July 14, 2020

How to create a UX research plan

Optimal Workshop

Summary: A detailed UX research plan helps you keep your overarching research goals in mind as you work through the logistics of a research project.

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There’s nothing quite like the feeling of sitting down to interview one of your users, steering the conversation in interesting directions and taking note of valuable comments and insights. But, as every researcher knows, it’s also easy to get carried away. Sometimes, the very process of user research can be so engrossing that you forget the reason you’re there in the first place, or unexpected things that come up that can force you to change course or focus.

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This is where a UX research plan comes into play. Taking the time to set up a detailed overview of your high-level research goals, team, budget and timeframe will give your research the best chance of succeeding. It's also a good tool for fostering alignment - it can make sure everyone working on the project is clear on the objectives and timeframes. Over the course of your project, you can refer back to your plan – a single source of truth. After all, as Benjamin Franklin famously said: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”.

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In this article, we’re going to take a look at the best way to put together a research plan.

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Your research recipe for success

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Any project needs a plan to be successful, and user research is no different. As we pointed out above, a solid plan will help to keep you focused and on track during your research – something that can understandably become quite tricky as you dive further down the research rabbit hole, pursuing interesting conversations during user interviews and running usability tests. Thought of another way, it’s really about accountability. Even if your initial goal is something quite broad like “find out what’s wrong with our website”, it’s important to have a plan that will help you to identify when you’ve actually discovered what’s wrong.

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So what does a UX research plan look like? It’s basically a document that outlines the where, why, who, how and what of your research project.

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It’s time to create your research plan! Here’s everything you need to consider when putting this plan together.

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Make a list of your stakeholders

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The first thing you need to do is work out who the stakeholders are on your project. These are the people who have a stake in your research and stand to benefit from the results. In those instances where you’ve been directed to carry out a piece of research you’ll likely know who these people are, but sometimes it can be a little tricky. Stakeholders could be C-level executives, your customer support team, sales people or product teams. If you’re working in an agency or you’re freelancing, these could be your clients.

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Make a list of everyone you think needs to be consulted and then start setting up catch-up sessions to get their input. Having a list of stakeholders also makes it easy to deliver insights back to these people at the end of your research project, as well as identify any possible avenues for further research. This also helps you identify who to involve in your research (not just report findings back to).

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Action: Make a list of all of your stakeholders.

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Write your research questions

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Before we get into timeframes and budgets you first need to determine your research questions, also known as your research objectives. These are the ‘why’ of your research. Why are you carrying out this research? What do you hope to achieve by doing all of this work? Your objectives should be informed by discussions with your stakeholders, as well as any other previous learnings you can uncover. Think of past customer support discussions and sales conversations with potential customers.

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Here are a few examples of basic research questions to get you thinking. These questions should be actionable and specific, like the examples we’ve listed here:

“How do people currently use the wishlist feature on our website?”
“How do our current customers go about tracking their orders?”
“How do people make a decision on which power company to use?”
“What actions do our customers take when they’re thinking about buying a new TV?”

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A good research question should be actionable in the sense that you can identify a clear way to attempt to answer it, and specific in that you’ll know when you’ve found the answer you’re looking for. It's also important to keep in mind that your research questions are not the questions you ask during your research sessions - they should be broad enough that they allow you to formulate a list of tasks or questions to help understand the problem space.

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Action: Create a list of possible research questions, then prioritize them after speaking with stakeholders.

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What is your budget?

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Your budget will play a role in how you conduct your research, and possibly the amount of data you're able to gather.

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Having a large budget will give you flexibility. You’ll be able to attract large numbers of participants, either by running paid recruitment campaigns on social media or using a dedicated participant recruitment service. A larger budget helps you target more people, but also target more specific people through dedicated participant services as well as recruitment agencies.

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Note that more money doesn't always equal better access to tools - e.g. if I work for a company that is super strict on security, I might not be able to use any tools at all. But it does make it easier to choose appropriate methods and that allow you to deliver quality insights. E.g. a big budget might allow you to travel, or do more in-person research which is otherwise quite expensive.

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With a small budget, you’ll have to think carefully about how you’ll reward participants, as well as the number of participants you can test. You may also find that your budget limits the tools you can use for your testing. That said, you shouldn’t let your budget dictate your research. You just have to get creative!

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Action: Work out what the budget is for your research project. It’s also good to map out several cheaper alternatives that you can pursue if required.

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How long will your project take?

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How long do you think your user research project will take? This is a necessary consideration, especially if you’ve got people who are expecting to see the results of your research. For example, your organization’s marketing team may be waiting for some of your exploratory research in order to build customer personas. Or, a product team may be waiting to see the results of your first-click test before developing a new signup page on your website.

