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What Is a UX Researcher? How to Get the Job

UX researchers systematically study target users to collect and analyze data that will help inform the product design process.

In order to develop products that satisfy user needs (and delight them in the process), you first need to know who your user is and what that person’s needs are. That’s where user experience (UX) research comes in. 

UX researchers systematically study target users to collect and analyze data that will help inform the product design process. In this guide, we’ll take a closer look at what UX researchers do, how they do it, and what steps you can take to start or advance a career in this in-demand field.

What is UX research?

One of the first steps in designing a new product or improving the user experience of an existing product is to start thinking about your users. Who are they? Where are they from? What do they want? Why do they want it? How can your product help them get what they want?

As a UX researcher, it’s your job to answer these questions. Instead of making a best guess based on your own subjective experience, you’ll design a research strategy that will empower you to answer these questions in a data-driven way. You become an advocate for your users, in a way, giving them a voice in the product development process.

Types of research

As a UX researcher, you generally work with two types of research, qualitative and quantitative. We’ll take a brief look at each type (and when it might be useful).

Quantitative research focuses on numbers and statistics. In terms of usability, this might mean measuring how long it takes an average user to complete a task, what percentage of users successfully completed the task, and how many errors or bugs they encountered along the way. These numbers tend to be most useful when you have something to compare them to—either a previous design or a competitor’s product.

Qualitative research examines non-numerical insights, such as why users had trouble completing a task or how they felt while using a product. If quantitative research gives us the “what,” qualitative research gives us the “why.” 

Another distinction made between types of research is that between behavioral and attitudinal research. 

Behavioral research methods examine what users do. Where do they click on a page? What navigational path do they take through an app?

Attitudinal research looks at a user’s feelings and attitudes toward an experience.

UX research methods

One aspect of your role as a UX designer will be deciding which research method is appropriate for answering which questions. The UX research tool chest contains a variety of options to help you glean information from your users.

Card sorting: Study participants organize topics into groups that make the most sense to them and create labels for these groups. With this information, designers can create apps and websites that are more intuitive and easy to navigate.

Usability testing: Participants try to complete a task with a product while you observe. This lets you measure how successful users are at completing a task, how quickly they complete it, what problems they encounter, and how satisfied they felt with the process.

A/B testing: This tests two versions of a product against each other to see which the target audience prefers. This can be done with a live product by showing different versions of a webpage to different visitors or sending two different versions of a mailing to different recipient lists.

User interviews: Interviews conducted face to face (either online or in person) offer a quick and easy way to get insight into what a user wants from a potential product or collect qualitative data regarding an existing product. When these interviews are conducted with more than one person at a time, they’re often called focus groups. 

Surveys and questionnaires: You can design a survey or questionnaire to return both qualitative and quantitative data. By using the same questions and conducting multiple surveys, you can track the improvement of a product throughout its development and lifecycle.

Diary studies: Target users keep a log of their day-to-day activities over a defined (usually extended) period of time. This gives you insight into behaviors and experiences in the real world. You could learn when during the day a user typically engages with your product or how often they use it over the course of a day, a week, or a month.

Contextual observation: Instead of interviewing users in a lab, you’ll observe them in their natural context—at home or at work maybe—while asking questions to better understand how and why they do what they do.

First click testing: This type of user testing examines what a target user clicks on first on a website or app interface when trying to complete a task. You can do a first click test on a live site, prototype, or wireframe.

What does a UX researcher do?

Now that we have a better understanding of what user experience research is, let’s take a closer look at what you might do in your day-to-day role as a UX researcher, as well as what skills and tools you might use to get the job done. 

Tasks and responsibilities

A day on the job as a UX researcher will likely vary based on the project you’re working on or the company you’re working for. These are a few of the tasks you may perform on the job:

Collaborating with designers and stakeholders to understand research needs

Defining research questions and selecting appropriate methods of data collection

Developing budgets and timelines for research projects

Recruiting participants for research studies

Conducting design research studies and analyzing the data collected

Transforming your findings into easily understandable insights

Presenting your findings to designers, developers, and other stakeholders

Essential skills and tools

Successful UX researchers often develop a set of skills to help them effectively gain insight into current and prospective users. If you’re considering a career in UX research, these are just a few of the skills you can start focusing on now. 

Communication skills: Much of the job involves working with a design team and communicating with research participants to answer research questions.

Empathy: Understanding a user’s expectations, frustrations, goals, and reasoning process can help you develop solutions to real user needs.

Design thinking: Each stage of the design thinking process—empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test—offers opportunities to learn more about our target users.

Problem solving: Thinking critically about what questions you’re trying to answer with your research can help you select the appropriate methodology.

Curiosity: A sense of curiosity can prompt you to ask insightful questions and discover meaningful insights.

Collaboration: As a UX researcher, you’ll often be working alongside developers, designers, product managers, and other stakeholders to bring the best possible product to market.

Other roles in UI/UX

Research is just one aspect of UI/UX design. If you’re interested in the field, there are some other positions to consider.

UX designers are responsible for making products usable, useful, and enjoyable for users.

UI designers create the visual elements of computer and electronic interfaces.

Information architects organize and manage information to make it intuitive, accessible, and understandable.

UX engineers , more commonly known as developers, translate designs into usable code.

Interaction designers focus on the moment of interaction between the user and a product. This can be its own role or part of a UX/UI designer’s job.

Get started in UX: Google UX Design Professional Certificate

Why pursue a career as a UX researcher?

If you’re a naturally curious person who enjoys working with a team, a career in UX research could be a good fit. It’s an in-demand job in a well-paying industry.

UX researcher salary

More than half of user researchers make $88,600 or more, according to the Onward Search Salary Guide for 2020 [ 1 ]. Three quarters of UX researchers are reported to make more than $79,300.

Job outlook

User researchers rank among the most in-demand digital creative professionals in 2020, according to digital creative staffing agency Onward Search [ 2 ]. CNNMoney’s 100 Best Jobs in America list predicted 19 percent job growth from 2017 to 2027 [ 3 ].

How to become a UX researcher

UX research, like many areas of UI/UX design, is a relatively new role. As such, you’ll find that there isn’t one established path leading to a career in UX research. Some UX researchers are self-taught, others transition from other careers. As you pursue your own career path, consider these tips.

1. Get a degree in technology or behavioral science.

Most UX researcher positions require candidates with at least a bachelor’s degree, though it doesn’t necessarily have to be in a UX-related field. Earning your degree in a field related to technology or behavioral and social science could be beneficial. Here are some majors to consider if you're interested in a career in UX:

Human-computer interaction

Statistics or applied statistics

Computer science

Information systems

Anthropology

This may seem like a big variety. In reality, user researchers come from a huge range of backgrounds. Many may not have even found out about UX until they were well out of college. If you already have a degree in an unrelated topic, don't worry. You can find other ways to develop UX skills.

2. Develop your user research skills.

Aside from a degree, you’ll find numerous ways to learn about the tools and techniques of user research while developing your skills in the industry. Depending on your learning style, here are a few ways you can start building your skill set today:

Complete the Google UX Design Professional Certificate on Coursera. You'll walk through the design process from beginning to end. A full module of the program is dedicated to user research.

Get hands-on practice creating an A/B test for a web page, analyzing UX survey data , or communicating research results through empathy maps. Each project takes less than two hours to complete.

Take advantage of free resources, like blogs and podcasts , to learn the vocabulary of the industry and stay on top of latest trends.

Enroll in other courses or UX bootcamps . Some universities also offer UX research certificates or specializations for non-degree-seeking learners. 

Learn more: 9 Essential Skills for UX Designers in 2021

3. Gain UX research experience.

Browse job postings for UX researcher positions, and you’ll sometimes see related work experience listed as a requirement. Luckily, you don’t have to wait until you get a job to start gaining hands-on experience.

Volunteer your UX research skills for a local small business or non-profit. Organizations like UX Rescue , Catchafire , and Code for America match your skills with suitable opportunities.

Many large companies, including Google, Meta, Adobe, Apple, and Microsoft, offer UX internships, and some of these could have a research component. Applying for an internship is much like applying for a job. The process typically involves an application and interview. Look for opportunities posted on LinkedIn or Twitter. If there's a particular company you'd like to intern for, keep an eye on their site for new openings.

Join a hackathon team. Put your UX research skills to work by joining one of these fast-paced, competitive software development events. It's a great way to network with other UX and design professionals while collaborating on a project for your portfolio. Browse sites like hackathon.io or the Hackathon Hackers Facebook group to find a team to join, build your network, and learn about events online or in your area.

4. Build your portfolio.

Speaking of portfolios, your portfolio demonstrates your skills and experience to potential employers, making it a key element of your application. As you take classes, complete projects, or volunteer your time, keep track of your work and include your best and most recent projects in your portfolio. 

You can host your portfolio on your own website (services like Wix and Squarespace are popular for this), or you can use LinkedIn or a GitHub repository as a free platform for showcasing your best work.

To brush up on your skills or add to your existing portfolio, consider the Using Google Forms to Analyze User Research Data Guided Project from the Coursera Project Network. In about an hour, you can work on creating surveys, gathering results, and presenting insights.

5. Grow your network.

Start building a network of people in the UX industry. This could include coworkers at your current job, UX research organizations, or online UX communities. Networking is often an effective way to find out about new opportunities and meet potential employers.

Networking during your job search can be a great way to get interviews. For tips and strategies on how to network, as well as a step-by-step guide on getting more interviews, check out this job search guide from Coursera.

Get started with Coursera

Whether you’re curious to learn more about UX research or are ready to start learning new skills, the User Experience Research and Design Specialization from the University of Michigan could be a good place to start. This series of six courses covers topics like principles of user experience, understanding user needs, usability testing, and conducting UX research at scale. During the capstone course, you can carry out a research and design project for your portfolio.

Article sources

1. Onward Search. " Digital Creative Salary Guide 2020 , https://onwardsearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Onward-Search-Salary-Guide-2020.pdf." Accessed May 26, 2021.

2. Onward Search. " Digital Creative Salary Guide 2020 , https://onwardsearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Onward-Search-Salary-Guide-2020.pdf." Accessed May 26, 2021.

3. CNN Money. " Best Jobs in America , https://money.cnn.com/pf/best-jobs/2017/list/index.html." Accessed May 26, 2021.

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This content has been made available for informational purposes only. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional, and financial goals.

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What is UX Research: The Ultimate Guide for UX Researchers

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User experience research is a crucial component of the human-centered design process and an essential part of creating solutions that meet user expectations and deliver value to customers. This comprehensive guide to UX research dives into the fundamentals of research and its various methods and includes tips and best practices from leading industry experts.

Make informed design decisions with user research

Validate ideas, test prototypes, assess usability, and deliver real, actionable insights to your product team.

UX research: Your ultimate guide to nailing user experience and exceeding expectation

User experience research, or UX research , is the process of gathering insights about users' behaviors, needs, and pain points through observation techniques and feedback methodologies. It’s a form of user research that looks at how users interact with your product, helping bridge the gaps between what you think users need, what users say they need—and what they actually need.

The goal of UX research is to understand your users and gain context and perspectives to help make informed decisions and build user-centered products. It’s an essential part of designing, developing, and launching a product that will be an instant hit—but it should also be used throughout the product’s lifecycle post-launch to keep updated, and ensure new features are relevant to your audience.

As Sinéad Davis Cochrane , UX Manager at Workday, explains: “UX research represents insights gathered directly from users and customers, that helps you make product decisions at every stage of the development process.”

Is UX research the same as user research?

The terms ‘user research’ and ‘UX research’ are often used interchangeably, but they do differ. User research is the parent of UX research; it’s a broader research effort that aims to understand the demographics, behaviors, and sentiments of your users and personas.

UX research, on the other hand, is a type of user research that’s specific to your product or platform. Where user research focuses on the user as a whole, UX research considers how they interact with, respond to, and feel about your product or concept itself.

In both cases, the overarching goal is to get to know your users, understand what they need from your product, gain context to help make informed decisions, and build human-centered experiences.

Involve your users at every stage of your design process

Create research projects with Maze using customizable templates, and start making data-informed product decisions

Why is conducting UX research important?

In an ideal world, users would find your product easy to navigate, your net promoter score (NPS) would be off the charts, and you’d see adoption and activation rates skyrocket. In reality, however, this can be a challenging dream to achieve—but it is possible. The only way to build a product that users really resonate with is by involving them throughout the development process and building with them.

UX research is more than just a single ‘step’ in the development process: it should happen continuously, throughout the product lifecycle—so whether you’re building new products or iterating on existing ones, every decision is informed by user insights.

Here’s what you can achieve with continuous UX research:

Make informed decisions based on data

Our 2023 Continuous Research Report shows that 74% of people who do research (PWDR) believe research is crucial to guiding product decisions. Plus, 60% of respondents find that user recommendations inspire new product ideas.

Getting stakeholder buy-in to product decisions can be challenging, but when you suggest changes based on UX research, you have data to back up your suggestions. Your users inform your product, becoming the decision-makers as well as the customer.

UX research helps reduce and mitigate the risk of building the wrong thing—or building the right thing in the wrong way.

Sinéad Davis Cochrane , UX Manager at Workday

Reduce bias in the UX design process

There are hundreds of cognitive biases identified by psychologists, many of which unknowingly influence our decisions and the products we build. But a key principle of great UX design is to put aside existing beliefs, and learn from your users.

“You have to be humble, optimistic, and open-minded,” says Bertrand Berlureau , Senior Product Designer at iMSA. Using effective UX research, you can root out bias or assumptions, and follow real human behavior to inform product decisions.

According to Sinéad, you should consider these questions early in the design process:

• “What are your assumptions?”
• “What are some of the assumptions you’ve been making about your end-users and product without any evidence?”
• “What are the anecdotes or coincidental pieces of information that you hold, and how can you challenge them?”

Biases can subconsciously affect research and UX design, and it can be tricky to identify them. The first step to overcoming cognitive biases is by being aware of them. Head to chapter three of our cognitive biases guide to discover how.

Test and validate concepts

The power of UX research is that it can prove you right or wrong—but either way, you’ll end up knowing more and creating a product that provides a better user experience. For Bertrand, an idea without a test is just an idea. So, before the design process, his team starts with these user research methods:

• Face-to-face and remote user interviews
• Focus groups
• Co-creativity sessions through design sprints, quick prototyping, and hypothesis concepts
• User testing

UX research is the only way to unequivocally confirm your product is solving the right problem, in the right way. By speaking directly to real users, you can pinpoint what ideas to focus on, then validate your proposed solution, before investing too much time or money into the wrong concept.

Work on solutions that bring real value to customers

Another main benefit of UX research is that it allows product teams to mitigate risk and come up with products users want to use. “One of the main risks we need to control is whether users actually want to use a solution we've implemented,” explains Luke Vella , Group Product Manager at Maze. “UX research helps us reduce this risk, allowing us to build solutions that our customers see as valuable and make sure that they know how to unlock that value.”

Luke works on pricing and packaging, an area that requires constant user research. On one hand, he and his team want to understand which problems their users are facing and come up with plans to satisfy those different needs. On the other hand, they need to make sure they can monetize in a sustainable way to further invest in the product. You can only get this perfect balance by speaking to users to inform each step of the decision.

Market your product internally and externally

UX research also plays a crucial role in helping product marketers understand the customer and effectively communicate a product's value to the market—after all, a product can only help those who know about it.

For example, Naomi Francis , Senior Product Marketing Manager at Maze, uses different research methods to inform marketing strategy. Naomi conducts user interviews to build personas, using user research to collect insights on messaging drafts, product naming, and running surveys to gather user feedback on beta products and onboarding.

Understanding how and why customers need and use our product pushes marketing launches to the next level—you can get a steer on everything from messaging to language and approach.

Naomi Francis , Senior Product Marketing Manager at Maze

Types of UX research

All UX research methods fit into broader UX research techniques that drive different goals, and provide different types of insight. You can skip to chapter seven for a rundown of the top 9 UX research methods , or keep reading for a deep dive on the main types of UX research:

• Moderated and unmoderated
• Remote and in-person
• Generate and evaluate
• Qualitative and quantitative
• Behavioral and attitudinal

Where moderated/unmoderated and remote/in-person refer to the way research is conducted , the other types of UX research reflect the type of data they gather.

The most powerful insights come from a mixture of testing types—e.g. attitudinal and behavioral, generative and evaluative, and quantitative and qualitative. You don’t need to run all types of research at all times, but you’ll benefit from gathering multiple types of data throughout different stages of product development.

Moderated research

Moderated research is any research conducted with a facilitator or researcher present. A moderator may observe research sessions and take notes, ask questions, or provide instruction to participants where needed.

