Why do User Research and hot to fit user research into your everyday work

Question 1

What are some user research methods that can be chosen depending on project, requirements, and constraints?

Answer 1

Depending on your project, requirements, and constraints, you can choose different types of research methods. These include surveys, tests, interviews, and the most common method — usability testing.

Question 2

What are the three most common reasons for conducting user research?

Answer 2

1. Do user research to ensure that you create products that are truly relevant to your target group.
2. Do user research to ensure that your products deliver a great user experience.
3. Do user research to show the ROI of your design efforts.

The three most common reasons for conducting user research are to create designs that are truly relevant, to create designs that are easy and pleasurable to use, and to understand the return on investment of your user experience (UX) design.

(short)
User research is used to inspire your design, to evaluate your solutions, and to measure your impact.

Question 3

What is the common objective of all user research?

Answer 3

All user research has in common the goal of placing people at the center of your design process and products.

Question 4

How is user research typically divided?

Answer 4

User research (and other kinds of research) is often divided into quantitative and qualitative methods.

Question 5

What is the purpose of quantitative user research methods?

Answer 5

Quantitative user research methods seek to measure user behavior in a way that can be quantified and used for statistical analysis.

Question 6

What are some examples of quantitative research tools?

Answer 6

Examples of quantitative research tools include surveys and formal experiments such as A/B testing and tree testing.

Question 7

What is the purpose of qualitative research methods?

Answer 7

Qualitative research methods are often more exploratory and seek to get an in-depth understanding of the experiences and everyday lives of individual users or user groups.

Question 8

What are some examples of qualitative research tools?

Answer 8

Examples of qualitative research tools include interviews, usability tests.

Question 9

How do you determine which research method to use for a project?

Answer 9

Each research method has benefits and drawbacks, and can be used for achieving different goals. The method you choose depends on what you want to achieve, as well as practical concerns such as the type of project you are working on, your budget, and your time constraints.

Question 10

Fill in the blank. “Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what others ____, ____, and _______, design is a pointless task.”

Answer 10

see, feel, and experience

Question 11

What factors determine the type of user research you should conduct?

Answer 11

The type of user research you should conduct depends on your work process as well as your reason for doing user research in the first place.

Question 12

Why is it important to understand your users in the design process?

Answer 12

Understanding your users is crucial because it enables you to create designs that are relevant for them. Without a clear understanding of your users, you have no way of knowing whether your design will be relevant. A design that is not relevant to its target audience will never be a success.

Question 13

What is the first step and core of the design thinking process, and how can it be achieved?

Answer 13

The first step and core of the design thinking process is to empathize with your users. User research is one of the best ways to achieve this.

Question 14

Why is user research often conducted at the very beginning of a project?

Answer 14

User research is often conducted at the very beginning of a project to ensure that the overall direction for the project is relevant to potential customers and users.

Question 15

How can you ensure that your design remains relevant as your project progresses?

Answer 15

To ensure that your design remains relevant as your project progresses, it is vital to validate your ideas with prospective users continuously. Talk to them about how they perceive your design and how they could imagine using it, or involve them directly in your design process, to ensure that you are still on the right track.

Question 16

Fill in the blank. “If the user is having a problem, ___________.” - Steve Jobs

Answer 16

If the user is having a problem, it’s our problem.

Question 17

What is usability?

Answer 17

Be easy to use

Question 18

How can you ensure that a product has a high level of usability?

Answer 18

To ensure that a product has a high level of usability (i.e., be easy to use), conducting usability tests can be a significant help in achieving that goal.

Question 19

What are people’s expectations regarding the usability of products?

Answer 19

People expect products to be easy to learn and easy to use. They anticipate being able to pick them up and use them to achieve their goals without having to think about the products themselves.

Question 20

What is likely to happen if your user experience is not good?

Answer 20

If your user experience is not good, chances are that people will move on to another product.

Question 21

Why is a high level of usability essential for a product’s commercial success?

Answer 21

A high level of usability (and a matching high-quality user experience) is essential for making any product a commercial success, especially if you work in a field with competitors.

Question 22

What benefits do products with a high level of usability offer in a highly specialized work environment where users have no alternatives?

Answer 22

In a highly specialized work environment where users have no alternatives, products with a high level of usability will make work processes faster, safer, and more efficient.

Question 23

Why might designers and developers become blind to usability issues in their own products?

Answer 23

When designing or developing a product, designers and developers become the primary experts on how to use it and what functionalities it has. However, because they know their own product so well, they can become blind to functionality in the product that is difficult to use.

Question 24

What is “déformation professionnelle,” and how does it affect designers and developers?

Answer 24

“Déformation professionnelle” is the tendency to see things from the point of view of one’s profession, which can prevent stepping back to view the reality from a fresh, generalist perspective. This natural tendency affects designers and developers by making them blind to usability issues in their own products.

Question 25

Why is it important to test the user experience of your product even if you follow guidelines and rules of thumb?