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It’s true that qualitative research often doesn’t have a clear end in the way that quantitative research does, for example as you identify new things to test and research. In this case, you may want to break up your research into different sub-projects and attach deadlines to each of them.

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Action: Figure out how long your research project is likely to take. If you’re mixing qualitative and quantitative research, split your project timeframe into sub-projects to make assigning deadlines easier.

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Understanding participant recruitment

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Who you recruit for your research comes from your research questions. Who can best give you the answers you need? While you can often find participants by working with your customer support, sales and marketing teams, certain research questions may require you to look further afield.

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The methods you use to carry out your research will also have a part to play in your participants, specifically in terms of the numbers required. For qualitative research methods like interviews and usability tests, you may find you’re able to gather enough useful data after speaking with 5 people. For quantitative methods like card sorts and tree tests, it’s best to have at least 30 participants. You can read more about participant numbers in this Nielsen Norman article.

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At this stage of the research plan process, you’ll also want to write some screening questions. These are what you’ll use to identify potential participants by asking about their characteristics and experience.

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Action: Define the participants you’ll need to include in your research project, and where you plan to source them. This may require going outside of your existing user base.

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Which research methods will you use?

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The research methods you use should be informed by your research questions. Some questions are best answered by quantitative research methods like surveys or A/B tests, with others by qualitative methods like contextual inquiries, user interviews and usability tests. You’ll also find that some questions are best answered by multiple methods, in what’s known as mixed methods research.

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If you’re not sure which method to use, carefully consider your question. If we go back to one of our earlier research question examples: “How do our current customers go about tracking their orders?”, we’d want to test the navigation pathways.

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If you’re not sure which method to use, it helps to carefully consider your research question. Let’s use one of our earlier examples: “Is it easy for users to check their order history in our iPhone app?” as en example. In this case, because we want to see how users move through our app, we need a method that’s suited to testing navigation pathways – like tree testing.

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For the question: “What actions do our customers take when they’re thinking about buying a new TV?”, we’d want to take a different approach. Because this is more of an exploratory question, we’re probably best to carry out a round of user interviews and ask questions about their process for buying a TV.

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Action: Before diving in and setting up a card sort, consider which method is best suited to answer your research question.

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Develop your research protocol

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A protocol is essentially a script for your user research. For the most part, it’s a list of the tasks and questions you want to cover in your in-person sessions. But, it doesn’t apply to all research types. For example, for a tree test, you might write your tasks, but this isn't really a script or protocol.

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Writing your protocol should start with actually thinking about what these questions will be and getting feedback on them, as well as:

The tasks you want your participants to do (usability testing)
How much time you’ve set aside for the session
A script or description that you can use for every session
Your process for recording the interviews, including how you’ll look after participant data.

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Action: This is essentially a research plan within a research plan – it’s what you’d take to every session.

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Happy researching!

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Why is UX research important? 🤳 🎯

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Right up front, it’s worth stating that you are not your user.

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With all the will in the world your product (or website or mobile app) may work perfectly and be as intuitive as possible. But, if it is only built on information from your internal organizational perspective and applied with all of your knowledge and experience, it may not measure up in the eye of your user. Often, organizations make major design decisions without fully considering their users. User research backs up decisions with data, helping to make sure that design decisions are smart decisions.

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User experience (UX) research focuses your design on understanding your user expectations, behaviors, needs and motivations. This is done through methodical and investigative approaches. Through data analysis, insights can be used to ensure that all product design decisions benefit the user. It’s all about helping you to gain insights and knowledge that may not be as apparent from the inside.

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User research is an essential part of creating, building and maintaining great products. Providing invaluable insights that inform from the ground up. Helping to structure the information architecture and the underlying performance of your product.

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User research throughout design, development and further into the lifecycle of your product will mean less uncertainty and risk. All good things when creating a product that ultimately is intended to generate conversions. UX is at the heart of all we design and create. User research is crucial to creating human-centred design. Creating and developing digital solutions that answer users' needs.

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Building better products means a better user experience and ultimately higher retention and conversion rates. What’s better than a single user experience? A customer that comes back again and again.

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This can sound like a lot of work, but with the right type of user research it can take days, not weeks, to draw out useful and actionable insights.

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Getting started with user research needn’t be expensive, time consuming or only done at the start of a project. Let’s look at when research may be of most benefit. If you need a little help selling user research to your broader stakeholders, check out our article.

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Discover navigation issues on your website 📍🗺️ 😡

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One type of research that should be done regularly is testing how users navigate your website. Navigation issues on your website can lead to missed opportunities and lower conversion rates.

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Using a tree testing tool like Treejack, at any point in your website lifecycle, allows you to work ‘backwards’ and gain a clearer understanding of where users are getting lost, or uncertain of the next step. Invaluable insights into how your website is working currently and where updates and repairs or reorganising can lead to an overall better product and UX.

