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UX Research Cheat Sheet

February 12, 2017 2017-02-12

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User-experience research methods are great at producing data and insights, while ongoing activities help get the right things done. Alongside R&D, ongoing UX activities can make everyone’s efforts more effective and valuable. At every stage in the design process, different UX methods can keep product-development efforts on the right track, in agreement with true user needs and not imaginary ones.

In This Article:

When to conduct user research.

One of the questions we get the most is, “When should I do user research on my project?” There are three different answers:

• Do user research at whatever stage you’re in right now . The earlier the research, the more impact the findings will have on your product, and by definition, the earliest you can do something on your current project (absent a time machine) is today.
• Do user research at all the stages . As we show below, there’s something useful to learn in every single stage of any reasonable project plan, and each research step will increase the value of your product by more than the cost of the research.
• Do most user research early in the project (when it’ll have the most impact), but conserve some budget for a smaller amount of supplementary research later in the project. This advice applies in the common case that you can’t get budget for all the research steps that would be useful.

The chart below describes UX methods and activities available in various project stages.

Each project is different, so the stages are not always neatly compartmentalized. The end of one cycle is the beginning of the next.

The important thing is not to execute a giant list of activities in rigid order, but to start somewhere and learn more and more as you go along.

When deciding where to start or what to focus on first, use some of these top UX methods. Some methods may be more appropriate than others, depending on time constraints, system maturity, type of product or service, and the current top concerns. It’s a good idea to use different or alternating methods each product cycle because they are aimed at different goals and types of insight. The chart below shows how often UX practitioners reported engaging in these methods in our survey on UX careers.

If you can do only one activity and aim to improve an existing system, do qualitative (think-aloud) usability testing , which is the most effective method to improve usability . If you are unable to test with users, analyze as much user data as you can. Data (obtained, for instance, from call logs, searches, or analytics) is not a great substitute for people, however, because data usually tells you what , but you often need to know why . So use the questions your data brings up to continue to push for usability testing.

The discovery stage is when you try to illuminate what you don’t know and better understand what people need. It’s especially important to do discovery activities before making a new product or feature, so you can find out whether it makes sense to do the project at all .

An important goal at this stage is to validate and discard assumptions, and then bring the data and insights to the team. Ideally this research should be done before effort is wasted on building the wrong things or on building things for the wrong people, but it can also be used to get back on track when you’re working with an existing product or service.

Good things to do during discovery:

• Conduct field studies and interview users : Go where the users are, watch, ask, and listen. Observe people in context interacting with the system or solving the problems you’re trying to provide solutions for.
• Run diary studies to understand your users’ information needs and behaviors.
• Interview stakeholders to gather and understand business requirements and constraints.
• Interview sales, support, and training staff. What are the most frequent problems and questions they hear from users? What are the worst problems people have? What makes people angry?
• Listen to sales and support calls. What do people ask about? What do they have problems understanding? How do the sales and support staff explain and help? What is the vocabulary mismatch between users and staff?
• Do competitive testing . Find the strengths and weaknesses in your competitors’ products. Discover what users like best.

Exploration methods are for understanding the problem space and design scope and addressing user needs appropriately.

• Compare features against competitors.
• Do design reviews.
• Use research to build user personas and write user stories.
• Analyze user tasks to find ways to save people time and effort.
• Show stakeholders the user journey and where the risky areas are for losing customers along the way. Decide together what an ideal user journey would look like.
• Explore design possibilities by imagining many different approaches, brainstorming, and testing the best ideas in order to identify best-of-breed design components to retain.
• Obtain feedback on early-stage task flows by walking through designs with stakeholders and subject-matter experts. Ask for written reactions and questions (silent brainstorming), to avoid groupthink and to enable people who might not speak up in a group to tell you what concerns them.
• Iterate designs by testing paper prototypes with target users, and then test interactive prototypes by watching people use them. Don’t gather opinions. Instead, note how well designs work to help people complete tasks and avoid errors. Let people show you where the problem areas are, then redesign and test again.
• Use card sorting to find out how people group your information, to help inform your navigation and information organization scheme.

Testing and validation methods are for checking designs during development and beyond, to make sure systems work well for the people who use them.

• Do qualitative usability testing . Test early and often with a diverse range of people, alone and in groups. Conduct an accessibility evaluation to ensure universal access.
• Ask people to self-report their interactions and any interesting incidents while using the system over time, for example with diary studies .
• Audit training classes and note the topics, questions people ask, and answers given. Test instructions and help systems.
• Talk with user groups.
• Staff social-media accounts and talk with users online. Monitor social media for kudos and complaints.
• Analyze user-forum posts. User forums are sources for important questions to address and answers that solve problems. Bring that learning back to the design and development team.
• Do benchmark testing: If you’re planning a major redesign or measuring improvement, test to determine time on task, task completion, and error rates of your current system, so you can gauge progress over time.

Listen throughout the research and design cycle to help understand existing problems and to look for new issues. Analyze gathered data and monitor incoming information for patterns and trends.

• Survey customers and prospective users.
• Monitor analytics and metrics to discover trends and anomalies and to gauge your progress.
• Analyze search queries: What do people look for and what do they call it? Search logs are often overlooked, but they contain important information.
• Make it easy to send in comments, bug reports, and questions. Analyze incoming feedback channels periodically for top usability issues and trouble areas. Look for clues about what people can’t find, their misunderstandings, and any unintended effects.
• Collect frequently asked questions and try to solve the problems they represent.
• Run booths at conferences that your customers and users attend so that they can volunteer information and talk with you directly.
• Give talks and demos: capture questions and concerns.

Ongoing and strategic activities can help you get ahead of problems and make systemic improvements.

• Find allies . It takes a coordinated effort to achieve design improvement. You’ll need collaborators and champions.
• Talk with experts . Learn from others’ successes and mistakes. Get advice from people with more experience.
• Follow ethical guidelines . The UXPA Code of Professional Conduct is a good starting point.
• Involve stakeholders . Don’t just ask for opinions; get people onboard and contributing, even in small ways. Share your findings, invite them to observe and take notes during research sessions.
• Hunt for data sources . Be a UX detective. Who has the information you need, and how can you gather it?
• Determine UX metrics. Find ways to measure how well the system is working for its users.
• Follow Tog's principles of interaction design .
• Use evidence-based design guidelines , especially when you can’t conduct your own research. Usability heuristics are high-level principles to follow.
• Design for universal access . Accessibility can’t be tacked onto the end or tested in during QA. Access is becoming a legal imperative, and expert help is available. Accessibility improvements make systems easier for everyone.
• Give users control . Provide the controls people need. Choice but not infinite choice.
• Prevent errors . Whenever an error occurs, consider how it might be eliminated through design change. What may appear to be user errors are often system-design faults. Prevent errors by understanding how they occur and design to lessen their impact.
• Improve error messages . For remaining errors, don’t just report system state. Say what happened from a user standpoint and explain what to do in terms that are easy for users to understand.
• Provide helpful defaults . Be prescriptive with the default settings, because many people expect you to make the hard choices for them. Allow users to change the ones they might need or want to change.
• Check for inconsistencies . Work-alike is important for learnability. People tend to interpret differences as meaningful, so make use of that in your design intentionally rather than introducing arbitrary differences. Adhere to the principle of least astonishment . Meet expectations instead.
• Map features to needs . User research can be tied to features to show where requirements come from. Such a mapping can help preserve design rationale for the next round or the next team.
• When designing software, ensure that installation and updating is easy . Make installation quick and unobtrusive. Allow people to control updating if they want to.
• When designing devices, plan for repair and recycling . Sustainability and reuse are more important than ever. Design for conservation.
• Avoid waste . Reduce and eliminate nonessential packaging and disposable parts. Avoid wasting people’s time, also. Streamline.
• Consider system usability in different cultural contexts . You are not your user. Plan how to ensure that your systems work for people in other countries . Translation is only part of the challenge.
• Look for perverse incentives . Perverse incentives lead to negative unintended consequences. How can people game the system or exploit it? How might you be able to address that? Consider how a malicious user might use the system in unintended ways or to harm others.
• Consider social implications . How will the system be used in groups of people, by groups of people, or against groups of people? Which problems could emerge from that group activity?
• Protect personal information . Personal information is like money. You can spend it unwisely only once. Many want to rob the bank. Plan how to keep personal information secure over time. Avoid collecting information that isn’t required, and destroy older data routinely.
• Keep data safe . Limit access to both research data and the data entrusted to the company by customers. Advocate for encryption of data at rest and secure transport. A data breach is a terrible user experience.
• Deliver both good and bad news . It’s human nature to be reluctant to tell people what they don’t want to hear, but it’s essential that UX raise the tough issues. The future of the product, or even the company, may depend on decisionmakers knowing what you know or suspect.
• Track usability over time . Use indicators such as number and types of support issues, error rates and task completion in usability testing, and customer satisfaction ratings, to show the effectiveness of design improvements.
• Include diverse users . People can be very different culturally and physically. They also have a range of abilities and language skills. Personas are not enough to prevent serious problems, so be sure your testing includes as wide a variety of people as you can.
• Track usability bugs . If usability bugs don’t have a place in the bug database, start your own database to track important issues.
• Pay attention to user sentiment . Social media is a great place for monitoring user problems, successes, frustrations, and word-of-mouth advertising. When competitors emerge, social media posts may be the first indication.
• Reduce the need for training . Training is often a workaround for difficult user interfaces, and it’s expensive. Use training and help topics to look for areas ripe for design changes.
• Communicate future directions . Customers and users depend on what they are able to do and what they know how to do with the products and services they use. Change can be good, even when disruptive, but surprise changes are often poorly received because they can break things that people are already doing. Whenever possible, ask, tell, test with, and listen to the customers and users you have. Consult with them rather than just announcing changes. Discuss major changes early, so what you hear can help you do a better job, and what they hear can help them prepare for the changes needed.
• Recruit people for future research and testing . Actively encourage people to join your pool of volunteer testers. Offer incentives for participation and make signing up easy to do via your website, your newsletter, and other points of contact.

Use this cheat-sheet to choose appropriate UX methods and activities for your projects and to get the most out of those efforts. It’s not necessary to do everything on every project, but it’s often helpful to use a mix of methods and tend to some ongoing needs during each iteration.

Free Downloads

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UX Research Methods and the Path to User Empathy

How can designers move beyond personal insights to understand the problems users face? We introduce time-tested UX research methods that inspire user empathy and lead to better user experiences.

By Micah Bowers

Micah helps businesses craft meaningful engagement through branding, illustration, and design.

In 1941, a baby boy named Ken was born in Oakland, CA. Ken’s dad, Candido, was an Italian immigrant and inventor who, along with his brothers, supplied the United States with lightweight airplane propellers during the First World War.

Unfortunately, baby Ken suffered from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, a potentially fatal condition that can cause severe deformities. Doctors recommended hydrotherapy, but at the time, the only option was soaking in large tanks located in spas or hospitals.

Moved to ease his son’s suffering, Candido drew on his background in design and engineering to create a submersible pump capable of turning a home bathtub into a hydrotherapy tank. Lo and behold, it worked.

In fact, it worked so well that the family business shifted gears and began selling a portable version of the pump to health clubs and schools. A few years later, a self-contained pump/tub combo was marketed to homeowners under the family name—the Jacuzzi whirlpool bath.

And, Ken? Thanks to ongoing treatment in Jacuzzi tubs, his pain became manageable, and he spent the next 75 years of his life serving as a prominent advocate for people with disabilities.

Why Does User Empathy Matter in UX Design?

Candido Jacuzzi didn’t sit down one day to solve a theoretical design problem for a vague and faceless target customer. He observed his son’s struggle firsthand—heard his cries, saw his labored movements, and intimately understood the obstacles of his illness.

For today’s UX designers , there’s a lesson to be learned: The goal of our work is greater than gaining profitable advantages. Yes, profitability is important, but UX designers should strive for more by seeking to see problems through the eyes of the people they’re designing for.

To do this well, to move beyond rhetorical aspirations and deliver life-improving design solutions, requires a disciplined approach to UX research. In this article, we’ll introduce time-tested UX research methods that inspire user empathy and ultimately lead to better user experiences.

