What type of UX research is needed in product development?
To validate needs of features: survey.
Survey as a quantitive research method is suitable to investigate whether a certain feature can bring value to the users or not. So companies can avoid investing a lot of manpower into something that users don't care about.
I found these two ways of launching surveys very useful: Hotjar and banner type (external link to survey).​
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To validate hypothesis (for example usability issues): usability tests.
Usability tests are qualitative researches. Companies might have noticed that their drop off rate is high but they don't know the reasons. Ask 10-20 users to test it out might be the way to find out.
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To explore customer needs: target group interviews.
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To know your customers: user journey mapping, building Personas (representing different user behaviours, different point of valued, ...)
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A/B tests are necessary and powerful. But I don't include it here as UX research.
How did UX research help business (in real cases)?
Avoided 'an ant becoming an elephant'
In 2022, my team kicked off a discussion about a small but very important feature: the cost of damage repair on a car history report. In the kickoff meeting around 10 colleagues shared their hypotheses (mostly the risks) regarding this potential feature.
I designed tasks for two sets of usability tests. The test results showed that most of the hypotheses were NOT true and that this feature was very valuable to our users. With these tests, we avoided this feature killed and prevented it from being wrongly expanded into a much larger project
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Avoided copying competitor's wrong designs
In 2023, a product owner had the hypothesis that our competitor's design solution of showing the vehicle damage area is more effective than ours. If we wanted to show our design in a similar way, it will occupy his team 1 or 2 quarter's development manpower. So it was an important decision to make.
What we did:
1. gathering stakeholders to define our most important goals of this design.
2. I designed some tasks and built usability tests accordingly to validate which type of design can reach our goals.
The test result showed that our competitor's solution was NOT the right way.
Funny enough, in 2024, our competitor changed their design in a way similar to ours. ​​​
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Found our USP and brand position
In 2017, one of the mobile apps I was designing was the second player in the market in Asia (our app had 60 million users, while the competitor had 80 million). Our team (POs, designers, and researchers) interviewed two groups of users: production workers in China who lived in small towns and middle-class individuals in big cities. The goal was to find out how these people used our app in their daily lives. These user interviews helped us discover our USP. We used this USP in a new branding strategy, which helped us break our bottleneck.
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How can UX research be done wrongly?
Too academic, Not usable
As a UX designer, I have received many times UX research results from researchers that can be difficult to translate to solutions. For example building 'Personas'. While Personas are beautifully constructed from data, surveys, and interviews, if UX designers and product owners cannot identify pain points, typical user behaviors, or points of value, it becomes challenging to convert the research results into product improvement solutions.
​Completely Rely on What Users SAY
User research (including interviews and tests) does NOT mean that we should ask users what to do how to design. Sadly, this is often misunderstood.​​​
The aim is to understand the why behind user behavior and decisions, so designers can create products that resonate with users.
Example: 'Found our USP and brand position' in the last chapter.
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​​​​​​No 'User-Centered' Mindset Preparation
When companies lack a 'user-centered' mindset, it is very difficult to present the value of UX research. I would suggest two approaches:
- Talk to management teams and emphasize the importance of a 'user-centered' approach.
- Invite the company or related departments to join presentations on 'user-centered design,' explaining its value and feasibility.
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Stakeholders not involved
When stakeholders are not involved in the UX research processes, business goals and users needs can hardly be aligned, expectation is difficult to be managed and the research result could easily be ignored.
Lately what I found very challenging is working in 'trio' mode, which product owners and developers are involved in UX research but they don't have enough knowledge of research.
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Usability test: practical tips
How to start doing it
If your company wants to start doing usability tests, I suggest the following:​
Firstly, try out a couple of tests internally. Invite colleagues who don't work directly in the product development team. Try to build prototypes, writing task scripts.
Secondly, consider using Userfeel.com. Userfeel requires no subscription; each valid unmoderated test (one user) costs $60. Starting with 8 users would be good amount to validate your design and assumptions.
There are many articles online to guide you how to plan usability tests. I would skip the intro here.
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Usability test on a regular base
Usability tests can be very useful, but on the other hand, they are time-consuming. When a unmoderated usability test is requested, here is the manpower to expect (for 15 valid tests):
- goal, hypothesis alignment (0.5-1 hr)
- design prototype, translations (depends on complexity, average 8-16 hours)
- task planning, writing scripts (3 -5 hour)
- test validations (based on my experience, 30-50% chance the tests are not valid, they need to be launched again. 8 hours.)
- test documentation (16 hours)
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User interview: practical tips
Combine the interviews within the usability test
What I found very practical is to set the first 5-10 minutes in every usability test as 'user interviews'. Why:
- interviews should be relative open, whenever there is a chance to talk to users, interview them and understand the different type of users you have. Build up your net of hypothesis from there.
- Interviews are relaxed chats, making it perfect to open up the conversation for usability tests and help users feel less nervous.
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Find out the users' point of value
For example, ask your users why they chose a certain product instead of others in the same category. Gradually, you will discover what influenced this group of users' decisions: does it relate to income, education, or brand loyalty? Then you will know what to focus on when it comes to your target customer group.
In user interviews, it's important to find out users' points of value because these insights are key to understanding what matters most to them. The point of value refers to the aspects of a product or service that are most important to users and bring them the most benefit, satisfaction, or utility.
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