Like all research, it’s crucial a moderator doesn’t overly guide participants or influence results. Due to certain types of cognitive biases , people may behave differently while being observed, so researchers often opt for unmoderated methods to avoid results being impacted.

UX research methods for moderated research

• User interviews to speak directly with your target user face-to-face
• Focus groups to gather feedback on a variety of topics
• Moderated usability testing to hear the thought process behind the actions

Unmoderated research

As the name suggests, unmoderated research refers to the lack of a moderator. Often used in tandem with remote research , users complete tasks independently, guided by pre-written instructions.

Unmoderated research is helpful to ensure users are acting entirely of their own volition, and it has a lower cost and quicker turnaround than moderated research—however it does require efficient planning and preparation, to ensure users can navigate the tasks unaided.

UX research methods for unmoderated research

• Unmoderated usability testing to see how easily users navigate your product
• Live website testing to witness users interacting with your product in real time
• Surveys to have users answer specific questions and rate design elements

Remote research

An incredibly flexible approach, remote research is often favored due to its time-to-results and cost savings. Remote research can be moderated or unmoderated, and is conducted using UX research tools which record user behavior, feedback, and screen recordings.

Another key benefit is its reach and accessibility—by moving research to a virtual platform, you can access users from anywhere in the world, and ensure research is inclusive of those with different abilities or requirements, who may otherwise be unable to take part in traditional in-person research.

UX research methods for remote research

• Usability testing to evaluate how accessible your product is
• Card sorting to understand how users categorize and group topics
• Concept testing to assess what ideas users are drawn to
• Wireframe or prototype testing to invite users to test a rough version of the design

In-person research

Research conducted in-person is typically more expensive, as it may require travel, accommodation, or equipment. Many traditionally in-person research methods can easily be performed remotely, so in-person research is often reserved for if there’s additional needs for accessibility, or if your product requires physical testing, safety considerations or supervision while being tested.

UX research methods for in-person research

• Guerrilla research to speak to random users and gather feedback
• User interviews to connect with users and read body language
• Field studies to gauge how your product fits into a real world environment

Generative research

Generative research provides a deep understanding of your target audience’s motivations, challenges, and behaviors. Broadly speaking, it pinpoints a problem statement, identifies the problem to be solved, and collects enough data to move forward.

It should happen before you even begin designing, as it helps you identify what to build, the types of problems your user is facing, and how you can solve them with your product or service.

UX research methods for generative research

• Field studies to get familiar with users in their authentic environment
• User interviews to ask open-ended questions about pain points
• Diary research to keep a log of users’ behaviors, activities, and beliefs over time
• Open card sorting to have users define and name their own categories

Evaluative research

Evaluative research focuses on evaluating a product or concept in order to collect data that will improve the solution. Evaluative research usually happens early on and is used in a continuous, iterative way throughout the design process and following launch. You can use this type of UX research to assess an idea, check navigation, or see if your prototype meets your user’s needs.

UX research methods for evaluative research

• Usability testing to see if your platform is easy and intuitive to use
• A/B testing two versions of a design to see which one works best
• Tree testing to assess if your website’s information architecture (IA) makes sense
• Five-second tests to collect first impressions

Behavioral research

This type of research refers to observation—it’s human nature that sometimes what we say, or what we think we’ll do doesn’t match up to what we actually do in a situation. Behavioral research is about observing how users interact with your product or how they behave in certain situations, without any intervention.

UX research methods for behavioral research

• Observation in labs or real environments to witness behavior in real time
• Tree testing to view which paths users take on a website
• Diary research to see how users interact with your product in real life

Attitudinal research

Attitudinal research is the companion to behavioral research—it’s about what people say, and how they feel. In attitudinal research, you ask users to share their own experiences and opinions; this may be about your product, a concept, or specific design element. With a mix of attitudinal and behavioral research, you can get a broader picture of what your user truly needs.

UX research methods for attitudinal research

• Focus groups to understand users’ perspectives on your product
• User interviews to ask people questions about your product directly
• Surveys to gather insights on user preferences and opinions

Quantitative research

Quantitative and qualitative research methods are two types of research that can be used in unison or separately. Quantitative research comes from data and statistics, and results in numerical data.

It allows you to identify patterns, make predictions, and generalize findings about a target audience or topic. “[At iMSA] We analyze a lot of metrics and specific data like traffic analytics, chatbot feedback, user surveys, user testing, etc. to make decisions,” explains Bertrand. “The convergence of all the data, our user’s needs, governs the choices we make.”

Types of quantitative results you can find through UX research include:

• Time spent on tasks
• Net promoter score (NPS)
• System usability score (SUS)
• Number of clicks taken to complete a task
• Preference percentage on A/B tests

UX research methods for quantitative research

• A/B testing to see which option your users likes best
• Tree testing to get data on which paths users follow on your website
• Usability testing to get a score on system usability
• Heatmaps to spot where users spend most of their session time

Qualitative research

Qualitative research is about understanding the why behind the data. It comes from comments, opinions, and observations—this type of research answers why and how users think or act in a certain way. Qualitative data helps you understand the underlying motivations, thoughts, and attitudes of target users. For this reason, attitudinal research is often qualitative (though not always).

UX research methods for qualitative research

• Interviews to discover your users’ motivations and frustrations
• Open question surveys to learn users’ pain points in their own words
• Focus groups to observe users’ interacting with your product
• Think aloud usability tests to hear commentary behind each user decision

💡 Product tip:

Maze allows you to record your participants' screen, audio, and video with Clips, so you can collect qualitative and quantitative insights simultaneously.

When should you conduct UX research?

The truth is, you should always be researching. When NASA wants to send a new shuttle into space, they don't build a rocket and launch it right away. They develop a design, test it in simulations and lab environments, and iterate between each stage. Only once they’ve run all the foreseeable scenarios do they put a person on the ship. Why should your product be any different?

With an overwhelming 83% of product professionals surveyed in our 2023 Continuous Research Report believing research should happen at all stages, it’s surprising that just 36% run tests after launch. While time and budget can make continuous research a challenge, testing at different stages gives you access to unique insights about your users and how they interact with your product.

That being said, if you can only afford to research a few times throughout the development process , here are some key moments to focus on:

Before developing the product

This is when you need to conduct the most extensive and detailed part of your research. During this phase, you’ll want to conduct generative research to get to know exactly:

• Who your user is
• The types of problems they’re facing (and what kind of product they want to solve them)
• What their expectations on a product or service like yours are
• What they like or dislike about your competitors
• Where they currently go to solve the mentioned problems
• What needs to happen for them to change companies (if they’re using a different product)

You can use a variety of UX research methods like focus groups and surveys to gather insights during this stage.

Remember: This step applies even if your product is already live, if you’re thinking of introducing a new feature. Validate your idea and investigate potential alternatives before you spend time and money developing and designing new functionality.

When you want to validate your decisions

This is the point where you’ll run through a few cycles of researching, building, and iterating, before launching your product. The Maze Product team does this through continuous product discovery, via a dual-track habit:

Conduct research regularly while developing and building your product to see if you’re headed in the right direction. Let the research findings feed your deliverables.

Gather qualitative insights on user sentiment through surveys or focus groups. Test your wireframe or sketches to get quantitative answers in the form of clicks, heatmaps, or SUS. Use card sorting to generate ideas, tree testing to assess IA, or prototype testing to assess the usability of a beta version. The options are endless, so there’s no reason to miss maximizing your research at this stage and gather insights to power product decisions.

To evaluate product accessibility

Your product will be used by a multitude of diverse, unique users. Your research participants should be representative of your real audience, which means including all usage scenarios and user personas. Usability testing is one form of UX research that can be used here to ensure your product works for all its users, regardless of ability or need.

There are many ways to ensure your design is inclusive and accessible , including:

• Testing alt-texts, screen-reading capabilities, and color combinations
• Avoiding screen flashes or sudden pop-ups that may be triggering for certain conditions
• Being intentional in what language and imagery is used

Once your product is live

Research doesn’t end once you push your platform to production. Conduct Live Website Testing to evaluate how well your product is meeting your users' expectations and needs. This type of research invites you to answer the question: did we nail it?

Testing your live website also allows you to see how your users interact with your design in a real environment, so you can identify and solve mistakes fast. Pay close attention to loading times, error messages, and other quantitative data that may indicate bugs. You can also conduct regular sentiment checks by embedding feedback surveys into your product itself, to assess user satisfaction and NPS in a few clicks.

TL;DR: Why, how, and when to conduct UX research

The more you understand your customers, the better you can create products that meet expectations, tailor your strategy to their specific needs, and increase your chances for success. Plus, UX research allows you to create unbiased products that put your customers at the center of your business.

To conduct UX research, you’ll need to mix the stage of your product lifecycle with the right research type and methods. Meaning, while you need to conduct UX research continuously, you should look for different types of insights depending on the development stage you’re at and what your current objective is.

For example, if you want to test your live product, you should conduct a mix of quantitative and qualitative evaluative research. That means you might want to perform:

• Usability tests
• Feedback surveys
• Five-second tests
• Prototype testing

Now we’ve covered the what and why of UX research, let’s get into the how. Continue to the next chapter to learn how to create a UX research strategy that blows your competitors away.

Frequently asked questions

What are some examples of UX research?

Some examples of UX research include:

• A/B testing
• Prototype or wireframe testing
• Card sorting
• User interviews
• Tree testing
• 5-second testing
• Usability testing

What are the basics of UX research?

The basics of UX research are simple: you just need a clear goal in mind and a mix of quantitative and qualitative tests. Then, it's a case of:

• Determining the right testing methods
• Testing on an audience that’s an accurate representation of your real users
• Doing continuous product discovery
• Performing unbiased research to build an unbiased design
• Iterating and building user-centric products

UX research gets easier when you use a product discovery platform like Maze. This tool allows you to run multiple types of product research such as usability, prototype, card sorting, and wireframe tests—and get answers within hours.

Is UX research hard?

UX research isn’t hard, especially when you use an intuitive tool for product discovery—like Maze. Maze allows you to build tests using its multiple available templates. It also lets you bring your own users or recruit from its panel and creates an automated, ready-to-share metrics report. Maze gives you answers to tests within hours so you can improve your UX based on real user feedback fast.

Building a UX research strategy

• User Research Designers
• UX Researchers
• Digital Designers
• UX Designers
• UX Strategists
• Product Designers
• UI Designers
• Mobile App Designers

The Complete Guide to UX Research Methods

UX research provides invaluable insight into product users and what they need and value. Not only will research reduce the risk of a miscalculated guess, it will uncover new opportunities for innovation.

By Miklos Philips

Miklos is a UX designer, product design strategist, author, and speaker with more than 18 years of experience in the design field.

PREVIOUSLY AT

“Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task.” —Tim Brown, CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO

User experience (UX) design is the process of designing products that are useful, easy to use, and a pleasure to engage. It’s about enhancing the entire experience people have while interacting with a product and making sure they find value, satisfaction, and delight. If a mountain peak represents that goal, employing various types of UX research is the path UX designers use to get to the top of the mountain.

User experience research is one of the most misunderstood yet critical steps in UX design. Sometimes treated as an afterthought or an unaffordable luxury, UX research, and user testing should inform every design decision.

Every product, service, or user interface designers create in the safety and comfort of their workplaces has to survive and prosper in the real world. Countless people will engage our creations in an unpredictable environment over which designers have no control. UX research is the key to grounding ideas in reality and improving the odds of success, but research can be a scary word. It may sound like money we don’t have, time we can’t spare, and expertise we have to seek.

In order to do UX research effectively—to get a clear picture of what users think and why they do what they do—e.g., to “walk a mile in the user’s shoes” as a favorite UX maxim goes, it is essential that user experience designers and product teams conduct user research often and regularly. Contingent upon time, resources, and budget, the deeper they can dive the better.

What Is UX Research?

There is a long, comprehensive list of UX design research methods employed by user researchers , but at its center is the user and how they think and behave —their needs and motivations. Typically, UX research does this through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies.

There are two main types of user research: quantitative (statistics: can be calculated and computed; focuses on numbers and mathematical calculations) and qualitative (insights: concerned with descriptions, which can be observed but cannot be computed).

Quantitative research is primarily exploratory research and is used to quantify the problem by way of generating numerical data or data that can be transformed into usable statistics. Some common data collection methods include various forms of surveys – online surveys , paper surveys , mobile surveys and kiosk surveys , longitudinal studies, website interceptors, online polls, and systematic observations.

This user research method may also include analytics, such as Google Analytics .

Google Analytics is part of a suite of interconnected tools that help interpret data on your site’s visitors including Data Studio , a powerful data-visualization tool, and Google Optimize, for running and analyzing dynamic A/B testing.

Quantitative data from analytics platforms should ideally be balanced with qualitative insights gathered from other UX testing methods , such as focus groups or usability testing. The analytical data will show patterns that may be useful for deciding what assumptions to test further.

Qualitative user research is a direct assessment of behavior based on observation. It’s about understanding people’s beliefs and practices on their terms. It can involve several different methods including contextual observation, ethnographic studies, interviews, field studies, and moderated usability tests.

Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group feels that in the case of UX research, it is better to emphasize insights (qualitative research) and that although quant has some advantages, qualitative research breaks down complicated information so it’s easy to understand, and overall delivers better results more cost effectively—in other words, it is much cheaper to find and fix problems during the design phase before you start to build. Often the most important information is not quantifiable, and he goes on to suggest that “quantitative studies are often too narrow to be useful and are sometimes directly misleading.”

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. William Bruce Cameron

Design research is not typical of traditional science with ethnography being its closest equivalent—effective usability is contextual and depends on a broad understanding of human behavior if it is going to work.

Nevertheless, the types of user research you can or should perform will depend on the type of site, system or app you are developing, your timeline, and your environment.

Top UX Research Methods and When to Use Them

Here are some examples of the types of user research performed at each phase of a project.

Card Sorting : Allows users to group and sort a site’s information into a logical structure that will typically drive navigation and the site’s information architecture. This helps ensure that the site structure matches the way users think.

Contextual Interviews : Enables the observation of users in their natural environment, giving you a better understanding of the way users work.

First Click Testing : A testing method focused on navigation, which can be performed on a functioning website, a prototype, or a wireframe.

Focus Groups : Moderated discussion with a group of users, allowing insight into user attitudes, ideas, and desires.

Heuristic Evaluation/Expert Review : A group of usability experts evaluating a website against a list of established guidelines .

Interviews : One-on-one discussions with users show how a particular user works. They enable you to get detailed information about a user’s attitudes, desires, and experiences.

Parallel Design : A design methodology that involves several designers pursuing the same effort simultaneously but independently, with the intention to combine the best aspects of each for the ultimate solution.

Personas : The creation of a representative user based on available data and user interviews. Though the personal details of the persona may be fictional, the information used to create the user type is not.

Prototyping : Allows the design team to explore ideas before implementing them by creating a mock-up of the site. A prototype can range from a paper mock-up to interactive HTML pages.

Surveys : A series of questions asked to multiple users of your website that help you learn about the people who visit your site.

System Usability Scale (SUS) : SUS is a technology-independent ten-item scale for subjective evaluation of the usability.

Task Analysis : Involves learning about user goals, including what users want to do on your website, and helps you understand the tasks that users will perform on your site.

Usability Testing : Identifies user frustrations and problems with a site through one-on-one sessions where a “real-life” user performs tasks on the site being studied.

Use Cases : Provide a description of how users use a particular feature of your website. They provide a detailed look at how users interact with the site, including the steps users take to accomplish each task.

You can do user research at all stages or whatever stage you are in currently. However, the Nielsen Norman Group advises that most of it be done during the earlier phases when it will have the biggest impact. They also suggest it’s a good idea to save some of your budget for additional research that may become necessary (or helpful) later in the project.

Here is a diagram listing recommended options that can be done as a project moves through the design stages. The process will vary, and may only include a few things on the list during each phase. The most frequently used methods are shown in bold.

Reasons for Doing UX Research

Here are three great reasons for doing user research :

To create a product that is truly relevant to users

• If you don’t have a clear understanding of your users and their mental models, you have no way of knowing whether your design will be relevant. A design that is not relevant to its target audience will never be a success.

To create a product that is easy and pleasurable to use

• A favorite quote from Steve Jobs: “ If the user is having a problem, it’s our problem .” If your user experience is not optimal, chances are that people will move on to another product.

To have the return on investment (ROI) of user experience design validated and be able to show:

• An improvement in performance and credibility
• Increased exposure and sales—growth in customer base
• A reduced burden on resources—more efficient work processes

Aside from the reasons mentioned above, doing user research gives insight into which features to prioritize, and in general, helps develop clarity around a project.

