Research: UX Research

When I began my career as a UX designer, many product developers shared the aspiration of building great products with numerous features. While building great products is a worthy goal, teams often paid little attention to users’ real needs when deciding what features to build, which is a great shame. App development is not just about creating a product but about solving a problem for users. As an essential part of human-centered design, user research helps us to crystallize users’ problems and create solutions that directly address them.

As a design lead, I make user research an integral part of my team’s design process. We use various approaches to interacting with users to help us tailor the end product to the audience’s needs. In this article, I’ll share some of my experiences conducting different types of user research, focusing mainly on in-depth user interviews, usability testing, and surveys, but we’ve used all of the approaches that Figure 1 depicts. You’ll learn how to use each of these types of user research and discover useful methods of collecting and analyzing users’ thoughts. Read More

In recent years, the role of the UX researcher has grown in importance. But those who are just entering the field of User Experience should be aware that there are a lot of misconceptions about this role. Therefore, in this article, I’ll debunk some of the most common myths, or fallacies, about the role of UX research, as follows:

• Fallacy #1: UX research is all about doing the research.
• Fallacy #2: UX research is all about talking with users.
• Fallacy #3: A UX research project ends after completing the research.
• Fallacy #4: Stakeholders drive requests for UX research.
• Fallacy #5: UX research is about conducting one study after another.
• Fallacy #6: UX research is all about collecting user feedback.
• Fallacy #7: UX research is all about working with your product team. Read More

Starting a new user-research project can sometimes be intimidating—especially if you are a junior UX researcher. When I worked on my first UX research project, I battled impostor syndrome along with the anxiety of being a newcomer at my company. My intent for this article is to help other UX researchers—especially those who are early in their career—plan and conduct an effective UX research kick-off meeting—the first step in the research process.

What Is a UX Research Kick-off Meeting?

A research kick-off is a meeting that you should conduct prior to launching a UX research project. It involves all of your key stakeholders who can help you determine the scope of and plan your research project. Read More