How to get under the skin of your users with UX research
We asked the experts.
Understanding your users has never been more important, and the most successful tech companies out there are doing a brilliant job in understanding what people want from their products.
UX design is an art it takes years to master, but the research part of their job, where you really try to grasp how users are thinking, that’s something all startups can and should be doing.
To better understand this super important topic we invited UX lead at Typeform Bojana Jamborcic, senior UX designer at Apalon Nastassia Sherenkova and Ironhack, and lead UX/UI designer at Quipu, Kamil Jura.
So, how often do the three UX designers speak to their users?
Nastassia explains that she joined Apalon at a stage where their user research consisted of what kind of data the marketing department, customer service and the BI team collected, which had worked fairly well for them.
I wish I could do more research on the users because it’s so important. Right now I’m talking to users or potential users twice every two weeks. Either via focus groups or in interviews face-to-face or over Skype.
Bojana doesn’t have an exact number of how often they talk with customers at Typeform, but confirms that the amount Nastassia is mentioning is close to how they operate at Typeform as well:
Every project is different, but we often talk with customers a couple of times every two weeks.
Understanding the users takes the whole company
Bojana further explains how their UX research process starts:
In the beginning we have a hypothesis that we want to test, and that’s where it all begins. At Typeform the UX/UI designers work in swarms or teams and brings in developers, scrum master and our product people throughout the process so everyone gets an understanding of the customers need.
Also Kamil agrees that it’s vital to include all parts of the company in the UX process:
Many of the UX problems we work with origins from something a developer or someone else has discovered or encountered, so it’s crucial to work together to improve or develop the product.
Nastassia nods and says that she always makes the developer or the product person take notes of the interviews or the user-observations she does:
The moment when more people inside the company actually realize how the users are thinking, that’s very powerful.
Asking the right questions
To get the right answers from your users about what you’re building, you first of all need to make sure that you’re asking them good questions.
Nastassia points to open questions as a golden rule for all UX research:
Never ask anyone did you really like this feature, ask neutral questions so the user feels like you don’t know much about the product. That makes the user feel confident to explain his or her thoughts in detail.
Bojana agrees with Nastassia and adds:
If you come into a room and what you want the person to say is too clear, the chance is high that he or she will say exactly that, something that again makes your research completely useless.
All three of them agree that the people or the user you’re interviewing always will try to echo your expectations to you, and that’s why staying neutral is very important. Kamil says he’s favorite thing to ask the user is the following:
Personally, my number one question is just asking the person I’m interviewing, what are your expectations or what do you expect from this product? I also always start the interview by saying that there’s no right or wrong answers.
When to hire a dedicated UX/UI person?
The purpose of this post and this podcast is to show that you can start doing UX research before you can afford to hire a dedicated UX person.
Kamil is Quipu’s first dedicated UX/UI designer, and encourages all startups to prioritizing user experience, but be aware of the costs related to the positions as well:
You should hire a person dedicated to user experience as early as you can, but these kind of profiles aren’t cheap and the job that is done by UX’ers might be seen as very time consuming for early stage startups.
Bojana however, has experience working for several early stage tech companies in San Francisco, and argues that hiring good UX designers are as important as hiring good developers in the beginnging:
It’s two sides of the same coin, and in terms of structure, not having UX’ers onboard is like having a two legged stool compared to a three legged one.
UX in 2017 — AI + design?
Just like in development, UX trends are evolving, so we wanted to ask what UX look likes in 2017, and the following years?
Kamil says AI will influence design, just as much as it already is influencing all other parts of the tech world:
I think the next years we’ll see more of what’s called anticipatory design, which is basically AI backed design where interfaces change as users are interacting with the product.
Bojana says that even as user experience trends are changing, they’re evolving more slowly than trends in development:
Colors, animations and interactions are changing very fast, but the core elements of UX are not as rapidly changing.
However, she agrees with Kamil anticipatory design is in it for the future, and is also a topic they’re discussing at Typeform.
Hungry for more UX insights, take a look at the video at the top.
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