What Results Can I Expect from UX Research?

In the words of Mike Kuniaysky, user research is “ the process of understanding the impact of design on an audience. ”

User research has been essential to the success of behemoths like USAA and Amazon ; Joe Gebbia, CEO of Airbnb is an enthusiastic proponent, testifying that its implementation helped turn things around for the company when it was floundering as an early startup.

Some of the results generated through UX research confirm that improving the usability of a site or app will:

• Increase conversion rates
• Increase sign-ups
• Increase NPS (net promoter score)
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Increase purchase rates
• Boost loyalty to the brand
• Reduce customer service calls

Additionally, and aside from benefiting the overall user experience, the integration of UX research into the development process can:

• Minimize development time
• Reduce production costs
• Uncover valuable insights about your audience
• Give an in-depth view into users’ mental models, pain points, and goals

User research is at the core of every exceptional user experience. As the name suggests, UX is subjective—the experience that a person goes through while using a product. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the needs and goals of potential users, the context, and their tasks which are unique for each product. By selecting appropriate UX research methods and applying them rigorously, designers can shape a product’s design and can come up with products that serve both customers and businesses more effectively.

Further Reading on the Toptal Blog:

• How to Conduct Effective UX Research: A Guide
• The Value of User Research
• UX Research Methods and the Path to User Empathy
• Design Talks: Research in Action with UX Researcher Caitria O'Neill
• Swipe Right: 3 Ways to Boost Safety in Dating App Design
• How to Avoid 5 Types of Cognitive Bias in User Research

Understanding the basics

How do you do user research in ux.

UX research includes two main types: quantitative (statistical data) and qualitative (insights that can be observed but not computed), done through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies. The UX research methods used depend on the type of site, system, or app being developed.

What are UX methods?

There is a long list of methods employed by user research, but at its center is the user and how they think, behave—their needs and motivations. Typically, UX research does this through observation techniques, task analysis, and other UX methodologies.

What is the best research methodology for user experience design?

The type of UX methodology depends on the type of site, system or app being developed, its timeline, and environment. There are 2 main types: quantitative (statistics) and qualitative (insights).

What does a UX researcher do?

A user researcher removes the need for false assumptions and guesswork by using observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies to understand a user’s motivation, behavior, and needs.

Why is UX research important?

UX research will help create a product that is relevant to users and is easy and pleasurable to use while boosting a product’s ROI. Aside from these reasons, user research gives insight into which features to prioritize, and in general, helps develop clarity around a project.

• UserResearch

Miklos Philips

London, United Kingdom

Member since May 20, 2016

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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. Utilizing social media marketing for lawyers , 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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More in Research

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• Make Design Decisions with a Purpose
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• The Ethics of UX Research
• Five Tips for Conducting Scientific Research in the UX World
• Running a Successful User Workshop

How to Conduct User Experience Research Like a Professional

Whether you’re looking to develop a broad UX design skillset, or you’re exploring UX research as a design specialization , here’s your complete introduction to conducting user research like a pro. 

Hello, I’m Raven, a mentor for aspiring UX designers enrolled in the CareerFoundry UX Design Course . I also work as a UX Research Assistant at IBM and studied behavioral science at the University of Texas. I have 10 years of experience studying and analyzing human behavior—user research is definitely my thing.

During the past few years, I’ve worked with major companies, academic institutions, and non-profit organizations to develop and improve impactful products and applications. I’ve moderated focus groups, designed and administered surveys, carried out usability testing, and conducted user interviews. I also know a thing or two about creating a good persona!

In this guide, we’re going to cover the basics of UX research. We’ll start with exactly what it is, and then move on to discuss the various steps and associated terminology of UX research , as well as its role and value within the broader design process . We’ll then review the most common UX research methods, diving into how they’re conducted and a few best practices.

If you’re particularly interested in one of these topics, simply select it from the list below to jump straight to it. I’ve also added videos throughout the guide for those of you who prefer to learn with both eyes and ears—and I recommend you save this set of free UX research tutorials for later, too. Sound good? Let’s get started!

Introduction To User Experience (UX) Research

• What is UX research?
• What’s the difference between good and bad UX research?
• What are the five steps of UX research?
• What’s the role of research in the UX design process?
• Whats the value of UX research?

Introduction To User Experience Research Methods

• User Groups
• Usability Testing
• User Interviews
• Online Surveys
• User Personas
• What Next? User Research Analysis

1. What is UX research?

You read my bio in the introduction. Using only this information, could you explain why I recently switched from one time management app to another? Probably not. In order to answer this question, you need more context. UX research provides that context.  So, what is UX research and what is its purpose ?

“User research is how you will know your product or service will work in the real world, with real people. It’s where you will uncover or validate the user needs which should form the basis of what you are designing.”

— Chris Mears, UXr

According to Design Modo , UX research is; “The process of understanding user behaviors, needs, and attitudes using different observation and feedback collection methods.” One of the other benefits of user experience research is that it helps us understand how people live their lives so that we can respond to their needs with informed design solutions. Good UX research involves using the right method at the right time during the development of a product.

Maria Arvidsson, Head of Product and UX at Usabilla , describes UX research as:

“The means through which you try to understand your users’ needs, behaviors and motivations and validate your assumptions and solutions.”

2. What’s the difference between good and bad UX research?

The biggest sign of an amateur UX designer is excluding end users from the design process. At the very start of my career I held the attitude that I could test any app, website, or product on myself, replacing the act of speaking with users. Never a good idea. It took time for me to learn a more professional approach, which is to start the design process by listening to the end user. Overall, UX research helps us avoid our biases since we are required to design solutions for people who are not like us.

“Insights that are received directly from user experience research are like muscle memory; the more you do research, the more insights you build up. But just like muscle memory, YOU have to be a part of the hard work in order to enjoy the lasting benefits of it that are specific to you. While it may be tempting to outsource research to a specialized team (and sometimes you can’t avoid it), you should try your utmost best to engage in at least a little bit of the research so that the insights grow under your skin instead of being handed to you from someone else who has sweated it.” 

—UX designer Ali Rushdan Tariq from ARTariq

A quick plug before we continue: If you’re looking to become a professional in this subdomain of UX, be sure to take a look at our guide to becoming a UX researcher

3. What are the five steps of UX research?

Created by Erin Sanders , the Research Learning Spiral provides five main steps for conducting UX research. The first two steps are about forming questions and hypotheses, and the last three steps are about gathering knowledge through selected UX research methods.

• Objectives: What are the knowledge gaps we need to fill?
• Hypotheses: What do we think we understand about our users?
• Methods: Based on time and manpower, what methods should we select?
• Conduct: Gather data through the selected methods.
• Synthesize: Fill in the knowledge gaps, prove or disprove our hypotheses, and discover opportunities for our design efforts.

4. What’s the role of research in the UX design process?

UX research is the starting point for a project . Research helps us learn about the users and their behavior, goals, motivations, and needs. It also shows us how they currently navigate a system, where they have problems and, most importantly, how they feel when interacting with our product.

UX research comes first in the UX design process because without it, our work can only be based on our own experiences and assumptions, which is not objective. As Neil Turner, founder of UX for the Masses told us, a good foundation is key to successful design:

“Good user research is key to designing a great user experience. Designing without good user research is like building a house without solid foundations—your design will soon start to crumble and eventually fall apart.”

5. What’s the value of UX research?

In the current digital product landscape, the real value of UX research is its ability to reduce uncertainty in terms of what users want and need , which yields benefits for the product, the business, and, of course, the users themselves.

1. Product Benefits

UX research provides data about the end user of the product, how and when the user will use the product, and the main problems the product will solve. UX research is also helpful when UX designers and the rest of the team (and stakeholders) have to decide between multiple design solutions.

2. Business Benefits

UX research brings a lot of a value to businesses. By knowing the end users and incorporating design requirements upfront, businesses can speed up the product development process, eliminate redesign costs, and increase user satisfaction.

3. User Benefits

One of the greatest values of user experience research is that it’s unbiased user feedback. Simply put, UX research speaks the user’s thoughts—without any influence from outside authority. It also serves as a bridge between users and the company.

“User experience research provides powerful insights that allow companies to humanize their customers and insert their needs, intentions, and behaviors into the design and development process. In turn, these insights enable companies to create experiences that meet—and sometimes exceed—customer needs and expectations. User experience research should be conducted well before the first sketch is drawn and integrated throughout the concept, iterative design, and launch phases of a product.”

—Janelle Estes, Director of Research Strategy at UserTesting

UX research is based on observation, understanding,  and analysis.  With the help of various UX research techniques, you will:

• O bserve your users , keeping an eye out for non-verbal clues as to how they are feeling;
• Develop an understanding of the user’s mental model : what does the user anticipate when using a certain product? Based on their previous experience, how do they expect this particular product to work?
• A nalyze  the insights you’ve gathered and try to identify patterns and trends. Eventually, these insights will inform the decisions you make about the product and how it is designed.

With that in mind, let’s consider some of the most valuable user research techniques.

1. User Groups

User groups—also called “focus group discussions” or “focus groups”—are structured interviews that quickly and inexpensively reveal the desires, experiences, and attitudes of a target audience. User groups are a helpful user experience research method when a company needs a lot of insight in a short amount of time. If you are unsure when to use a user experience research method, user groups can be a good one to start with.

Why Do We Conduct User Groups?

User groups can help your company better understand:

1) How users perceive a product

2) What users believe are a product’s most important features

3) What problems users experience with the product

4) Where users feel the product fails to meet expectations

User groups can also be used to generate ideas of what users want to see in the future.

What people say and what people do are often very different, therefore user groups do not provide an accurate measurement of behavior . And because user groups are conducted with more than one user at a time, participants may influence each other’s opinions and preferences (aka “groupthink”), thus introducing bias and producing inaccurate data.

Best Practices For User Groups

Getting the most out of your user group is straightforward if you consider the following best practices when conducting this particular user research technique.

• Ask good questions: Make sure your questions are clear, open-ended, and focused on the topics you’re investigating.
• Choose a few topics: On average, plan to discuss 3-5 topics during a 90-minute focus group.
• Include the right amount of people: A good focus group should include 3-6 users—large enough to include a variety of perspectives, but small enough so everyone has a chance to speak.

“Conducting user research allows you to dive deep beneath the surface of what your users say they want, to instead uncover what they actually need. It’s the key to ensuring that your products and features will actually solve the problems that your clients face on a day to day basis. User research is imperative if you want to create a successful, habit forming product.”

— Jennifer Aldrich, UX and Content Strategist at InVisionApp

How To Conduct User Experience Research With User Groups

Conducting user groups can be broken down into a few major steps:

• Create a schedule that provides enough time for recruiting, testing, analyzing, and integrating results.
• Assemble your team, and establish roles: choose a moderator, note-taker, and discussion leader.
• Define the scope of your research: what questions will you ask? And how in-depth do you want to explore the answers? This will determine the number of people and the number of groups that need to be tested.
• Create a discussion guide that includes 3-5 topics for discussion.
• Recruit potential or existing users who are likely to provide good feedback.
• Conduct user group testing, and record data.
• Analyze and report findings.

“It’s really hard to design products by user groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

—Steve Jobs

2. Usability Testing

According to the usability.gov website, usability testing refers to “evaluating a product or service by testing it with representative users.” During a test, participants will be asked to complete specific tasks while one or more observers watch, listen, and record notes. The main goal of this user experience testing method is to identify usability problems, collect qualitative data, and determine participants’ overall satisfaction with the product.

Why Do We Perform Usability Testing?

Usability testing helps identify problems before they are coded. When development issues are identified early on, it is typically less expensive to fix them. Usability testing also reveals how satisfied users are with the product , as well as what changes are required to improve user satisfaction and performance .

Unfortunately, usability testing is not 100% representative of the real life scenario in which a user will engage with your product. Also, because the data is qualitative, this kind of UX testing method doesn’t provide the large samples of feedback a questionnaire might. The good news it that the qualitative feedback you receive can be far more accurate and insightful.

Best Practices For Usability Testing

• Test with five users: Testing five users is typically enough to identify a design’s most important usability problems.
• Invite your team to the testing sessions: Anyone who is involved with how fast and how well problems are addressed should be invited to the usability testing sessions. These stakeholders may include the executive team, and lead developers or designers.
• Keep the findings brief and to-the-point: When you report the findings of a usability test, limit the comments to the ones that are really important. One good rule of thumb is to include the top three positive comments and the top three problems. The overall report should be no more than approximately 50 comments and 30 pages.

How to Conduct UX Research with Usability Testing

Usability testing can be broken down into a few major steps:

• Identify what needs to be tested and why (e.g. a new product, feature, etc.)
• Identify the target audience (or your desired customers).
• Create a list of tasks for the participants to work through.
• Recruit the right participants for the test.
• Involve the right stakeholders.
• Apply what you learn.

“One of usability’s most hard-earned lessons is that ‘you are not the user.’ If you work on a development project, you’re atypical by definition. Design to optimize the user experience for outsiders, not insiders.”

– Jakob Nielsen

3. User Interviews

A well-known user experience methodology is an interview. An interview is a user experience research method used to discover the attitudes, beliefs, and experiences of users (and potential users) of a product. Interviews are typically conducted by one interviewer speaking to one user at a time for 30 minutes to an hour. Interviews can take place face-to-face, over the phone, or via video streaming.

Why Do We Conduct Interviews?

Of all the user experience design methods, interviews are typically conducted at the beginning of the product development cycle when reviewing product goals. Because of the one-to-one nature of the interview, individual concerns and misunderstandings can be directly addressed and cleared up.

Face-to-face interviews also allow you to capture verbal and nonverbal cues, such as emotions and body language, which may identify enthusiasm for the product or discomfort with the questions.

When thinking about what research methodology to use, bear in mind that interviews are also a good supplement to online surveys: conducting an interview beforehand helps you refine questions for the survey, while conducting an interview afterwards allows you to gain explanations for survey answers.

There are a few drawbacks, however. First, because interviews require a team of people to conduct them, personnel costs are usually difficult to keep low. Sample size is also limited to the size of the interviewing staff.

Best Practices For User Interviews

• Hire a skilled interviewer: A skilled interviewer asks questions in a neutral manner, listens well, makes users feel comfortable, and knows when and how to probe for more details.
• Create a discussion guide: Write up a discussion guide (or an interview protocol) for all interviewers to follow. This guide should include questions and follow-up questions.
• Get informed consent: Before conducting the interview, make sure to get permission or consent to record the session. It’s also good to have one or two note takers on hand.

How To Conduct User Experience Research With User Interviews

Conducting an interview can be broken down into a few major steps:

• Prepare a discussion guide, or a list of questions to ask participants.
• Select a recording method (e.g. written notes, tape recorder, video).
• Conduct at least one trial run of the interview.
• Recruit the right participants for the interview.
• Conduct the interview.
• Analyze and report the results.

“Curiosity is a natural outcome of caring, and it is the single greatest contributor to effective user research … Caring and curiosity engender personal investment, and investment motivates a researcher to develop a deep understanding of users.”

– Demetrius Madrigal

4. Online Surveys

A survey is a research tool that typically includes a set of questions used to find out the preferences, attitudes, and opinions of your users on a given topic. Today, surveys are generally conducted online and in various lengths and formats. Data collected from surveys is received automatically, and the survey tool selected generally provides some level of analysis, the data from which can then be used for user experience studies further down the line to inform your product.

“It is so important to avoid using leading questions when it comes to surveys. It’s a common mistake that many people make. For example phrasing a question like “What do you dislike about Uber?” assumes the user has a negative preference for the service off the bat. A more neutral phrase would be “Tell us about your experience getting around town.” – this elicits more natural user feedback and behavior instead of forcing them down a funnel.”

– Top tip from UXBeginner

Why Do We Conduct Online Surveys?

Unlike traditional surveys, online surveys enable companies to quickly collect data from a broad (and sometimes remote) audience for free—or a low price. Surveys also help you discover who your users are , what your users want to accomplish, and what information your users are looking for.

Unfortunately, what users say versus what they do are two different things and can often yield inaccurate results. Furthermore, poorly worded questions can negatively influence how users respond. Length can also be an issue—many people hate taking long surveys. This is why it’s important to create short surveys so users are more likely to complete them and participate in future research efforts.

Best Practices For Online Surveys

• Keep it short: Keep your surveys brief, especially if participants will be compensated little or not at all. Only focus on what is truly important.
• Keep it simple: Make sure questions can be easily understood: ambiguous or complex wording can make questions more difficult to understand, which can bring the data into question.
• Keep it engaging: Include a mix of both multiple choice questions and open-ended questions (or questions in which users complete the answer).