UX Research Types: A Bird’s-Eye View

Before diving in, we need to step way back and take a broad look at the different types of UX research. Doing so will provide context to the more specific methods examined later.

A word of caution: Without knowing how to classify the UX research you’re performing , you’re likely to misinterpret findings and arrive at design solutions that hinder users rather than help them.

Primary vs. Secondary Research

Primary research is original research that is completed by you or your design team. The tasks performed and insights gained during primary research relate back to the design problem you are attempting to solve.

Primary research typically takes place after secondary research has helped shed light on why the problem exists and what’s been done to address it in the past.

Secondary research is any research that was done by someone else, and it’s a great way for designers to familiarize themselves with the history of different design problems.

That said, the areas explored during secondary research needn’t relate directly to the design problem. Sometimes, seemingly unconnected topics can bring clarity and innovation.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research

Quantitative research produces results with numerical values and answers questions like “How much, how often, and how many?”

The variables measured by quantitative research may be quite granular, and the findings can be powerfully illustrated with statistics and data visualizations. However, it’s important to understand that for all its numerical precision, quantitative research can’t explain why something is happening.

• Qualitative research (a.k.a. empirical research) yields insights that aren’t numerical and instead come in the form of people’s comments, preferences, observations, and feelings. This type of research is valuable because human behavior is rarely based on patterns of pure logic and reason.

Generative vs. Evaluative Research

Generative research is conducted during the beginning of the investigative process. It helps UX researchers clearly define a problem and generate a hypothesis for its solution.

Generative research includes both primary and secondary research, and it can be quantitative and qualitative.

The generative design process works much like a funnel: It’s broad in the beginning, using secondary research to understand a wide range of information.

Then, as the problem becomes clearer and the research objectives are established, the focus becomes narrower, using more primary research tools that are both quantitative and qualitative in nature.

Evaluative research is executed near the end of the research process, and it’s used to test and refine ideas until the best solution is reached. For digital products, evaluative research is a vital part of the development cycle, and it should be introduced during the early phases of the design process (i.e., concept sketching and prototyping).

UX Research Methods That Lead to User Empathy

Now that we understand the different types of research, we’re ready to inspect five UX research methods and show how they inspire empathetic insights into the lives of users.

Here, it’s important to restate that the aim of these methods is seeing problems through the eyes of users in order to deliver life-improving design solutions.

If this is lost and research becomes little more than a perfunctory checklist, valuable (and potentially profitable) insights will be overlooked.

1. User Interviews

What are they?

• In user interviews, a UX researcher questions people that use a product and records their answers. The nature of the questions depends on the intent of the research, but the main goal is to extract user insights that can be used for product ideation and improvement.

How do they lead to user empathy?

• UX designers may be tempted to draw design conclusions from personal insights and experiences. User interviews are an affordable resource that helps designers avoid this tendency and maintain an important mindset: “I’m designing for the user. The user is not me.”

2. Ethnography

What is it?

• Want to know how users behave in their natural environment? Watch them. Ethnography is the firsthand observation of users as they interact with things in the world around them, and it’s an effective way for UX researchers to learn if a product is actually useful or hindered by design flaws.

How does it lead to user empathy?

• Testing a product in a controlled environment has its place, but the real world presents all manner of unforeseeable obstacles. Ethnography allows UX researchers to witness how everyday hurdles impact a product’s user experience. Then, researchers can pass their findings along to be included in the design problem-solving process.

3. User Surveys

A survey is a set of questions that evaluate users’ preferences, opinions, and attitudes about a product. Surveys are given to a sample audience that is representative of a larger population, and two types of questions are asked: closed and open.

Closed questions provide users with a fixed set of responses (i.e., yes/no, multiple choice, numerical scale, etc.), whereas open questions allow users to answer however they’d like.

• Surveys are a great way to get unfiltered feedback from users. By examining survey responses, UX designers can learn who users are, the problems they face, and what they honestly think about a product.

4. Contextual Inquiry

• A contextual inquiry is a hybrid UX research method where users are interviewed and observed while performing a task in its natural setting. However, it is the user (not the researcher) who takes on the role of expert and does most of the talking, explaining the steps of a process as it occurs.
• When people interact with something a lot, they develop an intimate knowledge of its strengths and weaknesses. Contextual inquiry helps researchers adopt a learning posture and allow users to explain how products are actually used day-to-day, workarounds and shortcomings included.

5. Card Sorting

Card sorting is a relatively simple technique that provides insight into how users structure data in their minds.

In an open card sort, people are given a deck of randomly shuffled cards and asked to organize them in whatever way they deem sensible. Once the cards are sorted, they are then asked to explain the reasoning behind their arrangement.

During a closed card sort, participants are asked to place cards from a deck into pre-existing groups, and their word associations are documented by researchers.

How does this UX research method lead to user empathy?

People with extensive product knowledge (e.g., designers, marketers, executives) tend to organize product information in ways that flow logically from their own in-depth understanding.

However, users are not privy to this insider knowledge and are likely to search for word associations that they can make sense of. Card sorting identifies what these associations are and reveals UX patterns that emerge from them.

Plan Before Embarking on Research Projects

Though we’ve primarily focused on the link between UX research methods and user empathy, we owe a word of acknowledgment to an overlooked aspect of the research process—planning.

In one respect, research is no different than any other design discipline: To do it well requires planning.

With planning, the goals and methodology of a UX research project are made crystal clear, and project stakeholders become much more likely to support any time and resources that are requested.

Without planning, UX research will lack focus and may intimidate or frustrate stakeholders, which can lead to unnecessary pushback and second-guessing.

Thankfully, research plans don’t need to be long. Aim for one page , and limit yourself to brief summaries of essential details like:

• Project Title
• Author Information
• Stakeholder Information
• Project Overview
• Research Objectives
• Research Methods
• Important Research Questions
• Target User Profile
• Relevant Supporting Data

If needed, you can expand this format, but a one-page plan is a useful tool that will help keep stakeholders on the same page as research progresses.

Commit to UX Research

UX design problems are complicated. Why? Because they involve the unpredictable phenomenon of human behavior. As designers, we’re always in search of order, always seeking simplicity. When it comes to digital products, order and simplicity are virtues, but they aren’t a starting point. If we think we can fully anticipate the needs of users based on past design solutions, we will miss opportunities to create products and experiences that truly delight.

The only way to avoid this is a commitment to research. Without research, or with a shallow commitment to research, designers are essentially saying to users, “We know what’s best for you. Keep quiet, and take what you’re given.”

While it seems obvious that no one wants to be treated this way, obstacles to UX research are abundant. Whether it be budgets, dubious stakeholders, or bull-headed designers, empathy-centric research often gets marginalized. The fallout almost always has a negative impact on users, and ultimately, a product’s profitability.

With this in mind, let us remain vigilant in our quest to see and synthesize problems through eyes that are not our own. We won’t create perfect products, but we will make progress and our designs will begin to improve the lives of the people we’re entrusted to help.

Further Reading on the Toptal Blog:

• Design Problem Statements: What They Are and How to Frame Them
• Know Your User: UX Statistics and Insights (With Infographic)
• Who, What, and Why: A Guide to User Testing Methods
• The Complete Guide to UX Research Methods
• Why Design Teams Need Psychological Safety
• The Value of User Research

Understanding the basics

What is ux research.

UX research is an investigation into the problems, needs, and experiences of users (people). A range of research types and methods exist, but the main goal is uncovering insights that can be passed along to UX designers and used to create more helpful/delightful user experiences.

What is user empathy?

User empathy is about seeing problems and experiences through the eyes of users. For UX researchers and designers, this means going beyond personal experiences. User empathy is important because UX designers must make decisions that are representative of and beneficial to the people they’re designing for.

What is key in user research?

The key to user research is an open, investigative mind that is free (as much as possible) of preconceived notions. If researchers and designers conduct (or interpret) research with the goal of supporting existing conclusions, they miss the opportunity to glean powerful empathetic insights.

What is empathy in design thinking?

Design thinking is a process of iteration and problem solving that helps designers better relate to users. The very first step in design thinking is to empathize. This means that researchers and designers must seek to study and understand user problems firsthand, in the environments in which they occur.

What is an empathy map?

An empathy map is a tool for visualizing and documenting what is known about a certain type of user. Empathy maps come in a variety of formats, but the standard format places the user information in the center of four quadrants: Says, Does, Thinks, Feels.

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Micah Bowers

Vancouver, WA, United States

Member since January 3, 2016

About the author

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UX research methods: Deciding which to use for your project

Choosing the right method in UX research can be confusing because it has to be tailored to your specific product and rely on your unique organizational goals.

Each research method has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, but being able to identify the best one to apply to your case is the key to UX research success.

Therefore, it is critical to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the most popular UX research methods and clearly understand the application possibilities and constraints, considering which might make the difference in the choice of one over the other.

Let’s walk you through some of the most common UX research methods to make choosing your option easier.

Overview of different UX research methods

Field studies, focus groups, diary studies, usability testing, five-second testing, a/b testing, considerations for choosing the best ux research method, examples of successful ux research projects, and the methods used, recruiting participants, develop a research protocol, use analytical tools.

The different UX research methods each have their own strengths and limitations, and selecting the right method is essential for gaining meaningful insights. Here are the most popular UX research methods:

• Interviews : involve asking questions to gain insights from users. It is important to start with a wide context, avoid bias, ask questions that focus on tasks users are trying to complete, and analyze the data
• Field studies : a research method where researchers observe people in their natural environment to understand their behavior, needs, and constraints. It is useful for understanding the context in which users complete tasks and gaining a better understanding of customers
• Focus groups : involves studying a group of people and their beliefs and opinions on a topic, usually through face-to-face meetings or video conferencing tools. It can help understand how users perceive a product, identify important features, and discover problems users experience with the product
• Diary studies : a research method where users keep logs or diaries to uncover their behaviors, activities, and experiences over an extended period. It is important to plan well, decide on the type of feedback, and determine triggers for the diary entries
• Surveys : helps gather both qualitative and quantitative data from a group of participants to gain meaningful insights. Surveys can include close-ended or open-ended questions, and it is important to formulate questions correctly to get accurate responses
• Usability testing : involves observing people completing tasks to evaluate usability, using various methods. Method selection is based on research goals and resources, and usability testing should be conducted early and often
• Five-second testing : gauges users’ first impressions by showing them an image for five seconds. The method is useful for assessing messaging effectiveness and attention-grabbing techniques, capturing users’ initial perceptions
• A/B testing : allows testing of design variations to find the most effective one for conversion optimization. The method involves presenting users with two different versions of the design and asking for feedback, with a focus on the prevention of biases and ego-based decision-making

Strengths and weaknesses of each UX research method

The existence of various research methods could confuse you about which method is best suited for your specific situation.

However, accessing the strengths and limitations of each method might help in identifying your preferences, while experience with all of them might give an additional advantage in understanding the best fit — trying and learning from mistakes is the way to perfection.

