s not. The point is, it’s an assumption. Common assumptions tend to fall into these two categories:
Our users don’t (open the app again, use this feature, complete an action, etc.) because (the onboarding process is confusing, they can’t figure out how to use the feature, the form is too long, etc.).
We need to build (a mobile app, a feature, a new website, etc.) because (that’s what people want, that’s what our competitors are doing, customers are complaining about the existing website, etc.).
Assumptions should be rewritten in the form of research questions. Examples of user experience research questions include:
What roadblocks are users experiencing during the process (these could be online or offline)?
After users go through the onboarding process, why are users not opening the app again?
What types of content and/or methods of delivery are most important to users?
What is impeding the user from completing the task? How can we help the user complete the task more efficiently?
Armed with your research questions, you can determine the user experience research methods that will be most effective in getting you the information you need to move forward.
The following are relatively easy and inexpensive ways to begin your research. They should be used to gather preliminary information that will help you make the most of your time and budget when you conduct more extensive user research. This initial research will also enable you to triangulate data.
Analyze product/website analytics
Get fast, easy access to information about what existing users are doing—or not doing—“in the wild.” This presupposes, of course, that you are measuring the right things. While analyzing products analytics won’t tell you why or how fix issues, it can sometimes give you clues as to where to investigate further, for example, through a usability study.
Online customer research
Get access to unsolicited (i.e., unbiased) customer feedback by reading what people have posted about your or your competitor’s products. For example, gather and analyze posts on product forums or places like Reddit.
Internal/customer service research
Gather and analyze customer service inquires or interview internal members of your sales or customer service teams.
Surveys
When well-crafted, surveys allow you to gather preliminary feedback from a wide range of customers in different locations. Keep in mind that people don’t always take surveys seriously and there is an over-reliance on what people say versus what they actually do. That’s why we recommend using surveys to inform more extensive forms of user research. For example, through one-on-one interviews or usability studies.
The types of research listed above are just a starting point. They should not be the only research you conduct. Instead, they should be used to provide valuable clues as to what additional information you still need to gather to make informed decisions. For example, after looking at the product analytics, you may find that users are dropping off at a certain point. You know what’s happening, but you don’t know why. You need to supplement that research with research that involves talking to and observing users. For example, by interviewing customers or conducting a usability study to determine user experience roadblocks that are preventing them from completing a task. Types of research that are conducted directly with actual or representative users include:
Field studies
Observe users where they are most likely to use your product—although you may be more interested in how they use competitor’s products or how they perform off-line activities. This type of exploratory research allows you to uncover behavioral insights that users may be unable or unwilling to articulate during an interview.
User interviews
These one-on-one conversations give you the ability to dive deep into users’ goals, motivations, and behaviors.
Usability studies
Observe users using your product in a structured setting, where you have them perform specific tasks. Usability studies allow you to pinpoint exactly where users are having difficulty using your product and will provide insights as to how to fix the issues.
Diary studies
Explore what users do/how users use the product over a period of time “in the wild.” Diary studies often include a combination of videos, photos, and survey responses and can be useful in analyzing onboarding, retention, and ongoing engagement.
The goal of the research is to answer your research questions and validate or invalidate your assumptions before you move forward. It will help to illuminate the best path for moving forward. It's very common, however, for user research to uncover issues or opportunities you never thought about--which will often require (you guessed it!) more user research.