How can you use UX research to inform product engineering decisions?

?? UX research is vital for intelligent product engineering! I'd start by aligning research goals with product objectives, focusing on user needs ??. Choose effective methods like interviews, surveys, and usability tests to gather crucial data. It's critical to validate assumptions about user behavior and preferences. Prioritize findings to impact engineering decisions significantly. Collaboration is essential: involve the engineering team in UX research for unified goal alignment. Lastly, iterate based on feedback, continuously refining the product to suit user needs better. This approach ensures that products are user-centric and market-fit ??.

In my experience, it's crucial to unify all team members to discuss existing assumptions and identify areas where knowledge is lacking. Leveraging UX research is key for validating these assumptions and discovering practical insights. The most effective product engineering teams integrate UX research into their agile sprints. This approach aligns research with development phases, providing ample insights and data to support the continuous delivery of product outcomes.

In my experience, some methods are better for coming up with questions or forming hypothesis, and some are better for finding answers or validating the hypothesis. For example, a product manager or UX researcher may see a trend during interviews, and follow it up with a survey sent to a bigger audience to confirm whether the trend exists among the whole user base. Another example is seeing a certain behavior through analytics, and following it up with interviews and surveys to understand the reason behind the behavior.

A common trap we fall into is seeking information that aligns with our existing beliefs, known as confirmation bias. This natural tendency demands that we critically examine our reasoning, a task often easier said than done. To counteract confirmation bias, it's effective to scrutinize our beliefs by exploring how they might be incorrect, instead of focusing on their correctness. By adopting this approach, product engineering teams gain access to a wealth of information and a conducive environment. This enables them to identify optimal solutions and tailor these solutions to match available resources effectively.

One of my favorite prioritization methods is the Kano Model. This alternative method worth considering is a powerful approach to prioritizing your minimum viable product and evaluating your features based on the satisfaction and sentiment of your target customers. Professor Noriaki Kano first introduced the Kano Model in the 1980s, focusing on product development and customer satisfaction.

I find frameworks very helpful, especially when helpful when they are adopted and adapted. Before inventing a new framework, I like to see if there's something out there that maybe with some changes would work for my situation. A simplified version of RICE is a good example. It's important to note that the the team's buy in for the framework is a must, otherwise it won't serve any purpose and may work against its intended purpose.

I think an important concept to note is that UX research is different from UX design. UX research is about understanding the users and the pain points and communicating that to the team, while UX design is about solving those pain points. So I see product management and UX research to live in the "problem statement" sphere while UX design and engineering being solution makers. Once a solution is devised, product management and UX researcher need to verify that the solution addresses the pain points. One person may do both UX research and UX design, but that should not be confused with these fields being one and the same.

Consider continuous iteration and learning as an invaluable feedback loop. The goal of feedback loops (aka Voice of the Customer) is to gain ongoing valuable insights into your customers’ perceptions, needs, preferences, and pain points. This allows you to make data-driven decisions to align priorities and resources, with objectives and key results.