• Provides rich and detailed information about users’ experiences, preferences, and opinions
• Allows for follow-up questions to clarify responses and gain a deeper understanding of the topic
• Helps build a relationship with users and gain trust
• Can uncover new and unexpected insights

Weaknesses:

• May suffer from bias or social desirability effects
• Requires skilled interviewers to avoid leading questions and extract relevant information
• Time-consuming and expensive to conduct, especially with a large number of participants
• Results may not be generalizable to a larger population
• Provides a realistic view of how users complete tasks and interact with products
• Allows for the observation of behavior in a natural setting, providing contextual information
• Can uncover problems that users might not be aware of or might not report in interviews or surveys
• Provides a broad range of data types, such as visual and audio data
• May require specialized equipment or access to specific locations, making it difficult and expensive to conduct
• Observers may interfere with the natural behavior of participants
• Researchers may struggle to maintain objectivity and avoid bias when collecting and analyzing data
• Allows for the exploration of a wide range of opinions and perspectives in a short amount of time
• Provides insights into how users interact with each other and their social dynamics
• Can uncover new insights that would not have been obtained through individual interviews
• Allows for immediate feedback and discussion among participants
• Participants may be influenced by others’ opinions and not provide independent feedback
• May suffer from groupthink or dominant participants influencing the conversation
• Requires skilled moderators to guide the conversation and extract relevant information
• Provides rich and detailed information over an extended period
• Allows for the collection of data in a natural setting
• Participants have control over their own data and can report on their own experiences
• Can provide insights into changes in behavior or attitudes over time
• Requires participants to commit to recording data over an extended period, which can lead to high attrition rates
• Participants may forget to record important information or not record it accurately
• Results may be influenced by the participant’s memory, attention, or motivation to report accurately
• May not provide a complete picture of the participant’s experience, as they may not report everything they do or feel
• Can collect large amounts of data from a large number of participants quickly and easily
• Allows for the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data
• Provides standardized responses, making it easy to compare and analyze data
• Can be used to obtain data on a wide range of topics
• Participants may not provide accurate or truthful responses
• Can suffer from response bias or question order effects
• Close-ended questions may not capture the nuances of participants’ opinions or experiences
• Results may be influenced by the quality of the questions or response options
• Provides objective feedback on how users interact with products
• Allows for the identification of problems and areas for improvement
• Can be used to compare products or designs
• Can be conducted remotely, making it accessible and cost effective
• May not capture the full range of user experiences or behaviors
• Can be influenced by the tester’s biases or expectations
• May not replicate the natural environment in which the product will be used
• Can be time-consuming and expensive to conduct with a large number of participants
• Quick way to gather initial impressions of users
• Cost-effective method of testing
• Helps to identify potential issues or areas for improvement in design
• Easy to administer and analyze results
• May not provide a comprehensive understanding of the user experience
• Time constraint may not reflect real-life user interactions
• Results may be influenced by personal bias or preferences
• Limited information on how users actually interact with the design beyond initial impressions
• Allows for testing of different variations of a design or webpage
• Provides data to support decision-making and validation of assumptions
• Can be used to optimize the design for specific goals (e.g., conversion rate)
• Helps to control for variables that may affect user behavior
• May not capture the full user experience or account for all variables that could influence behavior
• Can be time-consuming and expensive to administer
• Requires a large enough sample size to ensure statistically significant results
• May lead to decision-making based solely on quantitative data, without considering qualitative insights

When it comes to conducting UX research, the method you choose will depend on the stage of the design process you’re in and what you want to know. It’s important to conduct research first to understand how your product will meet your audience’s needs before testing its effectiveness.

While all research methods have value, it’s often better to observe users’ behavior to discover their needs rather than ask them outright. You’ll also need to decide if what people think and believe or what they do with the product is more relevant to your question. It should also be noted that quantitative research typically assesses success, while qualitative research determines thoughts and motivations.

Once you’ve determined the type of research needed, consider the product’s context in your question to narrow your focus.

However, factors like cost, time, and resources may impact your choice of research method. UX researchers also need to stay in contact with business stakeholders to ensure that research aligns with business goals. Ultimately, the right researcher can make or break a study.

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If you have a small budget, consider starting with a small usability test with five users. If you have a short timeline, conduct an expert review and plan for a usability test in the next phase of development. At any stage in development, consider conducting one or more small usability tests and building improvements into the product as you iterate product design and testing throughout the development cycle.

While I already mentioned a lot of research methods, now it is time to get some insights into the best practices and grasp the feeling of how a successful application looks like in real-life scenarios.

An example of a practical application A/B testing is Spotify , which used this method to determine that users preferred a tab bar instead of the standard three-line menu icon on their mobile app. This resulted in a better user experience and decreased subscription churn, making it clear how A/B testing can have a significant impact on businesses.

Another user research strategy is usability testing, which produces both qualitative and quantitative data. The data gathered from usability testing can be applied in various ways depending on the type of testing and desired outcomes. I mentioned it more than others, as it seems that a lot of great companies constantly use some kind of usability testing to improve their performance.

For example,the world’s largest airline Ryanair’s official website utilized usability testing to increase improve the UX metrics of the website and create a better experience for clients, refreshing its look according to 21st-century expectations. The continuous work of more than 200 employees and an additional large group of testers provided the result that helped the company to stay on top of the airline industry as the website started not to just look better, but to work faster, attracting more clients. Hence, such work has to be ongoing as trends shift while the company has to stay on top of the competition, providing only the best for its clients. Therefore, major companies concentrate on continuous usability testing to increase sales.

An important note here would be that for specific product types, such as an ecommerce website or medical device, there are recommended research methods. When seeking responses from a large number of respondents, consider using a survey delivered electronically via a link or survey platform. On the other hand, if the website or app focuses on experience rather than usability, the chosen research method will usually go with interviews or surveys.

For example, some gaming apps might work just fine, but the visual aspects and music are just not enjoyable for the users, and the only way to grasp such feedback is to access qualitative responses from users in one way or another.

Tips for conducting effective UX research

Recruiting participants for low-cost UX research can be challenging, but there are ways to make it easier. A free 190-page report from the Nielsen Norman Group offers guidelines on how to set up and manage a recruiting program.

You can also use online tools like Doodle to sync schedules and Zoom, Google Hangouts, or Skype to conduct remote interviews, reducing the time it takes to organize multiple in-person interviews. While remote interviews may not provide as much data as other research methods, they can be useful in discovering usability issues and gauging user interaction with these issues.

It is important to ensure that your tested audience’s demographic is diverse and that you prepare by gathering adequate resources and background information. This can help you answer any questions your UX team may have and avoid bias and possible negative feedback from one demographic that you missed during the UX research.

One-on-one interviews can be beneficial because they allow you to focus on specific issues and go in-depth. This eliminates the risk of “groupthink” that can occur in focus groups, for example.

Developing a research protocol can help you stay organized and focused during your user research. This protocol should include tasks you want your participants to do, how much time you’ve set aside for the session, a script or description that you can use for every session, and your process for recording the interviews and looking after participant data.

Analytics tools can also provide valuable quantitative data for your user research. Free tools like Google Analytics and low-cost tools like LogRocket can help you answer questions such as how long it takes for users to complete a task, where they click, how far they scroll, what features are most popular, what paths people usually take, and when they leave.

However, it’s important to pair this raw data with real qualitative user research for insight. Plan ahead and collect useful, properly structured raw data that can be analyzed with as little effort as possible.

In conclusion, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of different UX research methods is crucial for creating effective user-centered designs. Interviews, field studies, focus groups, diary studies, surveys , usability testing, five-second testing, and A/B testing each offer unique insights into user behavior and preferences. When selecting a method, it’s important to consider factors, such as the research goals, target audience, and available resources.

To conduct effective UX research, recruiting diverse and representative participants, developing a research protocol, and utilizing analytical tools are all key factors.

Overall, incorporating UX research into the design process can lead to more satisfying user experiences, and choosing the most appropriate method can make all the difference.

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UX design research methods

Effective user experience design is intuitive, accessible, and engaging. But how do you design a delightful experience that meets your target audience’s needs? Conducting user experience research gives you a glimpse inside your users’ heads, so you can understand what they care about and the challenges they face.

In this article, Figma Designer Advocate Ana Boyer weighs in on:

• What user experience research is, and why your team needs it
• Different types of UX research that support product development
• UX design research methods made easier with Figma

What is user experience research?

User experience research helps design teams identify areas of opportunity to improve user interfaces and enhance the overall user experience. According to Ana, UX research can reveal insights about target users across all phases of product development—from strategy and planning to product launch and post-launch improvements. A robust UX research framework includes both quantitative and qualitative research.

Quantitative research

Using information gathered from larger sample sizes, quantitative research yields concrete numerical data that reveals what users are doing. Researchers run statistical analyses and review analytics to gain insights into user behavior. For example, Ana says, “you might try tracking the number of times users clicked a CTA button on a newly designed web page, compared to an old version."

Qualitative research

For qualitative research, researchers collect subjective and descriptive feedback directly from users, tapping into users’ personal feelings and experiences with a product or design.  "Qualitative research gives you a more thorough explanation of why someone is doing something in the context of a flow,” Ana says.

User-centered design research often covers two types of qualitative research: attitudinal and behavioral. Attitudinal research examines users’ self-reported beliefs and perceptions related to a user experience, while behavioral research focuses on observing first-hand what users do with a product.

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3 benefits of user experience research

According to Ana, with UX research you can:

• Validate your design. "You can learn whether or not your design is hitting project goals and your users are able to accomplish a task—for example, ordering an item from your platform.”
• Put your users front and center. UX research uncovers what users want and need, so you can deliver a product that delights customers.
• Save time and resources. Doing user research and testing early and often allows you to make smaller adjustments quickly and easily. That way, Ana says, “you can take a more iterative approach to design—without having to backtrack and redo your entire UX design.”

How to conduct  UX research

Most common UX research methodologies break down into these essential activities:

• Observe how users act and react . This not only includes clicks and scrolling onscreen, but also their body language and facial expressions. Careful observation helps you understand how users normally perform a task, what interactions users pick up easily or enjoy, where they get stuck in a flow, and more.
• Empathize with your users . To create a useful and usable product, you need to consider how users' context influences them as they interact with your design.
• Analyze information to surface common themes. “Tagging key user responses helps you pinpoint what needs the most work and refinement to improve the user experience," Ana advises

When to use key UX research methods—at a glance

Given all the UX research methods you can use for  product development, when is each most useful? Ana offers these pro tips.

• User personas help you understand your core users in the early stages of development. “If you don’t know who you’re building for, then the time you invest in building and creating something will be wasted,” Ana explains. FigJam’s user persona template will help you get the ball rolling.
• Interviews gather in-depth information directly from users to test your ideas, so you can lower the risk of building a product that misses the target. FigJam’s user interview template will help you lay the groundwork.
• Card sorting invites users to show you what they think is the most intuitive way to organize high-level information in your design. Try FigJam’s card-sorting tool to shape your product’s information architecture.
• Task analysis studies users as they use your site or app to complete tasks, or jobs to be done. Use it to validate your design, and ensure users can quickly and easily accomplish their goals. Get started with FigJam’s jobs to be done template .
• Eye tracking analyzes where users look, when, and how long as they interact with your product.
• Surveys indicate how useful and usable your design is. Surveys  can provide useful insights at any phase of product development, pinpointing where users are struggling with an interface, and revealing user sentiment about a product’s colors, fonts, and overall design.

Launch & post-launch

• A/B testing shows which version or iteration of a webpage, app screen, or CTA button performs better with your users.
• Analytics track KPIs like time spent on page, bounce rate, number of clicks on key CTAs, and more to see what’s working—and what isn’t. Analytics may also reveal useful insights about your users, including location, device usage, age, and gender.
• Usability bug testing identifies and helps fix usability issues that affect your product’s quality and ease of use. “Teams struggle to invest the time and process in doing this, but it can have a huge impact on quality,” Ana says.
• Diaries captured in writing or on video track users’ thoughts and impressions over a certain time period. This self-reporting approach reveals how a product fits into and enhances users’ daily lives.

Kick off user experience research with Figma

No matter where you are in the product development process, FigJam’s research plan template can help you define your research goals. Figma’s research and design templates help you conduct research with user interviews , user personas , card sorting , and Sprig study integration .

With the insights gained from your research, you're ready to design, develop, and prototype engaging user experiences. Use Figma’s UX design tool to:

• Give and receive instant feedback on designs or prototypes—and enjoy real-time collaboration with your team. Figma's Maze integration makes testing prototypes easy.
• Set up design libraries to quickly launch user research projects and improve UX design.
• Easily share assets between Figma and FigJam to help keep your projects moving forward.

To jumpstart your UX research, browse inspiring UX research resources shared by the Figma community .

Now you're ready to roll with UX research!

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[1] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/which-ux-research-methods/

[2] https://www.uxbooth.com/articles/complete-beginners-guide-to-design-research/

Complete Beginner’s Guide to UX Research

In an industry devoted to the people who use our products, services, and applications, research is paramount. We ask questions. We take notes. We learn everything we can about the target audience, and then iteratively test our work throughout the design process.

UX research—or as it’s sometimes called, design research—serves many purposes throughout the design process. It helps us identify and prove or disprove our assumptions, find commonalities across our target audience members, and recognize their needs, goals, and mental models. Overall, research informs our work, improves our understanding, and make our work better.

In this Complete Beginner’s Guide, we’ll look at the many elements of design research, from interviews and observations, to usability testing and A/B testing. Readers will get a head start on how to use these design research techniques in their work, and improve experiences for all users.

