User Research

Improve Product and Service Design and Enhance Your UX Research

Stephanie Marsh

• Publisher: Kogan Page
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781398603585
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Marketing
• Index: Business

Despite businesses often being based on creating desirable experiences, products and services for consumers, many fail to consider the end user in their planning and development processes. This book is here to change that.
User experience research, also known as UX research, focuses on understanding user behaviours, needs and motivations through a range of observational techniques, task analysis and other methodologies. User Research is a practical guide that shows readers how to use the vast array of user research methods available. Written by one of the UK's leading UX research professionals, readers can benefit from in-depth knowledge that explores the fundamentals of user research.Covering all the key research methods including face-to-face user testing, card sorting, surveys, A/B testing and many more, the book gives expert insight into the nuances, advantages and disadvantages of each, while also providing guidance on how to interpret, analyze and share the data once it has been obtained. Now in its second edition, User Research provides a new chapter on research operations and infrastructure as well as new material on combining user research methodologies.

Part ONE

The fundamentals What good research looks like

Part One explains how to avoid gathering biased and inaccurate data by asking the right questions and using the power of observation (you can’t necessarily rely on what people are saying).

There are some things we need to think about before we delve into the nitty gritty of choosing the right research method, how to implement it and then analyse the data. There are fundamentals that go across all methodologies.

02

Planning your user research

When is the right time to do user research?

The pragmatic (and simple) answer is: any time. The ideal answer is: all the time. You can also pinpoint when user research will have the most impact and the greatest positive effect.

If you are working in a truly agile and user-centric environment, you could be planning for and doing user research on a regular, cyclical basis. Problems identified in the user research could be rectified in the next round of work, and then researched and tested again. But you aren’t necessarily working in this kind of environment, and you may never work this way.

WHAT IS ‘AGILE’?

Agile is a project management method, often used in software development, with short phases of work and assessment of progress.

If you are working on an entirely new concept, product or service you should start doing user research as soon as possible. You will see later on in the book that you don’t need to wait to have something tangible before you put it in front of users. For example, you can use sketches on paper that describe what you intend to do.

At the inception of the concept, after some initial thinking, you should be doing research to understand whether you are going in the right direction. By understanding the way people behave and think, you will get an understanding of whether your concept is going to enhance their life somehow, or solve a problem they are experiencing. Then you will know whether or not to invest time, effort and money in the new concept, whether it needs refining (which it probably will) or whether it should be abandoned altogether.

If your product/service already exists, there is never a bad time to do user research with the aim of understanding how it can be improved. If your data/analytics/feedback shows that something isn’t working, but it is not clear what the problem actually is, do user research to understand what’s going on.

If a board of stakeholders disagree on the way forward, then do some research, find out what the users need and give the stakeholders the tools for evidence-based decision making. The best solutions are a balance of business and user requirements.

Part of what we will discuss in this part of the book is how long it takes to plan, execute and analyse the data from the research. This varies depending on the kind of research you might be doing. For example, if you do research before the launch of a new version, you should plan it so there is enough time to fix any issues that have been identified, before launch. If you do it too close to launch you will be told that changes can’t be made; they’ll have to wait for the next iteration and the potentially great solutions and ideas may never get implemented.

There is a danger, if doing the research is time-sensitive, that you will pick a method that is the quickest and easiest way to meet a crazy deadline. It may not be the most appropriate method. This book will give you the knowledge to understand if the methodology is good enough to get what you need. You will almost certainly have a number of research methods that will be applicable to what you need, but it is essential that you talk to the right people. The right people cannot be substituted for anything else.

SUMMARY

If you can, choose a point in time when the results of the research will have the most positive impact.

Be clear what your research is about

What’s your problem?

To do effective research you need to be clear about the purpose of the research. Research is most effective when it is focused. Problem framing, also known as opportunity framing, is knowing what problem you are trying to solve or understand or, from a positive perspective, what the opportunity is that you are trying to understand and what its parameters are.

It is useful to articulate and share with stakeholders (anyone somehow involved in the project) the aims and objectives of your research. Get everyone to agree to them before you start putting effort into doing the research. If you don’t know exactly what the problem is, that’s ok: the aim of the research may be to understand the problem. Getting agreement on the aims and objectives upfront should help you avoid feature creep. It is best to keep the focus of the research fairly narrow, unless your aim is at first to understand the problem or context. Stakeholders will want to expand the scope – you’re likely to hear: ‘As you’re doing some research, can you also look at x, y and z?’ If it isn’t relevant to the agreed aims and objectives, say no. I realize this isn’t always possible, so at least make your objection known and the reasons behind it.

Part Two looks in much more depth at understanding the problem and then choosing the right method to address it.

Planning your user research

There are several factors that you need to take into account when planning your user research. How much time you need to do the research will be discussed in Part Two, looking at each research methodology in detail. How much time you need to analyse the data, understand it, draw conclusions and identify recommendations from this new knowledge and put it into an appropriate shareable format will be considered in Parts Three and Four.

If you are planning research that involves interacting with people either face-to-face or remotely, if possible your user research ‘sessions’ should be done consecutively (think back-to-back, with breaks in between); an example of scheduling is shown below. The people you are recruiting to take part in the research will be booked into particular t...