WTF is UX Research?!

Throughout my time as a UX professional, I’ve been playing a bit of musical chairs with departments. My role hasn’t dramatically changed from being a UXUI Designer—other than the fact that I’m rarely designing interfaces anymore. As much as that might seem like an oxymoron, it’s true. The common theme through my time in UXUI Design, Product Development, Product Strategy, and UX Research is understanding and advocating for the user. Being a designer, product manager, strategist, or researcher is all rooted in delivering a useful product. Understanding your users—and the industry they are in—is foundational to providing value. Without this context, you could be building cutting edge technology that serves no purpose.

What does a UX Researcher do?

Are they a Product Manager? Are they a Product Strategist? Do they talk to customers? Do they pitch ideas? It’s kinda hard to solidify the activities of a UX Researcher—because, research. I was trying to explain this to a new UX Researcher in an effort to mindshare, and all I could do was draw something on the whiteboard. For those of you that don’t know me personally, it’s a common occurrence. Below is the simplest way to explain where UX research is extremely insightful.

UX Researchers build relationships with users and become industry experts. These two aspects are critical in order to facilitate product strategy, support product development, and contextualize marketing efforts. Now, you may think to yourself, “that sounds like a PM,” and you’d be right. Product Managers should be in the same position as UX Research in this diagram, but often times they have limited time to dedicate to understanding the user and industry. This is due to ongoing backlogs, multiple development teams, and regular firefighting.

“The dedicated UX Researcher is focused on understanding the redundant efforts that make users want to crawl into a hole.”

The value of having dedicated resources for building relationship with users is priceless. There are a number of customer facing positions in every company, but the struggle is that there is always another agenda to drive. The dedicated UX Researcher is focused on understanding the redundant efforts that make users want to crawl into a hole. Pair that with a breadth of knowledge in the specific industry and you have a recipe for powerful products.

Everyone that talks to customers can have a hand in UX. The job of any UX professional is to make sure that what you build has the most impact for the most users. We can’t do that unless everyone does their part to bring clarity into the daily lives of the customer.

“We act on hunches and change directions if the data invalidates our own opinion.”

The UX Research

This is where it all comes together into a beautiful synopsis of UX research. The primary goal of the UX Researcher is to understand. We have to be listeners, inquirers, curious and empathetic learners. We act on hunches and change directions if the data invalidates our own opinion.

It’s really hard to solidify a regular process because we need to be fluid. I’ve tried to create a project roadmap of everything that could ever be done on a given project; from the original idea to measuring success. It helps set the stage and acts as a reminder checklist, but it’s a very dynamic—not necessarily linear—template that changes with each project. This is the most recent version of the project template:

Discover:

• Validate idea with Internal Stakeholders
• Create Vision Docs
• Validate Need with Customers
• Define Success Metrics
• Competitor Analysis
• Pitch to Executives & Leadership

Explore:

• Create Project Doc
• Design Sprint?
• User Interviews/Customer Calls
• Journey Map & Wireframe
• Brainstorm Product Marketing/UX Tactics
• Tech Lead Chat

Define & Refine:

• Educate Team
• Data Modelling
• Define Epics
• Prototype Epics
• Customer Calls
• Theme PBR

Execute: (During development)

• Build Measurement Tools
• Build Required Marketing Collateral
• Marketing Release Strategy

Measure:

• Measure Success Post Release

The process to understand and define an idea into something tangible is not easy. There are a lot of questions raised and regular roadblocks. Aside from the actual process, researchers are dedicated to bringing the perspective of the user to the overarching strategy.

User Experts

UX Researchers are quick to listen and slow to speak in order for the user to be heard. We have to look beyond the process hijacking and look to their daily routine for insight. The common trifecta of product development is why, what, and how. I’d like to propose one deeper layer—why, “why?”

“What pre-existing belief do they have that has pigeonholed them into requiring that feature?”

Often users will come with a feature request as “what” they need. Usually there is some due diligence to understand “why” they need that thing, and it has often exposed process inefficiencies or business value. But one step further, and somewhere we don’t often go, is why their process requires that feature. Is it an industry thing? Maybe. But it’s likely the human layer that we are forgetting about. What pre-existing belief do they have that has pigeonholed them into requiring that feature? Maybe they have a daily routine that has them so stuck in their ways, that any other process seems irrational. Once you expose the human effort necessary to accomplish a task, you will be very aware of where UX could improve in your product.

“We could all make better product decisions if we understood the industry we are building for. “

Industry Experts

In addition to understanding the user, UX Researchers are also dedicated to becoming industry experts on behalf of the user. The person is only half of the equation; especially in enterprise software where the goal of the end-user is only a portion of the value the product drives for the organization. What are the professional goals of your user? Couldn’t we drive engagement by enabling them to actually accomplish their career potential by using the system? What sort of industry standards are already recognized that could be used as targets? What in the industry hasn’t been solved yet? We could all make better product decisions if we understood the industry we are building for.

Measure Twice

Qualitative feedback is great, but without quantitative reinforcement we are playing a dangerous guessing game. Pulling together data analysis and user feedback is extremely important in order to prioritize suggestions for the roadmap. That’s all I have to say about that. Data good.

“…if we don’t solve for the user, we don’t have a business.”

What are the boundaries of UX?

Think about it this way; you can’t interact with something without an experience. That being said, the spectrum of experience goes from the first sight of marketing, all the way to customer service. The product is the middle ground which should be the single source of truth for any external facing interaction. Frankly, users are the center of our universe – if we don’t solve for the user, we don’t have a business.

What sort of research tactics do you employ to understand your user base? I’d love to hear about it!