7 easy tips to make UX research sessions more effective
UX research is a vital and essential part of UX design that implies studying the target audience of a product and collecting information that helps finding better design solutions and making the product more user-oriented. It’s implemented by applying various research tools, methods and techniques, but most importantly — by building a trustworthy and effective communication between the research team and potential or actual users. UX research is a complex and long process that can be quite challenging for novice researchers, so we would like to share some easy tips that can help make research sessions less stressful and more effective.
There is no need to find lots of participants
The first problem that many UX researchers encounter is where to find participants for the research tests. The secret is, you don’t always need to search for a lot of people — it all depends on what exactly you’re testing or researching. For example, some general problems can be detected with the help of just a couple of users. So instead of searching for a quantity, it’s more effective to find a few people who are truly interested in the product and are ready to take their participation in the research process seriously.
Don’t waste time on non-target users
Users who you recruit for research sessions should strictly belong to the target audience of the product you’re testing in order to give you relevant results. Otherwise you might end up collecting irrelevant or biased data based on the opinions of users who are not interested in the product, which won’t help making it better in any way. In order to find the right users, stick to the user personas that should be created at the user-research stage of the design process.
Use multiple tools/methods at once
There is a misconception that you should use only one research tool or method during the research session. Оn the contrary, the best way is to mix different tools, methods and approaches in order to conduct a deeper research, look at the problem from different angles and get more informative results.
Provide options/scale ratings where appropriate
Surveys are a big part of research sessions, and even though their main purpose is to get out users’ opinions, there is not always a need to ask users open questions. Provide options or scale ratings where appropriate — it will help make the process quicker and more organized while still allowing users to express what they’re thinking about this or that issue.
Rely more on users’ actions rather than words
It’s common knowledge that people don’t always do what they say and vice versa. That’s why it’s important to study not only opinions, but also actions of the users, and in case of a noticeable divergence between the two explore the reason for that.
Don’t make your reports over-detailed
The results of your research work should be documented in reports that you will later show to the design team in order to share the collected data. Try to keep these reports minimalistic, conveying all the info in a concise manner. Although some details may play an important role in research, making your reports over-detailed will only make people waste extra time while studying them. You can document these details in an additional document for interested parties to read.
Share the results with everyone who works on the product
Some researchers suppose that the data they get from users is their own property. But the truth is that it’s not — the info is collected not only for the design team, but for the whole company and third parties as well. Sharing the results with everyone who works on the product helps make the product more user-oriented and allows your research work to be truly valuable and useful.
