Product Sense: What Is It and How Do I Apply It In Research?

UX research can be an unfamiliar discipline for researchers from social science backgrounds. Here’s how to start viewing problems through a people-and-products lens.

Published in

Meta Research

6 min readApr 19, 2022

Many tech companies hire UX researchers from traditional social science disciplines as well as those with UX-specific experience. In either case, UX research hinges on demonstrating “product sense” along with research ability. For researchers without previous UX experience, two questions naturally emerge:

Um, what is product sense?
How can I apply product sense in my research?

Proving that you have an ability you’ve only just heard of might sound daunting, but it’s mostly a matter of shifting your perspective. Applying your traditional skills to UX research really just involves adopting a new focus and goal: a focus on the intersection of people and products, with the goal of improving products for people.

UX research focuses on the intersection of people and products

Most social science disciplines train researchers to think of problems from specific perspectives. For instance, psychologists often view problems from the perspective of a single person’s interiority or the dynamics of a small group, while sociologists may frame problems in terms of societal forces or the dynamics of institutions. A “product sense” perspective focuses on the intersection of people and products. At Meta, we expect researchers to think about problems specifically through the lens of how people are actually using our products.

The UX research north star: improving products for people

At Meta, good UX research is not only methodologically sound, but specifically leads to product improvements. This expectation may seem strange to researchers from some other settings, in which research doesn’t always have to produce change to be considered good. But the purpose of research at Meta is improvement, specifically improving our products for the people who use them. This improvement can take many forms, such as making the product more effective at meeting their needs, easier to use, or more relevant to their specific environments. But ultimately, our research needs to benefit the product experience. So when thinking through research plans as a UX researcher, your north star should always be “How can this research be useful for improving the product?”

How you can apply this new focus and goal in your research

The following practices help illustrate that you’ve adopted the shift in thinking that sets UX research apart from traditional social science research.

Thinking analytically about how people use the products

Say your team is seeing a recent decrease in satisfaction scores. They’re anxious to understand why this decrease is happening so they come to you, the researcher, for answers. Depending on your training, you might immediately think about focusing your research on macro-level changes like the demographic composition of the user base or new competition, or micro-level changes in people’s need for the product or their trust in the company. These are great places to start. But you should also include product-specific changes in your research. You could consider any recent changes to the product itself — for example, a change in the product’s user interface that makes it more difficult to navigate. Also think about any changes in how people use the product, such as increased passive use of a social media app, which might not fulfill the need for social connection.

Assessing the design quality of a product or feature

As part of a product team, researchers play a significant role in ensuring the quality of the user experience. To accomplish this, researchers are expected to identify elements of apps or websites that are well designed and those that need improvement. For researchers who’ve never worked on products, this may seem like a daunting task. But this is where your analytical and empathetic skills as a researcher come in.

To practice this skill, take a look at an app or website you use every day. Ask yourself what need a person would want to fulfill by using this product (such as “staying connected with family and friends” for Facebook). Next, consider whether the product, as designed, would help the “general” user meet this need. What specific aspects of the product’s design make it successful? Likewise, if the design of the product doesn’t help fulfill that need, what is it about the design, specifically, that causes the problem?

Now, go beyond imagining a general user. Consider how various people might experience the product differently; for example someone with limited internet proficiency. Would the product, as designed, be equally helpful to them? These are the kinds of questions that will help you assess a product’s design quality. In addition, being able to examine the usefulness, effectiveness, and quality of a product from these multiple perspectives also demonstrates your ability to think analytically about how people use our products.

Selecting research with improvement in mind

UX researchers should be able to orient all elements of their research — selection, design, execution, and dissemination — toward the goal of improving products for people. For traditional social science researchers, the selection of research can require the biggest shift in mindset. With product improvement as the goal, it’s not enough that a UX issue be interesting, or even important. A UX researcher should ask, “Can the team do anything to resolve this issue?” If not, the issue isn’t a good use of research resources.

Directly connecting every stage of research to product improvement

For UX researchers, the goal of product improvement guides the entire research process. This means each step of the research — goals, questions, design, and recommendations — must explicitly tie back to product improvement. Think back to the example of decreasing satisfaction scores and sketch out a research project to investigate this problem. Now ask yourself the following questions about that research project.

What product improvement goals follow from the UX problem?
How do the research questions you’re proposing help meet the specific product goals for the research?
Is the research design appropriate and adequate to answer the research questions?
Are the product recommendations directly derived from the research findings?
Do these recommendations respond to the stated product goals?

Outlining a research study that clearly answers these questions demonstrates your ability to design research with the goal of improving products.

A shift, not a leap

Finally, rest assured that no one expects you to immediately be able to transform into a grizzled UX veteran. However, being able to shift your research focus toward improving products for the way people use them will take you a long way toward becoming a UX researcher.

For many researchers who joined Meta from social science backgrounds, the challenge of learning to apply their skills and experience in new ways has been a gratifying and re-invigorating one. With that in mind, I hope you’ll approach this making shift not just as a test of your capabilities, but also as a chance to begin discovering how impactful they can be.