Which UX Research Method Should You Use?
Knowing what you want to learn is the key
User research is a crucial step in developing products that can truly add value to consumers. There are many different research methodologies, so how do you decide which to use?
The following framework is adapted from Laura Klein in her recent book Build Better Products, and is a great starting point to help determine what you want to learn from your research, and then how to best go about it.
First, Define Your Research Topic
Before interviewing users or choosing a research methodology, you need to figure out exactly what you want to learn.
Pick a research topic that will help you uncover problems (either with your user or with your product) and any unmet needs or goals you could help address with your product. Asking the right questions will ensure you get actionable data from your research efforts.
Since there are hundreds of potential solutions to any problem, the focus of your research should not be seeking solutions or feature ideas from your users. It’s not their job to design the best possible user experience — it’s yours. You are the expert in your product and industry, and your users can’t (necessarily) predict the future any better then you.
Therefore, it’s more useful to focus your research on understanding the problems people have in the context of using your product, and look for patterns that span a large percentage of your market. This is the area ripe with opportunities to improve your product and the overall user experience.
For instance, if you were building a product that helps people find pets available for adoption, here are some good examples of research topics:
- I want to know if people can successfully post new pet listings using my new design.
- I want to know the top problems people have when looking for a new pet to adopt.
- I want to know how animal shelters and rescue organizations evaluate potential adopters.
- I want to know why so many people start the registration process in my product but then stop.
- I want to know how many people successfully register and search for at least one pet using my product.
- I want to know how often and at what time people check for new available pet listings.
You would use a different research methodology for each of these topics, but the key here is that these are specific questions that can be answered to learn something about your users or product, and you can get an idea of who to recruit and what questions to ask them.
Choosing a Research Methodology
Once you have a topic and a clear idea about what you want to learn, then you can pick the research methodology that best matches it.
Use the following questions to help guide your decision making about what sort of research you’ll want to do to reach your learning goal.
User vs. Product
Do you want to learn about your user or your product? You probably want to learn about both, but it’s important to be specific about your goals for each research study.
User research is, obviously, about understanding the user — how they live and work, what they like, what sort of problems they have that you could potentially solve with your product. Common user research methodologies are ethnographic in nature, including interviews, in-home visits, and observational sessions.
In the early stages of product development, this type of user research is crucial to learn about and get to know potential customers, and narrow down the potential product/market fit.
Product research is for when you already have a good understanding of your users, and you want to understand the problems they have using your actual product — how often they use it, where they get stuck, if there any obstacles or usability issues, or gaps in the product that you could potentially solve with new features.
Common product research methodologies include usability studies, research with ex-users to understand why they left, or observational studies to see what process people go through when using your product
Generating Ideas vs. Validating Ideas
Do you want to generate new ideas, or validate existing ideas?
Generative research studies help you come up with ideas for new features or products that are based on insights about your users. The focus is around discovery, exploration, and empathy.
Because these ideas are based on observations and interviews with users, they are more likely to be valid then ideas based only on assumptions — but they will still need to be validated.
Evaluative research is for when you already have an idea (or concept, hypothesis, prototype, or even a product) and you want to find out if it’s valid.
The results from evaluative research can help you learn if you’re on the right path and can keep moving forward, or if you’ve gotten something wrong and need to pivot to a different idea.
What vs. Why
Do you want to learn what is happening, or why it’s happening?
What topics are mostly about analytics and measurement, and use quantitative research methods.
Numbers and data about how people are using your product can help you understand what is happening in the the product right now. For example, you can see at what step people fall off during the registration process, or measure which messaging results in the most engagement.
Why topics are about understanding user motivations and problems. Why are people behaving in these particular ways?
If you can see in the analytics data that a huge number of people drop off at a certain step in the registration funnel, qualitative research methods can help understand why that’s happening, and inform how you might be able to change your product to promote the behaviors you want.
Long Term vs. One Time
Can your question be answered in a single session, or does it have to be answered over a longer period of time?
One time research studies generally help validate usability, such as testing if users can complete a single task.
Long term studies help you understand habits and behavior patterns. These are typically harder to conduct, as you’ll need greater resources and time to stay in contact. However, you will get more reliable information then if you were to simply ask someone to remember and tell you about their habits. Diary studies and cohort analysis are examples of longitudinal studies.
Bringing It All Together
With a clear idea of your research topic and goals, this framework helps to identify some of the common research methodologies for each type of study.
Refer to the tables below to bring together the decisions made earlier to recommend the best methodology for your research.
Note that this is not a comprehensive list of all possible options, but should get you going in the right direction.
To learn more about each of these types of research studies and the framework I referenced to help pick what’s right for you, I highly recommend grabbing a copy of Build Better Products, as well as checking out Nielsen Norman Group’s UX Research Cheat Sheet.
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