Why every Product Manager should embrace UX Research

When I first stepped into a product manager’s role, I pivoted my thinking around one core mantra — “I am here to be the problem solver.” The mantra helped me channelise my thoughts just like a Jedi master channels the Force!

But soon I realized that the mantra was incomplete. It was incomplete because I had jumped into problem solving before identifying ‘what kind of problems do I have to solve for?’

Without defining the ‘problem’ area, I plunged into solving problems for delivery and execution. I took pride in launching MVPs, jotting down release notes, and getting sucked into the circle of development iterations. I spent hours on the engineering investment debates and blinded myself with the delivery success stories, thinking that technology can make up for everything.

But that was the project manager in me, riding high, in the garb of a product manager. In all that time, I failed to see the one most crucial aspect of a product. Did the product impact the world? Was it providing any solution?

It took me some time to realize this — a product manager’s job goes beyond enabling teams to do their best work or collaborating between stakeholders and engineering teams. Our job is to make things easier, better and eventually delightful for the users of the product.

So the mantra has to be “I am here to be the problem solver for the user”

The User. That is the operative word. And for that, one has to embrace User Experience Research a.k.a UX Research.

Why should this be the concern of a Product Manager? And where does that leave a Designer?

You could be forgiven for thinking that such kind of research lies in the purview of a designer. Not product manager. After all, conversations in the design world are full of discussions on ‘user mental models’, ‘user journey’, ‘surveys’ et al.

While all of that is true, what also remains a fact is that a product manager is like the captain of a ship. So as the captain, it is you, not the designer or technology lead who has to decide the direction in which to sail the product. And UX research plays a crucial role in helping understand that direction.

To break down more, I learned that a product manager must own user research for the following considerations -

1. Being the captain, you have more clarity and alignment with the product’s vision than anyone else on the team. So you are the best person to define ‘what’ needs to be researched and the depth/breadth of that research.
2. If you don’t know the users who will use the product, how will you validate the gap between the user’s needs and designers understanding?
3. If you don’t know the users, how will you know that a designer has been successful in discovering the core issue, without bias and the solution is designed to solve for the user, instead of being a tribute to the latest design trend?
4. Research is the phase that helps to identify the benefit/need to solve a particular problem. It can lead to refining and sometimes redefining the ‘Why’. Without investing sufficiently in research, how will you know that the ‘why’ you are solving for is accurate?
5. Last, but not the least, are your working on gut feeling or do you have data points to support your assumptions? If not, time to dig deeper with some research.

When done with right methods, UX research helps you in discovering the “why” and reducing the risk of launching a product that is miles away from users’ expectations.

I am convinced, so what do I need?

Although many people say that UX research can be done by anyone, but that I think, is simplifying the problem a little too much.

UX research needs good active listening skills, a heart full of empathy, an eye for detail and a love for design.

So before you jump into the process, a few things need to be kept in mind to avoid confusion and chaos -

• Define the boundaries proactively. Have a clear definition of who is doing what, which part of research is owned by whom and to what detail. Make sure that there is no clash of responsibilities.
• Learn to speak with the designers in the their language. And to speak in ‘design language’, follow this advice by Julie Zhou- “To speak the language of designers, stop talking about metrics and start talking about users.”
• In addition to soft skills, learn a few techniques on how to conduct interviews, how to identify user groups, how to synthesise data and gather quick insights from it.

All good, but how to begin with UX research?

While there are many tools and techniques to gain insights, what is more important is to follow a structured approach to the UX research process.

To begin with-

1. Plan well- First things first, discover what insights you want to discover -‘What’ it is that you are discovering, ‘Why’ you are discovering and ‘How’ will you measure it. This means to identify the parameters to be discovered and the metrics on which it will be measured. After that, plan for things like- how can I reach out to my users, how many users should I test with and which research method I can use.
2. Identify your participants- Having the right set of people in your UX research is important to collect useful insights. There is a very informative blog which talks about the basics of recruiting users for usability testing. It mentions that “participants must be able to represent your target group or end users; otherwise, your results will not translate into something you can use.” So, identify the right target audience and get their help you uncover blind spots and validate assumptions.
3. Conduct the research- Time for real action! Get to the ground and conduct the research with the chosen participants. If possible, observe users while they participate and record their interactions with the product. If you cannot observe them live, try to use tools that can help you record user sessions. I have used Inspectlet in the past and found it very useful.
4. Analyse the data- Get your hands dirty and dive into the data collected through UX research. There are various tools available to analyse data. Use them to summarise your results and form actionable inputs.
5. Include user feedback- It’ll be an utter waste of time and effort if you don’t include the user feedback collected through UX research. So, include the feedback and monitor the impact through analytics.

The Final Word

Keeping aside every reason which promotes that a product manager should take up UX research as one of their key responsibilities, the most important one that you need to remember is- empathy towards the end users. The engineering team will churn out high performing code, the designers will create the pixel perfect designs, but it’s the product manager’s job to align all of them towards a common goal of solving the users’ problems.

Your job is not to propose a final solution. Rather you are the voice in everyone’s head that helps them to look beyond the usual and present opportunities to improve the product and make it a delightful experience.

I wrote this blog for our Medium Publication- Unboxing Product Management. The publication is a weekly column by leaders of Quovantis to share their learning and knowledge with the world. If you liked reading the blog, clap your heart out and help others find it.