Table of Contents

What is ux research, common methodologies, daily tasks and deliverables, people to follow.

• Tools of the Trade

Associations and Conferences

• UX Research Books

UX research encompasses a variety of investigative methods used to add context and insight to the design process. Unlike other sub-fields of UX, research did not develop out of some other field or fields. It merely translated from other forms of research. In other words, UX practitioners have borrowed many techniques from academics, scientists, market researchers, and others. However, there are still types of research that are fairly unique to the UX world.

The main goal of design research is to inform the design process from the perspective of the end user. It is research that prevents us from designing for one user: ourselves. It’s fairly well accepted that the purposes of UX and user-centered design are to design with the end-user in mind; and it’s research that tells us who that person is, in what context they’ll use this product or service, and what they need from us.

UX research has two parts: gathering data, and synthesizing that data in order to improve usability. At the start of the project, design research is focused on learning about project requirements from stakeholders, and learning about the needs and goals of the end users. Researchers will conduct interviews, collect surveys, observe prospects or current users, and review existing literature, data, or analytics. Then, iteratively throughout the design process, the research focus shifts to usability and sentiment. Researchers may conduct usability tests or A/B tests, interview users about the process, and generally test assumptions that will improve the designs.

One example of a user research process, diagrammed. Young, Indi. 2008. Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior. New York: Rosenfeld Media.

We can also divide UX research methods into two camps: quantitative and qualitative.

• Quantitative research is any research that can be measured numerically. It answers questions such as “ how many people clicked here” or “ what percentage of users are able to find the call to action?” It’s valuable in understanding statistical likelihoods and what is happening on a site or in an app.
• Qualitative research is sometimes called “soft” research. It answers questions like “why didn’t people see the call to action” and “what else did people notice on the page?” and often takes the form of interviews or conversations. Qualitative research helps us understand why people do the things they do

Though researchers may specialize in specific types of interviews or tests, most are capable of conducting a wide variety of techniques. All user researchers collect valuable information that helps us design in an informed, contextual, user-centered manner.

The various types of UX research range from in-person interviews to unmoderated A/B tests (and everything in between), though they are consistent in that they all stem from the same key methodologies: observation, understanding, and analysis.

Observation

The first step to conducting research is learning to observe the world around us. Much like beginning photographers, beginning researchers need to learn how to see. They need to notice nervous tics that may signal that their interviewees are stressed or uncertain, and pick up on seemingly minor references that may reflect long-held beliefs or thoughts that should be further probed.

Observation may seem like a simple skill, but it can be clouded by unconscious biases—which everyone has. Design researchers train themselves to observe and take notes so that they can later find patterns across seemingly diverse groups of people.

Understanding

Much like observation, understanding is something we do all the time in our daily lives. We strive to understand our coworkers, our families, and our friends, often trying to grasp a point of contention or an unfamiliar concept. But for UX researchers, understanding has less to do with disagreements and more to do with mental models .

A mental model is the image that someone has in their mind when they think of a particular phrase or situation. For example, if someone owns an SUV, their mental model of “car” will likely differ from the mental model a smart car owner. The mental model informs the decisions we make; in the case of the car owners, when asked “how long does it take to drive to Winnipeg,” their answers will vary based on the gas mileage their vehicles get, among other things.

Design researchers need to understand the mental models of the people they interview or test, for two reasons. First, we all speak in shorthand at times. Researchers must recognize that shorthand based on the mental model of the speaker. Second, if the researcher can accurately identify the user’s mental model, he or she can share this information with the design team, and design to accommodate the model.

Research on its own can be valuable, but in order to use the insights to inform design, it needs to be analyzed and ultimately presented to a larger team. Analysis is the process by which the researcher identifies patterns in the research, proposes possible rationale or solutions, and makes recommendations.

Some analysis techniques include creating personas or scenarios, describing mental models, or providing charts and graphs that represent statistics and user behaviors. Although the techniques described here are focused predominantly on conducting research, it’s important to remember that research is only valuable if it is shared . It does no one any good when it’s locked away in a cabinet, or forgotten in the excitement of design.

Every UX project is different, and the tasks that one researcher takes on will differ from those appropriate in another setting. Some of the most popular forms of research are interviews, surveys and questionnaires, card sorts, usability tests, tree tests, and A/B tests .

One-on-one interviews are a tried and true method of communication between a researcher and a user or stakeholder. There are three main types of interviews, each of which is used in a different context and with different goals.

Directed interviews are the most common sort. These are typical question-and-answer interviews, where a researcher asks specific questions. This can be useful when conducting interviews with a large number of users, or when looking to compare and contrast answers from various users.

Non-directed interviews are the best way to learn about touchier subjects, where users or stakeholders may be put off by direct questions. With a non-directed interview, the interviewer sets up some rough guidelines and opens a conversation with the interviewee. The interviewer will mostly listen during this “conversation,” speaking only to prompt the user or stakeholder to provide additional detail or explain concepts.

Ethnographic interviews involve observing what people do as they go about their days in their “natural habitats.” In this sort of interview, the user shows the interviewee how they accomplish certain tasks, essentially immersing the interviewer in their work or home culture. This can help researchers understand the gaps between what people actually do, and what they say they do. It can also shed light on things that users do when they are feeling most comfortable.

Surveys and Questionnaires

Questionnaires and surveys are an easy way to gather a large amount of information about a group, while spending minimal time. These are a great research choice for projects that have a large and diverse group of users, or a group that is concerned with anonymity. A researcher can create a survey using tools like Wufoo or Google Docs , email it out, and receive hundreds of responses in just minutes.

There are downsides to surveys and questionnaires though. The researcher can’t interact directly with the respondents, and therefore can’t help with interpreting questions or framing them if the wording isn’t quite perfect; and researchers typically have a limited ability for follow up. Surveys see a far higher response rate when they do not require a login or contact information, and this anonymity makes it impossible to ask for clarification or further details.

Card sorts are sometimes done as part of either an interview or a usability test. In a card sort, a user is provided with a set of terms, and asked to categorize them. In a closed card sort, the user is also given the category names; in an open card sort the user creates whatever categories he or she feels are most appropriate.

The goal of a card sort is to explore relationships between content, and better understand the hierarchies that a user perceives. Many content strategists and information architects rely on card sorts to test out hierarchy theories, or kickstart work on a site map.

Usability Tests

Usability testing involves asking potential or current users of a product or service to complete a set of tasks and then observing their behavior to determine the usability of the product or service. This can be done using a live version of a site or app, a prototype or work-in-progress, or even using clickable wireframes or paper and pencil.

While there are many variations and styles of usability tests , there are three that are commonly used: moderated, unmoderated, and guerrilla.

Moderated usability tests are the most traditional type of test. They can happen in person, or via screenshare and video. Whole usability labs are set up, complete with one-way mirrors for stakeholders to observe, for the purpose of conducting moderated usability tests. In a moderated test an unbiased facilitator talks with the user, reading aloud the tasks and prompting the user to think aloud as he or she accomplishes the tasks. The facilitator’s role is to act as a conduit between stakeholders and the user, phrasing questions to evaluate the effectiveness of a design and testing assumptions while helping the user feel comfortable with the process.

Unmoderated usability tests , sometimes also known as asynchronous research, is conducted online, at the user’s convenience. The tasks and instructions are delivered via video or recorded audio, and the user clicks a button to begin the test and record his or her screen and audio. Just like in the moderated test, users are encouraged to speak their thoughts aloud, though there is no facilitator to ask follow up questions. Unmoderated tests are available through numerous online sites and can be significantly cheaper than moderated tests.

Guerrilla testing is a modern, lightweight take on traditional tests. Instead of renting a lab, guerrilla research is typically done out in the community; users are found at coffee shops or subway stations and asked to complete basic tasks with a website or service, in exchange for a few dollars, a coffee, or just out of the goodness of their hearts. While guerrilla testing is a great option , particularly on a budget, it is best used only for products or services with a large user base. More niche products will struggle to find reliable information from the random selection acquired in guerrilla testing.

Just as card sorts are a great way to gather information before a website’s architecture has been created, tree tests are helpful in validating that architecture. In a tree test, users are given a task and shown the top level of a site map. Then, much like in a usability test, they are asked to talk through where they would go to accomplish the task. However, unlike in a usability test, the user doesn’t see a screen when they choose a site section. Instead, they will see the next level of the architecture. The goal is to identify whether information is categorized correctly and how appropriately the nomenclature reflects the sections of the site.

A/B testing is another way of learning what actions users take. An A/B test is typically chosen as the appropriate research form when designers are struggling to choose between two competing elements. Whether the options are two styles of content, a button vs. a link, or two approaches to a home page design, an A/B test requires randomly showing each version to an equal number of users, and then reviewing analytics on which version better accomplished a specific goal. A/B testing is particularly valuable when comparing a revised screen to an older version, or when collecting data to prove an assumption.

Many people have contributed greatly to the field of experience design research. Here are just a few that readers may choose to follow, to learn more. If you are just starting your journey into user experience / UX Design you may be a bit confused by all the terms and methodologies that our out there. https://www.ukmeds.co.uk/ is here to help with their beginner’s guide to UX!

Tools of the trade

User Research has the potential to be a sizable undertaking, sometimes to the point that budgetary and scheduling concerns scare people away. Fortunately, today we often see a more casual, habitual approach. The tools we have available are responsible for much of that shift.

Ethnio was the first moderated remote research software when it launched, and it’s still going strong. Ethnio finds users who are currently using a site or app, and (with their permission) allows interviewers to ask them questions about their experience as they go. It automates many elements of the typical in-person test, including real-time notifications, and paying participants with Amazon gift cards. Ethnio has a fourteen day free trial, and four pricing options, to accommodate businesses of every size.

Learn more about Ethnio

Optimal Workshop

Optimal Workshop has everything! The full Workshop is a bundle of four research tools, all of which are also available sold separately (and very affordably). Treejack is great for remotely testing information architecture, either to test the nomenclature or the hierarchies themselves. Optimal Sort provides online card sorting, to see how users choose to organize content. Chalkmark offers heat maps of click patterns across a site, and Reframer is a tool for taking notes and identifying themes easily. All come highly recommended.

Learn more about Optimal Workshop

SurveyMonkey

Surveys and questionnaires are great ways to gather information, but they’re most useful when hundreds of responses can be seen at once. Enter SurveyMonkey, an online survey-creation and reporting tool, which allows people to customize and brand their own surveys and then send them out via social media, embed them into websites, or integrate with mass mailings. SurveyMonkey also allows for easy analysis and reporting when the results come in. It’s available as a free Basic version, or for a monthly fee with additional features.

Learn more about SurveyMonkey

UsabilityHub

For quick design iterations, gut checks, and clear user feedback, UsabilityHub is an incredible resource for low budget teams. With a super-simple interface (yay!) and fast turn-around times, iterative testing and research is a few clicks away through UsabilityHub.

Learn more about UsabilityHub

UserTesting.com

When it’s not possible to schedule a real-time test with users, UserTesting.com is a great way to see how people use a site. Researchers can create a series of tasks, and then receive videos from participants—either pre-chosen, or randomly selected. Researchers are able to see a video of the participant using the site, and speaking aloud to explain what they’re doing. UserTesting.com offers Basic and Pro options, and prices accordingly.

Learn more about UserTesting.com

The good news is, whatever you need, UserZoom has it. Usability testing, both moderated and unmoderated, remote testing for mobile and desktop, benchmarking, card sorting, tree testing, surveys, and rankings: they’ve got it! The bad news, as can be expected with any product this robust, is that it can be overwhelming to learn, and it is expensive. Still, for organizations with the budget to handle it, UserZoom is a solid, effective choice.

Learn more about UserZoom

In a way, all usability conferences are design research conferences. While the other areas of UX tend to have conferences that cater to their factions, trends, or best practices, researchers are by nature generalists, who seek out ways to learn more about humans and usability. To that end, we recommend a little bit of everything, to keep researchers up to speed.

