User research: some tips for beginners

If you’re a people person, there are few technology careers more rewarding than user research. Apart from meeting interesting people for a living, you provide invaluable insight into what your company should build and why.

A year ago I began the transition from social media manager to full-time user researcher. Every day I speak to people from all over the world who use Azimo, the international money transfer service. During that time I’ve learned some valuable lessons. If you’re considering a career in user research, here are some dos and don’ts to help you along the way.

Do

Create a short, clear list of goals 🥅

A research project can feel overwhelming. You and your colleagues — product managers, designers, data scientists — probably have an enormous list of questions. It’s sensible, however, to focus on a few key priorities. If you jump from one topic to another, your sessions will become confusing and bloated.

If you only have one hour, try to make a prioritised list of topics and stick to the top 3–5. You can always move on to lower priority items if you have time. Having a short list of goals will also make your project easier to communicate to other teams and stakeholders.

Make the user feel welcome 🤝

When the participant arrives, always greet them with a warm welcome. Offer them a drink and a snack, make sure that they understand what to expect. Don’t prime them with information about what you’re looking for, such as “We’re seeing a dropoff in our referrals and want to know why.”

Instead tell them that you and your company want to learn about how users relate to their product. Reassure them by letting them know there is no right or wrong answer, and that you want to hear their honest feedback, the good and the bad.

Get comfortable with uncomfortable silence 🤫

In user research sessions, silence really is golden. Resist the urge to fill silence with a remark, a prompt or a question. Let the user sit with the material for a few moments. Just when the awkward silence feels unbearable, they will often reach for words that bring out the deepest insights, or prompt new questions. Use your discretion, though. Nobody wants to sit in silence for an entire hour. 😂

Try it out for yourself 🙋

There is no substitute for first-hand experience. If you really want to understand how it feels to be a user research participant, become one! Sign up to recruitment companies like usertesting.com and offer to take part in sessions yourself.

“Does that make sense? Are they judging me? Am I being helpful? Should I say something else?”

If this is the kind of thing going through your head when you’re participating, you will learn a huge amount about what it feels like to be on the other side of the clipboard. 📋

Don’t

Contact just anyone 📞

Once you have defined your goals, make sure to define your audience. Think about who uses your product and in what context. How old are they? Where do they live? What kind of job do they do? Which operating system do they use? 🤔

Narrow down your target audience. Make sure you know who uses your product and why before you send out your invites 💌.

Write a research report longer than a Tolstoy novel 📖

I value the thoughts of every person I speak to in my research sessions, and sometimes it’s hard to cut down all the interesting things that I want to convey to other teams. But if you want to hold people’s attention and get the key messages across, it’s essential to express your findings in a concise and direct way. Get to the heart of the issue: how can you express what you learned in just a few sentences? You can always provide more context if it’s requested.

Paraphrase ✂️

Be careful of paraphrasing as it is another way of leading the user by putting words into their mouth. It’s important to only use exactly what your users say when reporting your findings, not what you think they might have meant. If you need to clarify something that a user has said, simply repeat their statement verbatim and ask them to explain further.

***

Most days I feel like I have the best job in the world. Every day is an opportunity to meet someone new and hear a little of their story. If you’re considering a career in research, remember that curiosity is your best asset. It’s a great career path and I wish you luck.

Towards financial services available to all

We’re working throughout the company to create faster, cheaper, and more available financial services all over the world, and here are some of the techniques that we’re utilizing. There’s still a long way ahead of us, and if you’d like to be part of that journey, check out our careers page.