UX or user research is an essential part of any design process that can’t be overlooked by a UX designer. Sometimes it is treated as an afterthought as most designers ignore it, considering it an unaffordable luxury. Still, they don’t know that UX research is the bridge that raises any project from the ground to the heights of success. I know the word research can create some scary thoughts in your head, but when you break it down into steps, UX research isn’t as tricky as it sounds. Before we move on to the process involved in it, let’s take a look at what UX research means.
What Is UX Research?
You can find a long list of UX research methods employed by user researchers, but when you boil everything down to its core, it’s all about discovering how users think and behave, keeping their needs and motivation in mind. Experts at Adobe describe it as “understanding user behavior and needs through various techniques such as direct observation, surveys, and task analysis.”UX research helps designers to understand how people live out their lives and what they really want so that they can create a product that offers them a solution.
Types of UX Research
When talking about UX research, it can be broken down into two main types: quantitative and qualitative research. The former is related to things that can be calculated, and the latter relates to descriptions and things that can’t be computed.
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Quantitative Research
It mainly includes online surveys, paper surveys, mobile surveys, and polls to chalk out facts and figures. With the help of these surveys and polls, researchers generate numerical data, which is then transformed into valuable statistics. These statistics are then used as a basis to drive projects from strategy to execution.
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Qualitative Research
As opposed to quantitative research, which is based on facts and figures, qualitative research is based on direct observations which are gathered based on studies, interviews, and tests. All of these are used to get an assessment of people’s beliefs and practices.
How to Get the Most Out of Your UX Research
Now that you have understood how vital UX research is to a designing process, you need to make sure that you follow the practices that have the best impact for your organization and your product. However, if you’re struggling to get started with UX research internally, consider hiring a UX agency to help you.
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Start Each Project with UX Research
The biggest mistake a designing team can make is ignoring UX research altogether, and the second biggest mistake is to stretch it till it is too late. A designer must ensure that he begins each project after knowing his audience, and UX research plays a huge role in that.
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Define Clear Goals
A UX research is useless if you can’t define clear goals from it. Depending on the specifics of your project, you should be able to answer questions like what people want from your product and why do they want it.
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Share Your Findings
Conducting UX research is one thing; translating the findings amongst stakeholders, managers, developers, and designers is another feat. It is vital that once you have made a map of what you want to achieve, everyone involved in the designing process understands and believes in it.