UI Conference

UIE (User Interface Engineering) puts on an annual conference, bringing together thought leaders and tried-and-true concepts for UX practitioners to learn as much as they can from one another. One great thing about this conference is UIE’s commitment to helping people attend, whether in person or virtually. More information available at: ui.uie.com/

World Usability Conference

At World Usability Conference, the talks cover all areas of usability, user experience, and customer experience management. People come from around the world, across all industries, to find where we have more similarities than differences. More information available at: www.worldusabilitycongress.com

Design + Research + Society

Held in Brighton, England, the DRS Conference responds to the questions, “How can design research help frame and address the societal problems that face us?”; “How can design research be a creative and active force for rethinking ideas about Design?”; and “How can design research shape our lives in more responsible, meaningful, and open ways?” By focusing on how design research impacts people in today’s society, they turn a light on the human side of our designs. More information available at: www.designresearchsociety.org/cpages/conferences

The User Experience Professionals Association is open to everyone working in UX. They provide networking and professional development opportunities for UX practitioners around the world, by way of local chapters. If you live in a city, there’s a good chance there’s a UXPA chapter to join! Local chapters often host conferences, sponsor events, and create a network for local UX professionals. More information available at: uxpa.org

UX Research books

There are many books that focus on interviews, usability testing, A/B testing, and other specific areas of design research. These are just a smattering of books that cover the big picture.

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User Research

What is user research.

User research is the methodic study of target users—including their needs and pain points—so designers have the sharpest possible insights to make the best designs. User researchers use various methods to expose problems and design opportunities and find crucial information to use in their design process.

Discover why user research is a crucial part of the design process.

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User Research – Get to know your Users, and What They want

To call user research a crucial part of an interaction design process might seem overly obvious. Indeed, it’s the only way to discover exactly what these users need, having first found out precisely who they are. To set out to generate these facts, you must gather data from your users through a structured approach . First, you must choose methods that 1) suit your research’s purpose and 2) will yield the clearest information. Afterwards—to get the insights you want—you’ll need to interpret your findings from all that data, which can be tricky . You can apply user research anytime during the design process. Typically, researchers begin with qualitative measures, to discover users’ needs and motivations . They might later test their results by using quantitative measures .

“Research is creating new knowledge.” – Neil Armstrong, the First person to walk on the Moon

User research essentially splits into two subsets:

Qualitative research – Ethnographic field studies and interviews are examples of methods that can help you build a deep understanding of why users behave the way they do (e.g., why they leave a website so quickly). For instance, you can interview a small number of users and get sharp insights into their shopping habits by asking them open-ended questions. Usability testing is another dimension of this type of research (e.g., examining users’ stress levels when they use a certain design). Qualitative research requires great care. As it involves collecting non-numerical data (e.g., opinions), your own opinions might influence findings.

Quantitative research – With more-structured methods such as surveys, you gather measurable data about what users do and test assumptions you developed from qualitative research. An example is to use an online survey to ask users questions about their shopping habits (e.g., “Approximately how many items of clothing do you buy online per year?”). You can use this data to find patterns within a large user group. In fact, the larger the sample of representative test users is, the more likely you’ll have a statistically reliable way of assessing the target user population. Regardless of the method, with careful research you can gather objective and unbiased data. Nevertheless, quantitative data alone cannot expose deeper human insights.

We can also split user research into two approaches:

Attitudinal – you listen to users’ words (e.g., in interviews).

Behavioral – you watch their actions through observational studies.

Usually, you can get the sharpest view of a design problem when you apply a mixture of both quantitative and qualitative research as well as a mixture of attitudinal and behavioral approaches.

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0

Leverage User Research Methods throughout Development

Industry-leading user experience consulting organization the Nielsen Norman Group names appropriate user research methods for you to use during your project’s four stages . Here are key methods:

Discover – Determine what’s relevant for users.

Diary studies – Have users log their performance of activities or record their daily interactions with a design.

Contextual inquiries – Interview suitable users in their own environment to find out how they perform the task/s in question.

Explore – See how to address all users’ needs.

Card sorting – On cards, write words and phrases and then let participants organize these in the most meaningful way and label categories to ensure your design is logically structured.

Customer journey maps – Create user journeys to reveal potential pitfalls and crucial moments.

Test – Evaluate your designs.

Usability testing – Make sure your design is easy to use.

Accessibility evaluations – Test your design to ensure everyone can use it.

Listen – Put issues in perspective, uncover any new problems and spot trends.

Analytics – Gather analytics/metrics to chart (e.g.) website traffic and generate reports.

Surveys/Questionnaires – Track how users’ feel about your product/design via these.

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However you approach user research, always consider the pros and cons of each technique . Card sorting is cheap and easy, for example, but may prove time-consuming when you proceed to analysis. Moreover, it might not provide in-depth contextual meaning. The resources available to you are another constraint. These will decide when, how much and which type of user research you can actually do. Therefore, carefully choose only the most relevant method/s for your research . Also, get stakeholders from your organization involved early on . They can reveal precious insights and help keep your research on track regarding business goals. Overall, user research is a valuable way to validate the assumptions the design team makes concerning users in the field , cut the expense of the best deliverables and keep your product’s demand high and ahead of competitors’ in the marketplace.

User research methods have various pros and cons and involve activities ranging from observations of users in context to controlled experiments in lab settings.

Learn More about User Research

For a fuller grasp of user research, take our course here .

See the Nielsen Norman Group’s list of user research tips .

Find an extensive range of user research considerations , discussed in Smashing Magazine.

Here’s a convenient and example-rich catalogue of user research tools.

Questions related to User Research

User Research is a fulfilling career for individuals driven to comprehend user behaviors and work collaboratively with teams. As a User Researcher, you're instrumental in steering teams towards crafting user-centric solutions. If you're intrigued by a career that combines both analytical and creative insights, consider delving into this field. For a comprehensive understanding, explore the User Researcher Learning Path on our platform.

User Researchers are seeing competitive pay in the industry. On average, they can earn from $92,000 to $146,000 annually. In some smaller firms, user research duties might be combined with a broader UX role. To understand how salaries can differ by region or delve into a broader perspective on UX-related pay, check out this detailed guide on UI UX Designer Salaries for 2023 or Glassdoor's breakdown of User Experience Researcher salaries .

While both are integral to the user experience, User Research and UX Design serve different purposes. User Research delves deep into understanding user preferences and needs, paving the way for informed design strategies. In contrast, UX Design is about sculpting a product based on that insight, ensuring it's both user-centric and aesthetically pleasing. 

Sometimes, especially in compact teams, the roles might blur with a designer handling research. Want a comprehensive insight? Dive into User Experience: The Beginner's Guide to explore their interconnected dynamics.

Yes, there is! Think of UX research as a subset of user research. While both focus on understanding users, user research casts a broader net, examining topics like pricing or delivery preferences. UX research, meanwhile, zeroes in on how users interact with a product and their experience doing so. In short, user research looks at broader interactions, while UX research specifically studies product use. To dive deeper, check out our course on User Research Methods and Best Practices .

User research utilizes varied techniques such as usability testing, A/B tests, surveys, card sorting, interviews, analytics analysis, and ethnographic studies. Every approach brings unique insights and is ideal for specific situations. It's essential to choose the proper technique based on your research goals and your audience. Discover these techniques further in 7 Great, Tried and Tested UX Research Techniques . 

For a comprehensive understanding of usability testing, a popular user research method, check out our course on User Research Methods and Best Practices .

While a related degree can be beneficial, it's not strictly required to become a user researcher. Many successful user researchers have degrees in diverse fields like psychology, design, anthropology, statistics, or human-computer interaction. What's crucial is a mix of relevant education, hands-on experience, and continuous learning. Even if some employers might favor candidates with a bachelor's degree, it can be in something other than a UX-focused area. Only some degrees specifically target user research. To strengthen your knowledge, consider courses like Data-Driven Design: Quantitative Research for UX or User Research Methods and Best Practices .

While each user research project is unique, some standard steps guide most endeavors:

Determine the research question.

Choose the proper research technique.

Find participants.

Execute the research.

Evaluate the gathered data.

Share the results.

For a thorough understanding of these steps and more, check out User Research – Methods and Best Practices .

There's a wide array of user research tools to pick from, tailored to your research goals, organizational size, and project specifics. Some popular choices include:

For surveys: Typeform or Google Forms.

Card sorting: Tools like Optimal Workshop, Maze or Trello.

Analyzing user activity: HotJar or CrazyEgg for heatmaps.

Usability evaluations: Platforms like Userlytics or Lookback.

Analyzing qualitative data: Miro or Lucidchart for affinity diagramming.

Crunching numbers: Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel for quantitative insights.

Usability testing on prototypes: Tools like Adobe XD or Figma.

Presenting findings: Use Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Prezi.

These tools often boast extra features to amplify your research.

Dive deeper into their applications with User Research – Methods and Best Practices .

User research is paramount in creating products that align with users' genuine needs and preferences. Instead of basing designs on assumptions, it provides factual insights into how users feel and interact with products. By engaging in user research, designers can spot usability challenges, collect feedback on design ideas, and validate their design decisions. For businesses, this not only refines product offerings but also strengthens brand loyalty and reputation. A standout user experience gives a company a competitive edge and lowers the chances of product setbacks. Dive deeper into the significance of user research in design with Data-Driven Design: Quantitative Research for UX and User Experience: The Beginner’s Guide .

Literature on User Research

Here’s the entire UX literature on User Research by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about User Research

Take a deep dive into User Research with our course User Research – Methods and Best Practices .

How do you plan to design a product or service that your users will love , if you don't know what they want in the first place? As a user experience designer, you shouldn't leave it to chance to design something outstanding; you should make the effort to understand your users and build on that knowledge from the outset. User research is the way to do this, and it can therefore be thought of as the largest part of user experience design .

In fact, user research is often the first step of a UX design process—after all, you cannot begin to design a product or service without first understanding what your users want! As you gain the skills required, and learn about the best practices in user research, you’ll get first-hand knowledge of your users and be able to design the optimal product—one that’s truly relevant for your users and, subsequently, outperforms your competitors’ .

This course will give you insights into the most essential qualitative research methods around and will teach you how to put them into practice in your design work. You’ll also have the opportunity to embark on three practical projects where you can apply what you’ve learned to carry out user research in the real world . You’ll learn details about how to plan user research projects and fit them into your own work processes in a way that maximizes the impact your research can have on your designs. On top of that, you’ll gain practice with different methods that will help you analyze the results of your research and communicate your findings to your clients and stakeholders—workshops, user journeys and personas, just to name a few!

By the end of the course, you’ll have not only a Course Certificate but also three case studies to add to your portfolio. And remember, a portfolio with engaging case studies is invaluable if you are looking to break into a career in UX design or user research!

We believe you should learn from the best, so we’ve gathered a team of experts to help teach this course alongside our own course instructors. That means you’ll meet a new instructor in each of the lessons on research methods who is an expert in their field—we hope you enjoy what they have in store for you!

All open-source articles on User Research

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What is UX Research: The Ultimate Guide for UX Researchers

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Quantitative vs. qualitative UX research: An overview of UX research methods

UX research is a multi-dimensional process that includes different user research methods and techniques. In this chapter, we provide an overview of the quantitative and qualitative research methods and explain why the best solution uses a mix of both methods.

What are quantitative UX research methods?

Quantitative research is used to collect and analyze numerical data, identify patterns, make predictions, and generalize findings about a target audience or topic. The data is collected indirectly, either through a UX research tool that automatically records it, such as Google Analytics or Maze, or manually by measuring and analyzing UX metrics.

Qualitative UX research made easy

Explore the powers of both quantitative and qualitative research to discover new insights and test final solutions.

Here are some of the most popular quantitative research methods you can use to collect valuable quantitative data:

• Quantitative usability testing collects usability metrics like time on task, error rate, or success rate. You can use this information to keep an eye on your product's UX and make sure it improves over time.
• Web analytics (or app analytics) provides insights into what people actually do in your product. Analytics data can help you monitor your product's performance and identify problems.
• Card sorting is used to discover how people understand and categorize information. Analyzing the percentage of participants who grouped cards in a similar way can help you determine which categories would be understandable to most users.
• Surveys are a great way to gather information about your users' attitudes and behaviors. You can get qualitative data through open-ended feedback or quantitative data by tapping into a larger volume of responses.

Importance of quantitative research methods

Quantitative data provides a foundation for benchmarking and ROI calculations and can help you decide the best performing version of a design or product.