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This type of research can be done at any point and can be particularly useful to identify how users interact with your homepage. Over 80% of users will know within seconds if they will stay on your website, they need to be easily guided to complete tasks. Don’t lose them at the first look.

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Build a new and effective mobile app 📲 🎉

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A mobile app answers something that a website can’t or can’t do as efficiently. This could be booking hair appointments, updating membership loyalty points, or checking the weather.

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By downloading an app a user wants quick, simple and easy interaction and access to information. While all of this information may be available on your website it may not be as readily found or easily personalized. In some cases, with personalized information (membership numbers or credit card details) this can not be held safely on websites or easily stored and accessed.

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User research through first-click testing with a tool like Chalkmark can inform the usability of the mobile app interface. First-click testing on mobile apps allows you to rapidly test ideas and ensure your design supports user goals before you invest time and money in further design work and development.

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Continued user research throughout the life of the app and making updates that improve the interaction will mean a long term life of your app.

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Learn how people use your product 💎 👀

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Undertaking usability testing at any stage can benchmark how your product is currently being used. Providing insights into how it can be improved, reordered or information sorted better.

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Here are a few key user research tools that can be picked up and used quickly and with a small investment, meaning they can be done regularly.

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Card sorting is a great tool for investigating how users intuitively sort information. Find out how they would like to see information sorted that would make the experience easier and more intuitively. You can get started with OptimalSort now and have data and insights back in days, not weeks.
Tree testing is an investigative tool which follows where users go when they arrive at your website. Highlighting where they get lost and where they get stuck. All valuable information when relying on responsiveness and conversion. Getting started with Treejack is simple and quick, allowing data driven results to inform decisions for a new or existing website.
First-click testing looks at where users go first. Where do they click on your website or your mobile app? This information will highlight how users view the interface and what they are drawn to first. Allowing your design to be influenced by intuitive behaviour and ultimately driving usability. Chalkmark is a tool which you can quickly and easily get started with, allowing your product to be intuitive from the start, or enhanced with data driven insights.

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Build better products 🧱

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Learning how your product usability, backed with data and insights means that product design can be more intuitive, human-centred and ensure a more positive end user experience. Working with data driven insights also helps stakeholders to understand why design may be challenged, updated or changed.

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All of this needn’t be at the high cost of time, energy and delay. These tools are all readily available and can be implemented in days, not weeks. They are easy to use, and data can be easily digested and transformed into real changes.

Research

Research Strategy

min read

Effective user research: Your north star

The Age of the Customer is well and truly here. In every industry and vertical across the globe, UX professionals now dictate the terms, placing customers at the heart of every design decision. Or at least, this is the new reality that’s unfolding in the organizations and businesses that don’t want to be left behind.

Make no mistake; simply claiming to be the best is no longer enough. To survive and thrive, people need to be placed at the heart. The golden key that will allow organizations to pivot to this new reality lies with that of the user researcher.

But it’s not enough to simply “do user research”. Sure, some customer insight is obviously better than none at all, but to really be useful it needs to be effective research. That’s what this article is all about.

Get comfortable, because this is going to be a long one – for good reason.

Why (effective) user research is so important

You are not your user. As much as you may like to think that you are, you’re not. It can be a tricky proposition to get your head around, especially when we regularly assume that everyone thinks like us. There are 8 billion people out there who have a vastly different set of experiences and perspectives than you. With that in mind, when we start to generalize based on our own personal experiences, this is what’s known as availability bias.

Unfortunately, solving this is issue not as easy as getting into a room with customers and having a chat. People don’t always tell the truth! This isn’t to say that the participant in your last user interview was flat out lying to you, but the things that people say are different from the things that people do. It;’s your job (as a user researcher) to intuit the actual behaviors and actions, and identify their needs based on this data.

When you’re doing your job correctly, you’ve given your organization the best possible chance of success. Everything – and I mean everything – starts with a solid understanding of your users. Doors will open, paths will reveal themselves – you get the idea.

The qualities of an effective user researcher

Let me preface this section by saying that you don’t have to have all of these qualities in spades, the list below is really just a way for you to better understand some of the traits of an effective user researcher, to get you thinking and on the right path.

