Learn UX Design. Part Three. Introduction to UX research.
A simplified way of learning UX Design.
Learn UX Design. Part Three. Introduction to UX research.
A simplified way of learning UX Design.
Terminology
User Experience research - Systematic study and understanding of user behaviors, motivations, and needs through observation and feedback.
The goal of UX research is to uncover problems and create design opportunities for the discovery of valuable information. The desired result of UX research is to close the gap between User and Business needs.
Benefits of UX Research
Saving the cost of process and development
Increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty
Uncovering opportunities to earn more
Terminology
Product development life cycle - A sequence of all the required activities that a company must perform to develop, manufacture and sell a product. The process which takes a product from an idea to reality.
It is important to know what are the product development phases.
The product development process contains six phases.
First Phase: Generating an idea (Ideation).
Second phase: Defining the product.
Third phase: Building a prototype.
Fourth phase: Creating the design.
Fifth phase: Validating and testing the product.
Sixth phase: Commercialization of the product.
User research is a continuous part of the product development cycle and takes place before, during, and after the design phase.
Research which takes place before design phase is called Foundational or Strategic research.
General types of research
First: Strategic (Foundational) research - Helps to define the problems for which a design solution is needed.
Strategic research usually answers the questions:
What should be built?
What are the user problems?
How the user problems can be solved?
Second: Design Research - Research which takes place during the design phase of the product development cycle. Answers the question: How should the product will be built?
This research can be conducted very early in the design process, with paper mockups or late with a functional prototype.
Third: Post-launch research - Research which happens only at the end of the product development cycle. It identifies how well a product or product feature meets the user’s needs or checks performance against the competition.
Method - a particular form of procedure for accomplishing or approaching something, especially a systematic or established one.
There are two ways of categorizing research methods.
Who conducts the research defines the first. The second is based on the type of the collected data.
Primary research is conducted by UX researcher through user interviews, surveys or usability studies.
Secondary research uses information provided by books, articles, statistical data or journals. It is often done by product leads, not by UX designers or researchers.
Categorization of a research methods is through thinking about the type of collected data. Data can be collected through quantitative or qualitative research.
Terminology
KPI - Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) are the critical (key) indicators of progress toward an intended result. KPI’s provide a focus for strategic and operational improvement, create an analytical basis for decision making and help focus attention on what matters most. KPI’s are critical measures of progress toward and end goal.
Example:
How much time is the user spending on a task?
Number of clicks made for making a purchase.
The selection of a research method is defined by the questions that is trying to answer.
You can use Secondary research in the initial phase of the project to gain knowledge about the facts, statistical data and figures about your users.
Example: If your product is a financial application, you can research and gather data about spending habits of the targeted audience in their 30s in the past.
Benefits: You can use Secondary research data to back up your Primary research.
Drawbacks: No firsthand user interaction. No specific user data feedback.
Terminology
Types of User research
Quantitative research - The systematic scientific investigation of quantitative properties and phenomena and their relationships, using statistical methods.
Quantitative research is data gathered by counting or measuring. Often based on surveys of large groups of people by using numerical answers.
Questions type:
How many? How much?
Quantitive research:
Produces numeric data
Based on objective input
Collects a large amount of information
Quantitive research examples:
Percentages of complaints
Surveys
A/B tests
Card sorts
Click test & eye tracking
Qualitative research - A set of research techniques in which data is obtained from a relatively small group of respondents and not analyzed with statistical techniques.
Qualitative research is data gathered through observation about why and how things happen. Often based on interviews, focused on a smaller number of users and focused on understanding the user's needs in greater detail.
Questions type:
Why? How this happen?
Qualitative research:
Produces non-numeric data
Can capture subjective or emotional responses
Collects information on a smaller scale
Qualitative research examples:
Usability tests
Focus groups
Diary studies
Interviews
Participatory design workshops
Behavioral research - Observing a person’s actions.
Behavioral research examples:
Ethnographic studies
Usability studies
A/B tests
Eye tracking
Attitudinal research - Asking people about their opinion.
Attitudinal research examples:
Surveys
Focus groups
Preference tests
Some methodologies are blending observation and discussion.
Moderated research - conducting in-person research sessions with users.
Moderated research examples:
Usability tests
Interviews
Unmoderated research - completed by a participant with no researcher present.