How To Conduct User Experience Research With Online Surveys

Conducting an online survey can be broken down into a few major steps:

• Identify goals and objectives of the survey.
• Create survey questions.

Note: Consider collecting information about how satisfied users are with your product, what users like/dislike, and if they have suggestions for improvement.

• Select an online survey tool (e.g. SurveyMonkey, Qualtrics).
• Recruit participants.
• Conduct the survey.

“We have to arm ourselves with data, research … and a clear understanding of our users so our decisions are not made out of fear but out of real, actionable information. Although our clients may not have articulated reasons for why they want what they want, it is our responsibility to have an ironclad rationale to support our design decisions.”

– Debra Levin Gelman

5. User Personas

A user persona is a fictional representation of your ideal customer. A persona is generally based on user research and includes the needs, goals, and observed behavior patterns of your target audience. You can find out how to create a user persona in this detailed guide .

Why Do We Create User Personas?

Whether you’re developing a smartphone app or a mobile-responsive website, any user experience research job will require you to understand who will be using the product. Knowing your audience will help influence the features and design elements you choose, thus making your product more useful. A persona clarifies who is in your target audience by answering the following questions:

• Who is my ideal customer?
• What are the current behavior patterns of my users?
• What are the needs and goals of my users?

Understanding the needs of your users is vital to developing a successful product. Well-defined personas will enable you to efficiently identify and communicate user needs. Personas will also help you describe the individuals who use your product, which is essential to your overall value proposition.

Unfortunately, creating personas can be expensive — it all depends on how deep into user research your organization is willing to go. There is also no real “scientific logic” behind persona building, which makes some people a little more hesitant to accept them.

Best Practices For User Personas

• Create a well-defined user persona: A great persona contains four key pieces of information: header, demographic profile, end goal(s), scenario.
• Keep personas brief: As a rule of thumb, avoid adding extra details that cannot be used to influence the design. If it does not affect the final design or help make any decisions easier: omit it.
• Make personas specific and realistic: Avoid exaggerated caricatures, and include enough detail to help you find real-life representation.

How To Conduct User Experience Research By Creating Personas

Creating user personas can be broken down into these main steps:

• Discuss and identify who your target users are with stakeholders (e.g. UX team, marketing team, product manager).
• Survey and/or interview real users to get their demographic information, pain points, and preferences.
• Condense the research, and look for themes to define your groups.
• Organize your groups into personas.
• Test your personas.

“Be someone else. It takes great empathy to create a good experience. To create relevant experiences, you have to forget everything you know and design for others. Align with the expected patience, level of interest, and depth of knowledge of your users. Talk in the user’s language.”

– Niko Nyman

Which User Experience Research Method Should You Use?

Now that you know more about the various user experience research methods, which one do you choose? Well, it all depends on your overall research goals.

You’ll also need to consider what stage you’re at in the design process. If you’re just starting out, you’ll want to focus on understanding your users and the underlying problem . What are you trying to solve? Who are you trying to solve it for? At this early stage in the design process, you’ll typically use a mixture of both qualitative and quantitative methods such as field studies, diary studies, surveys, and data mining.

Once you’ve established a direction for your design, you’ll start to think about actually building your product. Your UX research will now focus on evaluating your designs and making sure that they adequately address your users’ needs . So, you’ll choose research methods that can help you to optimize your designs and improve usability—such as card sorting and usability testing.

Eventually, you’ll have finalized your design and developed a working product—but this doesn’t mean your research is done! This is the ideal time to investigate how well the product performs in the real world. At this point, you’ll focus mainly on quantitative research methods , such as usability benchmarking, surveys, and A/B testing.

To help you with the task of choosing your research methods, let’s explore some important distinctions between the various techniques.

Behavioral vs. Attitudinal Research

As mentioned before, there is a big difference between “what people do” versus “what people say.” Attitudinal research is used to understand or measure attitudes and beliefs, whereas behavioral research is used to measure behaviors. For example, usability testing is a behavioral user research method that focuses on action and performance. By contrast, user research methods like user groups, interviews, and persona creation focus on how people think about a product.

UX designers often conduct task analysis to see not how users say they complete tasks in a user flow, but how they actually do.

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Research

When conducting UX research and choosing a suitable method, it’s important to understand the difference between quantitative and qualitative research.

Quantitative research   gathers data that is measurable. It gives you clear-cut figures to work with, such as how many users purchased an item via your e-commerce app, or what percentage of visitors added an item to their wishlist. “Quant methods”, as they’re sometimes called in the industry, help you to put a number on the usability of your product. They also allow you to compare different designs and determine if one version performs significantly better than another.

Qualitative research   explores the reasons or motivations behind these actions. Why did the user bounce from your website? What made them “wishlist” an item instead of purchasing it? While quantitative data is fixed, qualitative data is more descriptive and open-ended. You can learn all about qualitative research in the video guide below, in which CareerFoundry graduate and professional UX designer Maureen Herben takes you through the most common qualitative user research processes and tools.

A further distinction to make is between how qualitative and quantitative studies go about collecting data. Studies that are qualitative in nature are based on direct observation. For example, you’ll gather data about the user’s behaviours or attitudes by observing them directly in action. Quantitative studies gather this data indirectly—through an online survey, for example.

Qualitative research methods (e.g. usability testing, user groups, interviews) are better for answering questions about why or how to fix a problem, whereas quantitative methods (e.g. online surveys) are great for answering questions about how many and how much.

Ideally, you’ll use a mixture of both qualitative and quantitative methods throughout your user research, and work hard to ensure that the UX research you conduct is inclusive !

6. What Next? Conducting User Research Analysis

Once you’ve conducted extensive user research, you’ll move on to the analysis phase. This is where you’ll turn the raw data you’ve gathered into valuable insights. The purpose of UX research analysis is to interpret what the data means; what does it tell you about the product you’re designing, and the people you’re designing it for? How can you use the data you’ve gathered to inform the design process?

Watch this video to learn how to conduct user research analysis in five simple steps:

Final thoughts

“User experience research is the work that uncovers and articulates the needs of individuals and/or groups in order to inform the design of products and services in a structured manner.”

—Nick Remis, Adaptive Path

Overall, the purpose of user experience research is simple: to discover patterns and reveal unknown insights and preferences from the people who use your product. It basically provides the context for our design. Research also helps us fight the tendency to design for ourselves (or our stakeholders)—and returns the focus on designing for the user.

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

• What Does a UX Researcher Actually Do? The Ultimate Career Guide
• The Ultimate Guide to UX Research Bootcamps
• Top 5 Mistakes to Avoid in Your UX Research Portfolio
• Interview Toolkit: Top 5 UX Research Questions to Prepare For

And to get inspired, check out these 15 quotes from influential designers in the industry.

How to Do UX/UI Research and Why It Matters

Updated march 6, 2023, what is ux/ui research, how to organize your ux/ui research, research methods for ux design, research methods for ui design, finding inspiration for your ux/ui design, final thoughts, a simple yet powerful landing page builder.

Create a landing page, online store, or bio link page for Instagram and promote it by sending the link to your subscribers through email, SMS, or chatbot messages — on a single platform.

The user path — one of the components of UX — defines the trail from the very first contact of the customer with a web or mobile application to their final action. In the end, the product should turn out to be simple and easy to use, with clear and intuitive navigation. UX views the product from the consumer’s eyes and consists of the design of computer-human interaction.

User interface (UI) design is a type of design categorized by visual choices for a project. UI elements include a selection of color palettes, fonts, text boxes, buttons, and more. It also includes figuring out the layout for content pages of text and visual illustrations. All of the visuals you see when you enter a webpage are UI.

When you start working on the UI, your UX ideas should already be ready to provide a base for you to work from.

To have success in the market, you need to study it. Creating an engaging UX/UI design lies in research.

UX/UI research is a systematic study of a product’s target audience to address their needs and goals through design. It is the search, testing, improvement, and implementation of practical solutions that will serve as business benefits. The research process includes information gathering, interviews, and so on. Also, during the study, prototype pages and applications are developed based on the data obtained. Through this process, it is possible to determine the capabilities and complexities of a successful website or application design.

When conducting your research, you should remember that an uncomfortable, complicated, and visually unappealing website puts you at risk of losing customers and profits. Working on the internet and selling online , good UX/UI can become your competitive advantage. And to get winning UX/UI, you need research to give the customer everything to keep their loyalty. Determine who your competitors are and what design options they use. Their weaknesses can become your strengths by working through customer pains. You’ll be able to identify and use best practices that actually work for the leaders in your niche.

It is relevant to mention that UX/UI will not make your product better but can present it more attractively.

Before you start, it is best to fill out a brief. A brief is a list of questions to help you see the business from the owner’s point of view — i.e. someone who knows the ins and outs of the niche. Often, it is crucial to identify competitors and success stories. It would be better if, in addition to existing data, the designer could find supplementary options, perhaps from related niches. The designer can find new UX practices to provide the best user scenarios.

First of all, you should determine the size of the future project. How big is it? How many pages and how many screens will it be? Solutions to these questions will appear either when working with the brief — in preparation for your research or during the study itself. It is better to do UX first and UI after to shorten the working time when it comes to revisions.

In addition to determining the size of the project, it is also necessary to give an estimate of the complexity of the work to be done. Allocate the time required for research, prototyping, and work.

For a great result, the entire project should be perceived not from the perspective of the designer or owner but in the role of a client. Shift the focus to the client themselves and their needs. A user-centric approach is crucial to give you a better understanding of the website or mobile application’s usability. At this stage, it is worth focusing on the users’ desires, the way they think, and how they comprehend what you are offering. It’s up to you to decide how immersed you are in the process and what the communication with the target audience will be like.

Thanks to UX research, you can determine what will work best for this or that particular business and which points are most relevant. You’ll want to focus on things like:

• the number of steps needed to make a purchase;
• the amount of pages on the website, and how many the business needs;
• the ease of finding the required information, and so on.

After finishing the research, it will be possible to determine a working model. Your model should guide the customer to take a desired action — buying, ordering, subscribing, etc.

However, there are two main types of UX research in terms of collected information:

• Qualitative research (also called primary research) refers to descriptive data and seeks information that answers the question “How?” This type of UX research helps you gain insights that give you a better idea of your users’ actual experience. Qualitative research methods include target audience interviews, focus groups, and (or) ethnographic field research.
• Quantitative research is based on numerical data or data that can be transformed into usable statistics and answers the “What.” This step is usually done after qualitative research to test the collected data. Among the data collection methods used, there are multiple types of surveys, benchmarking, eye-tracking, product analytics, and so on.

To make it easier to understand, let’s look at an example. Imagine a business that wants to create a clever alarm clock app. Qualitative research will look for answers to what consumers like and dislike about standard alarm clocks and counterparts, how to make the app easy to use, and so on. The point is to get insights from users to create a user-friendly and unique app.

Quantitative research will ask other types of questions: how long it takes the interviewees to wake up, how much time they are willing to spend on the setup, how quickly the user understands the functionality, etc.

There are many UX research methods, and without knowing your specific details, it is difficult to name the best one. For example, if you already have a business and an active website with 40 original pages — UX research will help you identify the problem. In this case, the best method is eye-tracking, which monitors where the user looks on your page. This method will identify unnecessary pages that users rarely or never visit. Also, it determines the weaknesses of the main pages.

Let’s imagine another example — you have a store and no website yet. UX research will help you determine which structure the future site should have. Focus on reducing the number of clicks customers need to take before making a purchase from you.

Likewise, interviews and surveys for a target audience are a great UX research option if you’re at the beginning of the product development cycle. Interviews are one-on-one dialogs with users meant to gain detailed information about their reactions, attitudes, desires, and experiences. A survey, in its turn, is usually a set of questions used to find out the preferences and opinions of a targeted group of users on a given topic. Both options can take place either online or offline, depending on the conditions of the study.

A/B testing is one of the best options to quickly get some data on your UX models. It usually occurs when there are some ready prototypes or design guidelines. This research setup entails groups of people testing different variations of a design. Typically, their real-time reactions and path is tracked. The results are used to determine the most impactful steps and elements, options that don’t work, and the best-performing design ideas.

The data you collect will help you identify certain groups and patterns among your participants that likely generalize to your audience. If the number of results is large, the survey results can be considered a more statistically accurate way to gauge the opinions and preferences of your target audience. Ideally, you want to make use of both qualitative and quantitative data points. However, sometimes there is a good deal of overlap between each data type. Generally, it is best to get as much data as possible and work with all of it, but don’t sweat it if you’re just getting started — you have plenty of time to gather more data along the way.

As mentioned before, UI design is done based on a previously developed UX structure. During the UI research and development, you establish the visual style of your project.

To understand UI, you need to determine how many of the existing elements are ready and usable. Look for things like existing design elements, brand colors, logos, and so on. Maybe what you find doesn’t meet all the product requirements or there may be no existing branding — in that case, you’ll have to develop it from scratch. Observe how others handle visual solutions and how they organize colors, frameworks, and fonts.

Make a mood board of the design elements that you like. You can use constructors or any design app you are comfortable with for this purpose. For example, Canva is a convenient platform for making a mood board.

At the stage of coloring and visual design, it’s time to make some sketches. It makes sense to start from the simple parts and move to more interactive ones with color solutions. Try several variants and determine the ones that work best in your case.

Thanks to research, you can find the right visual decisions and text style for your brand. Furthermore, research solves dilemmas on commanding user attention.

At this point, you’ll need to look at a lot of projects and options to determine the best one. Below are three great platforms to serve as inspiration for your UI. They can also help you find UX references.

Behance — an Adobe-owned social network showcases creative work. You’ll find a large amount of work of all kinds here — illustrations, mockups, sample sites, and so on.

Dribbble — a social networking site that collects the best work and publishes many projects by industry professionals. It also serves not only as a site that features digital works but also as an online portfolio.

Awwwards , unlike the previous ones, is a professional network for awarding websites based on their design and development. In other words, it’s like an online contest, with juries and rankings, a great site to see innovative ideas and be inspired by the work of others.

On these sites, many brands even outsource project executors. Sometimes this option will be better and more convenient.

Even though colors are more of a marketing thing, it’s crucial to look at combinations and have a palette of colors to use. A great site to pick a color palette is Coolors . There you will find a ready-made set, or you can make up your own.

UX creates the structural basis for UI design and development, and the latter serves to complement and decorate the former. A good UI/UX design will promote the individuality and uniqueness of a product.

The results of UX research will be a convenient, understandable, and effective logic flow for your site or application. UI research will emphasize the merits of UX with the right visual solutions. The output should be a harmonious result.

Starting with good research is necessary for the results of the project to be relevant and bring the desired effect. Research makes it possible to create a client-oriented project so that your message is easy to understand and your site or app navigation is intuitive. All of this affects the success of the product and has a direct impact on how it is perceived.

A good practice is watching videos and reading articles on relevant topics. Also, looking at sites with examples of other designers’ work, identifying best practices and bad design decisions. Feel free to spy on your competitors. Try out their website or app’s functionality, and follow the scenarios that really work!

Date of publication:

July 13, 2021

Mariia is currently working as a content manager at Koroka Solutions. She writes articles and creates the company’s branded look...

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UX Research Cheat Sheet

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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.

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What is the UX research process? Why is it important? What are its stages?

These are only some of the questions that the article tackles. It also outlines a 9-step guide on how to conduct UX research for product managers and UX designers.

Let’s dive in!

• The UX research process is a sequence of steps to collect and analyze data on user interactions with the product to better understand their needs and preferences .
• It’s essential to build user-friendly products that satisfy their needs and offer a positive customer experience . It also helps teams empathize with users and foster customer-centric organizational cultures.
• The UX research process consists of 4 main stages, Discovery , Exploring, Testing, and Listening, which follow the development process and during which it becomes increasingly more specific.
• Each UX research project should start with goal setting and formulating research questions. In other words, decide what problem you want to solve.
• Next, choose the research audience. That’s whose problems you want to solve,
• Based on goals and audience, select a range of research techniques, like surveys , interviews, or user behavior tracking .
• To recruit research participants, reach out to your existing users or tap into the pool of participants that your analytics tool may offer.
• Talking of tools … choosing the right ones for your project is the next step. You may need a solution to collect feedback, track product usage , and create wireframes and prototypes .
• The next step involves data analysis. This includes data from your analytics tools (e.g. trends or funnel analysis ), customer feedback, or session recordings.
• Having extracted insights from the data, share them with other teams and key stakeholders to sync your efforts and ensure alignment with business goals.
• Improving UX may require a major redesign . However, you can achieve a lot with onboarding UI patterns that guide users through the product and help them achieve their goals.
• After implementing changes, test their impact and iterate to further enhance the design.
• Want to see how Userpilot can help UX researchers? Book the demo!