Quantitative UX researchers collect information by measuring actions, thoughts, or attitudes in different ways, such as conducting voluntary surveys and online polls or analyzing log data.

Duyen Mary Nguyen , Quantitative UX Researcher

Quantitative data aims to answer research questions such as ‘what,’ ‘where,’ or ‘when.’ For example, when collecting usability metrics such as task success rates, time on task, completion rates, clicks, conversion rates, and heatmaps, you can measure how well a design performs and spot issues on a page or in the user flow.

One of the advantages of quantitative research is the ability to run studies with large sample sizes and collect statistically relevant data. As opposed to qualitative feedback, which is interpretable by the researcher and subjective, quantitative research is more objective and representative of a broader audience.

I choose quantitative methods if I need to prioritize one solution over the possible alternatives or to validate an idea, wireframe, prototype or even MVP.

Yuliya Martinavichene , User Experience Researcher at Zinio

What are qualitative UX research methods?

Qualitative user research includes research methods like user interviews and field studies and helps you collect qualitative data through the direct observation and study of participants. Qualitative data yields an understanding of the motivations, thoughts, and attitudes of people. This type of research is key to uncovering the ‘why’ behind actions and develop a deep understanding of a topic or problem.

Yuliya Martinavichene , User Experience Researcher at Zinio, highlights: “Since researchers are curious folks, we prefer not only to observe what people are doing by looking at analytics but also to understand the “why” behind the user behavior.”

She compares the process of running a qualitative study to casting a wide lens to identify user behavioral patterns:

Qualitative research methods come into play when you need to discover, understand and empathize with users, and are not conducted only in the exploratory research phase, but iteratively, throughout the whole development process.

There are different qualitative research methods you can employ for your studies, such as user interviews, diary studies , focus groups, card sorting , usability testing , and more. We explore the most common UX research methods in the next chapter.

Choosing the right user research techniques depends on the project and your research goals. Yuliya explains:

In real-life, there is no “Oscar-winning” scenario and the best answer for the eternal question “What user experience research method should you use? is simply an unsatisfactory “It depends!” Different research pain points call for specific methods and approaches.

Yuliya collects qualitative feedback through different methods depending on the goals of the projects. For example, she might conduct walk-throughs with users and asks them to show her around the software she is researching to understand how they currently use the product. Or she may ask research participants to perform everyday tasks to observe their behavior in real-time, such as logging in or out of the platform.

To gather more qualitative insights, Yuliya also checks social media mentions, analyzes blog posts, and reads app store reviews to collect information about the experience users have with the product.

Qualitative research gives you rich insights about the people, product, and the problem you’re researching, and helps you inform decision-making throughout the design and product development process.

Quantitative vs. qualitative research methods

The key differences between quantitative and qualitative research are in the data they deal with and the questions they answer–where quantitative research focuses on numbers and statistics to answer ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’, qualitative research broadly looks to words and meaning for the ‘why’.

Both methods have their merits, and likewise their drawbacks. As we go on to explore, for the most robust and meaningful research, it’s best to use a combination of quantitative and qualitative, but in certain situations, such as challenges due to time or resource constraints, you may decide to use one or the other.

Quantitative research:

• Answers the questions ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘when’
• Provides a foundation for benchmarking and ROI calculations
• Allows for large sample sizes
• Analyzes numerical data, identifies patterns, makes predictions
• Collected indirectly through UX research tools or metrics

Qualitative research:

• Answers the question ‘why’
• Provides rich insights about the people, the product and the problem
• Allows tight focus on small sample sizes
• Develops a deep understanding of the topic or problem
• Collected through direct observation or study

Balancing qualitative and quantitative UX research

Employ qualitative research to explore ideas and discover new insights, and then tap into quantitative research methods to test a hypothesis or final solution.

While qualitative and quantitative research yields different data types, they are both essential for conducting effective research and getting actionable insights. Not one method can give you a complete picture, so using both in combination is often the best way to ensure you’re making the right product decisions that fit with your business goals.

Qualitative and quantitative research reinforce each other and help to triangulate the research results. You can be surer of the validity of your findings if both qualitative and quantitative approaches produce convergent results.

Usually, the best solution is built using a combination of insight sources. For example, you can kick-off the discovery phase of a project with qualitative research, and run user interviews to understand people’s needs, preferences, and opinions.

After this initial batch of research studies, the product and design team can start building an incipient solution, usually in the form of a low-fidelity prototype or mockups. The initial solution is then tested through interviews and surveys, and the feedback gathered can help you iterate on the solution until final.

Sometimes you want to start with a round of qualitative methods such as interviews, fly-on-the-wall observations, and diary studies to explore the field and follow up with a quantitative study on a larger sample to generalize the results.

Lastly, when you’ve arrived at a final product, doing user testing quantitatively will help you ensure your solution is easy to use, usable, and intuitive for the end-users—and there are no significant issues with the design before going into the development phase. This mix and match of methods is the best way to research and test during the entire design process until arriving at a solution.

Very often, the solution is built on mixed methods–less quantitative versus qualitative–and more somewhere in-between the two.

In the next chapter, we will dive deeper into common types of research you can use such as tree testing, card sorting, and usability studies, and help you choose the right one for you.

Frequently asked questions

What is quantitative UX research?

Quantitative research is a research methodology used to collect and analyze numerical data, identify patterns, make predictions, and generalize findings about a target audience.

What is qualitative UX research?

Qualitative UX research is a research methodology used to answer questions and understand the motivations, thoughts, and attitudes of a target audience.

What are examples of quantitative research methods?

Quantitative user research methods include usability testing, web analytics (or app analytics), card sorting, and surveys.

What are examples of qualitative research methods?

Qualitative user research methods include user interviews, diary studies, focus groups, card sorting, and usability testing.

UX Research Methods

The Ultimate Guide to UX Research (Updated 2024)

No one wants to waste time and effort designing an experience that doesn't bring value to the customers or the business.

Failing to truly identify the unique challenges a business faces can lead to vulnerable products that lose to their competitors.

While visually pleasing designs are important, they are just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

The real essence of UX design lies in its ability to understand and empathize with the user and methodically communicate these findings to stakeholders. That's where UX research comes in.

By understanding UX research, UX designers can look into the user's perspective and gain valuable insights into their behaviors, needs, and preferences. This approach enables them to create products that truly resonate with and cater to the user.

In this guide, learn everything you need to know about the backbone of user-centric design from why UX research is important , different UX research techniques, to the best UX research courses and future trends.

What is UX research?

User experience research, often called UX research, focuses on understanding how users interact with your products. It is the organized study of users and what they need to help designers make better products.

The demand for UX/UI designers proficient in UX research has surged. Companies like the design-led Airbnb recognize the critical role of staying in sync with customer needs.

During the Figma’s Config23 conference , Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced that Airbnb is shifting towards a more "Apple-style product marketing function." For UX design professionals, this requires integrating business acumen into their roles.

However, mastering UX research can take time and effort. It involves many skills, from understanding user behavior and interpreting data to cultivating strong communication expertise.

Enrolling in a UX research course is an invaluable step for designers and product teams, as it streamlines the learning process.

It equips you with the essential research skills to delve into user needs and behaviors and ensures your designs are deeply rooted in user-centric principles.

Why is UX research important?

To understand the pivotal role of UX research, let's look at some real-life case studies.

Hubspot's research-driven redesign doubled conversions

Objective: To increase their website's conversion rate, which needed to catch up.

Research strategy and findings: It started with a rapid MVP (Minimum Viable Product) experiment. This initial phase combined all their data, hypotheses, and creative concepts into a singular design.

This included design elements outside their style guide, a different tone of voice in the copy, and atypical call-to-action buttons.

This boosted their conversion rate by 20%, signaling a definite need for a full-scale redesign.

To refine their strategy, the HubSpot team also conducted a conversion flow audit.

They discovered that their products had different flows, with some being more complex than others. Products with more straightforward and shorter conversion flows had 2 to 3 times higher conversion rates.

The lesson was clear: Simplify and expedite users' journey from the homepage to product usage by minimizing the steps involved.

They also studied how users moved through HubSpot and identified areas where things got confusing. Some users needed to figure out which product they were signing up for.

User interviews with non-customers, paying customers, and employees revealed areas for improvement.

Through qualitative tests, they realized that simpler, and more focused designs performed better than those following trendy but less user-friendly styles.

Another key finding is that 65% of users preferred video content when understanding software.

Application: With these insights in mind, HubSpot further optimized their design. They focused on enhancing elements that resonated with users, like video content.

Two heatmap overlays on a web page interface: the left shows scattered clicks on a 'Get started free' button, the right shows concentrated clicks on a 'Play the video' button.

The HubSpot team also created a simplified conversion flow featuring a "Get Started" button on the homepage and in the global navigation. Clicking it would take visitors to a flow where they could request a demo of HubSpot Marketing or sign up for the three free products.

They revisited their MVP, considering its influence on their new design direction and shifted towards user preferences over stakeholder preferences.

The team produced over 100 wireframe iterations, 60 visual designs, and four full InVision prototypes, driven by continuous testing and refinement.

Outcome: Overall, the redesign doubled HubSpot's initial conversion rate . It also achieved a 35% increase in demo requests, enhanced sales chat and call volumes, and saw a 27% rise in product signups.

Spotify's homepage redesign increased retention and sign-ups

Objective: Increase conversion rates for sign-ups from their homepage.

They aimed to reduce users' difficulty in finding the web player, a key feature visitors were looking for but struggled to access due to the site’s complexity and clutter.

Research strategy and findings: In two years, multiple teams worked on a multifaceted strategy involving extensive user research and several design sprints.

The Spotify team began by analyzing insights, competitors, and user journeys. Through surveys and web analytics, they gathered insights to understand common visitor profiles and their primary goals.

They also brainstormed ways to simplify the listening process through exercises and narrowed down ideas based on user impact, feasibility, and business goals.

From there, they developed user personas to distinguish between new and returning visitors to the homepage. They mapped out the user journeys for each profile to reveal the specific reasons these users navigated to the web player.

This included pinpointing their entry points to the site and identifying the pain points encountered at each step of their journey.

These combined insights guided a series of design sprints with cross-disciplinary teams, focusing on brainstorming and prototyping to simplify user paths and enhance access to the web player.

These efforts were complemented by regular collaboration and feedback sessions across various teams.

O utcome: A revamped Spotify homepage that significantly improved the user experience. The updated design had a more organized website structure and navigation system that matched the web player, making it simpler for users to enjoy audio content.

This redesign led to a global rollout, which increased sign-ups, Premium subscriptions, and retention across almost all devices.

How UX research benefits your projects

Let's look at a real-life UX design scenario. Your team is building a fitness-tracking app. Where do you start?

It eliminates personal bias

As regular gym goers and athletes, your team wanted to build a complex feature set targeting advanced users.

You want it to focus on advanced metrics such as Heart Rate Variability (HRV) to monitor recovery and stress levels. Another teammate, who's into weightlifting, suggests including a Power Output Analysis, which measures the power output to help users gauge their performance and improvements.

But is that what your target user base needs? Here's where UX research steps in.

You start with user interviews and surveys. The findings reveal that a significant portion of your potential user base consists of beginners or intermediates in fitness.

Many express feeling overwhelmed by complex metrics and advanced features in existing apps. They're looking for something more accessible that guides their fitness journey without bombarding them with data they can't yet understand or use effectively.

Instead of relying on personal preferences, UX research relies on objective and accurate data. This results in products that better align with user needs and preferences.

It gives you crystal-clear direction

With UX research, you're not shooting in the dark. Let's say you're deciding on features for the app. Should you include a diet tracker? A social sharing option?

Through research methods like usability testing and A/B testing, you gather data on what features are most used and preferred by your test users.

This clarity helps you invest time and resources in developing features that users find helpful and engaging rather than what you think they might like.

You'll produce results that deliver real value

Now, it's time to design the interface. How do you know that it's user-friendly for all?

Here, UX research plays an important role again. Based on your research findings, you create user personas for beginners and intermediate fitness enthusiasts who will use your fitness-tracking app.

These personas become invaluable tools in the design process. They allow you to tailor the app's features, interface, and overall experience to meet the specific needs of each user group.

Prototyping and user testing will help you refine this design. This ensures that your app is intuitive, accessible, and enjoyable for all your users.

