What are some effective methods to conduct user research?
Product Management
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User research is critical for product managers who are looking to understand their users’ needs, behaviors and preferences. There are many methods and tools available and choosing the right method for a specific project depends on several factors, such as your research goals, the project’s timeline and your available resources. Here are some of the most popular user research methods that product managers use today.?
1. Interviews: Interviews are one-on-one conversations between a researcher and a user, conducted either in person, by phone or online. Interviews can help understand users' needs, goals, pain points and expectations as well as uncover insights, emotions and stories that are not easily captured by other methods. Interviews can allow for your team to go in-depth with their investigations and establish rapport with members of your target market. However, they can also be time-consuming and, at times, biased, with findings that are difficult to analyze and generalize.
2. Surveys: Surveys can be administered to a large number of users, either online, by email or by paper mail. They can help measure users' satisfaction and attitudes, as well as gather important demographic and background information. Surveys can also be prone to low response rates, however, or invite poor quality responses that your team will then need to filter through.?
3. Observations: Through direct or indirectly watching and recording users' actions, interactions and environments, product managers can learn more about how they behave. Observations can help understand users' reactions and difficulties with their product, as well as reveal latent and unarticulated needs and pain points. Observations are best suited for exploratory and descriptive research, when the researcher wants to discover and document user phenomena. However, some may feel that observations can be intrusive and difficult to interpret.?
4. Focus groups: Focus groups are usually moderated discussions among a small group of users, either in person or online, using a predefined topic or agenda. These groups can help stimulate debate, dialogue and collaboration, both among users and the teams that you lead. They can also be beneficial in terms of enhancing creativity and understanding how your product may affect diverse groups. One large issue with focus groups, however, is that they can be quickly dominated by outspoken participants.?
5. Diaries: Diaries are self-reported methods of collecting users' thoughts, feelings and experiences over a period of time. Diaries, whether written on paper or collected through recordings, can especially help in understanding users' habits and routines. They are best suited for descriptive and longitudinal research, when the researcher wants to track and understand user behavior and experience over time. However, users may not regularly complete their diary entries, which means that there may be less information to analyze in the end.?
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6. Experiments: Experiments, which are controlled methods of testing the effects of certain variables in your product, can help test hypotheses your team has. This can be useful when you have certain assumptions you’d like to prove, but the process can also be costly and time-consuming.?
7. Analytics: Analytics can help segment and profile users by collecting and processing large amounts of user data. That can mean looking at web, mobile or even social media analytics to understand and anticipate behavior.?
8. A/B testing: A/B testing is a method of comparing two or more versions of a product, service or system, among a subset of users in a randomized and controlled experiment. A/B testing can help product managers understand user retention and engagement, as well as which features to prioritize in the development process.?
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This article was edited by LinkedIn News Editor Felicia Hou and was curated leveraging the help of AI technology.
Active-TS SCI Clearance | Senior Procurement Officer | Operations and Plans | Program Manager of a Software System transforming contracting across the USARMY Enterprise.
2 年As product managers, we should know: “what” will the data be used for, “when” will the data be needed, “who” the data should be coming from (end users or someone else), “where” will the data be coming from (surveys/demos), and “why” the data is needed (examples: for a decision or informational use). Depending on the answers, I normally focus my Team on two approaches: first approach, is a qualitative approach (examples: interviews, focus groups, and demos). The second approach is quantitative approach (surveys, design testing and a full study). Of course depending on if I had the money and time, I would do a blended approach.
Brand & Marketing Consultant @ AOK Consulting | Brand Strategy | Marketing Strategy | AI-Strategy
2 年Building ethinographies. It may take time but it provides a deeper understanding of the data and statistics. The most important being able observe behaviors, responses and the overall experience of the product.
Product Leader || Product Coach & Mentor
2 年User interviews, Focus groups and facilitating design thinking sessions to understand the pain points. Eventually, it would be great to do some prototype testing to get feedback from a set of users as well. If it’s for an existing product then it’s great to shadow and understand how users are currently using the product and capture the challenges the users encounter while using the product.
Surveys, forums and feedback from focused sessions or discussions are all viable methods . Fundamentally the time and funding can also drive or determine what method to apply , given that the duration and cost to implement any of the methods varies .
Decision Scientist | Causal Inference | Product Analytics | Leadership
2 年Product managers should be confident in using behavioral analytics platform like session replaces to understand usability issues.