What is the UX research process?

The UX research process is a methodical sequence of steps that helps product teams understand user needs , behaviors, and preferences .

UX research uses different research methods like user behavior analysis and feedback to validate ideas and solutions in real-life conditions.

Why is an effective user research process crucial?

An effective UX research process is essential for several reasons.

First, you can’t build a product that meets user expectations if you don’t understand their needs, behaviors, and motivations.

Second, UX research provides valuable insights that can guide product design, ensuring that the final product is user-friendly and intuitive to use. This often translates into higher user satisfaction and retention .

Moreover, user research can identify potential obstacles and pain points and enables the design team to address these issues proactively.

Finally, it teaches teams to look at the product design process through their eyes, and so it fosters a customer-centric design culture within the organization,

Overall, UX research is the foundation for designing and building a successful and competitive product in the market.

What are the 4 phases of the UX project process?

The 4 main stages of UX research are Discovery, Exploring, Testing, and Listening.

Let’s have a closer look at each of them and the user research methods that you can use for them.

Discovery phase

The aim of the discovery phase is to give you a general understanding of user needs and the context in which you’re building the product. It enables you to find out what you don’t know and provides a focus for the rest of the research process.

Common discovery techniques include:

• Field studies
• Diary studies
• User interviews
• Stakeholder interviews
• Requirements and constraints gathering

Exploring phase

In the exploring phase, you try to gain a better understanding of user problems and the scope of the design process. During this stage, teams brainstorm different design approaches and test early-stage ideas.

Techniques that can help you during the Exploring phase include:

• Competitive analysis
• Design review
• Persona building
• Task analysis
• Journey mapping
• Prototype feedback and testing (clickable or paper prototypes)
• User stories
• Card sorting

Testing phase

The testing phase involves more granular tests and experiments to ensure that the design in development is intuitive and easy to use for users with different needs and expectations.

What research methods can you use during this phase?

• Qualitative usability testing (in-person or remote)
• Benchmark testing
• Accessibility evaluation

Listening phase

The purpose of the listening phase is to collect insights on how well the product is satisfying existing user problems. It also enables teams to discover new opportunities to further enhance the product.

During listening, teams use a range of qualitative and quantitative methods, like:

• Product analytics reviews
• Search-log analysis
• Usability-bug reviews
• Frequently-asked-questions (FAQ) reviews

9 steps for conducting UX research to gain valuable insights

With the theory covered, let’s look at how to conduct user research, step-by-step.

1. Define the objectives for your research project

Start by setting the goals for the research project.

For example, your objective may be to find out why users drop off in the user journey and identify ways to retain them. Or you could look for improvements to the onboarding process to help users adopt the features that are relevant to their goals.

Having clear goals will give the project the necessary focus, help you align your team, choose the right research methods, allocate resources efficiently, and recruit the right users.

2. Identify the target audience to be researched

If you’re in SaaS, your user base is not likely to be homogenous. This means that not all of your users will necessarily face the same challenges or pain points. Consequently, they may not be able to provide the insights you’re after.

How do you choose the right target audience then?

Use your product analytics tools or customer feedback to identify the relevant segments or user cohorts.

For example, if you see users dropping off at a particular stage of the funnel , group them together and look for common characteristics. This could be users from a specific demographic group or with a particular job role. Zero in on those.

3. Select the right UX research methods

We have briefly touched on research methods earlier. Let’s have a closer look at a few common ones that you can use at multiple stages of the project.

User experience surveys

User surveys are one of the most popular research methods.

There are a few good reasons for that.

First, they’re easy to run at scale. You can easily trigger them inside the app or deliver them online to thousands of users at once.

Second, they allow you to collect both quantitative and qualitative data . It’s a common practice to start surveys with a closed-ended question and follow up with an open-ended one.

For example, you could start by asking users to rate how easy it is to perform a task or use a feature on a Likert scale, and then justify their response in the next one.

In this way, you’ll be able to gauge what user sentiment is and understand why they’re feeling like that.

Finally, you can target specific user segments with your surveys to ensure the validity of your research.

User interviews/focus groups

User interviews and focus groups are even more effective for collecting qualitative feedback from your users. That’s because you can follow up on user responses in real time and further explore the ideas that they bring up.

That’s if you have the right interviewing skills. Users are often unable to articulate their reasons clearly or simply don’t know why they act in a particular way.

For example, if you ask users what criteria contribute to a good user experience, they may not be able to say. However, if you ask them to tell you about the last time they had a great user experience and what made it stand out, you may get more actionable insights from them.

To reap the benefits that user interviews offer, prepare carefully, for example using a template like the one below. In this way, you will make sure you use the interview time well.

User behavior data

As all user interactions with SaaS products are digital, they’re easy to track.

You can collect data on literally every user click , tap, scroll, or hover. Apart from individual user actions, you can also bundle them up into custom events, and track them as one.

Such data is invaluable for UX researchers as it is objective and can help you identify patterns in user behavior that you may need to address.

For example, you can analyze feature usage data for particular user segments to identify the features that churned users don’t use. You can then drill down into their usage patterns to understand why they don’t use them.

Usability testing

The aim of usability tests is to determine how easy it is to use the product.

You can do this by giving users a task to complete and watching how they get on with it.

Let’s imagine you’re testing a new onboarding checklist.

You give it to users to complete and offer a reward for completing it as an incentive. Then you could record how they go about finishing the tasks and analyze it for insights.

Popular usability testing techniques are:

• Guerilla testing – you ‘ambush’ users in a public place, like a cafe, and ask them to experiment with the product
• Five-second test – you show the user a part of the product, like a feature, for 5 seconds and then interview them to see if they could understand the purpose of the feature, how they felt about its design or what was their general impression of the product or brand.
• First-click testing – a technique that evaluates how intuitive the product is: do they know where to click first when they need to complete a task?
• Eye tracking – by tracking the visual interactions with the page or product dashboard , you can test different layouts and designs for distractions that prevent users from finding the right features or UI elements.

4. Recruit participants for gathering research findings

If you’ve got an existing product, you can recruit testers from your user base.

Just target the specific user segment with a modal and invite them to take part in an experiment. You can also reach out to users who took part in your fake door tests and give them an opportunity to play around with the feature.

For brand-new products, you can recruit participants via tools like Hotjar. The application gives you access to a pool of 200k+ users from different backgrounds.

5. Choose a tool for conducting user research

Based on the research method you’ve chosen, pick the right tool for your study.

Here are a few options worth considering:

• Miro, Adobe XD, Webflow, and Figma for wireframing and prototyping
• Hotjar, and Userpilot for analytics
• Optimizely and Userpilot for experimentation
• Typeform, Userpilot, and SurveyMonkey for feedback collection

When choosing the tool, consider its own UX design and how easy it is to use. Also, pay attention to their integrations so that you can easily embed them in your workflow.

6. Analyze the research data to gather insights

How you analyze collected data during your research sessions depends on your goals.

Let’s look at a few common types of analysis and the insights they can offer.

Trend analysis

Trend analysis involves visualizing and analyzing changes in a metric over a period of time.

What other insights can trend analysis offer to UX researchers?

• Trend analysis can help you identify shifts or changes in user behavior over time, allowing them to adapt designs and interfaces to better match evolving user preferences.
• You can track adoption rates of specific features to understand what aspects of the product are gaining traction with users.
• By tracking trends in user satisfaction scores or feedback, you can gauge the success of design changes or product updates.
• Trend analysis can reveal if usability metrics like task completion rates are improving or declining so that you can tweak the UI accordingly.

User feedback analysis

As mentioned, customer feedback is invaluable when it comes to understanding user behaviors and their preferences.

How do you do it efficiently?

Quantitative analysis is not a problem. If your tool doesn’t offer a dashboard with key metrics, you can fairly easily analyze and visualize the data for trends in a spreadsheet.

Qualitative analysis is a bit more challenging. Or at least it used to be until recently.

Thanks to AI, you can now analyze huge numbers of open-ended user responses for trends and patterns. Many feedback solutions , like Userpilot, also allow you to tag and group them to facilitate analysis.

Funnel analysis

Funnel analysis looks into user conversions at the main touchpoints and milestones in the user journey.

For example, you could track how users progress from signup to conversion to paid customers, or from visiting your e-commerce site to making a purchase.

It’s an intuitive technique that allows even non-technical teams to identify bottlenecks that prevent users from progressing or slow them down.

It’s enough to look at the chart to spot the stages where users experience friction because that’s where they drop off. If you can’t see this straight away, a quick look at how long it takes users to convert will reveal the friction points.

Session recordings

Session recordings are an excellent tool for in-depth analysis of user interactions with UI elements on the page.

As the name suggests, you use software like Truestory, Hotjar, or Heap to record everything that the user does on the screen.

Thanks to that, you can identify usability issues in the design. For example, users may not be able to find a feature that’s relevant to their use case, rage-click on an unclickable element, or don’t scroll far enough to access crucial information.

7. Share research insights with key stakeholders

Sharing your user experience research findings with stakeholders is an important part of the process.

For starters, it improves their ability to make informed decisions about product features, design changes, and the overall product strategy.

Moreover, sharing UX research results helps you bridge the gap between the design team and the key decision-makers and ensure that design decisions are aligned with business goals.

Finally, it creates a shared understanding between all teams involved in the product development process and improves collaboration.

8. Implement findings and optimize the user experience

There’s no point in conducting UX research if you don’t act on the insights!

How do you implement them?

As always, it depends on the nature of the problem.

Let’s imagine your users struggle to find the right features in the menu because it’s too cluttered. A simple solution would be to simplify the menu and personalize it for users with different user cases using data from welcome surveys.

Another example:

If users keep getting stuck on a particular task, you could trigger contextual UI patterns , like tooltips or hotspots, to guide them through.

9. Iterate and improve key performance metrics

When you test the UX design changes before rolling them out for all users, you increase the chances that they will move the needle in the right direction.

However, it doesn’t mean things can’t be better.

As users engage with the design, keep tracking their behavior, collecting feedback, and interviewing to identify further areas for optimization.

Then, implement the changes, and test again.

Rinse and repeat.

UX research process can help you make your product more intuitive and inclusive for users. By responding to their pain points and challenges and catering to their needs, you also boost their satisfaction and loyalty. This translates into better business performance.

If you’d like to see how Userpilot can help you with UX research, book the demo!

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A 7-step adaptable UX research process

Every team knows how important great UX research is for satisfying and converting users. But with so many tasks to juggle, research can get pushed to the bottom of the workflow. 

You conduct research—but only in response to stakeholder requests, user complaints, or a major new web or product launch. By then, it’s too late for your research to shape your design. The result? Scrappy research and a missed opportunity to forge your product around user needs.

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Be proactive rather than reactive by implementing a solid user experience (UX) research process from the start. Stay tuned to learn how to structure a flexible, 7-step research process that will guide your product development and design thinking to help you generate customer delight.

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Why a strong UX research process is key

The UX research process acts as the foundation for all other stages of UX design and product development.

Mar P., product researcher at Hotjar, says: “The main goal of UX research is to create a product that works for your users and your business. It's about understanding real user problems so the team can work on solutions and move away from assumptions that can lead to bad product decisions. ”

Without a strong UX research process, you’ll end up with frustrated users, low conversion and customer loyalty rates, high error and churn rates, and costly redesigns. In short, if you rely on guesswork rather than research , users suffer—and so do your business objectives and team.

What are the benefits of great UX research? 

Great UX research helps you make confident UX decisions. 

It lets you validate your assumptions and weed out unpromising ideas before you waste resources on them, and ensures your product is designed to delight users from the start. 

Ongoing UX research is crucial to cultivating empathy for users throughout your organization . User experience data helps you solve problems and continually optimize your platform or product to meet user needs, and gives you the insights you need to get stakeholder buy-in on fixes and redesigns.

UX research is critical in validating that a team’s concepts are on the right track. It fosters alignment between an idea and the reality of what users actually want and need. UX research also allows teams to ‘fail early’ and adapt before large sums of time and money are spent.

The UX research process

Clearly, research is critical to UX design and development success. 

So it can’t just happen sporadically to put out customer or stakeholder fires, or when you happen to find yourself with extra time—which, let's be honest, never happens .

Instead, engage in a structured UX research process to prioritize research and infuse all stages of UX design with data insights.

But remember: a structured process doesn’t mean a rigid process. There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to UX research: the best processes are flexible, adaptable, and tailored to the unique needs of your users, team, and business. 

Use our guide to establish a solid UX research process—tweaking it throughout to fit your workflow, company culture, and customer types.

You want your UX research to inform decisions, rather than post-rationalize decisions that have already been made without customer input. That’s why you need to define a research process.

7 steps for user research with impact

Our step-by-step guide to UX research is based on lean UX design principles, meaning continuous iteration, testing, and user feedback are central. 

Lean UX is based on an agile cycle with three phases: 

Think: brainstorming and reflecting on areas for improvement 

Make: creating new designs or features to solve user problems

Check: testing assumptions and verifying designs with real customers 

UX research is a non-linear process—research doesn’t end when design and development begin. The best research centers on continuous discovery at every stage, and involves circling back and forth between those stages. 

These 7 steps will get you well on your way:

1. Clarify your goals 

Clear goals will help you define the process, efficiently distribute resources, get stakeholders on board, and maximize the user insights you uncover .

Start by formulating hypotheses and topics of interest based on the potential problems and opportunities you want to learn more about. These might emerge from previous research, new opportunities you’ve identified, or from creative brainstorming. 

Then, define the key UX research questions you want to answer . These might center on user behavior (why are customers abandoning carts?), on different UX design options (which new CTA option performs best?), or on customer goals (which new features would most improve the user experience?). 

Pro tip : design user questions that are focused but flexible enough to allow for free discovery. Don’t go in armed with too many assumptions and don’t ask leading questions. Make sure you leave space to discover new information from your users that might not have occurred to you. Set up Hotjar’s Feedback widget to collect open-ended feedback from users to start.

Next, make sure you contextualize UX research goals in line with larger organizational objectives and success metrics: how will decreasing cart abandonment impact conversions and revenue, for example? 

Finally, explain to key stakeholders what you’re doing—and why—to get their support and maximize the reach of your research.  

It’s important to set research goals around current problems. For instance, if we need to offer an advanced search function for an ecommerce website, the goal will be to find the best solution for our users that’s easy to implement from the development perspective.

2. Define your research methods

Once you’ve set goals and designed user questions, decide what kinds of research you’ll do and the type of data you want to collect. 

Use a variety of methods to cover all the bases and fill potential gaps. These will depend on your user and business needs, and the resources you have available. 

Make sure you include both attitudinal and behavioral UX research methods .  

Behavioral research is about observing how users act. Heatmaps, A/B testing, user recordings, and eye-tracking are all important sources you can use to understand user behavior data.

Attitudinal research tells you how users are thinking and feeling . This often involves asking them directly through surveys, focus groups, customer interviews, concept testing, and card sorting.

If you rely on only one of these, you’ll be missing out on the big picture. Combining behavioral and attitudinal research fills in the gaps between what users say and what they actually do , which don’t always align.

Seek to also explore a mix of qualitative and quantitative UX data. 

Quantitative studies put a number on user behavior. Analyzing the number of users who scrolled past your CTA or clicked in frustration where they couldn’t find a button will help you spot patterns in clickthroughs, conversions, user engagement, and retention. 

Qualitative data uncovers the reasons behind these patterns. They’re opportunities to learn what your users really think and help you understand their needs more deeply.  

Remember: Hotjar’s tools combine behavioral and attitudinal research methods through a blend of quantitative and qualitative data. Use Hotjar Surveys and Feedback widgets to collect voice-of-customer (VoC) feedback, and Heatmaps and Session Recordings to round out the picture with behavioral insights.

3. Dive into discovery

Once you’ve set up research questions and UX analysis methods, the next step is to jump into the discovery phase, where the spotlight should be on speaking to your customers and understanding what they need to convert. 

Seek to develop a deep understanding of your users, the problems they experience, and what will help them with their jobs to be done. 

User interviews are a great way to start—video tools like UserInterview can really help when paired with Hotjar's brilliant interview tips .

Check out our in-depth guide to UX research tools that can help streamline the process.  

You should also: 

Observe customers using other similar sites (lab studies are great, but you can also use session recordings to see how users behave in their own environment)

Deploy Hotjar Feedback widgets to learn what users are thinking while they browse and understand blocks in navigation

Use surveys to ask users questions about their current and ideal experience

Run competitive analyses and conduct market research to understand the UX offered by other companies and identify areas of improvement and exploration

Make sure to ask customers open-ended questions about their experiences and what they’d like to see, as well as targeted questions around navigating particular product pages or features. For example, are they finding all the information they need to confidently complete the checkout process? You might discover that your users like to check out reviews before making a final decision, so making reviews more accessible could help UX and conversions alike.

