Beginner’s Guide to User Research
User Research is one of the most critical aspects of product development, especially product design, that you need to learn to build a great product. Understanding what it entails can be overwhelming for a beginner as it was for me and that is why I wrote this article sharing the knowledge I got from intense research to make it easier for anyone reading this.
What is User Research?
User or UX Research systematically investigates target users to gain insights into their needs and pain points. Its purpose is to have a guide that informs your design process with the End User in mind.
User Research, or UX Research, is one of the most vital parts of the Product Design process. Through user research, you discover what exactly users want and need, and the insights and feedback you get from it serve as a guide for the rest of your design process. It informs the type of services and features your product has.
Although it is usually and commonly done at the start of a product design process, you can do it in between to help with iteration.
User Research is not to be skipped!
User Research is what separates a bad product designed based on guesswork and a great product that is designed to help solve user problems.
UX research prevents you from solving the wrong problem or solving the right problem in the wrong way.
Why It Is Done
User research aims to get insights into your target user’s needs, pain points, motivations, behaviours, and frustrations. It helps you understand why and how a user navigates a product. It makes your process a User-Centred one, which is what helps you how to create a great User Experience for your users.
The insights and feedback from your research answer essential questions on
- What your users need
- What your users want
- How they do things now
- How they would like to do things
- Why do they do these things
These answers help inform your design process for a great product.
How It Is Done
There are different types of research methodologies that are used to gather data. The two main research methods are Qualitative Research and Quantitative Research.
Qualitative Research: Qualitative Research is what gives you descriptive or qualitative data. Observing and listening help you gather insights into users’ behaviour, frustrations, attitudes, and motivations. The standard methods of Qualitative Research are interviews, focus groups, and usability tests.
Quantitative Research: Quantitative Research is what gives you numerical or quantitative data. It helps quantity behaviours and test assumptions. The data generated enables you to detect patterns in the behaviours of users. The standard methods of Quantitative Research are; Surveys and A/B tests.
These two methods give you different insights into your users’ minds and are usually best when used together. Both methods complement each other for the best result.
Once you get all your data from your research methods, it is time to Analyse your Data. You do this to bring out the pain points, needs, attitudes, and Behaviours of your End Users to have the necessary knowledge to inform your whole design process. From your data analysis, you get your user persona, customer journey map, empathy map, etc., which will help you develop the right solutions to your user problems.
Advantages
- It helps you to build user-Centred products
- It helps make informed decisions
- It allows you to test and dispute assumptions
- It helps save time and money
Conclusion
Knowing what User Research is, you can understand why it is vital in every design process. How you go about it or the design method you use depends on factors including but not limited to; the stages of the product development you are in, the nature of your research, your time frame, your budget, etc.
Remember that once you get your data, you need to analyse it to dey the insights that will inform your whole design process.
A great product solves user problems correctly, which is what user research helps you achieve.