By continually testing and iterating based on user feedback, your designs evolve to make more sense to your actual users.

Secure stakeholder buy-in through data-driven presentations

When it comes time to pitch your fitness-tracking app to potential investors or stakeholders, the strength of your argument lies in the concrete data gathered through UX research.

Suppose you're in a meeting, ready to present your app concept. To effectively communicate your insights, you use a structured UX research template to showcase your findings and methodologies.

Presenting your findings and proposed solutions becomes much more straightforward when you have clear data to support your points. Graphs, user personas, quotes from interviews, and survey stats are powerful tools in your presentation, making your case compelling and easy to grasp.

Investors and stakeholders are typically risk-averse and look for well-researched, data-backed propositions. UX research provides you with this arsenal of data.

Being well-prepared and understanding the users greatly increases how much people trust you and believe your product will likely succeed.

UX research methodologies

UX design's fundamental principle is understanding the user. There are UX research methodologies that UX designers use to create user-centered designs.

This user-centric approach is crucial in today's digital landscape, where user satisfaction is directly linked to a product's success.

Classification of UX research methodologies

Qualitative vs. quantitative research.

• Qualitative: Focuses on understanding users' subjective experiences and motivations through smaller sample sizes, capturing the reasons behind behaviors and decisions.
• Quantitative: Involves collecting and analyzing numerical data to identify patterns, quantify behaviors, preferences, and attitudes, and make statistical generalizations.
• Mixed Methods: Combines qualitative depth with quantitative statistical power to comprehensively understand user needs.

Attitudinal vs. behavioral research

• Attitudinal: Examines users' attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions, typically using surveys or interviews.
• Behavioral: Observe user behavior through usability testing, eye-tracking, or heat maps.

Generative vs. evaluative research

• Generative: Focuses on generating new ideas and insights for design, utilizing brainstorming, card sorting, and co-design sessions.
• Evaluative: Assesses the usability and effectiveness of existing designs or prototypes, often employing usability and A/B testing.

Common UX research methodologies

The right research method in UX design is important for uncovering user insights. This section briefly overviews common techniques, their data types, and when to use them.

Enhance your UX research with these efficient tools

These tools not only streamline the research process but also enhance the accuracy and usability of the data collected.

This section explores various indispensable tools for UX researchers and designers, categorized based on the stages and types of UX research.

1. Tools for user interviews and field studies

• Recording and transcription tools : Tools like Otter.ai and Rev offers audio recording and transcription services, which are crucial for capturing every detail during user interviews and field studies.
• Note-taking apps : Notion and Google Sheets help researchers organize and access notes efficiently.
• Video Conferencing platforms : Zoom and Microsoft Teams are valuable for conducting remote interviews with recording options.

2. Tools for usability testing

• Screen recording and analysis software : Tools like Lookback.io and UserTesting provides platforms for recording user interactions with prototypes or live sites, allowing researchers to analyze user behavior and gather qualitative feedback.
• Heatmap and session recording tools : Heatmap tools like Hotjar and Crazy Egg visualize user interactions on a webpage, revealing areas that attract the most attention or interaction.
• Prototype testing tools : Figma and Adobe XD are crucial for creating and testing interactive prototypes with users.

3. Tools for surveys and questionnaires

• Online survey platforms : Typeform and Google Forms are popular for designing and distributing surveys. They offer various question formats and can analyze data efficiently.
• Statistical analysis Software : Tools like SPSS and Microsoft Excel are essential for analyzing large sets of quantitative data and providing insights through statistical methods.

4. Tools for analytics review

• Web analytics tools : Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics are vital for understanding user behavior on websites or apps. This includes data on traffic, user flow, engagement, and more.
• App analytics tools : For mobile apps, platforms like Mixpanel and App Annie offer detailed insights into user behavior, engagement, and retention.

5. Tools for organizing and sharing research

• Project management tools : Asana and Trello help organize UX research projects, track progress, and collaborate with team members.
• Cloud storage and collaboration : Google Drive and Dropbox are essential for securely storing and sharing research documents, recordings, and other data with team members.

6. Emerging tools and technologies

• AI-powered tools : AI tools like ChatGPT and IBM Watson can analyze large datasets to help designers identify user behavior patterns and predict initial insights.

By leveraging these tools effectively, UX professionals can gain deeper insights into user behavior, streamline their research processes, and make data-driven decisions.

A guide on planning and conducting UX research

Planning and conducting UX research is a critical phase in the design process. It involves a structured gathering of insights that inform and validate design decisions.

Let's explore the key steps and considerations in planning and executing effective UX research.

1. Define research goals and objectives

Start by establishing clear research goals. Set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals for focused research.

2. Choose the right UX research methods

Select research methods that align with your objectives, utilizing qualitative methods like interviews for exploratory research and quantitative methods like surveys for validation. Consider a mixed-methods approach for a more comprehensive insight.

3. Develop a research plan

Plan your research timeline, considering deadlines and resources. Recruit participants representing your target user base, considering demographic factors and user behaviors. Prepare and test necessary tools like interview guides and prototypes.

4. Conduct the research

Execute the research as planned and remain flexible and prepared to adapt. Uphold ethical standards by obtaining consent and ensuring participant privacy. Maintain transparency about the research's purpose and data usage.

Analyzing and presenting UX findings

After conducting UX research, the next crucial steps are analyzing the gathered data and presenting the findings effectively.

This process turns raw data into actionable insights that can guide design decisions. Here's how to approach this phase in the UX research process:

1. Analyze UX research data

To analyze your data effectively, first, organize it systematically. Then, identify patterns and trends, understand user behavior, and cross-reference your findings with your research goals to create user-centered designs.

2. Create actionable insights

Evaluate your observations into insights by interpreting what they mean for your project. For example, a common user complaint could indicate a need for a specific design change.

Not all findings carry the same weight. Prioritize them based on factors like impact on user experience, feasibility of implementation, and alignment with project objectives.

3. Prepare the research report

For an effective report, establish a clear structure with sections like an executive summary, methodology, key findings, insights, and recommendations. Use visual aids like graphs and charts to make understanding data easier.

Lead the way with UX research best practices

Successful UX research relies on a deep understanding of users, methodical data handling, collaborative decision-making, and an iterative approach to design.

When conducting UX research, it's crucial to focus on user-centricity. Begin by deeply understanding the users' needs, behaviors, and pain points. Approach this process with empathy and an open mind so the research is not biased by your or the company's preconceptions.

Data collection should be systematic and methodical. Whether qualitative or quantitative data, ensuring its accuracy and relevance is key. Once collected, the data must be analyzed critically, looking for patterns and insights that truly address the users' needs.

This analysis should then be translated into actionable design strategies. Documenting every research process step and sharing these findings with the entire product team to inform and collaborate on decisions is important.

Finally, remember that UX research is an iterative process. The insights gathered should inform the current design phase and be used to refine and improve the product continually. Regularly revisiting research findings and updating them as needed keeps the product relevant and user-focused.

Future trends in UX research

The landscape of UX research is continuously evolving because of technological advancements and changing user behaviors. Here’s a look at some key future trends in UX research.

Integration of AI and machine learning

These technologies are revolutionizing how we gather and interpret user data. AI algorithms can analyze large datasets rapidly, quickly identifying patterns and trends that might be invisible to the human eye. As AI and machine learning evolve, their role in UX research will become more significant.

Increased emphasis on emotional design

Emotional design aims to deepen user engagement and foster a stronger connection between the user and the product. Understanding and integrating users' emotional responses will become key to designing more empathetic user experiences.

New design mediums

Virtual and augmented reality (VR/AR): Offers immersive environments and experiences, allowing designers to study user interactions in more dynamic and realistic settings.

Voice User Interface (VUI) and conversational design: Focuses on how users interact with voice-activated interfaces, like smart speakers and virtual assistants.

Resources for further learning in UX research

Continuous learning is essential in the ever-evolving field of UX research. Resources are available for those looking to expand their knowledge and skills.

Whether you're a beginner or an experienced professional eager to stay updated, here's a guide to some key resources for further learning in UX research:

1. Online courses

• Practical UX Research & Strategy Course by Mizko: A comprehensive and practical course that focuses on strategic problem-solving in UX design.

2. Books and eBooks

• “Think Like a UX Researcher: How to Observe Users, Influence Design, and Shape Business Strategy" by David Travis & Philip Hodgson: Challenges UX research preconceptions and offers practical guidance for planning, conducting, and applying research,
• “Just Enough Research” by Erika Hall: Covers the essentials such as organizational research, user and customer research, evaluative research, surveys, and more. It also dives in on practical, budget-friendly UX research methods.

4. Podcasts and YouTube

• Mizko : A YouTube channel by Michael Wong (or better known as Mizko), a former agency owner who generated $7M+ in revenue. He dives deep into product design, growth, and business strategies.
• UXPodcast : Hosted by James Royal-Lawson and Per Axbom, this podcast covers various UX design and research topics.

5. Online communities and forums

• UXDesign Subreddit : A public community where professionals share insights, ask questions, and discuss the latest trends in UX.
• Designer Hangout and UX Mastery Community : An invite-only community for UX professionals to network, share ideas, and seek advice.

6. Blogs and websites

• usertesting.com : Offers insights on the latest trends in CX, UX, product, marketing, and research.
• In the Loop by maze.co : Expert-level resources on running research, discovery, and building an insights-driven culture.

Crush UX research confusion and master it in 10+ hours

Learning UX research can be overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. With the right approach guidance, you can master it in just 10 hours.

The Practical UX Research & Strategy course by Mizko is designed for independent learning without the constraints of a fixed schedule. This flexibility means there’s no pressure to keep pace  — you can learn in the way that suits you best.

Trusted by 6,000+ designers, the Practical UX Research & Strategy Course has empowered professionals at leading tech companies, including Google, Meta, and Squarespace.

After completing the course, these designers have integrated UX research skills into their workflows at reputable companies:

"I'm 100% more confident when talking to stakeholders about User Research & Strategy and the importance of why it needs to be included in the process. I also have gained such a beautiful new understanding of my users that greatly influences my designs. All of the "guesswork" that I was doing is now real, meaningful work that has stats and research behind it." - Booking.com Product Designer Alyssa Durante

"The process in this course connects the dots and it's easy to lead the clients through this process... I can adapt the process based on the resources and the needs of the client. Life is now way easier to be honest because I have clear path to show to the clients even before we start the project because I can build expectations from the start." - UX/UI Designer Milosh Jakjimovski

"The most impactful element has been the direct application of the learnings in my recent projects at Amazon. Integrating the insights gained from the course into two significant projects yielded outstanding results, significantly influencing both my career and personal growth. This hands-on experience not only enhanced my proficiency in implementing UX strategies but also bolstered my confidence in guiding, coaching, mentoring, and leading design teams." - Amazon.com UX designer Zohdi Rizvi

"As I was struggling to find a high-level research framework for my day-to-day design work, I was able to fill many of the knowledge gaps because I took this course. It provides a well-structured research process that cuts out the "guesswork" that I'm adopting in my projects. Real-life examples and practical solutions throughout the course were incredibly helpful. Right now, I'm more confident than ever with my design decisions, presenting meaningful briefs to stakeholders, and so on." - UX Designer Al Razi Siam

Learn the crucial elements that make a UX designer stand out in today's competitive market:

• Pull actionable insights by crafting objective-driven questions
• Conduct well-structured interviews without leading or asking biased questions
• Learn how to pick the perfect participants to get high-quality information
• Create affinity maps with all your research insights
• Run competitor analysis like a real pro
• Unlock the skills to process large data sets and user insights methodically
• Break down research and data into frameworks and customer journey maps with automation tools to drive actionable items.
• Integrate compelling frameworks that help you manage, sort, and communicate data findings to the team
• Prioritize the tasks into a set of actionable tasks for the team
• Understand and present metrics and objectives most important to stakeholders

This course is created by Mizko, a refined industry leader who journeyed from being a designer to owning a 7-figure agency and now thrives as a startup advisor and angel investor. Gain access to the resources and templates he has utilized to successfully build, scale, and sell multiple online businesses.

Nail your data-driven designs and deliver valuable, user-centric solutions every time.

