Recurring UX Research Programs vs. One-Time Projects
How recurring UX research is different and why we built a new research program for one longstanding UXR client
What is a recurring UX research program?
This type of program sets a long-term UX goal for the department or company and maps methods to meet those goals. It allows teams to make a plan to address UX for a product/service and stick with it.
These programs usually involve an initial discussion about key business goals, an agreed-upon cadence of work, and checkpoints to monitor progress and update the plan as needed.
Case Study: Implementing new recurring research with an existing UX client.
Here, I’ll explore how a recurring research program breathed new life into our UX work with a longtime client. We’d been conducting consistent user experience research with this client for years, and we regularly presented findings and provided recommendations, which were heard and implemented as appropriate. In other words, this client was already invested in UX research and understood why it was important.
Even so, we felt some gaps in what we were learning. When my colleague Sonya Badigian brought her fresh eyes to the project, she encouraged everyone (us and the client) to take a step back.
Who were we getting user feedback from? What were they informing us on in regards to the site or their behavior? What parts of the site are most important to get user feedback on?
She created a plan for recurring research, meaning research which we would repeat on a regular basis, centered around real site visitors discussing their actual activity while on the site. Up front, we drafted a project plan, a recruiting plan, and a research plan for the first round. We pitched the program to the client, with the first round focusing on discovery research of one of the main sites we work on with them. Our second round focused on two sister sites, as requested by the client. We built upon our research plan for the new round and continued documenting our process so it’s easily replicable for any of our researchers. To view and analyze the user insights, we facilitated a remote collaborative workshop with 10+ stakeholders who held diverse roles. My colleague Nora Fiore recently posted her tips on hosting a successful remote workshop after the success of one of those sessions.
For this client, the recurring nature of this research allowed everyone to hear from real site visitors and build directly upon those insights, in a way we weren’t doing from our previous UX research. Slowly, we had fallen into a comfortable pattern of conducting regular research and validating feature-design. Now, we brought the focus back to users’ true behaviors while on the site, focusing on how they are actually attempting to complete their own real tasks.
3 ultimate differences between recurring research and one-time projects.
This was one case of recurring research we’ve launched for clients. In our general experience, here’s how recurring UX research programs vary from typical UX work.
1. It communicates a commitment to UX research in a way one-off projects simply don’t.
We understand it can be hard to convince your team or stakeholders to conduct UX research. And when you do get a chance, maybe it’s a golden opportunity that comes every few years. If your team or stakeholders agree to a recurring UX research program, it demonstrates a step up in corporate UX maturity, as outlined by the Nielsen-Norman Group.
2. It requires a long-term strategy, up front.
This means considering how often this research will occur, what audience(s) we’ll be recruiting for, and It involves extensive forethought on what we hope to achieve from launching this program and defining our plan to get results. When we do this, we build a UX strategy that will significantly outline how user feedback will shape the future of a site or product.
3. It refocuses the UX work back on direct users and user problems, versus feature problems.
As discussed in the client case above, sometimes even regular various UX projects can focus around validating new features, instead of the users’ needs themselves. Recurring research that begins with general discovery research illuminates these user needs and problems, and brings them back to immediate attention. The recurring nature of research allows stakeholders to build upon these findings and continue progress towards a site or product that is in line with solving these and seeing if certain features have a place in the users’ process, rather than seeing how to make these features fit into the current experience.
As the world transitions to more remote work, it’s more important than ever that digital experiences work as people expect, need, and want. If you are struggling with the first step of convincing your team or stakeholders to invest in UX research, read how my colleague Kristy Knabe explains how concept testing saves time and money. Don’t worry if it seems your team or organization would not be ready to commit to a recurring research program. Starting with a one-time UX project is better than no UX at all.