4. Dig deeper and explore

Use the insights from the discovery phase as a starting point, then get more specific and home in on answering your specific UX research questions and really understanding your users at a granular level.  

Map out customer journeys and develop user personas and stories to clarify and communicate the information you’ve learned. 

You should also use your discoveries to inform preliminary idea development, design sketches, and wireframes and prototypes.

Maybe you’re losing customers at the checkout stage, and discovery phase feedback has suggested it could be because you don’t have a ‘guest checkout’ option, forcing users to sign up for a full account, which creates friction if they’re browsing your site on mobile.

Start by validating the guest checkout idea with your users, then design and test different iterations through prototypes, mockups, and card sorting experiments. 

5. Iterate and test

Once you have a working model of your website or product redesign, focus on testing the user experience to refine it. 

Here's how:

Start with usability testing to ensure that your website hierarchies, user flow, and search filters make sense. Run A/B and multivariate testing to see which designs users respond to best, and use heatmaps to see exactly where they're clicking and scrolling. 

Make sure you also evaluate accessibility: is the guest checkout option easy to find? Is it visible to users across different devices, and with different vision needs? 

Next, go deeper: seek to build a complete picture of the UX and how it facilitates and blocks users from getting their needs met.

Observe users in action. Use Hotjar Heatmaps to identify click and scroll patterns and Session Recordings to track the entire user journey. This helps the UX team see what their customers see, which is crucial at this testing stage when you’re often too close to the design to understand the experience from the outside. 

Look at the page elements customers are engaging with, and which ones they’re scrolling past. Filter session recordings by rage clicks to see where users may be clicking in frustration expecting a button or action. Pay special attention to dissatisfied customers or users who didn’t complete key conversion actions, and understand what their journey looks like.

Complement this understanding of user behavior with qualitative interviews and survey methods that will help you understand their motivations and product experience (PX). 

6. Evaluate and communicate research findings

By now, you’ve collected many research insights. Organize your data using categories and tags, focusing on user pain points . Look for key patterns and recurring issues—and once you’ve identified them, ask users more questions if needed.

Make your research insights searchable, manipulable, and easily accessible by everyone on the team.

Then, engage in cross-functional communication outside the core UX team. Make sure you keep different departments informed and involved with your UX research process. 

Create UX analysis reports and engage stakeholders with comprehensive UX and user storytelling and strong product narratives. But make sure you also share key nuggets of user data along the way, so your research insights filter throughout the whole organization.

Pro tip : use Hotjar Highlights to easily share user recording clips, screenshots, heatmap snippets, and VoC quotes throughout your company. You can also use the Slack integration to automatically keep different departments up to date!

7. Put your research into action

The UX research data you gather is a potential goldmine. It can help you prioritize brilliantly and boost user satisfaction, engagement, and retention. But only if you turn those insights into action . 

You need to put the data to work in making key UX design decisions. 

Use your UX research insights to prioritize fixes and product updates . Focus on urgent issues that are affecting key metrics and blocking users from meeting their needs. 

Heatmaps and session recordings can help you quickly spot low-hanging fruit. You might find you could drastically improve conversions by positioning your CTA differently or making your signup form more streamlined and intuitive. 

For larger design opportunities that will require significant resources, UX research data can help you to justify the cost to stakeholders.

I follow the process of finding patterns in the data, pulling at least one insight from each identified pattern, and then creating at least one design recommendation or design principle for each insight. When you are designing you can easily refer back to your identified design principles and requirements to help guide your decision making and have data-supported designs when it’s time for handoff.

Building the UX research process into your design culture

UX research isn’t a one-time activity to be forgotten about once you begin designing and developing. 

The UX research process should happen continuously, influencing all other aspects of UX design and product development. Ongoing research, testing, and user conversations are all part of confident, user-led design thinking. 

Prioritizing brilliant UX research will improve your design culture, boost conversions, and keep users engaged and delighted.  

FAQs on the UX research process:

Is ux research important.

UX research is hugely important in data-informed UX design. The UX research process acts as the foundation for all other stages of UX design and development.

Great UX research gives you confidence in your UX decisions, lets you test your assumptions and weed out unpromising ideas before you waste resources on them, and ensures your product is designed to delight users from the start. 

UX research is crucial to cultivating empathy for users throughout your organization . It helps you to problem-solve and continually optimize your platform or product to meet user needs, and gives you the evidence you need to get stakeholder buy-in on fixes and redesigns.

Should I do attitudinal or behavioral UX research?

Use both attitudinal and behavioral UX research methods.  

Behavioral research is about observing how users act. Heatmaps, A/B testing, user recordings, and eye-tracking are all important sources of user behavior data.

If you rely on only one of these, you’ll be missing a big part of the picture. Combining behavioral and attitudinal research methods fills in the gaps between what users say and what they actually do , which don’t always align.

What’s the best UX research process?

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution to UX research. The best processes are flexible and tailored to the unique needs of your users, team, and business. 

We recommend a 7-step, adaptable UX research process: 

Clarify your goals

Define your research methods

Dive into discovery

Dig deeper and explore

Iterate and test

Evaluate and communicate your research findings

Put your research into action

UX research guide

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UX research questions

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User Research: What It Is and Why You Should Do It

User research is an essential part of UX design. Unless we understand who we are designing for and why, how can we even know what to create or where to begin? Depending on your project, requirements and constraints, you can choose different types of research methods, from surveys and tests to interviews and the most common method — usability testing. Here, we’ll look at what user research is, and the three most common reasons for doing user research — namely, to create designs that are truly relevant, to create designs that are easy and pleasurable to use, and to understand the return on investment of your user experience (UX) design .

What is User Research?

User research, or “design research,” as it’s sometimes called, covers a wide range of methods. It can mean anything from doing ethnographic interviews with your target group, to classical usability studies, to quantitative measurements of return on investment (ROI) on your user experience design. What all user research has in common is that it helps place people at the center of your design process and your products . You use user research to inspire your design, to evaluate your solutions, and to measure your impact. User research (and other kinds of research) is often divided into quantitative and qualitative methods.

Surveys and formal experiments such as A/B testing and tree testing are examples of quantitative research tools. Quantitative user research methods seek to measure user behavior in a way that can be quantified and used for statistical analysis.

Interviews and (to some degree) usability tests are examples of qualitative research tools. These are often more exploratory and seek to get an in-depth understanding of the experiences and everyday lives of individual users or user groups.

Each research method has benefits and drawbacks. As such, each can be used for achieving different goals. Which method you choose depends on what you want to achieve as well as a number of practical concerns, such as what type of project you are working on, your budget and your time constraints. With that in mind, let’s look at some different reasons for why you should involve users in your design process.

Three Good Reasons for Doing User Research

“ Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task.” — Tim Brown, CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO

The type of user research you should do depends on your work process as well as your reason for doing user research in the first place. Here are three excellent reasons for doing user research:

1. To Create Designs That are Truly Relevant

If you understand your users, you can make designs that are relevant for them. If you don’t have a clear understanding of your users, you have no way of knowing whether your design will be relevant. A design that is not relevant to its target audience will never be a success .

The first step and core of the design thinking process is to empathize with your users. User research is one of the best ways to do that. Conducting different types of interviews and observing people in the contexts where they will use your design is a common method of doing this type of user research. We often place this type of research at the very beginning of a project to ensure that the overall direction for the project is relevant to potential customers and users. In order to ensure that your design continues to be relevant as your project progresses, validating your ideas with prospective users on a continuous basis is a vital habit to stick to. Talk to them about how they perceive your design and how they could imagine using it, or involve them directly in your design process, to ensure that you are still on the right track.

Let’s look at an example: In 2005, Korean consumer electronics giant Samsung did a number of ethnographic user studies that completely changed the way it thought about designing TVs. Together with the innovation and strategy consultancy ReD Associates, Samsung representatives visited people in different countries to observe how they live and to talk to them about their homes and the TV’s role in their homes. What they found surprised them. At the time, Samsung and most other TV manufacturers primarily designed their TVs with technical specs such as high-quality picture and sound in mind. The TVs were designed to show off their technical capabilities, but what Samsung found when visiting people was that they viewed a TV more like a piece of furniture . As a TV is turned off most of the time, people do not want it to dominate their living room. So, rather than show off their expensive TV with all its technological capabilities, they tried to hide it away as much as possible.

Following this insight, Samsung changed its design strategy radically, moving the inbuilt speakers to make the TV slimmer and creating a subtler, minimalistic design that would fit more seamlessly into people’s living rooms. Technical capabilities were still important, but they had to be balanced with design choices that made the TVs fit into people’s homes. “Home” was the watchword here, and Samsung got hard to work on the transformation. The challenge involved getting away from treating a living room like a showroom or sports bar, and going for “harmony” instead. By 2007, Samsung had doubled its share in the global TV market because it had proven to understand how to make its TVs relevant to its customers.

User research made Samsung change its TV design strategy to focus on making more minimalistic designs that fit into the customer’s home. Although TVs have not become smaller, everything extraneous has been removed. As we see here, the TV functions as a gallery-sized moving picture — with all the “bells and whistles” discreetly housed — light-years away from the old notion of “peacocking” its technical prowess as if it were a James Bond gadget.

2. To Create Designs That are Easy and Pleasurable to Use

“If the user is having a problem, it’s our problem.” — Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Computers

All products should have a high level of usability (i.e., be easy to use ), and usability tests can be a big help in achieving that. The days when programmed technology was a tool only to be used by experts are long gone. People expect products to be easy to learn and easy to use. They expect to pick them up and do things with them while only thinking about what they hope to achieve, not having to think about the products themselves. If your user experience is not good, chances are that people will move on to another product . Unless you work in a field with no competitors, a high level of usability (and a matching high-quality user experience) is essential in making any product a commercial success. Not to mention that your users will love you for creating a great user experience. Even if you are designing products for — e.g. — a highly specialized work environment where the users have no alternatives, products with a high level of usability will make work processes faster, safer and more efficient.

Wikiwand is a good example of a company that operates solely on providing a great user experience. Their product is a browser plugin which changes the design of Wikipedia articles to make them more appealing and user-friendly. Wikiwand does not provide different content from the classic Wikipedia webpage, but the company has thousands of users who praise it for the awesome user experience it delivers.

To the left is the classic Wikipedia interface; to the right is the Wikiwand version of the same article. The content is the same, but the experience is different.

When you are designing or developing a product, you become the primary expert on how to use it and what functionalities it has. Because you know your own product so well, however, you can become blind to functionality in your product that is difficult to use. As designers, we need that level of understanding of our products, but it also means that we can all too easily shift far away from the same perspective as our users. The author has personally participated in many projects where the designers know the ideas behind the interface and functionality of a product so well that separating the understandable from the not-so understandable is really difficult for them. This tendency of seeing things from the point of view of one’s profession — what we call “déformation professionnelle” — and not stepping back to catch the reality of what’s going on from a fresh, generalist angle is a natural one, incidentally.

Happily, though, you can avoid a lot of usability issues by following various guidelines and rules of thumb, but there will always be situations that the guidelines don’t cover, or where different guidelines tell you different things. You might also be designing for a target group such as seniors or children where the regular guidelines do not apply. That means testing the user experience of your product is always a good idea. Usability tests work best when they are an integrated part of your work process so that you test your product iteratively and from an early stage of development onward. Early tests are what we can do on primitive prototypes — e.g., using paper; from there, we progress to more refined prototypes until we have something that resembles the final product. If you only start testing when you have an almost-finished product, you run a very serious risk in that your findings might come too late for you to make larger changes to the product. For instance, if all the software is done or if you can’t push your release date, you’ll have your back against the wall. So, stay fluid with your design until the very end of the process — it’s amazing what insights can come from an eleventh-hour test of the ‘last’ version you have planned for rollout.

3. To Understand the Return on Investment of Your UX Design

Although the importance of good design has become widely recognized, UX designers and researchers still experience having to fight for resources to enable them to do their work. Executives and shareholders sometimes fail to see the value in investing in user research and UX design. UX design and user research is not as tangible as new features or fixing software bugs; so, overlooking their value can happen all the more easily. If resources become scarce, UX is also often one of the first areas to experience cuts; the reason is that consequences are not as immediately felt as when you save on development or similar areas. If you make cuts in say, software development, you can immediately see that the consequences involve cutting back on features or having buggy software; however, if you make cuts in UX, you don’t experience the consequences until your product reaches your users, and when your competitors attract your users towards them.

We can easily argue for the value of great UX; it is much more effective if we can show it. This is where studies to show the return on investment (ROI) on UX efforts are worth their weight in gold (or the weight, at least, of the printouts). If you can show that the changes you made in the design generated more sales, resulted in a larger number of customers, or made work processes more efficient, you have a much stronger case for investing in UX. User studies to measure the effect of your design are mostly quantitative and can take different forms. You can do A/B tests during development that compare different versions of your design, or you can do studies after your product is released to measure differences in use patterns. With apps and webpages, you often build in different types of analytics to inform you of different user patterns.

The global online marketplace Etsy is a good example of a company that has built its success on a focus on customer experience throughout the entire customer journey and that continuously measures the user experience. 

For example , Etsy routinely tests different versions of user interfaces to constantly improve the platform’s usability as well as business metrics. Etsy's continued position as one of the largest online marketplaces is a result of its rigorous focus on usability, research and testing.

The world’s most successful companies continually test and iterate their products, as is evident in their A/B tests. Here is one of several that GoodUI has been tracking. You can see more such “leaked” tests from AirBnb, Amazon, Booking, Netflix and others on their website.

The Take Away

Here, we have shown three good reasons for doing user research and we have touched on when in your design process you can integrate user research. Here are the three reasons again:

Do user research to ensure that you create products that are truly relevant to your target group.

Do user research to ensure that your products deliver a great user experience.

Do user research to show the ROI of your design efforts.

You can — and should — do user studies at all stages of the design process. You do studies before you start designing so as to get an understanding of what your target group needs ; you carry out iterative tests during development to ensure that the user experience is on track, and you can measure the effect of your design after your product is released. This “holy trinity” approach can keep you three steps ahead as every dimension of your release will have been considered, analyzed, and tested before you sit down to see the results of the ultimate test (the ROI), more confident that you’ve got a winning design.

References and Where to Learn More

For an in-depth coverage of different user research methods, take the following courses:

User Research – Methods and Best Practices

Data-Driven Design: Quantitative Research for UX

In this interview, founder of Wikiwand, Lior Grossman explains the company’s approach to designing a more usable encyclopedia.

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 3.0

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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 .

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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/

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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.

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11 Research Methods Every UX Designer Should Know

Written by: Guest Contributor

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Almost every successful product or service has benefited from some form of user experience research, whether a company has hired a whole team of user researchers to conduct focus groups and user interviews, sent out a quick survey, or simply asked friends and family for their feedback.

And while UX research is itself a distinct profession that requires formal training, UX/UI designers should still familiarize themselves with common UX research methods if they want to up their game. “Empathy is at the heart of design,” said Tim Brown, CEO of design firm IDEO . “Without understanding what others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task.”

The Interaction Design Foundation builds on that idea, encouraging designers to engage in UX research because:

• It helps them build products and services that are relevant to their users;
• It helps them create designs that are easy and pleasurable to use; and
• It helps them understand the return on investment of their designs

Understanding the different methodologies and insights that UX research offers can also improve collaboration and communication between designers and researchers, product managers, engineers. And, in the event that a UX designer doesn’t have access to a research team, they can take their own steps toward gaining insights into users’ behavior, motivations, pain points, and needs.

Related: What is UX Design?

What Are UX Research Methods?

User experience research serves many purposes , from identifying users’ needs and goals to understanding user behaviors, validating or debunking assumptions, pinpointing problems within a product or service, and coming up with potential solutions. In order to get into users’ heads and understand the user experience, researchers use a range of user research methods that generally fall into one of two categories: quantitative research and qualitative research . Quantitative research methods, also known as quant research, typically concern numerical data. These methods try to identify what problems exist, where they exist, and how many users are affected by the issue. The goal of quantitative methods is to identify trends of statistical significance so that design teams can resolve problems as they arise, understand what’s working, and pivot if their assumptions are off base. Common quant research methods include analytics, surveys, A/B testing, and eye-tracking testing.

Qualitative research methods , also known as qual research, typically concern user behaviors, motivations, and attitudes. Where quant research tries to answer questions like where and how much , qualitative research attempts to shed light on why . The goal of qualitative research methods is to understand why a problem exists, how users think or feel about a product, service, or feature, and what possible solutions or improvements could be introduced. Common qualitative research methods include interviews, focus groups, open-ended surveys, diary studies, and usability testing.

