User Research (or UX Research) methods are integral to a successful outcome, both to the design of a product but also to the business as a whole. The reason for this is that products are made for people, and people are exactly what research focuses on. It digs into how a user thinks and behaves, it highlights their needs and motivations. There is a great plethora of methods, all of which are important in their own right. In this post we’ll be outlining the 10 we believe are the most useful, plus a bonus method (we’re generous like that).

There’s a lot more than can be said about research, you can check out our other blog post here, which goes into more detail.

“Remember, you should always try to involve users in some way, whatever the constraints of your budget or deadlines”

— Jesmond Allen and James Chudley. Smashing UX Design.

Doodles by Naintara Land

A/B Testing

A/B Testing is a simple method of testing out multiple ideas to see which one works best. This can be used for both visual preferences, the user experience and even on text and language. With A/B Testing you show a version to an equal amount of users, you then use analytics to review which version outperformed the other. Google Optimize is a great tool for A/B testing.

A/B testing is ideal for getting a simple answer to a question, A or B? However it’s not ideal for understanding the ‘why’ and the behaviour behind the answer. This method is also limited in practice, as you’re essentially only testing one version with another.

Image from Wiki

Analytics

Analytics is a great way to get scientific with your design using data. Analytics is perfect for testing assumptions, as the results are always obvious, black or white. Platforms like Google Analytics show useful data like page views, visitors, number of visits, page speeds and a myriad of other metrics. However the downside to analytics alone is that you’re not identifying the “why”, but only the “where” and “what”. That is why it’s recommended to use it in conjunction with qualitative research, such as interviews and usability testing (more on this later), then you really can gain some powerful insights!

“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted”

— William Bruce Cameron. Informal Sociology.

Eye-tracking is another form which can be super beneficial to understanding exactly how your design is performing, this can be great to test your assumptions on hierarchy and elements of prominence. It’s also useful to understand where users are not looking.

From Google Marketing Blog

Card Sorting

Cart Sorting is a useful and interactive technique where participants are given topics on cards and are asked questions about them such as sorting them into groups. It’s especially useful to establish the information architecture, essentially deciding what goes where, and ensuring the information groupings make sense to the widest possible audience. It is a great way to gain solid opinions and answers, as usually there is less bias affecting decisions. Discussions and conversations can usually spark up from these too, which can be a bonus. Card Sorting can also be done offline using tools such as Optimal Sort, platforms like UserTesting also have Card Sorting within their system (as well as others). The challenge with Card Sorting, however, is that they can be time-consuming, and they’re fairly limited in the insights you can gather.

From ZURB

Competitor Analysis

Competitor Analysis is one of our favourites as it can be incredibly useful not only from a design point of view but also for understanding how competitive and crowded the specific field is. Competitor Analysis is simply looking at competitors' products, or even their business as a whole, to understand what they do right, and what they don’t do right. You’re essentially gaining knowledge through analysing their business or products. There can be some challenges with this method, as there could be features coming soon which may affect the competitors' offering or even the experience of the product itself, you might also have to pay for the product to gain full access.

Template example by Moqups

Contextual Inquiries (Field Study)

Contextual Inquiries can be incredibly helpful in gaining real-life context of how customers behave in a real setting. With this method, you are on-site with the participant observing and learning how they work or interact in their normal and everyday environment. This is incredibly important as a lot of the time what people say is different from what they do. An example of this is shown in Gerard Zaltman’s book, How Customers Think. “More than 60% of participants said they were “likely” or “very likely” to buy a kitchen appliance in the next 3 months. 8 months later, only 12% had.” This also highlights why it’s important to use more than one method of research, the more you use the deeper of an understanding you’ll gain.

Although incredibly useful this method isn’t always applicable to every scenario, it usually works best when observing people in unique environments or when customers are working on complex workflows or tasks. Gaining access to these environments can also sometimes be tricky, and your presence no matter how discreet can also affect results.

Doodles by Naintara Land

Focus Groups (User Groups)

Focus Groups are a great way of gaining information from groups of people. They are usually done with a facilitator leading participants through questions on a specific topic. These discussions can be an efficient use of time but also a great way of sparking discussions and conversations, they’re great for uncovering feelings, attitudes and ideas.

