Using Research to Improve User Experience

I am an experience snob. There I said it. Now let me explain what I mean. When presented with a bad experience with a brand I do not take too kindly to it. Actually I typically abandon the brand. To me if you are in the service business, then providing a good experience should not be too difficult. You will notice I said good. I did not say great because every service business should be at least able to provide a good experience for their consumer.

Nowadays we are knee deep in the age of the consumer and experiences are essential for brand success. In order for brands to succeed at providing an ideal experience they must conduct research to better understand their consumer pain points, needs and wants. While research has always been a part of our process at Atomicdust when helping clients to solve their business problems, it is even more essential as markets get crowded and consumers are not being driven by prices, but rather experiences. 

Research serves to discover patterns, unknown insights, create objectives, reach conclusions and create possible future offerings. There are many research styles that can be applied but two of the most common would be, quantitative and qualitative.

Quantitative research typically involves anything you can count. That could be time on a page, percent of consumers engaging with your brand, page views or time to task completion. This data usually centers arounds things relating to analytics. Other methods for gathering this information can be through various survey techniques and A/B testing. Working hand-in-hand with quantitative research is qualitative research. This research involves a brand engaging consumers about their behaviors, feelings, attitudes and emotions. This information is gathered through focus groups, individual interviews and observations.

What research methods is your brand using to better understand your consumer?