Why Are UX Research Methods Important?

“If you want a great site, you’ve got to test,” said Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability . “After you’ve worked on a site for even a few weeks, you can’t see it freshly anymore. You know too much. The only way to find out if it really works is to test it.”

User testing, and, by extension, user research methods, are a crucial part of the design process. Without taking on user feedback, studying user behaviors, testing how a platform or app functions on different devices, observing how users interact with the user interface, and considering the possible use cases in different scenarios, it’s nearly impossible to measure customer satisfaction or to know if a product or service is actually working as intended.

There’s a high cost to building and launching products that either don’t work or no one needs. Glitchy services can frustrate users to the point of giving up. Difficult-to-use websites and storefronts can lead to a drop in sales and conversion. Platforms that fail to delight and make life easier for users risk losing their customers to a competitor. And if a product or service proves irrelevant, then an entire business can shutter. This is why user research is so important, according to UX professionals—UX research methods can help organizations identify weaknesses in their products, understand what users actually want, and avoid the pitfall of irrelevance. “To find ideas, find problems,” said Julie Zhuo, former VP of product design at Facebook . “To find problems, talk to people.”

Related Read: 10 Best UX Research Courses to Grow Your Skillset

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11 Essential UX Research Methods—and How To Use Them

There are dozens of methods that UX researchers use to better understand their users’ experience. Below are some of the more common qualitative and quantitative methods that are used by researchers. It’s not unusual for UX teams to use more than one method; in fact, qualitative and quantitative methods often complement each other and help paint a more nuanced and accurate picture of how users are experiencing a product or service, what they like about it, what’s not working, and possible fixes and improvements.

1. Card sorting

A qualitative method that attempts to get into users’ heads, card sorting presents users with a collection of words or images on cards and asks them to arrange them into categories or flows that make sense to them. For example, an e-commerce company might have research participants create a checkout flow so that they can see what users expect to see when they buy something online—the findings from such a study can then inform how a checkout page is designed.

2. Usability testing

This method is used by both qualitative and quantitative researchers because it is capable of collecting both qualitative and quantitative data. In the former, researchers can observe a research participant as they use a product, service, or prototype, asking them to narrate their experience and track where they might be running into issues. In the latter, researchers can record the number of users who are running into problems and pinpoint where issues are arising.

3. A/B testing

A quantitative method in which researchers offer multiple versions of a website, platform, or service, and analyze collected data on how users interact with each version. A/B testing can reveal whether one version is more useful than another and whether certain features influence conversion.

4. Focus groups

Typically involving six to nine research participants, focus groups give researchers an opportunity to measure how users feel about a product or service. Participants can be asked about their prior experiences with a product, what issues they’ve run into, and what attitudes they hold about a certain brand or company. This method also offers insights into what users want.

5. Interviews

One of the more open-ended forms of qualitative user research, interviews are a great exploration tool because they allow participants to offer in-depth and unrestricted responses, while giving researchers the opportunity to ask follow-up questions. While this can be a time-consuming process in terms of participant recruitment, time spent conducting the user interviews, and time spent analyzing the findings, this methodology can often be illuminating and give researchers a deep understanding of their users.

6. Behavioral research

Similar to usability testing, this method involves observing users to understand their behaviors, which in turn can help establish trends that designers can then factor into their work. Where participants might inadvertently say one thing and do another, behavioral observations allow research to actually see a participant interact with a product. 

7. Diary studies

This method meets participants wherever they are. Instead of inviting participants into a lab for structured testing or interviews, diary studies ask participants to keep a log of their actions. For example, a ride-hailing company like Uber might ask participants to make a note of each time they travel—are they choosing public transport, hailing an Uber, calling a cab, walking, or driving their own car? What’s motivating the choice at that moment? These kinds of studies can often provide long-term insight into how and why people use a product or service. 

8. Analytics

One of the most common forms of quantitative research, analytics covers a huge range of data collected from websites, apps, and platforms. One of the strengths of analytics is that they typically involve the data collected from a large number of participants, which makes it possible to see trends and issues of statistical significance. One of the most popular tools used in this form of research is Google Analytics, which can track data ranging from the number of site visitors to time spent on site, conversion rate, type of browser used, and referral links. 

9. Expert review

This process involves bringing on an expert in UX/UI research and design who can go through a product and, using their own expertise and experience, identify areas that can be improved. The process can vary from person to person, and expert reviews typically require only one “expert” to give feedback. 

10. Eye movement tracking

As the name suggests, eye movement tracking uses hardware and software to track where a users’ eyes are moving across a screen to better understand where users’ attention is drawn and how designers can prioritize content on a page in order to maximize views. 

11. User personas

Also referred to as profiles, this is a method in which researchers use findings from other forms of research to create fictional representations of users, assigning them traits, attributes, and a backstory that designers and collaborators can keep in mind as they build products. 

What Is the Role of UX Research Methods in a Designer’s Life?

User experience research is foundational in any UX designer’s process. Whether a designer is conducting research themselves or working off the findings of a UX research team, research methodologies help shed light on what users want and need, which in turn informs design decisions big and small. Whether it’s figuring out how a website’s navigation can be improved, understanding what strengths a company has over its competitor’s products or finding ways to make a product or service easier and more intuitive to use, research methods take out the guesswork and provide designers with the evidence they need to make informed decisions that potentially affect large swaths of the population.

“Usability plays a much wider role in our lives than most people realize,” according to UX research consultant Thomas Tullis. “It’s not just about using a website, a piece of software, or the latest technology. Usability is about setting up a tent, relighting a furnace to heat a home, trying to figure out a tax form, or driving an unfamiliar rental car. Usability impacts everyone, every day. It cuts across cultures, age, gender, and economic class.”

This post was written by Tracey Lien.

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The 10 best UX research tools to use in 2023

In this guide, we introduce 9 of the best UX research tools on the market right now. We’ll also share some advice on how to choose the most suitable tools for your work.

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All good UX begins with user research—and all good user research relies on the right tools. 

But, with so many tools to choose from, where do you even start? 

Look no further. In this guide, we introduce 9 of the best UX research tools on the market right now. We’ll also share some advice on how to choose the most suitable tools for your work.

What is UX research and why does it matter?

• 9 of the best UX research tools available in 2023

How to choose the right tools for your UX research

Ready to become a user research pro? Let’s begin. 

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Before we explore the best tools for the job, let’s recap on what exactly UX research is—and why it’s so important.

UX design is all about solving a real problem for real, human users. UX research helps you to identify the problem you need to solve, and to understand how best to solve it based on what you know about your users. 

Without user research, you’re basing your work on assumptions. This inevitably leads to a mismatch between the user experience and the people you’re designing it for—i.e. bad UX!

That’s why all good designers start their UX process with research. UX research involves:

• Conducting interviews, surveys, card sorting exercises and focus groups (to name a few!) with real or representative users to see what they expect from the user experience and what pain-points they currently encounter
• Analysing the data gathered to uncover key themes and user problems
• Defining the scope of the problems uncovered and determining what to prioritise
• Sharing your findings with key stakeholders
• Continually testing and iterating on your designs to optimise the user experience

You can learn more about what UX research is in this dedicated guide .

What’s the difference between qualitative and quantitative research?

As you consider what tools to use for your UX research, it’s important to distinguish between quantitative and qualitative research. 

Quantitative user research gathers objective, measurable data that can be quantified (i.e. counted). Some examples of quantitative data might be the number of clicks it takes a user to complete their desired task on a website, or the percentage of users who bounce in a given time frame.

Qualitative user research isn’t concretely measurable, but it can give you much deeper insights into how your users think, feel and behave. For example, if you conduct interviews to find out how your users feel about a particular product, that’s qualitative research. Likewise, if you observe a user trying to navigate an app and note down that they get really frustrated, that’s qualitative data. 

UX designers tend to conduct both qualitative and quantitative research for a broad and detailed picture of their users. 

What’s the difference between moderated and unmoderated user research?

Another distinction to be aware of is that between moderated and unmoderated research. 

Moderated UX research takes place with the user researcher present. If you’re interviewing a user live via video call, or observing them while they complete a certain task and asking follow-up questions, you’re conducting moderated UX research.

Unmoderated UX research takes place without your supervision. This includes things like surveys which the user answers in their own time, or usability tests where the user might record their screen while they interact with your website.

What are the best UX research tools?

Now we know about the different types of user research you might conduct, let’s explore some of the best UX research tools on the market right now. 

1. Optimal Workshop for card sorting, tree testing and first-click testing

Optimal Workshop isn’t just a user research tool—it’s an entire toolbox. You can use it to conduct both qualitative and quantitative user research, and to recruit participants.

Optimal Workshop allows you to see participant responses as they come in, and to view your data in the form of easy-to-understand visualisations—ideal for sharing your insights with others. 

You can use Optimal Workshop to conduct card sorting exercises, tree testing, first-click testing, and surveys. 

Optimal Workshop comprises 5 tools:

• OptimalSort , a card sorting tool that shows you how your users categorise information. This is useful when mapping out the information architecture of a website or app.
• Treejack , a tree testing tool that shows you how easily people can find information on your website or app—and where they get lost.
• Chalkmark for first-click testing. This enables you to test the usability of an existing design. You can upload screenshots, sketches or wireframes and test to see if users are able to navigate with ease.
• Questions for creating and sending out online surveys. You can attach wireframes or sketches for more specific feedback.
• Reframer for note-taking and documentation. This is useful for organising all your qualitative research insights in one place. Reframer is actually number 8 on our list, so more on that later!

Main features at a glance:

• 1 platform, 5 tools for card sorting, tree testing, first-click testing, surveys, and documenting qualitative research insights
• Participant recruitment service (available in 70+ languages)
• View participant responses as they come in
• Data visualisations accessible via the Optimal Workshop dashboard

How much does it cost?

Optimal Workshop offers a free plan with no requirement to upgrade. If you do want more functionality, paid options include:

• The Starter plan for small-scale research projects at $99/month (approx. €88).
• The Pro plan for unlimited studies at $166/month (approx. €150) for 1 user.
• The Team plan for unlimited studies at $153/month per user (approx. €140) for up to 3 users. 

2. Looppanel for user interviews and usability tests

Looppanel is an AI-powered research analysis & repository product that makes it 5x faster to discover and share user insights.

Looppanel acts like your research assistant: it records, transcribes, creates notes, and organizes your data for easy analysis.

Teams like PandaDoc, Huge Inc., Airtel, and others use Looppanel to streamline research analysis and build their insights repository.

Main Features at a glance

• Automatically generated notes for user interviews
• 90%+ accuracy transcription in 8 languages
• Integrations with Zoom, Google Meet, Teams to auto-record calls
• Time-stamped notes taken live during interviews
• Ability to tag and annotate on transcripts
• 1-click to create shareable video clips
• Analysis workspace to view project data by question or tag
• Search across projects

Looppanel offers a free 15-day trial. After that, you can choose from a range of paid plans:

• Starter (for small teams / solo researchers): An affordable starter plan for $30/month that includes 10 transcription hours / month
• Teams: For teams of 3+ researchers, this plan is priced at $350/month and comes with 30 transcription hours / month
• Business: For organizations with large teams or significant security requirements, the business plan costs $1,000/month for 120 transcription hours / month
• Custom: For enterprise teams of larger sizes

3. Lookback for user interviews 

Lookback is a video research platform for conducting both moderated and unmoderated user interviews and usability tests. 

The collaborative dashboard allows you to sync all your research, tag your teammates, and create highlight reels of all the most useful insights. You can set up virtual observation rooms, record users’ screens as they navigate your app or website, and transcribe your user interviews. 

• Moderated and unmoderated video interviews and user testing sessions
• Timestamped notes captured live during sessions
• Virtual observation rooms: Invite stakeholders to observe user research sessions and chat with each other in a separate virtual room
• Screen capturing: Watch and record participant touches on mobile screens during interactions
• Create highlight videos and compile them into highlight reels
• Collaborative dashboard 

Lookback offers a free 14-day trial. After that, there are a range of paid plans to choose from:

• Freelance: An affordable solo plan for $17/month (approx. €15). Includes 10 sessions/year.
• Team: $99/month (approx. €90) for 100 sessions/year. 
• Insights Hub: $229/month (approx. €205) for 300 sessions/year. 

4. Typeform for surveys

Surveys are a UX research staple, offering a quick, easy and inexpensive way to gather user insights. When sending out surveys for UX research, you’ll usually ask questions about the respondents’ attitudes and preferences in relation to the product or service you’re designing. 

Typeform is one of the most popular survey tools among UX designers. With Typeform, you can design your own surveys from scratch or choose from a range of templates. After you’ve distributed your survey, you can see responses and completion rates and generate shareable reports. 

• Dozens of UX research templates, including a user persona survey template , a product research survey template and a product feedback template
• Conditional logic to ensure that users only see relevant follow-up questions based on their previous answer
• Shareable reports after survey completion
• Integrations for Google Sheets, Slack, Airtable and more

Typeform has a free plan with unlimited forms, 10 questions per form, and 10 responses per month. You can stay on the free plan for as long as you like, or upgrade for additional features:

• Basic: €21/month (1 user, unlimited typeforms, up to 100 responses/month)
• Plus: €46/month (3 users, unlimited typeforms, up to 1,000 responses/month)
• Business: €75/month (5 users, unlimited typeforms, up to 10,000 responses/month)

View all price plans and features on the Typeform website .

5. Maze for user surveys, concept validation, and wireframe & prototype testing

Maze is another UX research all-rounder with a focus on rapid testing. You can use it for card sorting, tree testing, 5-second tests, surveys, and to test wireframes and prototypes on real users. 

Maze integrates with all the industry-standard UX tools like Figma, Sketch, Adobe XD and InVision. It’s even got a built-in panel of user testers, promising user insights in less than 2 hours. 

Maze also handles the analytics, presenting your research insights in the form of a visual report. 

• Prototype testing to validate your designs before developing them
• Tree testing to ensure your information architecture is user-friendly
• 5-second testing to assess user sentiment when first interacting with your product
• Surveys to scale your UX research
• Card sorting to help plan or test your product’s information architecture
• Built-in panel of over 70,000 testers
• Analytics and visual reports

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6. UserZoom for surveys, card sorting, click testing, and usability tests

Similar to Optimal Workshop and Maze, UserZoom is a complete UX research toolbox used for card sorting, usability testing, surveys, click testing, tree testing, and user interviews. The platform also includes a fully-integrated participant recruitment engine with over 120 million users worldwide. 

• Moderated and unmoderated usability testing
• Surveys for quickly gathering user feedback at scale
• Click testing to evaluate early stage concepts
• Open and closed card sorting to inform your information architecture and understand your users’ mental models
• Interviews to gather self-reported insights from your users
• Tree testing to assess your information architecture
• Participant recruitment engine with over 120 million users worldwide
• Integrations with Adobe XD, Miro, Jira, Mural, Typeform and more

UserZoom offers custom price plans depending on your needs. Find out more here .

7. dscout for remote user interviews and diary studies

A versatile suite of research tools, dscout is ideal for conducting remote user studies. 

There are four main pillars of the dscout platform: Diary, Live, Recruit, and Express. 

Diary is a remote diary studies tool which allows you to gather contextual, qualitative insights into user behaviour and experiences. If you’re new to diary studies, dscout has put together a helpful guide on how and why to conduct diary studies here . 

Live is a user interview tool, and Express is a flexible user survey solution. Recruit is the final piece in the puzzle: a panel of over 100 thousand users you can enlist for your UX research.

• Diary for conducting remote diary studies
• Live for user interviews with auto-transcribe, real-time note-taking and screen-sharing capabilities
• Express for user surveys
• Recruit, a built-in panel of 100 thousand user research participants
• Research synthesis and analysis: automatically generate charts and word clouds
• Loads of guides, resources and templates to help you get started

dscout offers customisable subscription plans depending on your needs. You can learn more about the different plans and request a quote here .

8. Hotjar for analytics and heatmaps

Hotjar is a powerful behaviour analytics tool that enables you to really see how your users engage with an existing product. 

You can use Hotjar to send out surveys, capture and watch screen recordings of people interacting with your website, create heatmaps, and gather real-time user feedback. Hotjar is all about stepping into your users’ shoes and improving the user experience accordingly!