Answer 25

Testing the user experience of your product is important because, although following various guidelines and rules of thumb can help avoid many usability issues, there will always be situations that the guidelines don’t cover or where different guidelines conflict. Additionally, you might be designing for target groups such as seniors or children, where regular guidelines do not apply. Therefore, testing ensures that the user experience is effective for your specific audience.

Question 26

When do usability tests work best?

Answer 26

Usability tests work best when they are an integrated part of your work process, allowing you to test your product iteratively and from an early stage of development onward.

Question 27

What is the risk of starting usability testing only when the product is almost finished?

Answer 27

If you only start testing when you have an almost-finished product, you run the risk that your findings might come too late to make larger changes to the product.

Question 28

What is the importance of staying fluid with your design until the end of the process?

Answer 28

Staying fluid with your design until the end of the process is important because it allows you to incorporate valuable insights that can emerge from eleventh-hour testing of the ‘last’ version planned for rollout. If all the software is done or you can’t push your release date, being inflexible can leave you with limited options for addressing usability issues.

Question 29

Why do executives and shareholders sometimes overlook the value of investing in user research and UX design?

Answer 29

Executives and shareholders sometimes fail to see the value in investing in user research and UX design because these activities are not as tangible as new features or fixing software bugs. This can make it easier to overlook their importance.

Question 30

Why is UX often one of the first areas to experience cuts when resources become scarce?

Answer 30

UX is often one of the first areas to experience cuts when resources become scarce because the consequences are not as immediately felt as when saving on development or similar areas.

While cuts in software development can immediately lead to fewer features or buggy software, cuts in UX only become apparent once the product reaches users and competitors start attracting those users away.

Question 31

What are the consequences of making cuts in UX, and when do they become apparent?

Answer 31

If you make cuts in UX, the consequences are not experienced until your product reaches your users. At that point, competitors may attract your users towards their products, revealing the negative impact of those cuts.

Question 32

How can the value of great UX be effectively demonstrated?

Answer 32

While we can easily argue for the value of great UX, it is much more effective to show it. This is where studies demonstrating the return on investment (ROI) on UX efforts become invaluable.

Question 33

How can you build a strong case for investing in UX?

Answer 33

You can build a strong case for investing in UX by showing that the design changes you made generated more sales, resulted in a larger number of customers, or made work processes more efficient.

Question 34

What are some quantitative methods for measuring the effect of your design through user studies?

Answer 34

User studies to measure the effect of your design are mostly quantitative and can take different forms. You can perform A/B tests during development to compare different versions of your design, or conduct studies after your product is released to measure differences in use patterns. With apps and webpages, you can build in various types of analytics to inform you of different user patterns.

Question 35

How does Etsy maintain its position as one of the largest online marketplaces?

Answer 35

Etsy maintains its position as one of the largest online marketplaces by routinely testing different versions of user interfaces to constantly improve the platform’s usability as well as business metrics. Its rigorous focus on usability, research, and testing is key to its continued success.

Question 36

What is the “holy trinity” approach to user research and how does it benefit the design process?

Answer 36

The “holy trinity” approach to user research involves conducting studies before you start designing to understand what your target group needs, carrying out iterative tests during development to ensure that the user experience is on track, and measuring the effect of your design after your product is released. This approach benefits the design process by keeping you three steps ahead, ensuring that every dimension of your release has been considered, analyzed, and tested. Consequently, you can be more confident in the success of your design when evaluating the ultimate test—the ROI.

Question 37

When you decide to do user research as part of a design project, what two things should your planning focus on?

Answer 37

1. How to make the research project fit into your overall work and development processes in a way that maximizes impact.
2. The steps involved in planning the research project itself

Question 38

What is a research plan?

Answer 38

It describes, step by step, what you’re going to do and why.

Question 39

How does a research plan help you?

Answer 39

It helps you think through all the steps you need to go through in your planning and means that you can share your plan with your research stakeholders to get feedback.

You create the document at the start of your research project and adapt it when you make changes to your project so that it always reflects how you are actually running the project.

That way, you can use it as a manual when you run the research, and the document can serve as documentation for how you carried out the project when you are finished.

Question 40

What is the first thing you must consider is the purpose of your user research project?

Answer 40

What’s the overall question you want to answer?
If you’re beginning a user research project, you obviously already have an idea of what you want to find out and why you need to find out.

Question 41

How should one decide on the research method to use for their study?

Answer 41

Deciding on the research method often follows from the purpose of your research.

Question 42

What factors should be considered when choosing the most appropriate research method for a study?

Answer 42

When choosing the most appropriate research method, a number of practical and resource concerns come into play. While several methods might answer your research question in different ways, you need to weigh the appropriateness of each method against financial and time constraints.

Question 43

What should you do if there is doubt about the best research method to use?

Answer 43

In cases where there might be doubt about the best method, it’s a good idea to state why you’ve chosen a specific method. For example, “Why will this method provide the insights you need? Why is this method the only method you can get funding to do?”.

Question 44

How does the data you have influence the type of analyses you can perform and the results you can obtain?

Answer 44

The data you have decides what kind of analyses you’ll be able to do and thus what results you can get.