Common research methods
Method One: Usability testing - Usability testing is evaluating a product or service by testing it with representative users. Typically, during a test, participants will try to complete typical tasks while observers watch, listen and take notes.
Usability tests can be:
Moderated or unmoderated
In person or remote
Live products or prototypes of any fidelity
Helpful in the process of selection of design alternatives
Effective in discovery of issues in experience of the product
The goal is to identify any usability problems, collect qualitative and quantitative data and determine the participant’s satisfaction with the product.
If a product is already launched, a post-launch usability study might include a success metric and key performance indicators to gather data. Commonly known as KPI’s.
Method Two: Interviews - qualitative research method which collects in-depth data on user’s thoughts, feelings, opinions and experiences. Usually conducted in person with a series of open-ended questions. Used in cases which require a detailed response. This is also called ethnographic interview or contextual inquiry.
Ethnographic Research
Observation of user’s natural behavior when interacting with a product in their own environment. In the field rather in the lab.
Interviews can be executed remotely. They give an opportunities to:
Learn about different types of users
Understand differences in users
Gather users impressions and general attitudes
Give an input to creating personas
Example: How would you rate your experience using the website on a scale of 1-10?
Example of open-ended question: How was your experience using the website?
Method Three: Card Sorts - quantitive method used to help determine categorization and hierarchy in information architecture.
There are two categories: Open and Closed.
Open card sort - participants categorize elements into whatever groupings they think make sense and label them.
Closed card sort - participants categorize and place elements into an existing structure.
Note: Once navigation structure is set, it is possible to perform a “Tree Test” where you ask participants to find particular elements using created navigation. Tree Test is used to evaluate informational architecture created with Card Sort method.
This method is helpful in defining and refine organizational structure.
Method Four: Eye Tracking and Click Tracking.
Eye tracking is a technology that measures eye movements and makes it possible to know where a person is looking, what they are looking at, and for how long their gaze is in a particular spot. The areas in which a user’s gaze stops moving are called “fixation,” while the movement of a user’s eye between fixation points is known as a “saccade.” By visualizing saccades, we can see the paths the eye is taking on a page.
Click tracking is a technology that captures and analyzes the user clicking behavior.
These methods are useful for live websites, software or application, but tests of non live designs are possible. They serve as an accurate test of what is happening without relying on user memory and self reports.
They cannot give contextual information about user behavior.
Method Five: Multivariate Testing (A/B Testing) is a method in which several versions of the product (or prototype) are presented and compare which performs the best at a given goal.
If only two items are compared, this method is called A/B test.
Tests are performed always on live sites or products and always have performance optimization goals by creating more clicks, sign-ups or actions.
Method Six: Desirability Studies - this method ensures that the design visuals match the brand goals and evoke the desired emotional response.
Participants are presented with variations of visual design and are asked to select which words describe each the best. The list of words is based on the words that best describe the brand goals plus their opposites.
Usually performed in person and aided by follow up question session.
Method Seven: Expert Reviews (Heuristic Analysis) - detailed assessment of an interface, service or product conducted by someone trained in current UX design best practices.
The reviewer will compare against current best practices and make a recommendation.
Expert reviews:
Require several UX professionals to review a product
Ensure a product meets expectations and standards
Method Eight: Surveys - User experience survey is one of the most popular UX research methods for gathering both qualitative and quantitative feedback from a user. Most useful after an initial understanding of the user pain-points and used to solidify the data by surveying many people.
Method Nine: Diary studies - asking participants to record their behavior or thoughts on a given topic at specific point in time.
Such as asking participants to record a time when using a specific app.
Providing the same questions or tasks at regular times is typically called “The structured diaries”.
Diary Studies
Allow for structured responses
Can provide real-word context
Show how behaviors change over time
Method Ten: Personas - help describe a different type of users that company serves.
Professionals will perform a variety of research tactics to understand their key user bases and the major differences between their goals, behaviors and usage.
Personas are created as the output of multiple types of research and put into a unified story about users’ skills, goals, environments, key behaviors and context of the product in their life.
Design decisions are made with reference to personas.
A document is created which summarizes a typical user’s key attributes.
Method Eleven: Participatory Design Workshop - a collaboration sessions between users, designers, developers and other stakeholders.
They focus on creating solutions for a pre-defined problem. The result is an immediate identification of user needs and problems, business considerations and technical limitations.
Excellent resource. Keep up the good work.