Collecting feedback from users is one of the pillars of good product development. If your road map is not aligned with the business needs of the people who use it day in, day out then you’re going down a slippery path.

An increasing number of companies are also realizing the advantages of user research: why user research is needed and how it benefits their product plans. Evaluating usability can save teams from going off on wasteful development tangents. Each team has their own way of working towards collecting feedback, they have different organizational setups and resources and varying requirements. But the bottom line of all this is that listening to your users is key.

Existing Users, Not Just Potential Ones

A grave mistake companies can make is confusing market research for user research. Don’t confuse them as being the same thing.

Market research involves using the data from your product and customers to understand that particular market segment, what others in it are doing and how your sales or marketing strategies are working. From a product perspective, the best it gives you is understanding how to make things better for what is already working.

User research looks for a user’s needs, tools, mental models etc. and uncovers why their behavior in relation to the product is the way it is. User research actually looks for issues that are affecting users, which in turn propels innovation in order to solve those issues.

Experience Dynamics hit the nail on this subject with this piece:

“Market research is opinion-driven. User research is behavior-driven”

If you are just focusing on market research, you’re headed towards an echo chamber where you’re just hearing your customers for partial validation but not really listening to what they need. User research, done right, moves products towards what customers need, not what they ask for.

Google actively invites people to participate in their user research. source: https://www.google.com/usability/

How To Do User Research

Companies big and small do user research and not only do they do it very often, but they also do it swiftly. Here is an overview of user research methods for teams that are typically small and agile, to do user research that delivers great value in feedback and insightful learning from the effort. These methods are not mutually exclusive and can often work when used together or in combinations.

Card Sorting

Card sorting is a very simple and relatively inexpensive method for user research. Users are invited to sort topics written on cards into categories. These categories can be pre-defined (closed card sort) or be defined by the user (open card sort). These two variations can be used in tandem as well. This kind of exercise is good for understanding how users will perceive the architecture of your site or application, or something like navigation flow within the product. It can also give you an insight into the user’s mental models. This can be good for problem identification.Think of this in practical life like streamlining what product comes under which aisle in the super market.

There are a number of online tools for conducting this exercise also. Optimal sort is one. UserZoom is another. This post by Designmodo can help give more insight into how to run a card sorting study:

User Interviews

It is as easy as it sounds, in theory. UX researchers ask users questions and record their responses. The crux of it is, of course, what kind of questions the user is asked, what the researcher is aiming to uncover from the process. User interviews are best conducted when handled by two researchers for one user. This would enable one researcher to ask questions, while the other makes notes. Another way can be to record the session on video so that researchers can take another look at the session later and record their insights. User interviews are good ways to understand the target demographic, the user’s needs, pain points, ethnographic information etc.

Check out this post by Fiona Foster for getting more out of interviewing users:

Usability Testing

Usability testing sessions have users being observed while they are asked to complete specific tasks. This gives a chance for researchers to see how users actually use the product. It may even be done in the user’s natural environment. Doing such tests helps learn how long it takes the user to complete a task, get context on what would be typical workflow in which a user may use the product, any other tools that would be part of this process, what their work space would be like, what constraints they would be dealing with etc.

The Uber Design Team regularly conducts user research via a variety of methods — interviews (both, in person and on the phone), usability studies, surveys, and field research. By stepping out into the field for usability testing, the design team has been able to uncover some very important insights about how users and driver partners are using the product. They are able to uncover areas of friction and pain points for both sets of users. A very important example is how high-population density Asian cities like Guangzhou pose unique challenges to UberPOOL riders and drivers. Two riders matched for an UberPOOL ride may be standing on opposite sides of the street and that could mean the driver has to go around up to 4 blocks before he/she can turn around to pick up one of them. These kinds of physical barriers that are native to the environment of users may not be uncovered while running research exercises in the Uber office in California.

In another notable instance, the driver had saved the number for upcoming rides as “Muppet”. This was a shortcut for the driver to use his phone’s voice commands and call the next ride, by saying “Call Muppet”, without having to make much effort. This kind of insight may not have come to light in another user test, which goes to show why usability tests are so important.

Guerrilla Testing

Guerrilla testing can be done as part of usability testing. One of the differences is that researchers make some assumptions about the goals of their test & users and target their potential customers spontaneously without warning.

This post addresses the “art of guerrilla testing” and lays out tips and points to beware of, such as the implicit bias when testing with users in just one space.

Basic questions to answer before starting out such a test are what to test, where to test, with whom to test, and how to test.

Remote Testing

Sometimes getting users to meet in person is not possible. Imagine if users are in another country, or another continent. Going to these users or bringing them to you would be very expensive. For teams that need a way around this, there are remote testing tools for research.

Tools such as Loom and zipBoard can help get understand how users respond to the interface of a product. Loom allows recording videos quickly and simply, right from the browser. zipBoard helps collect design feedback on live websites or mocks, which can further be annotated upon. Users can go through the interface of a website and leave specific comments, where needed.

To get more insights and analytics, there are also tools like Usabilla, Crazy Egg and UserTesting.

The downside to this is that researchers cannot see the users in action live or observe subtleties such as users’ body language in response to the product. There are also logistical issues that come as part of a remote exercise such coordinating with users. But, for teams with limited resources and constraints, this is a good solution.

Personas

A persona is not an actual user, but rather an amalgamation of traits and characteristics from various users that would give an idea of the general demographic. It captures and creates a model of what the user’s needs would be, what their typical background what be, their requirements & expectations from the product, the values they associate with the brand etc.

It is common to have more than one persona for a product, as there may be multiple use cases. Personas are an efficient way to set early goals for developing a road map. They help tell everyone who they are solving a problem for with the product and gives the team perspective on empathizing with an actual user. Based on these personas, certain assumptions can be made that are aimed at universal acceptability of the product and the overall look and feel of it.

To understand personas better and how to use them, have a look at this article.

The pre-requisite for personas is that there has to be some background user research to work of. Personas cannot be created independently, without addressing actual users.