Mizko, also known as Michael Wong, brings a 14-year track record as a Founder, Educator, Investor, and Designer. His career evolved from lead designer to freelancer, and ultimately to the owner of a successful agency, generating over $10M in revenue from Product (UX/UI) Design, Web Design, and No-code Development. His leadership at the agency contributed to the strategy and design for over 50 high-growth startups, aiding them in raising a combined total of over $400M+ in venture capital.

Notable projects include: Autotrader (Acquired. by eBay), PhoneWagon (Acquired by CallRails), Spaceship ($1B in managed funds), Archistar ($15M+ raised) and many more.

Table of contents

The design pulse.

New website, course and product updates - April 2024

Using Quantitative and Qualitative Research in UX Design

A Complete Guide to Primary and Secondary Research in UX Design

10 Best Free Fonts for UI Design (2024 Edition)

The Ultimate Guide to UX/UI Design in 2024

16 Best UX Research Tools in 2024: Gather Faster & Better Insights

15 Most Effective UX Research Methods: Pros and Cons

The Ultimate Guide to Figma for Beginners (Updated 2024)

5 Reasons Why You Need UX Research in 2024

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The modern guide to web accessibility

The 4 types of research methods in ui/ux design (and when to use them).

• User Experience
• 4 minute read
• by Rich Staats

Design research is a necessary part of creating a user-centered product. When done right, you’re able to gather data that helps you:

• Identify and solve relevant design problems.
• Better understand the product’s end users.
• Improve your designs based on data-driven research.

Though there are many different ways to collect data and do design research, they can broadly be categorized as either primary, secondary, exploratory, or evaluative research. In this article, we’ll explain these four types of research methods in the context of UI/UX design and when you should use them in your design process.

Primary research

Primary research is the simplest (and perhaps most effective) way to come up with data to get a better understanding of the audience for which you’re designing. The purpose of primary research is to validate design ideas and concepts early on in the design process. The data you collect from primary research allows you to design meaningful, user-centered solutions.

Let’s take a look at some examples of primary research:

Conducting interviews with individuals or in small groups is a great starting point, and there are many ways to go about it. Depending on your project, you might conduct direct interviews or indirect interviews. Direct interviews are simple question-answer format interviews whereas indirect interviews are set up in a more conversational style. You’ll also have to decide whether you’ll interview people in-person or remotely.

Focus groups

Focus groups are structured, group interviews in which a moderator guides the discussion. As a UI/UX designer, you might consider using this research method when you need to gather user insight quickly.

Usability testing

Once you develop a prototype, you can recruit test participants and conduct usability tests  to uncover foundational issues with the product’s user experience and gather user feedback. The idea is to define user goals and turn them into realistic task scenarios  that the test participants would have to complete using your prototype.

Secondary research

Secondary research is when you use existing books, articles, or research material to validate your design ideas and concepts or support your primary research. For example, you might want to use the material you gather from secondary research to:

• Explain the context behind your UI design.
• Build a case for your design decisions.
• Reinforce the data you gathered from primary research.

Generally speaking, secondary research is much easier (and faster) to do than primary research. You’ll be able to find most of the information you need on the internet, in the library, or your company’s archives. Here are some places you can collect secondary research from:

• Your company’s internal data, which may include information contained in your company’s files, databases and project reports.
• Client’s research department, e.g. the data your client has regarding user behavior with previous versions of the website/application, user interests, etc.
• Industry statistics, i.e. the industry’s general consensus, standards and conventions.
• Relevant books, articles, case studies and magazines.

Websites have evolved a great deal over the last two decades, and so has the way users interact with them. This is why one of the most common challenges with secondary research in UI/UX design is outdated data. In such cases, UI/UX designers resort to other research methods (such as primary research or exploratory research) to gather the data they need.

Exploratory research

Exploratory research is usually conducted at the start of the design process with a purpose to help designers understand the problem they’re trying to solve. As such, it focuses on gathering a thorough understanding of the end user’s needs and goals.

In the Define the Problem stage of the design thinking process , you can use exploratory research techniques to develop a design hypothesis and validate it with the product’s intended user base. By doing so, you’ll be in a better position to make hypothesis-driven design decisions throughout the design process.

You can validate your hypothesis by running experiments. Here are some of the ways you can validate your assumptions depending on where you are in the design process:

• Conducting interviews and surveys
• Organizing focus groups
• Conducting usability tests
• Running various A/B tests

Essentially, you’re combining exploratory research and primary research techniques to define the problem accurately. You can do this by asking questions that encourage interview participants to explore different design concepts and think outside the box.

Before you begin collecting data, remember to write down the experiment you’re running and define the outcomes that validate your design hypothesis. After doing exploratory research, you should have enough data to begin designing a solution.

Evaluative research

Exploratory research gives you enough data to begin designing a solution. Once you have a prototype on hand, you can use evaluative research to test that solution with real users. The goal of evaluative research is to help designers gather feedback that allows them to improve  their product’s design.

There are two main functions of evaluative research: summative and formative .

• Summative evaluation is all about making a judgment regarding the efficacy of the product once it’s complete.
• Formative evaluation, on the other hand, focuses on evaluating the product and making improvements (i.e., detecting and eliminating usability problems) during the development process.

For example, you can conduct usability tests in which you ask test participants to use the product to perform a set of tasks. Keep in mind that the purpose of evaluative research is to gather feedback from users regarding your product’s design. In case you’re short on time or low on budget, you can choose to conduct usability studies that fit in your time and budget constraints (such as guerrilla usability testing ).

Deciding which research method to use depends on what data you’re trying to gather and where you are in the design process. The information you collect through your design research will enable you to make informed design decisions and create better user-centered products.

Let’s quickly recap the four types of research methods UI/UX designers can use in the design process:

• Primary research  is used to generate data by conducting interviews, surveys, and usability tests and/or organizing focus group sessions.
• With secondary research,  you’re able to use existing research material to validate your design ideas and support your primary research.
• Exploratory research  is when you come up with a design hypothesis and run experiments to validate it.
• Once you have a prototype, you can use evaluative research  to see if there’s any room for improvement.

Which of these research methods do you use in your design process and how? Let us know in the comments section below.

Down The Rabbit Hole

5 Mistakes to avoid when writing task scenarios for usability testing

• 5 minute read

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A Beginner’s Guide to Qualitative UX Research

The ability to empathize with the user is at the heart of UX design. One of the most effective ways to understand what your user is experiencing is by conducting UX research .

Qualitative user research is particularly useful for getting into the mind of your users and obtaining anecdotal evidence of how your product can be improved.

Unlike its counterpart, quantitative research, qualitative research is all about collecting and analyzing subjective information that helps designers make formative decisions about their product designs. There are many ways to utilize qualitative user research and many instances during the design process when it can be especially beneficial.

We’ve created this comprehensive guide to help you better understand qualitative user research and how to use it. Here’s what we’ll cover:

• What is qualitative UX research?
• When do you use qualitative UX research?
• Qualitative UX research methods
• Understanding mixed methods in UX research
• Key takeaways

Let’s get started!

1. What is qualitative UX research?

The goal of qualitative user research is to obtain and analyze non-numerical, subjective information from various kinds of user testing.

Data from qualitative user research usually takes the form of quotes, anecdotes, observations, or narrative descriptions and is used to assess how usable a product is.

Qualitative user research helps explain numerical or quantitative data. For instance, if your quantitative research shows that 30% of users are deleting your app after one month of use, qualitative data can help uncover why and give clues about how to remedy this drop-off.

Check out the video below from CareerFoundry graduate and UX designer Maureen Herben for an end-to-end guide to qualitative user research.

2. When do you use qualitative UX research?

Qualitative user research is both formative and summative, meaning it can help inform design choices while a product is being created as well as analyze how effective the final design is.

Because of this, qualitative user research is often conducted at many points in the design process, during redesign, and when you have a final working product. Here’s an overview of the benefits of qualitative research, some potential downsides, and situations when you should apply qualitative methods in your user research.

Benefits of qualitative UX research

• Easy to organize as you only need 5-8 participants and study conditions can be flexible and less controlled
• Participants are encouraged to think aloud during usability testing so researchers can see inside the minds and emotions of their users when interacting with a product
• Reveals information that quantitative data cannot, and explains why numerical or statistical trends are occurring
• Data obtained from qualitative user research is emotionally-driven and may be more convincing for stakeholders to invest in design choices
• Users may find it easier to give feedback in their own words rather than assigning a numerical value to their feelings.

Potential downsides to qualitative UX research

• Analysis can be more time-consuming and complex and difficult to present in graphs or visual form
• Smaller number of participants may mean that you’re missing out on crucial information from other users, leading to the need for repeat testing
• Researchers must be adept at reading emotional and non-verbal cues
• Certain investors or stakeholders may prefer numerical or statistical data as opposed to anecdotal, qualitative research
• More subject to human bias or researcher influence, and results are difficult to replicate

When to use qualitative UX research

• When you’re making formative decisions about design choices, early in the process
• To identify usability issues within a prototype (toward the “end” of the design process) or a final product
• As a means of discovering solutions to usability issues
• During a product redesign, when there are typically more resources available and more capacity to consider a broader range of possibilities

3. Qualitative UX research methods

There are many ways to conduct qualitative user research. We’ll cover four primary methods here: user interviews, focus groups, shadow sessions, and diary studies.

User interviews

User interviews are a great source of qualitative user data and help researchers and designs gain a greater understanding of their user’s motivations, needs, and behaviors.

It’s important to ask quality open-ended questions in order to gain relevant and useful information about the user’s actions and frustrations.

User interviews are one of the most frequently used qualitative UX research methods. If you’d like to learn more about how to conduct a user interview, check out this recording of a live workshop, hosted by CareerFoundry graduate and Senior UX Designer, Maureen Herben.

For more free, live and on-demand workshops just like this, take a look at our events listings .

Focus groups

Focus groups are just like interviews but with multiple users participating at once. These are great for getting lots of qualitative data at once from various user viewpoints.

These sessions are likely to feel more conversational and generative since participants may feel more at ease with other test subjects around them—and therefore more willing to express concerns, thoughts, and emotions.

Shadow sessions

Sometimes called immersive or observational research, shadow sessions allow designers and researchers to observe a user interacting with a product in real time and in the user’s own environment.

This is one of the most accurate ways to assess usage and usability but also requires a high level of observational skills and empathy in order to analyze verbal and non-verbal cues without interrupting the user’s natural process.

Diary studies

In diary studies (sometimes referred to as diary records), researchers ask a user to keep a diary record of their usability patterns with a certain product over a given time period (usually a day or week, but sometimes more).

Users take note of how they use a product, when they use it, and how they feel when interacting with it. Diary studies are a great way to see what patterns emerge over time—patterns in user needs and feelings, as well as any usability problems or other pain points.

4. Understanding mixed methods in UX research

The UX research methods we’ve just outlined are solely qualitative in nature. But there are loads of research methods that yield both qualitative and quantitative user data within the same testing parameters. Paper prototyping, card sorting, and visual affordance testing are a few examples.

Utilizing user research methods that offer both qualitative and  quantitative UX research is referred to as mixed methods research . Mixed methods research is key to obtaining a complete picture of the usability of a product and is best practice when it comes to conducting accurate user research.

Combining qualitative and quantitative user research methods helps designers dig deeper in answering the questions of “What? How much? How many? And why?”

Relying too heavily on either qualitative or quantitative user research can prevent you from gaining key insights about your users and possible pitfalls in your product. Taking advantage of mixed methods research is a more holistic approach to user research, and often lends more accurate and complete information about a product’s overall usability and effectiveness.

5. Key takeaways

Now you’re better equipped for your next UX research project !

Qualitative user research can take on many forms, yet each method can offer invaluable insights about the usability of a product.

The subjective and non-numerical data obtained from qualitative testing helps designers and researchers see into the minds of their users when interacting with a product.

Through quotes, descriptions, and observations, qualitative research aims to further explain statistical or quantitative results by looking at why those trends may be occurring, and gives a more in-depth interpretation of the usability and success of a product.

If you’d like to learn more about UX research, check out these articles:

• What is user research, and what’s its purpose?
• Qualitative vs. quantitative UX research—what’s the difference?
• How to conduct inclusive user research
• 5 Mistakes to avoid in your UX research portfolio