User Experience Research Methods

Purpose:

To find first Product & Solution Fit (validation phase) then Product & Market Fit (evaluation phase) before start with Proof Of Concept (POC) or Minimal Viable Product (MVP) to find out whether there will be enough user or customer who will be buying the product & solutions that we are building and whether our product or solutions actually solve their need or want at the same time help to in-depth understanding of the problem.

User Research listed below will help us to build KWHL table and meaningful opportunities, which help us to find actual need or want of the bunch of customer segments (i.e. personas) who will buy our future products or solutions.

K - Start with what you know about the problem? 

W - What you don’t know or you believe want to know about the problem?

H - How will you find you out?

L – What do you hope to learn from this information?

The research methodology or steps are one or combination of the below research methods:

Start with Secondary Research (audit the existing tool & resources) by reviewing whitepapers, websites, blogs & reviews, social media. Market Research & Competitive Analysis are examples of Secondary Research where existing information are available.

Primary Research by telephonic, online or offline interactions with researcher, corporate, employees. Interview, Questionnaire, Survey, Observation & Note Taking are examples of Primary Research.

Ethnography by observing users to understand another person’s situation from their perspective and their culture (very resource intensive so only use where feasible and actually needed) to find out what the users or customers say, think, feel and do whether all are in sync?

Photo Ethnography use the research participant to photo-document some aspects of their life for the research.

Observational Note Taking by watching and recording human behavior in a natural environment.

Quantitative Research which support decisions done by taking measurements of various variables parameters (which can’t be arguable except how data is collected e.g. close-ended question).

Qualitative Research which use to measure subjective data ( e.g. beliefs and opinions) which is difficult to defend (e.g. open-ended questions).

Generative Research also known as Formative Research conducted during the early stages of a problem to better understanding of the problem.

Evaluative Research conducted at the end during the solution stages of a problem to test and refine the solutions of the problem. Rapid Prototype & Minimal Viable Product (MVP) are examples of Evaluative Research.

Market Research to find the human behavior towards a market based economy.

Competitive Analysis is the process of reviewing competitors strengths and weakness to determine how we can position the product by using competitors blog & reviews, social media to find the product positioning in the market compare to its competitors.

Questionnaire or Survey is a demographics (is an fact-based) and psycho-graphic (is an opinion-based) information collection systems.

Interviews is a research tool that asks a series of questions directly to a participant which is use to collect first hand data Primary research use to record or collect opinion, reference and attitude (qualitative data).

Focus Group, the group is asked questions and participants have a conversation.

After the User Experience Research information that we collected through above research method we generate 5E Framework to document and analyse the actual experiences of the customers (positive/negative/overall).

5E Framework is used to Understand and Document User Experience Research Information:

Entice: What entices you to do something, behave a certain way a particular decision?

Enter: What happens when you begin an experience?

Engage: how do we function through the experience? Hat tools do we use and how do we communicate and interact in the environment?

Exit: How do we leave an experience?

Extend: Is there a take away, something that will impact our thoughts or help us remember our experience?