UX RESEARCH
What exactly is a UX researcher
What type of research do they do and who does it benefit?
If you work in UX, you may have worked with a UX researcher before (or at least I hope you’ve gotten the opportunity to). But what exactly does a UX researcher do?
In my experience as a content designer, working with UX researchers helps me do my job better. They give me user data to base my words on, testing different versions of designs to determine what users prefer, and helping me interpret the findings. Without UX research, I would just be guessing and hoping for what works best.
But this article isn’t a love letter to UX researchers, though I could probably write one. It’s to help you understand what exactly the title “UX Researcher” means and what type of research they do.
What is a researcher?
Researchers create and spread knowledge based on observations of people, ideas, behavior, activity, and more. They uncover and recognize patterns that are used to help inform decisions. While all researchers want to help inform others about patterns and observations, the motivations and questions asked differ.
For a marketing researcher, the product’s appeal and reasons for buying (or not buying) the product are important. They want to know what people think about the product and what the potential market size is.
UX researchers care about the users’ goals, frustrations, motivations, feelings, and behaviors so that they can help inform the products and designs to work better for the users.
According to UXStudio, UX researchers tend to look for more detailed insights that focus on behavior, while a market researcher looks for broad insights focused on attitudes. If a market researcher wants to know how many people want the product or service and who, the UX researcher wants to know the motivations behind why the user would want it, the environments in which they operate, and what the user assumes or needs from the product.
What type of research projects does a UX researcher do?
While there are a lot of different types of projects UX researchers conduct, we’re just going to go over a couple of common ones. If you want to learn more, you can check out 20 common research methods from the Nielsen Norman Group.
There are two types of data collected through research: qualitative and quantitative.
Qualitative data include feelings, stories, thoughts, or observations that dig into the why. It can answer questions such as ‘what was your last experience like making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich’ and ‘how do you determine which type of sandwich you want to eat’?
Quantitative data can be measured and is number-based. It can answer questions such as ‘how many jars of peanut butter do you typically buy a month’ and ‘how much do you typically spend on a jar of jelly’?
Both qualitative and quantitative user data can be collected through a variety of research methods:
- User interviews: Just like it sounds, a user interview is when a researcher interviews one user at a time to learn more about the user’s thoughts.
- Surveys: A survey is a list of questions used to collect information on a specific topic from a specific group of people. The survey questions can be open-ended or there may be options that the person must choose from.
- Usability studies: In a usability study, oftentimes called a usability test, the researcher will ask the participant to perform specific tasks using their prototype or UI. The researcher can observe how the participant feels during the task, how easy it was to complete the task, and identify any points of frustration or confusion.
- Focus groups: Similar to a user interview, focus groups ask users sets of questions to learn about their thoughts. However, in a focus group, there are typically 6–9 people.
- UX workshops: Workshops are a set of activities used to help solve cross-functional problems. They can be for the designers and stakeholders working on the project or they can be with users to design a solution for their problem.
Who benefits from user research?
I think the better question would be who doesn’t benefit from user research?
Designers benefit because they can make more informed decisions knowing what the users’ goals, motivations, and frustrations are. Users benefit because the designs are better suited and more helpful to them. As a content designer, research is imperative for me to do my job well. User research helps me know which words resonate with the users, which words may be confusing, and the feelings users have toward the brand.
Research helps inform our decisions as UXers, but it also helps us measure the impact of our changes. Research helps us establish a baseline. We can then compare the baseline’s metrics with metrics from any changes we make to see if the changes are helping, and if so, how much.
As a content designer, research shapes what language, voice, and tone I use. Research has helped me determine how clear or friendly the words I use should be. I can make my best guess on what words resonate with users, but until it is tested, I won’t know.
There have been many times that my team and I thought our product was easy to understand and navigate, but then we would listen to user interviews or read survey results and see that some users didn’t understand specific words or next steps. It all made sense to us, of course, because we created and worked on it every day. Only after getting the research back did we know what we had to change and why.
Have a story of your own? Write with us! Our community thrives on diverse voices — let’s hear yours.
