What is User Research?

Observing human-computer interaction

The origins of UXR

In recent years, the UX industry has exploded. Until fairly recently, UX research (aka design research, user experience research and user research) was often conducted by UX designers or other team members. There are inherent dangers in this approach, not only in the way that research is conducted, but also because inexperience can lead to unconscious bias that affects the findings.

The “U” in UX, of course, refers to the users of a product or service. The “X” represents their experience.

As the industry has matured, a recognition of the need for dedicated user researchers has become a “thing”.

In fact, UX research has been around for over a century. During the late 19th century and into the early 20th century, “time and motion” studies were carried out by Industrial Engineers to observe the behaviour of factory workers, in order to improve performance and production.

Of course this was way before the internet and digital technology was even a concept. But these early studies gave us the foundation for ethnographic research in post-industrial societies, which has now evolved into UXR.

In the late 1990s, we saw the formalisation of usability, but it was Apple who really brought user-centred design to the forefront of mass consciousness by designing products that matched the mental models of users.

Through their research, they discovered that the primary intention that people approach working with computers (or any digital device) with, is with a task or a goal that they wish to perform. By bringing in elements (mental models) that are familiar to the user’s “real world” experience (for example, the trash can), they made it easy for people to figure out how to perform their tasks with little, if any, technical knowledge.

What Exactly is User Research?

Let’s start off by looking at what user research is not. It is not market research. Market research is primarily interested in looking at large, statistically relevant data sets in order to understand what the market appetite is - with the objective of selling products or services.

Much of market research depends on self reporting. The mantra of user research, however, could be “what people say and what people do are two different things”. We rarely rely on self reporting as a stable way of understanding user experience - our objective is to improve the user experience of products or services, regardless of whether people pay for it or not.

User research employs a combination of qualitative, observational research and the use of quantitative data to validate the qualitative findings. That’s not to say we don’t use self reporting, but we do it differently.

For example, we may run a longitudinal study in the form of a diary study, where we ask users to record specific activities, events, thoughts and so on over a period of time. We also rely on feedback data - from call centres or web forms, for example - to give us a steer on the research direction.

This form of self reporting is not speculative (speculation is the enemy of UXR, because we know people are notoriously unreliable at predicting their own future behaviour). In fact, when we are trying to find out about user behaviour, we often ask users how they have done things in the past, and we rarely ask them to tell how they will do in the future. Even this approach has its drawbacks. There are certain ground rules, but at the end of the day, everything we do is contextual to the business/product/service and its users.

User Researchers may also choose to run a focus group, which is another market research activity, but how we conduct it is different to the way market researchers would.

We wouldn’t necessarily be testing attitudes or preferences, and we would be wary of group dynamics that may affect the way people participate. It’s therefore not a very common practice within UXR to run focus groups for users, but we may do so for stakeholders.

Okay, so we got that out the way. Now let's move onto what UX Research is!

One of the primary activities you will be doing as a UX researcher is to conduct qualitative research. There are a variety of approaches within the UXR toolkit, and a good practitioner will know how best to deploy each of these methods, as well as the correct method to use for the business and its users. Context again.

Often we are asked to create a UXR Roadmap, where we plan out our research over the next 3 months, for example.

You may find yourself working in a lab, in the field, online, on the phone or in person. The methods we use spring from social psychology research, which is the empirical investigation into how people think, act and perceive, using scientific methods.

On the surface, interviewing users might sound like an easy job, but be very aware that there are lots of pitfalls! Without proper training, we may find ourselves naturally asking compound questions, leading questions, interrupting, or worse - being tempted to “help” when a user is struggling with an interface.

Our job is to listen, observe and record, to know how and when to dig into what the user is thinking and why they are doing the thing they are doing, without influencing their responses.

What does a UX Researcher do?

Depending on your role and the organisation you work with, you may be doing activities such as various types of mapping, creating (or collaborating on) information architecture and taxonomies, expert reviews, (or site audits), creating prototypes and wireframes to test with users, persona development, diary studies, card sorting, tree testing, drafting discussion guides, consent forms and recruitment criteria, analysis and transcription. You may find yourself having to dig into data to pull out themes and patterns - this list is not exhaustive, these are the common tools and tasks.

It’s important to remember that you are not offering design solutions per se. You are developing and testing hypotheses and making recommendations based on your research findings.

The human mind loves to jump in and find solutions, to fix problems. That’s not what UXR is about. Yes, you will instrumental in creating powerful, user-centred solutions, but the process of arriving at those solutions is always led by user observation and analysis. It is the users themselves who are indicating solutions via the their experiences, and what those solutions could be, might not be obvious at first!

You will be presenting these findings to stakeholders via meetings or reports. You are the voice of the user - it’s your job to make sure that their needs are represented in the business.

There will be compromises along the way, because the business goals must met, too. You may find yourself interviewing business stakeholders in order to understand the business needs more fully, and these findings must be balanced with the end user needs in your ensuing recommendations. Don't ever forget that business users are also users, in one form or another.

You could find yourself in the position of having to sell UXR to senior stakeholders, whose objectives are biased towards business growth and so on. Fun, fun, fun!

But you have a secret weapon for this. Evidence. Show stakeholders video clips of actual users, highlighting the issues and perceptions they have around the product or service. Pair it with the "what" data (e.g. Analytics) to explain the "why" (e.g. cart abandonment etc).

Sometimes you can almost see the light bulb moment - when the reality of the shop floor becomes apparent to senior management, and the impact these findings has on the business becomes clear to them.

Let your users do the persuading, by being the facilitator of their voices, and their advocate.

This is a fantastic, rewarding career to have.

If you like to be challenged and make a profound difference in the lives of countless people, this is definitely the job for you!