Day 9 - User Research
Getting to know your users better...
Hello learners!
Welcome to the ninth lesson of the series 30 Days of PM by Crework! Till now we have talked a lot about the “identifying the problem” part theoretically. We have discussed frameworks and methods you can use to make sure you know what your users want.
But, you can’t know what your users want without talking to them, or taking their opinion right? So, how do we do that? That step is called User Research - our topic for today.
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What is User Research?
User research is the act of interviewing prospective and actual users of your products to gain clarity on things.
You might use it to figure out why people aren’t adding recommended products to a cart, why they’re not clicking through your emails on mobile phones, or why adoption of your application has fallen significantly.
You may also be developing a new product or redesigning a website and know you want to do it differently this time around. All of these are great reasons to let your users tell you how they feel about your product.
User research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through observation techniques, task analysis, and other methods.
But, why should we do user research?
Well, I think I have talked enough about the importance of user research, so this question shouldn’t have come haha. But, there are various benefits of user research. Some of them are:
It decreases costs in the long term, as it saves on development and redesign efforts.
Increase user satisfaction by delivering exactly what your target wants or needs.
Gets qualitative feedback which helps you to improve user’s interactive experience and in increasing the conversion rate.
Helps you understand what best supports user’s goals and motivations and focus on the features that really matter to your target.
Gain a competitive advantage; stand out from the crowd, be always 1 step ahead of your competitors, create a “wow” effect.
Shorten the learning curve for new users; make your product easy-to-use.
Have not only a beautiful design but a smart one, putting your user in the center of your product strategy.
I hope all these points convinced you about the need of user research. Okay, next, how to conduct user research?
User Research Methods
User research essentially splits into two subsets:
Qualitative research – Qualitative research ****explores the reasons or motivations behind these actions. This kind of research is more anecdotal and is a direct input from the user.
Quantitative research – Quantitative research gathers data that is measurable. It gives you clear-cut figures to work with, such as how many users purchased an item via your e-commerce app, or what percentage of visitors added an item to their wishlist.
Basically - Quantitative is numerical data about what they users do and Qualitative is anecdotal data about what users say they do.
We can also split user research into two approaches:
Attitudinal – When you listen to user’s words (e.g., in interviews).
Behavioral – When you watch their actions through observational studies.
And based on these 2 types of split, we can make 4 quadrants of user research methods. Applying a mixture of both the splits can give you the sharpest view of a design problem.
Here is a list of some of the most popular user research methods:
Studying Data
If your product collects any sort of data, then the first step in user research is to read the data and form some hypothesis on how users are using the product.
Product data can tell you a lot about retention, low conversion and even bad design. You just need to know how and where to look.
Usability Testing
Usability testing refers to “evaluating a product or service by testing it with representative users.”
During a test, participants will be asked to complete specific tasks while one or more observers watch, listen, and record notes.
The main goal of this user experience testing method is to identify usability problems, collect qualitative data, and determine participants’ overall satisfaction with the product.
User Interviews
Interviews are typically conducted by one interviewer speaking to one user at a time for 30 minutes to an hour. Interviews can take place face-to-face, over the phone, or via video streaming.
Of all the user experience design methods, interviews are typically conducted at the beginning of the product development cycle when reviewing product goals.
Because of the one-to-one nature of the interview, individual concerns and misunderstandings can be directly addressed and cleared up.
There are a few drawbacks, however. First, because interviews require a team of people to conduct them, personnel costs are usually difficult to keep low. Sample size is also limited to the size of the interviewing staff.
Online Surveys
A survey is a research tool that typically includes a set of questions used to find out the preferences, attitudes, and opinions of your users on a given topic.
The results from surveys basically tell us what an average user thinks and helps us in getting an overall picture of the user preferences and opinions.
Day 9 - Completed ✅
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