Column: Insights from Research

Since the early 1970s, professions such as user experience, market research, advertising, and law enforcement have been using rooms that have one-way mirrors—like the one shown in Figure 1—to enable direct observation of research participants—and suspects. For both user experience and market research, the main impetus for using a lab with a one-way mirror is being able to invite designers, investors, and engineers to observe how participants react to products and services. We’ve worked with quite a few clients who felt that this is the only way to do user research. But, in reality, observing participants through a one-way mirror is just one of many approaches to research and, like all approaches, has its advantages and disadvantages. In this column, we’ll outline the challenges of using labs with one-way mirrors, share user feedback on such labs, and offer effective alternatives from current practice. Read More

Last month, we talked about ways that user research can go wrong. This month, we’ll discuss how research planning can reduce costs and decrease the time it takes to perform user research. One of the biggest challenges in performing user research is determining which research approaches to apply and when to apply them. The research methods you choose are dependent upon a variety of factors, including budget, schedule, development phase, business goals, and research questions.

If you are familiar with various research methods and their applications, your organization’s business goals, and product development constraints such as schedule, budget, and the development process, you can create an end-to-end user research plan to cover an entire product development cycle. Having a user research plan helps you to establish and communicate research goals and expectations regarding logistics and set research milestones for a product development effort. Read More

One of the best things about user research is that anyone can do it. On the other hand, it takes real commitment and a lot of personal development to do user research well. People commonly assume that research is research—and doing any kind of research is better than doing none at all. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Not all user research is created equal. Flawed research can be a significant liability to the success of a product, as well as the company developing it, so it really is important to get it right.

To be effective, there are certain personal characteristics a user researcher should have. Whether you are a dedicated user researcher, a student who is considering a career path in user research, a UX designer or software engineer who sometimes gets called upon to do user research, or a stakeholder looking for research support, this column will help you to understand the personal characteristics that really make a difference to a user researcher’s success. Read More