Stop dividing generative and evaluative research
By Lindsey Wallace PhD
UX research is a strange thing, being divided into “generative” and “evaluative” studies, the former conducted ideally early in product development, the latter further along in the process. This has never made sense to me. In what other kind of research would we endeavor to test concepts without learning new things about the problem we were studying?
I don’t think this distinction serves us well as researchers or designers. Every single study we do should generate new insights about the people we study and allow us to refine our understanding of the problems our products are trying to solve. Just as products are constantly evolving, so must our understanding of the people we build for and their needs and goals. I only want evaluative research if it is generative. Making evaluative research generative does require effort, thinking, and preparation, as well as spending time talking with your audience of focus during sessions. It does not often require extra time commitments in the form of weeks or days, and when it does those costs are often recouped in the form of less frequent testing and decisions made with more robust data and higher levels of confidence.
In addition, depending on the UX maturity of the organization, it is rare for UX research to be involved early enough in the process…
