What are the best ways to ensure your user research is reliable and valid?

User research is subjective to what you are building. If you are doing completely new product development the method will be different compare to building a feature in already developed product. Simply put, for new product development time taken to do research will be more. Let talk about adding a feature to existing product line. Here 1st thing need to understand the pain point of the user, if you cannot empathise with that doing research and solving it is worthless. Need to collect reviews of users from various channels. Need to sample the user base on various factors like demographic, age , gender etc and ask relevant questions related to the samplings.

This step can be broken down into: 1. Formulating the problem statement, 2. Outlining the precise goals you want to achieve, 3. Understanding your target user persona(s), 4. Formulating relevant questions, and 5. Sketching the hypotheses. All these need to be clarified at the initial stage to ensure effective and reliable user research.

user interviews bring us visibility to the customers’ current behaviors and contexts, motivations, mental models, and pain points in their current experience.

Once you have defined the overall goal of your research, it is necessary to formulate hypotheses. It is very important that the hypotheses follow the overall research goal and are easy to test. Hypotheses can be based on metric data, usability based on established patterns, or your assumptions. For each hypothesis, write a research method that will help you test it. This will help you determine which research is worth conducting.

Exploratory methods and Evaluative methods are conducted at different points in the product development process. While an exploratory or formative study is usually conducted at the early stages, with the objective of understanding the problem better and forming hypotheses; evaluative or summative research is carried out at later stages, in order to validate research and test potential solutions.

To identify the most relevant users for your research, identify this first: – Your research goal. – Scenarios and flows. If you conduct a research with users who are not relevant you might not get any insights to work with. There are paid user testing services (with free trials) which can assist you with users search. These services are often friendly and open for collaboration. Also, there are more old-fashioned ways to find users that I personally like: – Launch a Push on your App and offer users to take part in a research. Send this Push only to potentially relevant users. – Create a story on Instagram or post on Linkedin with the same offer. From your company's account or even from your personal.

Here's what works for me. Leveraging a variety of recruiting channels such as: - Social media - Community forums - Local meetups - User testing platforms can help access a diverse participant pool, aligning with the diverse nature of your target market. When it comes to incentives, it's crucial to strike a balance – enticing enough to encourage participation, yet not so lavish that they could skew responses or attract the wrong audience. Employing pre-screening surveys is also a smart move. They can help ensure that participants align well with your user personas, and help identify any potential biases or disqualifying factors before the actual research begins.

Having trained, impartial moderators running user studies is critical to avoid biasing any results. This helps avoid common pitfalls from untrained moderators such as asking leading questions, or guiding users when they get stuck. However having designers directly observe the session can be hugely beneficial to allow them to see first hand how their products are being used and interpreted. Significant insights can be garnered simply through observing a user interacting with a product. What users say in response to questions does not always align with how they actually experience the product.

To conduct an unbiased UX test, maintain a neutral approach, use open-ended questions, avoid leading language, offer minimal guidance, randomize task order, encourage think-aloud, record and analyze behavior, consider a neutral facilitator, and be aware of your biases.

At Poly Shell, we had a client with data storage issues. To ensure meaningful insights, we first defined what "meaningful" meant for this project: scalability, compliance, and cost-efficiency. We collected user data on storage needs and compliance requirements, using Azure's analytics tools for their robustness and ease of integration. We employed clustering to identify patterns, such as spikes in storage needs at fiscal year-end and state-specific compliance requirements. Clustering was excellent for identifying hidden patterns and outliers in large datasets. Based on this analysis, we recommended Azure Blob Storage for its scalability, Azure SQL Database for handling structured data, and Azure Policy for automated compliance management.

Quantifying user related insights can sometimes seem difficult, however where possible this can be hugely beneficial to validate design changes. If a certain number of users encounter the same issue or make a similar comment, quantifying the reduction in the occurances of the same issue in a subsequent user study (following design refinements) helps to reassure that the issue has been largely mitigated.

In collaboration with research, it's important for a product designer to remain unbiased and objective, letting the data guide the narrative. Avoiding personal biases ensures that the results accurately represent user experiences. Additionally, employing correct research methods with an appropriate number of participants is necessary to prevent skewed data, ensuring a fair and comprehensive understanding of user needs and behaviors; which is foundational for informed and effective design decisions.

Thoroughly enjoyed the read on user research, a topic often skimmed over. However, it’s crucial to understand that the approach varies based on product and industry. Thomas Kuhn’s seminal work, ‘The Structure of Scientific Revolutions,’ illuminates this perfectly. ?? Vs ??: Sometimes, consumers imagine a ‘faster horse’ when you’re offering them an ‘automobile’. In such scenarios, user expectations might need to be reset, and innovatively so. ?? Vs ?: Conversely, reinventing the wheel isn’t always warranted. If the ‘round wheel’ is universally effective, pushing a ‘square one’ could backfire. In summary, user research is not a monolith; it requires nuanced thinking and a philosophical framework for decision-making.

User research is a very important aspect of product design and often very challenging to provide. The willingness of your client to spend their money on this portion of the research process can be a limiting factor. Many companies either don't understand the importance of user research or want to pay for focus group studies. So designers need to be creative and flexible in order to provide reliable and quantitative data that will fit within the budget constraints from the client.