When Traditional UX Research Just Doesn't Fit

Dear Designer,

No matter how much you squeeze, sometimes research won't fit the project timeline.

What can you do when everybody says no to the research phase?

Perhaps they have a good reason for saying no. In many tech companies, a traditional research process can slow the learning speed.

The Upfront Model of Research

Upfront, traditional discovery research isn't the only way to do research. You can evolve beyond this problem-then-solution process.

Process models like Design Thinking and the Double Diamond make designers think that discovery always has to come first.

Your life will be much easier if you let go of the rigid concept that research always precedes design.

Force-fitting a research phase at the beginning of every project won't earn you a trophy. In fact, it may show your managers that you don't get how your company learns.

Most tech startups learn through experimentation. You might slow the whole team down if you force-fit an upfront research phase into every design project.

Your "research-first" mentality could also be causing you unnecessary anxiety, too. If you think research has to come first, you might think your only option is to hide time for research in your projects. Sure, there are ways to squeeze discovery in (see continuous research), but in new domains, you can't always find the answer upfront.

Sometimes, users aren't imaginative enough to provide helpful feedback. For example, before Apple launched the iTunes store, their upfront research told them users didn't want to rent music:

"People have told us over and over again, they don't want to rent their music...they don't want subscriptions." -Steve Jobs in 2003

Innovation projects, in particular, don't pair well with upfront research. It's hard to do research when nothing like your solution exists anywhere.

It is possible to research as you deliver.

The Experimentation Model of Research

Rapid experimentation is another way to research that starts with solutions, and it helps you evolve to better research practices in organizations obsessed with speed and numbers.

Rapid experimentation is an agile approach to the product development process. With this approach, frequent experiments are deployed in an attempt to discover new, innovative ideas. Experiments can range in severity, from simple A/B tests to larger field experiments. -Product Plan

Rapid experimentation is about placing lots of bets. Rather than betting all your chips on a long project, you place hundreds of tiny bets. The goal is to test as many ideas as possible in testing environments that mimic the real world. Experiment results will often surprise you. By testing many ideas, you open yourself up to more positive surprises.

“72% of all new products flop.” -Simon, Kucher & Partners

When you face reality, most ideas fail. Rapid experimentation ensures that you can detect the failure as soon as possible. It's a very lean way to research through tests.

Some scenarios where rapid experimentation can shine:

• The idea you're working on is completely new
• Upfront research is seen as slowing down learning
• The team prefers to learn from quantitative data

The experiment doesn't have to be coded or release-ready. It can be a scrappy prototype that tests the value behind your product ideas. The important thing is to test the value, according to the customer, before you jump to implementation details.

Here is what might be new in Rapid Experimentation:

• You need to know how to write a good hypothesis
• You need to test a lot of prototypes quickly
• You need a way to measure the prototypes you're testing
• You need to analyze the results of your test
• You need to form insights from experiment data

These are the skills we teach in Designing Product Experiments: LIVE, and I've seen dozens of designers turn their design skills into experimentation skills.

Setting up an experiment takes time, but it's much faster than doing 20 rounds of upfront user interviews on an idea nobody understands. You can still supplement experiments with more traditional qualitative UX research to understand the "why" behind the experiment numbers.

Remember, when an idea is new, sometimes the only way to learn about it is to put it in customers' hands and watch.

Everything is an assumption until it's in the hands of a user. You can find ways to test your assumptions early and often. Testing can offer more realistic insights than traditional research can provide.

Which model do you use in your work, upfront research or rapid experimentation?

-Jeff Humble