• Heatmaps to see where users click and how they navigate your site. This is helpful for identifying any usability issues or UX flaws
• Screen recordings to see first-hand how people interact with your product
• Real-time user feedback via a suggestion box integrated into your website
• Surveys and survey templates 
• Integrations with Slack, Miro, Jira, Asana and more

Hotjar’s basic free plan is pretty extensive, offering up to 35 daily sessions, unlimited heatmaps, and up to 1,050 recordings per month. For more research capability, paid plans include:

• Plus: €31/month —ideal for small teams
• Business: €79/month —for growing companies and websites
• Scale: €311/month —for large companies and websites

See Hotjar’s price overview for more information.

9. Reframer for analysing qualitative research

Reframer is part of the Optimal Workshop suite of UX research tools (number 1 on our list), but we think it’s worth a special mention. As UX designer Carrie Nusbaum notes in her own review of Reframer : “There are many tools that support the act of actual user testing, and many that facilitate design. Relatively few tools, however, specifically support some important steps that take place in between, namely: data organisation, research synthesis, and presentation of findings.”

Reframer seeks to fill this gap. It’s a unique tool dedicated to capturing all your qualitative research notes in one place, helping you to analyse and make sense of them. It’s your “qualitative research sidekick”, bringing some much-needed structure to the often messy task of qualitative research. 

• Directly capture research observations straight into Reframer; no Post-it notes or separate Google Doc needed
• Theme builder: easily construct a coding system with tags and build out themes for your research findings
• Chord and bubble charts to visualise your findings and easily spot patterns and trends
• XLS export: you can export your research as a .xls file, enabling you to transfer it to other tools and platforms if needed

You can use Reframer as part of the Optimal Workshop toolbox. Optimal Workshop offers a free plan which you can use for as long as you like. For increased functionality, the following paid plans are available:

10. Asana for planning and organising your UX research

Asana isn’t a UX research tool per se, but it’s an excellent tool for organising and keeping track of all your research projects. 

With the Timeline feature, you can create project plans to see exactly what’s happening and when, or visualise your workflow with a Kanban-style board . This allows you to drag and drop cards into different columns depending on their status (e.g. in progress, awaiting feedback, done). 

You can add multiple collaborators to different projects, assign various tasks to individual team members, and provide updates via the commenting function. 

Asana essentially has everything you need to manage your research projects collaboratively from start to finish. 

• Shared team calendar for an overview of who’s working on what, and when
• Visual project management in the form of lists or boards, with the ability to break projects down into smaller subtasks and assign them to different stakeholders
• Project briefs and templates to standardise and streamline your workflows
• In-platform communication via task comments or private messaging
• Integrations with Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, email, and more

You can use the free basic version of Asana for as long as you like, with extensive capabilities (ideal for individuals and smaller teams). For more robust project management, Asana offers two paid plans:

• Premium at €10.99/user per month
• Business at €24.99/user per month

You’ll find more information on Asana’s pricing overview page .

Ultimately, the tools you choose to work with will depend on the UX research methodologies you want to use, and on the scale of your research. 

If you’re conducting small-scale research with just a few participants, you may not need an entire suite of tools with recruiting and analytics built in—a good survey tool and reliable video conferencing software should suffice. 

But, if you’re conducting large-scale research with dozens or even hundreds of participants, and working as part of a team, you’ll want a set of UX research tools that are collaborative and versatile, covering everything from recruiting to synthesis and analysis. 

You can mix and match your research tools, too: you might use Typeform for surveys, Lookback for user interviews, and Asana to collate all your findings. Before you settle on a specific tool, try it out with a free trial, read up on what other designers have said about their experience with the platform, and compare it to a few alternatives on the market. 

Hopefully this guide has given you a good starting point from which to build out your UX research toolkit. If you’d like to learn more about UX tools, check out this complete guide to the best tools for every stage of the UX design process .

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8 October 2024

6 Different Types of UX Research Methods: Ultimate 2024 Guide

• User Experience

In this article (10)

What is a user research method?

How many types of ux research methods are there, 1. a/b testing/split testing, 2. remote usability testing, 3. diary studies/camera studies, 4. field studies, 5. questionnaires/surveys, 6. five-second testing, what is the best user research methodology, quantitative research, qualitative research, behavioral research, attitudinal research, new product development, product launch, future versions, 1. it’s pretty open-ended., 2. lots of results, 3. quick yet valuable, 4. fewer problems passed on to customers, 5. happier customers, 6. better revenue (potentially), 1. identify the what and why, 2. find your target audience, 3. select your tasks, 4. invite the right testers, 5. get those stakeholders in on it, 6. implement, ux research techniques: our conclusion, faqs on ux methodologies.

UX design is a continually evolving field, and there’s one clear process that supports those ideas flowing, and it’s a simple concept: research. There’s a world of UX research methods at a designer’s fingertips that allow them to tap into what end-users think while providing amazing insights to push UX further.

Choosing and implementing the proper methods can be a game-changer. A time-saver. A moneymaker. A money-saver. All the big names are using these tools; that’s precisely why they’re household names. But the truth is, anyone can do this. Netflix didn’t get where they are by taking guesses. They used their resources, and you can too.

A user research method is a research process used to better understand and utilize your users’ wants, interests and needs, along with their behaviors, mindsets and what motivates them to get those things.

These methods are used to better understand what users see and experience a product, obtain benchmarking data and eliminate some of the pain points users might experience before a final product is released.

While there isn’t an exact number, there’s somewhere in the realm of 15 to 20, which are most commonly used among design teams. More concretely, all of those different types of UX research methods fall into four broad categories; generative research, descriptive research, evaluative research and casual research . UX design depends on the valuable insights these testing methods produce; it makes the design process more efficient. Many design decisions will be directly related to the results of this research. What is UX design , anyway? You’re in luck; we’ve got the scoop on everything you need to know.

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What are the different types of user research methods?

In the following UX research methods list, we’ll go deeper into the six more important real-life tests, what they mean and how to use the different types of user research methods. Of course, plenty more tests are available to suit your needs and, ultimately, your users’ needs, but these are some of the most commonly used ones.

When to use this UX research method

This test has endless uses so long as you can come up with variations to provide people and a question for them to answer. As we continue to develop what UX can do, this type of test will become especially helpful in IxD or interaction design situations, but it can also be as simple as "are you more likely to buy if you saw this screen or this screen?"

When to use this UX research methodology

This is a great tool when a large number of users and feedback are a top priority. Of course, more is usually always better, but if physical space for users to gather is a problem, the product is available online, perhaps there’s a worldwide pandemic, or you just like staying home and working in bed binging on Thai delivery while listening to the Grease soundtrack on repeat, remote is the way to go. Everybody’s homes just became your lab with this UX research methodology.

In a diary/camera study, your users can give real-time feedback, which ends up being a more candid experience rather than a summarized/edited down experience.

When to use this user research method

This method can be used in person with test groups or remotely. Be prepared for a lot of data if the chosen format is through a camera lens. People who heavily use social media (TikTok, YouTube, etc.) will be comfortable in front of a camera and giving feedback; people love to talk. But… everything has to be watched and filed. If you don’t have the time or enough (wo)manpower, this is not the method for you.

To put it bluntly, field studies can be used when there are enough people to warrant trying to pull it off. Making sure enough test subjects are available where the product would be relevant and enough people on the team to be flies on the wall to take in all the information is what makes this work.

Due to the simplicity, so long as the questions/surveys are well put together and are easy to understand and answer, these can be used pretty much every time user research is needed (ideally alongside other methods).

This is typically used in a lab setting so the product can be controlled in a way that the user is given no more than five seconds. Quite literally, "what do you think" and "how does it make you feel"?

Choosing the best user research methodology, like many things in user experience design, comes down to your needs. All of these methods are important, but the better question would likely be which types of tests are the best for what you’re doing.

Again, it’s about what you seek to learn in order to better your product. A/B testing will yield different results than user interviews and eye tracking. All of these have their place in research; you need to know how to use them to get the most out of them. And as luck would have it, you’ve come to the right place.

Choosing the right UX UI research for you

UX UI research requires knowing when to pick the right tools to get the job done. This is a pivotal moment in the product design process and an excellent chance to put the stakeholders at ease. Real-world test participants and the results they produce can shape a product or app so long as you know what to do with the data and can apply it correctly.

Picking the appropriate method is often an exercise in deciding which type of feedback will help you the most. Feedback falls into four categories; quantitative, qualitative, behavioral and attitudinal. It might seem a bit confusing, but as we go along, it should begin to make more sense, and you’ll get an idea of how they all relate and work together.

Remember those four categories we mentioned at the top? Well, they sort of all bleed together. There are no hard lines. Imagine one of those online surveys about politics (Facebook, Buzzfeed, etc.); after answering several questions, you end up placed on a graph that shows where you land on the political spectrum. The methods for user research can work like that. The point of mentioning this is to illustrate that although something might be defined in a category type, it reaches into other areas.

User testing via quantitative research consists of raw and objective numerical data. The questions and tests can be about anything as long as the answer comes in the form of numbers. You define those numbers through later testing.

This UX research method tells you how much or how many of something. Why is that important? Because if only one person feels some kind of way about something, you know it isn’t time to hit the panic button. One user doth not a bad product make. That person can air their complaints in other categories. But if a trend is created where 40% of people delete your app in less than a week — it’s time for your design team to panic…

So why are numbers even that important, especially if you can (for now) look past one or two bad pieces of numeric feedback? Simple. Can you think of an app or service you don’t like that the general public loves? You’re the unpopular opinion. That doesn’t make it a lousy product. Not everything is for everyone, and this method helps find relevant trends in what more significant numbers think or say about a product. You’re allowed to feel that way, but in the grand scheme, you’re only one voice.

Qualitative research is the collection of non-numeric data about users and a product. These are opinions, thoughts, comments and concerns about a new product. They’re also helpful in improving an existing product or gathering ideas and insights for a future project.

Simply put, behavioral user research takes a hard look at what users do in specific situations. Think of it like an "if this, then that."; if we give you this, then you’ll do [blank]. This process defines a user’s behavior when given tasks and ways to complete them. It provides quick and valuable feedback because if you meant for people to do something entirely different, you know there’s a problem. The solution may have been obvious to you as the designer, but it’s a failure if it doesn’t work in practice. This provides quantitative data that’s important to the process.

Keep in mind that this is used when you have a large number of users to monitor and gather data from. Picking five people to run a task is not ideal. You may get five different answers. However, clear and actionable patterns can emerge when a larger number of participants are involved.

Attitudinal research is a bit more direct in terms of feedback. This method assesses users’ actual thoughts and feelings about a product or experience and can be used anytime. During product development. Before launch. After launch. Continued research about a product or brand. These can be through interviews, card sorting, surveys, focus groups, etc. Even those Twitter complaints can be used as attitudinal research.

When to use UX research methodologies

Along with having a solid understanding of what kinds of UX research methodologies are available, knowing when to call on certain ones can make all the difference when working with a group of users. Product teams rely on humans to test products in a natural environment which can help eliminate some of the biases that user personas can create. With that being said, you should start getting a clearer picture of why user research is so vital to the development process.

When a new or minimum viable product is being developed, long before you bother with information architecture or wireframes and dive into UX strategy, user research should be conducted to avoid wasting time and resources. This is the time to eliminate preconceived ideas or incorrect information that can cause delays or unnecessary design and feedback loops.

Once a product is launched, if there’s time to lean, there’s time to clean. User research and testing can still be done for sprucing up a final product. This ties directly into updates and future versions. If you’re not paying attention, you’ll have no idea what people love or what and where to go from there.

Future versions consider the preceding information and continue collecting more data. This can be data showing what not to do or data you may want to research further into to create the best —next— version of whatever the product is. There’s a wrong way to do this, though, and that’s to completely ignore any data obtained from previous research.

6 benefits of user research methodologies

While there really could be a million reasons why user research methodologies are beneficial to your project/product, we’ve selected the top six reasons. If the last three on this list aren’t enough to convince you, we recommend quickly pulling yourself together to reevaluate what your priorities are in your business goals.

User research isn’t a strict process. You’re free to run things (mostly) how you see fit. There are, of course, better ways of doing things, and you shouldn’t just go in haphazardly and start asking strangers questions. For the most part, though, everything can be suited to your needs.

The more people you have testing and answering during this research process, the more data you have to work with. There are tons of resources out there to get research subjects, and if you have an existing brand, you probably already have a list of people to help with research. Not everyone will want to participate, but look at Apple’s beta program; they have public and developer-only versions (some people even pay to get developer betas that aren’t developers). All in all, there will always be people that are willing to do this type of work.

Most of the tests are pretty simple, so a lot can be combined, allowing for not only a lot of results but a lot of results coming in quickly — gold star for efficiency here. Quick and simple can also translate to a lower cost. Quick, cheap and valuable results. That’s like every stakeholder’s dream.

The next three are all related and, on their own, are enough reasons to never skip user research. When kinks and issues get worked out before launch, customers can focus on how happy they are with their purchase or subscription. The problem areas were primarily addressed before it ever locked eyes with a paying customer, which is always a plus.

With all those issues resolved, people are happier with your product, and the brand becomes more and more trustworthy. People see you as a quality offering. And happier customers create…

All those happy people are spending money. Have you ever known or loved a product so much that you basically just slapped the money down when a new one came out? You know it’ll be great, and you have complete faith in that? Some brands you know and love will be great, even with a problem here and there. They know it, too, and they love your revenue. So they put a lot of work into ensuring the product got to that point in your mind.

6 tips on implementing user experience research methods

We’ve compiled a list of six user experience research methods, six reasons why you should definitely use them and now six ways to implement them into your project.

What needs testing (product, app, object) and why (is it new, outdated, or are there issues)?

Determining your product demographic is enormous. People respond to different things in different ways, and if you’re marketing a product to the wrong group, you’re wasting a lot of time and a ton of money.

This is where you get to take any and all tests you’ve ever heard or thought of and pick your favorites. From there, you can decide which will benefit the product you’re testing for and sculpt them to fit those needs.

This should mimic your target audience (which is why it was essential to determine who that audience is). There’s lots of research and guides available in the wild regarding finding the right test participants, and they’re all out there and pretty easy to find to make your data more accurate.

Sometimes they want in on the process too, and it never hurts to continue to instill confidence in the people cutting the checks.

All the user research in the world is lovely, but if you don’t implement it and make good on it, it was all for nothing. You might’ve really loved a design choice when you thought up the product but the people hated it. That’s life. Be ready to let go of some of those feelings because this is business. If the stakeholders don’t have confidence in you, they’ll find someone they do.

As mentioned, many more UX research techniques are out there, and they’re worth looking into. Most of them are just as easy as the ones we highlighted and can be used by anyone as long as you adapt them to fit your needs and what you aim to learn. Use your time wisely and use effective methods to get the most effective data in return.

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What is a UX research example?

A UX research example can be any sort of test or type of research evaluated by UX professionals involving a user paired with a physical product, app or service for evaluation. This can be something as simple as diary studies and as in-depth as remote usability research.

Which user research techniques are the best?

While the options are endless in terms of user research techniques, the best techniques of those we listed tend to be the ones that provide the most information specific to your product. Remote usability testing is among the best options, but that isn't necessarily the best for every scenario.

If you can narrow down what kind of results a test produces and then configure the test to relate to your product, you can get a lot of powerful data to use without breaking a sweat. These are high-impact, low-effort (and sometimes even low-cost) types of research that anyone can take advantage of.

What is a UX research plan?

A user research plan is as simple as putting together an outline of how the team intends to reach a goal in the product development process using user research. Deciding which tools and tests to use for the most effective push towards creating a better end product.

Written by Sean LeSuer

Sean is a Slickplan customer support specialist, social media manager, newly minted blogger and part-time trouble-maker at Slickplan. He enjoys all things Apple, loud music and anything electronic. He also likes Piña coladas and getting caught in the rain.

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Stop fighting between UX and UI

Learn to make them work together.

Lucas Dalessandro

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In the design world, it’s common to hear the ongoing debate about the difference between UX and UI. Many people think these are two competing disciplines, but that could’t be further from the truth.

Instead of being at odds, UX and UI fundamentally complement each other to create effective and engaging digital products.

Today, we’re going to explore how these two disciplines work together and why it’s crucial to understand their relationship.

The importance of UX and UI

User experience refers to how a user interacts with a product or service and how they feel during that interaction.

On the other hand, user interface focuses on the visual design and presentation of the elements that the user sees and interacts with.

Both are essential

A good UI without a solid UX can result in a visually appealing product that is frustrating to use.

Conversely, excellent UX without a well-designed interface can make the product difficult to navigate.

In my opinion, it’s vital for designers to understand that UX and UI are not just buzzwords; they represent two sides of…

Written by Lucas Dalessandro

UX Designer and Graphic Designer, graduated in UBA, Buenos Aires. Business Enquires: [email protected]

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