What are the important points to consider in user research?

Collecting the data about user behavior and preferences via diverse methods and techniques, the designer has to take into account the following factors:

• the environment of use (the factors of using the product indoors or outdoors, the level of light, noise, available time and tons of other things can have an impact on design solutions)
• factors of intrinsic motivation (the internal personal stimuli moving the person to act)
• factors of extrinsic motivation (the outer factors of getting a reward or avoiding punishment that encourage people’s behavior)
• longevity of the product (based on the period for which the product is planned for use: if it grows together with the user or is applicable only in a particular age).

It’s should be remembered that removing the mistakes in design, even if its already high-fidelity level, is faster, cheaper and less painful for users than fixing negative issues with already launched and operating product.

The bottom line is simple. Don’t be lazy to research vital points of the project before you start designing. Don’t fancy doing the research? No problem, go to duck and dive in loads of baseless concepts instead of going along the solid path of understanding the user’s needs and wishes. Just don’t forget: it’s not you who decides that the product is successful, it’s not even other designers or stakeholders. It’s users. So, empathy is the best policy.

What are the methods of user research?

Today, user experience design has already grown into a sphere with the considerable background of project and research cases, which have resulted in the extensive set of different research methods. Some methods are used on a regular basis, some are more rare and specific, yet it’s good for designers to be aware of a variety of them. Let’s briefly review the popular ones.

Interviews: Perhaps the most widely spread method when, having set the target audience of the product, people involved into the creative process interact directly with potential users and ask them questions to collect information. The quality of questions is the issue of high importance here. It’s effective to apply both close (yes/no) and open (giving the detailed answer) questions to let users provide diverse information.

Personas: The technique which has been applied in marketing and sales for a long time with client/buyer personas and now has transformed into a new perspective of user personas. With this technique, designer collects the data about the potential target audience, its psychological and behavioral preferences and habits and creates a bunch of imaginary users with these characteristic. On the ground of this data, the designer models users’ interactions with the product and possible issues that can arise in the process.

Sorting cards: This technique is effectively applied in cases when designers deal with the products presenting complex interfaces and variety of diverse content. The users are asked to categorize the content and set the hierarchies. In this way, the designers obtain the data showing how users see this sort of content and what way of its organization would be efficient for quick and easy navigation around the app or website.

Surveys: Another traditional method of scientific and social explorations when users are offered the set of questions. Answering them, users give the actual information enabling designers to understand their preferences and wishes deeper.

Focus group: Popular method presenting the moderated discussion of the product, its features, benefits and drawbacks within the group of people potentially close to the target audience. Altering some characteristics of the group, for example, age, gender, education level, tech literacy, researchers can receive the variety of data and see how these features can influence user behavior.

Task analysis: The method exploring the tasks and goals which users have interacting with the product. Understanding what users want to do enables designer to consider the fast and effective ways to achieve these goals.

Eyetracking: Special devices enable the designer to review which zones of the website or app users interact with more actively and use these zones in the most efficient and informative way.

Participatory design: Users are offered the set of elements for the layout and can suggest their own vision of the construction.

Clickstream testing: The analysis of the most clickable parts of the layout with the aim of designing clear interactions and reveal the problems.

A/B Testing: The users deal with one variant of design (version A) for some time and then another variant (version B) while the researcher collects the information along the necessary metrics and makes the conclusion about the efficiency of the versions.

Daily Reports: The user is asked to interact with a product for a particular period providing the reports on a daily basis. This helps to check the usability of the product in the perspective of long-term use.

Desirability testing: The users are usually offered visually and stylistically different versions and provide the feedback which version they would prefer and why.