Learning session 19: User research basics

🚁 Topic

UX research is understanding users’ needs and creating solutions that meet those needs. It involves various methods, including interviews, surveys, focus groups, and usability testing. UX research is an essential part of the design process, as it helps to ensure that the products we create are user-friendly and meet the needs of our users. Here is what I learned today:

🤓 What I learned

The main goal of the user experience is to create products and services with users’ interests and needs. The assumption is not an answer to designing a user-friendly product that meets the users’ needs.

Assumptions remain that way unless backed by data. User research is essential for design; it’s the only way to create good products that users will like and avoid making assumptions instead of relying on well-researched user data.

Reasons to invest in UX research

There are a few reasons why you need to invest in UX research:

• Helps to make a decision — It can help you to make decisions like what the navigation should look like. Should my product be designed for Android and iOS platforms? Answering these questions may be possible based on assumptions or a quick internet search, but nothing overpowers systematic UX research for accurate and data-backed answers.
• Remove biases — The development process of a product involves multiple stakeholders and team members, each with their own beliefs and opinions. UX research provides data to back up your decisions, making it simple to eliminate any reasoning that is not entirely objective.
• Allows usability testing — The testing helps you as a designer communicate with users to get feedback while testing low-fidelity mockups to high-fidelity prototypes. It also isn’t time-consuming as well saves you money.
• Helps identify solutions — UX research can also help you find solutions to problems with your product, such as high bounce rates or low conversion rates.
• Enhances marketing efforts- Ux research reveals on first steps of creating a product and how to prioritize your users’ needs, goals, and behaviors. Afterward, this process is simple to determine how to target these users in your marketing efforts.

What is UX research?

UX research is about understanding how users interact with your product and observing how quickly or easily they can complete a task and meet their goals. It is discovering your users’ behaviors, motivations, and needs through task analysis and other forms of user feedback.

Working directly with users of your target audience through UX testing sessions, remote session observation using digital tools, surveys to collect user feedback, and various other UX research methods and techniques are all possibilities.

From ideation to implementation, several decisions must be made at each stage of the UX design process. UX research provides the data required by design teams to make these decisions. The designers can gather this information through qualitative or quantitative research methods tailored to the product’s goals and vision.

The first step of user research in the design cycle involves collecting information about users’ goals and needs. This gathered information will create a product that enables users to meet their goals.

Afterward, the product is put through usability testing and users’ perceptions of the product. Designers can use UX research to solve specific issues within a product. For example, a study may be commissioned to investigate the cause of high bounce rates on a website.

Consequences of not doing UX research

UX research is essential in UX design, but not all companies take it seriously and don’t want to spend their time and money on UX research.

Ux research is sometimes underrated when teams assume that they already know their users also their goals.

Assumptions in product design can be damaging because:

• You can have a product that doesn’t solve your users’ problems
• You can have a product that is not user friendly
• You can have a product that offers great value, but its a totally a mess to solve users’ problems.

What user research doesn’t do

Ux research isn’t precious without proper analysis. A user research study can give you data, and then it’s up to you to analyze it and come up with solutions and decisions for your product.

For example, you may find that users don’t use the share option. Now your job is to determine if your users couldn’t find this option or if they don’t need this feature.

In comparison, you could form assumptions or hypotheses about your product and then use UX research data to prove or disprove them. For example, you may assume that the website banner is the first thing users notice on your web. A simple eye-tracking test can determine whether your assumption is correct.

How to approach user research

There are some ways to approach UX research:

• Set specific goals: At each stage of designing a product, know what you are looking for and what information you want from users. Do you want to learn their goals, needs, and what frustrates them?
• Identify available resources- people think that UX research is expensive and very time-consuming. Several research methodologies are available to fit your budget also your time frame. You can determine the number of resources that are available and then pick a methodology that suits you.
• Select a methodology — Many factors will influence your choice of methodology for your study, including your objectives, budget, and time frame. It would be best if you also decided who your test subjects will be and how to select them.
• Collect data — afterward, you can gather the data using your chosen methodology, such as group interviews, card sorting, etc.
• Analyze your findings — The most critical step of UX research is using the data you’ve gathered to answer questions and achieve your goals.

Empathy in user research

Empathy is the most reliable way to ensure you get the most out of your UX research. Ensure that you put users’ needs first and understand their perspectives at every stage of the research process.

According to the Golden Circle theory by Simon Sinek leadership expert, you can ask yourself three questions to ensure that your research is user-centered:

• Why do users want to accomplish a particular goal?
• How can users achieve this goal?
• What will be the outcome if this goal is met?

🤺 What challenged me

One of the challenges I faced during this learning session for user research basics was that I struggled to find commonalities between the various research methods. I felt like constantly jumping between different frameworks and approaches, making it difficult to retain what I had learned. However, I found that by taking the time to map out the similarities and differences between the methods, I could better understand their value and how they could be applied in different situations. By the end of the session, I had a better grasp of the user research process and felt more confident in my ability to conduct research effectively.

Thank you for coming this far. Any feedback or critique is appreciated.❤️