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Information about users and their behaviour is the key to innovation. The best product teams and startups are the ones that put customers’ interests and need first in product development. Because needs are fluid, you must constantly provide value to the product. And that means continuous research, learning about customers’ experiences and expectations of their interactions with the product.

Maze and Atlassian recently presented a report on how product teams inform decision-making through continuous discovery and research. It clearly shows trends that are certainly of interest to UX designers.

Trend #1. Continuous research is good practice

Most product organizations invest time and resources in research and engage customers early in the product lifecycle.

Incidentally, 78% of the 600+ designers, product managers and researchers surveyed believe their company could do more research. They still find it challenging to do more research, even though it is proven effective. A lack of study after a product launch could make it more competitive in the marketplace and generate more revenue.

Of the positive trends, 82% of companies have at least one UX researcher or UX designer who does research.

Trend #2. Democratization of research

64% of respondents report a democratized research culture. What does this mean? Research is not only about research specialists but also designers (69%), product managers (54%), marketers (28%), and engineers (10%).

The most frequently used research methods are:

• user interviews (65%),
• surveys (59%),
• product analytics (58%),
• competitive analysis (54%),
• moderated usability testing (51%),
• unmoderated usability testing (37%).

Best six usability testing tools I use in my work:

If your team prefers interviews, here’s a selection of transcription tools for video and audio interviews. They help prepare reports for your customers:

Trend #3. Continuous research will allow you to make good and effective decisions

Product development teams use research results to increase confidence in their decisions.

By the way, 74% of respondents confirmed that research directly impacts decision-making in their teams. And research-based decisions are more likely to be correct and effective.

8 books to boost your UX research

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So, if you decide to boost your UX research skills, I recommend paying attention to the following books.

Think like a UX researcher by David Travis and Philip Hodgson

You’ll learn how to plan and conduct UX research, analyze data, convince teams to act on the results and build a career in UX.

Interviewing users: How to uncover compelling insights by Steve Portugal

Interviewing Users provides invaluable interviewing techniques and tools to conduct informative interviews with anyone. You’ll go from simply collecting data to uncovering important information about people.

Just enough research by Erika Hall

Design research is a hard slog that takes years to learn and time away from the real work of design. Wrong. Good research is about asking more and better questions and thinking critically about the answers. Every team member can and should do it, and everyone can learn quickly.

Quantifying the user experience: Practical statistics for user research by James R. Lewis and Jeff Sauro

Pros: comprehensive and authoritative content. Clear, step-by-step descriptions for essential computing statistics for common UX use cases. Countless useful references, contextualized explanations etc.

Handbook of usability testing: How to plan, design, and conduct effective tests by Dana Chisnell and Jeffrey Rubin

This guide provides clear, step-by-step instructions to help you test the usability of your product. You’ll learn how to recognize usability limiting factors, decide where to experiment, create a test plan to measure your product’s usability goals and more.

Surveys that work: A practical guide for designing and running better surveys by Caroline Jarrett

This book offers a seven-step process for designing surveys that work. It will help you not only to create a study but also to turn each one into an excellent institute.

Continuous discovery habits: Discover products that create customer value and business value by Teresa Torres

How do you know that you are producing a product or service that your customers want? How do you ensure that you are improving it over time? How do you ensure that your team creates value for your customers like you create value for your business?

This book will introduce you to a structured and sustainable approach to continuous research that will help you answer each of these questions, give you the confidence to do so, and prepare you for mistakes.

Measuring the user experience: Collecting, analyzing, and presenting UX metrics by Bill Albert and Tom Tullis

It explains how to collect data and turn it into actionable metrics for different subjects, such as eye-tracking, emotion measurement, or standalone metrics. It also features excellent case studies from Netflix and Pwc.

Was it useful? Let me know!