Understanding UX Research in Product Design: The Beginner’s Guide.

To find ideas, find problems. To find problems, talk to people. This is the role of UX research in design. This simple guide to understanding UX research reaches into the fundamentals, methodologies and best tips for an effective UX survey.

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What is UX Research ?

The first step of a successful product design is UX research and it is an absolute vital part of the user experience design process. User experience (UX) research is a study consisting of learning what end users of a product or system need, how they use products and expect to interact with systems in order to employ derived insights in the design process to enhance user experience. Data collected during user research are qualified as either qualitative or quantitative data.

Qualitative UX Research: this produces descriptive results in terms of how people think and feel. This is used to find out end users’ problems, opinions, motivations, habits and so on.

Quantitative UX Research: as the term quantitative suggests, this generates statistical data that can be analyzed. This data is used for measuring the behaviors and opinions of users.

The both forms of data collection above for user research is what combinedly produces conclusive results that can be implemented in a design process.

The data collected should be able to interpret these:

1. Who your end users are.
2. What are their needs and pain points?
3. How they prefer to get things done.
4. The problems your design would solve.

What is the Purpose of UX Research?

The purpose of user research is to put your design project into context. UX research ensures that you are designing with the user in mind. It helps you understand the problem you are trying to solve with a product or service and tells you about your users.

Why UX Research is Important

UX research is the first step to a successful product design. User research is essential to inform the design decisions made during the design process. It provides a foundation for a design strategy as it is what helps you know the pain points of end users and how to solve those problems. UX research also helps you identify who would use your products and gives the necessary data to back design strategy and decisions. Ultimately, user research helps you design with the user in mind.

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How To Conduct The User Research

Before conducting the UX research exercise, proper planning has to be done. Some factors to consider when planning UX research includes:

1. Defining your research objectives: this helps put things in perspective and it provides an organized structure to follow through for collecting useful data.
2. Deciding what research methods to use: there are different methods for UX research with different applications dependent on the kind of data you are trying to collect so deciding which methods to use and when to use them based on this reason saves time and cost and makes the research productive.
3. Collecting both qualitative and quantitative data: one without the other isn’t useful. To make better informed design decisions, you need to collect and mix both types of data so take note of this.

Different UX Research Methods

There are different types of UX research methods both qualitative and quantitative. The best suitable method is that which provides complete and useful answers to your research questions.

Lets talk about some user research methods now.

1. Focus groups: this consists of the study of a group of people through discussions and other activities to collect data on their opinions for market research, feedback on products and behaviors. This method can be achieved face to face or remotely online.
2. Interviews: this involves one on one interview following a selection of questions that will prompt the user to divulge relevant information about their thoughts, feelings, needs and interaction in relation to a product or service.
3. Field study: this method is about being present in the environment of your users, observing and documenting observations either via notes or photos (where possible) and collecting useful data about these users that will produce a better user suited design.
4. Card sorting: this is a method in which users arrange topics cards into categories in a way that they understand and resonate with. This method helps to understand information architecture better. It is also useful for sorting large amounts of content into logical groupings for users.
5. User surveys: this involves handing out questionnaires with a structured format that targets specific user personas. This method can be used to collect large amount of data. Surveys can include both: “open-ended questions” where users answer questions in free form style and “close-ended questions” where participants choose from a predefined set of answers e.g. rating scales, multiple choices, etc.
6. Heat mapping: visual mapping of data showing how users click and scroll through your website or prototype.
7. Usability testing: this method evaluates products by observing interactions of users while carrying out tasks with your product. The goal to be achieved here is finding out if your design is intuitive and easy to use, and also discover any usability problems.
8. A/B testing: comparing two version of a web page or prototypes to see which can convert users more.

Conclusion

User (UX) research is a vital part of the user experience or product design process. Although it is typically done at the start of a design project, it is also important that research continues throughout all stages of the product development cycle to ensure delivery of a usable product and allow intuitive human centered experiences. It is also important to note that there is no best research method and the methods listed are not one size fits all so suitable methods should be chose by reason of the problem intended to be solved by the design, and resources such as cost and project timeline.

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