However, there can be challenges with the actual validity of the information, and also how accurate it is as people do influence each other. Focus groups are usually best when there is a clear problem which has been brought to attention. There can also be challenges with the actual facilitation of the focus group, especially if there are strong opinions. There’s also an issue with the fact that what people say and what people do are often different, so taking these opinions with a pinch of salt, but also using focus groups in combination with other methods is key.

That’s me 👆

Interviews

Interviews are the keystone to research. User or customer interviews are one-to-one conversations usually with a potential customer or user. Interviews can be useful especially early on in the process to gather insights before investing too much time into the design or business itself. It’s also great to gather information about how a user interacts with your product or competitors' products as a whole. Using Interviews in conjunction with quantitive methods such as surveys is ideal, using interviews before will help refine the questions used for the surveys, similarly conducting user interviews after allows the researcher to gather even more detailed analysis.

Interviews are great done remotely as well as in person, the reduction of commuting saves time and reduces friction. There can however be some challenges with interviews, such as communication skills, gaining real straightforward opinions and answers, and fully understanding behaviours, attitudes and context. That’s why it’s important to mix up your methods. Take a deeper dive into remote usability testing here.

Image from NNg

Surveys and Questionnaires

Surveys and questionnaires are powerful tools for gathering a high volume of opinions quickly, you can create a simple multi-choice survey online and send it out to thousands of people within one click. Surveys are also inexpensive, which is ideal if you’re on a shoestring budget.

Surveys can also be done in person on paper, which can sometimes be preferable for reducing distractions, however, you usually won’t be able to reach as many participants. This type of quantitive method is great for obtaining information and preferences, but not ideal for actual performance and behaviours. This is probably the biggest challenge as the researcher cannot interact directly with the respondents. Another challenge can be getting access to the appropriate user demographic, especially when surveying thousands of people. Hence, surveys are usually best for general purposes and not detailed behavioural insights. Google Forms, Survey Monkey and Typeform are great tools.

Conversely, you could take this a step forward by using products like Ballpark or Maze, where you combine a wireframe or prototype with a survey to test and set tasks. Like this you get the best of both worlds, however, you’d unlikely be able to reach the same volume as you would with a plain-vanilla survey.

From Google Forms

Usability Testing

Usability testing is one of the best methods to gain real insights into how customers interact with your product. With Usability tests you usually get customers to try and perform tasks on your product or even with a prototype, the facilitator will observe how they interact with it and usually ask questions to further understand their behaviours.

There can, of course, be challenges, especially when asking for feedback on features, also questions can easily influence decisions so keeping them to a minimum is best. However what testing is great for is uncovering bad user experiences and flaws. If 8 out of 10 people expect something to happen and it doesn’t, you know it clearly needs to be adjusted or rethought entirely. We take a deep dive into usability testing and the difference between moderated and unmoderated here.

“You can observe a lot by just watching”

— Yogi Berra

Image from NNg

User Personas

A persona is a representation of a customer, although the personal details of the persona are often fictional the information used is usually real. It’s often gathered from understanding your user demographic, such as through user interviews. Persona building is a helpful technique to guide your decisions with a single focus point to your users, it helps to remind you of your users and nudge you to design with empathy. A user persona works almost like a report, you gather insights which then get translated into a visual, which makes it easier to refer back to. Although useful as a reference, they shouldn’t be gospel. Evaluating them often as you learn more and more about your users is advisable.

Persona template by Cacoo

Bonus method: Diary Studies

Although not a method that we’ve personally used, hence why it’s a bonus method, we do see how useful it could be. Diary Studies requires you to ask your customers to observe themselves through a diary, so that you as the researcher can understand how they behave in everyday life. Although a useful method it would be likely that the results might not be accurate to a tee, especially when memory, human behaviours and error are taken into account.

To conclude

As you can see there are a lot of incredibly useful methods, but there are challenges to all of them, not one method is perfect. But it’s obvious that the key to designing a great and successful product is user research, as it allows you to dive deep beneath the surface of your assumptions, from what you think they want, to what they really need. The key is using as many as you can, and then sticking to the ones that are the best fit, and then using these methods regularly. Having a strategy and procedures in place will make doing them easier, and of course, the more you do, the better and more efficient you’ll be.

“Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task”

— Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO.