A User Guide for User Research

Introduction

User research is the process of researching a selected set of users to understand their needs, behaviors, experiences, and motivations through various qualitative and quantitative methods.

In this article, I will cover the following topics.

1. Why user research?
2. What are the methodologies available to conduct user research?
3. How to conduct user research for a product?
4. How to analyze the data collected through user research?

User Research Workflow

The User research workflow involves a series of steps that allow you to define the objective, state our hypothesis, select a methodology, conduct the research, and finally analyze the data gathered.

Let us look at each step in the workflow in detail.

Objective - What are we trying to know from the user?

The objective of user research can be defined based on which stage the product is currently in. While there are many stages in a product life cycle, we can broadly classify them under two categories, the ideation stage (0-1) and the post-launch stage (1-N).

The Ideation Stage

The ideation stage involves building the product from the ground up, and this stage lasts until the launch of the product. Conducting user research at this stage would help you find out the unarticulated user needs and validate if you understand them accurately.

The Post Launch Stage

The post-launch phase involves incremental changes to the product that includes both addition and removal of features. Conducting user research in this stage of the product cycle helps you test the new features that you are releasing to the market.

Hypothesis - What we think we might know?

A hypothesis is a tentative statement about whom you think your users are, why you think the users will be interested in your solution, and what benefits you believe your product/solution offers to potential users.

A general rule of thumb is to start broad in the opportunity space and narrow it down to a set of specific hypotheses that you would want to validate, investigate, or refute.

For a product in the ideation phase, you should use the following hypothesis template.

I/We believe [the target market] will [do this action/use this solution] for [this reason].

For example, if you are thinking about launching a new food ordering app (foodie), your hypothesis will probably look like this:

I believe the people (target market) would like to use the food ordering app to order food from the comfort of their home (do this/use the solution) because it is more effective in terms of cost and provides a better user experience to the customers (reason).

For a product that has already been launched in the market, you should use the following hypothesis template.

I/We believe that [the change] will [impact] for the [target user] by [how much] in [a specified amount of time interval].

For example, the existing onboarding process for a laundromat app has many steps and you want to increase the number of sign-ups to the app by introducing social (Google/Facebook) sign up features. The hypothesis for the same would look like this:

We believe that by introducing the social sign up feature, (the change) we will increase the number of sign-ups by 25% (impact) for new visitors (target user) after 2000 visits to the sign-up page (in this much time).

It is very important that you ensure to define the hypothesis as accurately as possible since a good hypothesis will lead to a good experimental design and has a much larger impact on the user research process.

Methods - What are the methods available to conduct user research?

There are several methodologies available to conduct user research. Let us initially look at each of the methods and then understand which one to use based on whether the product is in the 0-1 or the 1-N stage.

Survey

A survey is a set of questions used to collect topic-sensitive information from a sample of your target audience. Conducting surveys are very popular, largely inexpensive, and can be executed fairly quickly to collect a large set of information on a wide range of topics.

Surveys are most effective when:

• they are kept short, 
• stay focused on the topic,
• contain a mix of open and close-ended questions. 

One way to achieve this would be to have a close-ended (yes/no) question immediately followed by an open-ended (explanatory) question. This helps you to quantify something while gathering important context behind the decision.

For example, if you want to understand the sentiment of a newly launched feature in a product using a survey, you should add questions such as:

1. Number Scale Question (Quantitative) - On a scale of 0 (worst) to 10 (best), could you rate your experience using the product?
2. Close Ended Question - Did the new feature work as per your expectations? (Yes/No)
3. Open-Ended Question - If Yes, Could you state one significant benefit using the new feature?
4. Open-Ended Question - If No, Could you tell me what you change you would like to see?

User Interviews

User interviews are one-on-one interviews with a person who represents a sample of your target audience. A user interview consists of a specific set of questions with the primary focus around the hypothesis.

A user interview is not about asking what users want you to build or not. Rather, it is about learning what users are trying to do, and understand what is and isn’t working for them.

You must ensure that the user interviews consist of open-ended questions to understand their behaviors, sentiments, and motivation. Asking closed-ended questions with yes/no response will not do add any much value unless you follow it up with an open-ended question that can yield explanatory responses.

Focus Groups

A focus group is a small group discussion with about three to ten individuals guided by a moderator. It is very similar to the user interview process, but the feedback is collected from a group of people rather than one individual.

One of the biggest benefits of a focus group is that participants often build upon each other’s statements and ideas which is not possible in a traditional survey or a one-on-one interview.

Ethnographic Field Study

Ethnography as a method involves conducting research and observing a participant or a group of participants in their natural setting or habitat.

Ethnography is most useful in the early stages of a user-centered design project and the UX designers in your team would be the biggest benefactors of this methodology since it gives them a deeper understanding of the relevant domain, processes, goals, and the context of use.

Dairy/Camera Studies

In Dairy/Camera studies, participants are provided with a digital camera (or a smartphone) and formatted diaries that are used to capture data including tasks, thoughts, emotions, print, and other media that participants interact with.

There is a heavy reliance on the motivation of participants to record and submit data. However, you’ll realize that this an extremely valuable source of contextual data that provides meaningful insight into user behaviors and experiences over time.

Clickstream Analysis

One of the more popular ways of understanding user behavior in recent times is by using clickstream analysis. This involves analyzing the recordings of user clicks and user journeys as they move through a site or a product.

However, this method involves some additional efforts to enable the collection of telemetry data. You will require the appropriate site or software to be instrumented properly.

A/B Testing

A/B testing involves having two versions of an element (A and B) and a metric that defines success. To determine which version is better, you subject both versions to experimentation simultaneously. In the end, you measure which version was more successful and select that version for real-world use.

A good example of this is rolling out two variants of a web page to different user groups simultaneously to find out which one yields a better conversion rate.

Conduct - Gather data from the chosen user research methodology and framework

Now that we have identified the various user research methodologies, we can move to the next stage of actually conducting user research.

To conduct user research, choose the user research methodology based on the following factors:

1. The context of the product.
2. The phase of product development.

User Research Methodology Based on the Context of the Product

The Nielsen Norman Group who are world leaders in research-based user experience have come up the following illustration that provides a view of a 3-dimensional framework with the following axes:

• Attitudinal vs Behavioral
• Qualitative vs Quantitative
• Context of use

You can refer to the following illustration that acts as a guide to choosing the user research methodology based on the context of the product.

User Research Methodology Based on the Product Development Phase

The following matrix helps you in choosing the user research methodology based on the phase of product development.

Choice of Frameworks for User Research

The user research framework provides a way to structure the research process in terms of the questions to be asked and how to collate the answers together. This, in turn, simplifies the analysis process.

Let us look at two popular frameworks, the User Journey Mapping and Value Proposition Canvas.

User Journey Mapping

User journey mapping also popularly known as customer journey mapping is a process that consists of a series of user actions while using a product into a timeline. The timeline is detailed out with user thoughts, actions, and emotions to create a narrative.

Value Proposition Canvas

Value proposition canvas is one of the most popular tools in recent times that provides a framework to identify the user’s major jobs-to-be-done, the pains the user faces while trying to accomplish their jobs-to-be-done, and the gains the user perceives by getting their jobs done.

Choice of Participants

Once you choose the user research method and the framework, the next step is to define the kind of participants you would like to interview. Before that, you need to first build a participant profile. The profile should have the details that should guide the identification process of interview candidates.

Conducting User Research

Based on the user research methodology, conducting user research will more or less involve the following steps:

1. Prepare an interview guide and test the draft versions internally before the actual interview.
2. Create a facilitator cheat sheet that would provide an outline of the goal of the research, the framework for findings, and the key questions that you are trying to validate.
3. Use a google doc or a sheet for note-taking. 
4. During the interview, focus on open-ended questions and try to ensure that if there are close-ended questions, then they should be followed up with open-ended questions.

Analysis - Use the data collected to gain insight into the user needs

Now that you’ve completed the user research, it’s time to consolidate the data and gain insights from it. Often the first step involves ensuring that all the data that you’ve gathered is accounted for and stored electronically. Once that’s done, the raw data (notes, interview audio recording, etc.) are converted into bite-sized findings. Create a sheet summary for each participant so that the data can be re-visited easily at a later point.

Affinity mapping is a great technique used to organize data, findings, and ideas into various groups. It involves writing down the findings, ideas, etc. into sticky notes and placing them on a whiteboard under different headings (categories).

Once you have the data sorted by categories, you can refer to the model proposed by Dean Olsen to gain insight into the user’s need for your product.

Conclusion

I hope the article provided a detailed overview of what user research is and the various methodologies, frameworks available for conducting user research. The choice of user research methodology is driven by the product development phase; That is, whether your product is in the ideation phase or the post-launch phase.

Using frameworks such as value proposition canvas helps in structuring the user research process that is particularly helpful in the analysis stage. Further, using affinity mapping tools helps in evaluating the data gathered to decide on how worthy the idea/feature is.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this article. Please let me know your comments and feedback through the comments section.