How to approach user research for products
Conversation with Sarah Doody, user experience designer
In each entry in this “conversation” series I talk to a designer/product manager/engineer on a topic. I want to make basic practical skills education transparent and free.
Today I’m talking to Sarah Doody, an entrepreneur and user experience designer. She has taught user research to many people around the world through her user research course and has a great YouTube channel which I recommend you to follow. She also has an online course about user portfolios - UX Portfolio School.
What’s the ideal makeup of your design team?
It really depends on the stage of the company. I’ve worked with companies that have 3 people and 300 people. What I have observed is when you are first starting out, your design team should be made up of people who have a generalist background and have found some specialty. What I mean by that is, hopefully when you are just starting out, your design team is made up of people who can do a bit of research, user flows, understand user journeys, prototyping and visual design. Otherwise, what will happen is if you get a very skilled researcher, they won’t have enough to do. For a team just starting out you want to rely heavily on research and prototyping skills because you are doing a ton of listening early on.
What are the skills early stage startup designers should have?
I don’t care what software they use as long as they produce prototypes quickly so they can have conversations with users and then use those learnings to help the team make better product decisions. As far as skills, the ability to educate is an important one. In early products, you will have to be educating and communicating a lot with everyone from engineers, founders and even investors. UX brings the team together and forces the team to collaborate because as UX designers, we are trying to achieve the business goals, which means talking to all key stakeholders to identify and prioritize those goals..
Listening is another critical skill I look out for. Being able to connect the dots between what your users say, what you are seeing, and what you intuitively know based on your pulse of your own industry is important.
How would you define the role of UX designer?
There are a ton of roles in the umbrella of UX, but at a high level it comprises of four main functions:
User research
Product strategy
User experience — designer who looks at the research and comes up with wireframes and the user journey
Visual design — designer who takes the wireframes and makes them look great
There is a lot of overlap between these functions. There is a big difference between interface and visual design and the design before that (the experience and the journey).
People who aren’t educated about UX often just focus on the visual side of things. They think that it’s all about how it looks. The danger of that is you may end up hiring primarily a visual designer who’s added UX to their title, but may not have UX experience. You’re then in a situation with someone who can make something really beautiful but functionally, it’s not successful. That’s because if a startup hires a visual heavy designer who doesn’t go through the wireframing / strategy / experience process, you will encounter issues.
Also, if founders know that a designer can produce visually beautiful things, they ask the designer to skip the wireframes even if the designer advocates for them. That’s when you end up wasting the time of the visual designer because changes in visual design take 5x longer than wireframe changes. And in internal reviews, the team nitpicks more on the design because the conversation is about the visual part and not the functional part. It makes them lose sight of the tasks, goals, and outcomes that actually matter.
How do you assess if a designer is good with research and prototyping since a lot of designers put UX in the title?
One sign is their portfolio itself. If a portfolio is just a bunch of screenshots of perfect products and the end product, its tells me they weren’t involved in the experience design side of things. It also indicates they aren’t a good storyteller. Part of having a good portfolio is being able to pull back the curtain in your process. I look for evidence of the fact that they were involved before the visual design in either the user flows or wireframes. If you are in an interview with a UX designer and they only show you the final product, ask them to tell you about the process and what their role was and if they collaborated with other people. That would tell you the whole story.
It’s all about letting the process trump the product. Too often people want to show the final product and I want to know what’s the process to get through that and their thinking. What did they learn in the research that validated the idea or didn’t and how did they make changes to arrive at the final product?
How do you educate people that UX is important if people in your company are focused just on the visual aspect?
The way I convince people is you need to educate them on the product development process. Let’s face it, many of them haven’t been through the product development process before and may think that it all starts with the visual design. So we talk about identifying problems and then how we validate that problem, through user research, versus just starting on visual design. You also have to educate them on the consequence of not following the process and help them understand that user research is an investment, not an expense.
You also have to educate people about the speed of product development. It should happen rapidly and it should not happen in a silo. But, in order for it to work, it requires that stakeholders make themselves available to frequently check in with the design team. Otherwise, the stakeholders will slow down product development.
I would also use analytics to help show people the need to focus on how it works, not just what it looks like. Analytics are a powerful tool to help with this. If stakeholders adamantly want something in a design, then try to educate them on what you believe the right solution is. But if they resist, then commit to measuring the design, through analytics, and then bringing that data back to them and showing them how it’s hindering the key goals of the product.
How do you rebuttal the classic founder argument of “I am the customer and I know what they want”?
This happens all the time and my response is, “You are not the user.” You may be “a user” but not the normal user because you are too close to this and come with a lot of bias.
You have been mulling over this idea in your head for months or years and not thinking about this the way someone who will think about your product when they have visited your website or app a minute ago. So the pushback is that you are not the sole user and your friends and family are not the user either because they are too close to you and will not give you honest feedback.
So if we are not asking friends and family, how do we find people for user feedback?
There are a few ways to do this. Before I do research, I create a screener so I can make sure people meet a certain criteria for the research.
You could hire a company to recruit people for you if you have the budget.
The other way if you don’t have budget is to get involved in the community. So say it’s a running group, participate in the community in some way, and find ways to provide value. Mint.com is a good example of this. Part of their strategy was listening and participating on finance boards and getting to know people. Then they could post a message and then ask people to look at their product.
Use social media, but don’t just don’t post on your Facebook page (which limits it to friends and family). Instead try to find relevant Facebook groups. Find community leaders or bloggers. I’ve also had success on Twitter asking influencers of your target audience to retweet so you can reach a bigger target audience. Find surrogates who can ask on your behalf and take the time to build relationships with target audience.
I’m not a fan of coffee shop research because you don’t know the context of these people and you don’t know if they fit your target group. Plus, people in coffee shops are busy and they usually want to be left alone. I’m not sure you are going to get the quality of answers you are looking for which, usually ends up as bad research.
I’ve also had success with Craigslist. I post that I am doing research on a specific date so that people can determine if they’re even available. Then, I link to a questionnaire / survey (Google Form, Survey Money, Typeform, whatever you want) and I ask questions that will help me determine if they are a good fit or not.
I think it is important to compensate people for their time. The reason I pay people is because it’s courteous. I know not everyone can afford a huge budget, but you can probably budget $50 a person, or a small gift card. It you cannot afford something, then send them a thank you email or a handwritten note. Show some appreciation because these people could really become your cheerleaders and potentially part of your inner circle when you launch.
What are some good rules to to interview people?
Ask open-ended questions that let people rant and rave about the problem area. In the beginning of the interview I have a few ice breaker questions so they open up. Get to know their background briefly. For example, if it’s e-commerce website I will ask what is the last thing you bought online, and start from there.
I have a written a guide which you can refer to here or listen to this video on this topic
Finally, how do you go about interpreting the responses and presenting to the team?
I look for themes in the research. If 8 out of 10 research participants stumble through the checkout process, then that’s an area we’d want to focus on. I also listen for common quotes people have, suggestions they offer, feature wishes, and praise.
When presenting research findings, you have to show insights from your research and back those insights up with evidence. Without evidence, people will draw their own conclusions and likely debate what you tell them.