Curious: User research can be quite repetitive, especially when you get to the 6th user interview and need to ask the same questions. A genuine curiosity about people, the challenges they face and their behaviors will go a long way in helping you to push through.
Pragmatic: Being an idealist has its uses, but it’s also important to be pragmatic. As a researcher, you need to operate on a fine line and balance your capacity to do research with business goals, finances and the desires of your stakeholders. Do the most with what you’ve got.
Organized: It takes a lot to plan a research project, from scheduling testing sessions to assembling large slide decks for presentations. You’ve got to manage a large number of complex components, so it’s important that you can organize and prioritize.
Collaborative: User research is most effective when it’s carried out collaboratively. This means working with your team, with the organization and with other disciplines. Think outside the box: Who stands to benefit from your research and how can you involve them?
Empathetic: Real, natural empathy is a rare trait, but adopting an empathetic mindset is something everyone can (and should) learn. Beyond just uncovering insights from your participants, consider what these insights mean and how they all connect. This will truly enable you to understand your users.
Sociable: You don’t have to suddenly adopt an extroverted persona, but being actively interested in other people will help you build relationships both inside your organization and with customers.
Perceptive: User research means listening and observing. During a user interview or usability test, you need to be able to filter all of the data entering your mind and extract the most relevant insights.
Analytical: In a similar vein to perceptiveness, being analytical is also key if you want to understand all of the data that your research will produce. Filter, examine, extract and move on.

How to run user research effectively (and at a low cost)

There are innumerable methods for user research, but many are resource- and time-intensive. What’s more, certain research methods come attached with significant costs.

But, research doesn’t have to be the time and money sink that it can often first appear to be. Certain actions before you ever step into the room with a participant can make a world of difference.

Conduct research at the start

User research is obviously valuable whenever you do it, but you’ll see the biggest impact when you carry it out right the start of a project. Conduct research to get the lay of the land; to learn how and why customers make certain decisions, and where the biggest opportunities lie.

Note: Don’t research in a silo, involve your team, stakeholders and other interested parties.

Have clear goals – and a plan

Every research project needs a clear objective, and that comes from a detailed UX research plan, which includes well-formulated research questions. Every project will have a different question, but they’re the best starting point to ensure research success.

Choose the right methods

There’s no shortage of research methods to choose from, but being an effective user researcher is all about being able to pick the right methods for each project, and use them correctly. Nearly every research project will benefit from using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods in order to generate the most useful insights.

To understand which method to use, it’s a good idea to view them using the following framework:

***Source:*** *Nielsen Norman Group*
*A landscape of user research methods*

Involve stakeholders

Bring stakeholders into your research project as early as possible. These are the people that will end up utilizing the results of your work, and chances are they’re the ones who’ll have the most questions at the end. Involve them through consultation, regular updates, the all-too-important presentation at the end of the project and by letting them take notes for you during research sessions.

Wrap up

It’s not enough to simply run a card sort now (although that’s still a very useful exercise). You need to think cohesively about the role of your research in your organization and make sure that you’re as aware of your bias as you are of the various methods and tools available to you. Happy researching!

Research

User Experience

min read

Create a user research plan with these steps

A great user experience (UX) is one of the largest drivers of growth and revenue through user satisfaction. However, when budgets get tight, or there is a squeeze on timelines, user research is one of the first things to go. Often at the cost of user satisfaction.

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This short sighted view can mean project managers are preoccupied with achieving milestones and short term goals. And UX teams get stuck researching products they weren’t actually involved with developing. As a result no one has the space and understanding to really develop a product that speaks to users needs, desires and wants. There must be a better way to produce a product that is user-driven. Thankfully there is.

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What is user research and why should project managers care about it? 👨🏻💻

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User research is an important part of the product development process. Primarily, user research involves using different research methods to gather information about your end users.

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Essentially it aims to create the best possible experience for your users by listening and learning directly from those that already or potentially will use your product. You might conduct interviews to help you understand a particular problem, carry out a tree test to identify bottlenecks or problems in your navigation, or do some usability testing to directly observe your users as they perform different tasks on your website or in your app. Or a combination of these to understand what users really want.

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To a project manager and team, this likely sounds fairly familiar, that any project can’t be managed in a silo. Regular check-ins and feedback are essential to making smart decisions. The same with UX research. It can make the whole process quicker and more efficient. By taking a step back, digging into your users’ minds, and gaining a fuller understanding of what they want upfront, it can curtail short-term views and decisions.

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Bringing more user research into your development process has major benefits for the team, and the ultimately the quality of that final product. There are three key benefits:

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Saves your development team time and effort. Ensuring the team is working on what users want, not wasting time on features that don’t measure up.
Gives your users a better experience by meeting their requirements.
Helps your team innovate quickly by understanding what users really want.

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As a project manager, making space and planning for user research can be one of the best ways to ensure the team is creating a product that truly is user-driven.

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How to bring research into your product development process 🤔

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There are a couple of ways you can bring UX research into your product development process.

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Start with a dedicated research project.
Integrate UX research throughout the development project.

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It can be more difficult to integrate UX research throughout the process, as it means planning the project with various stages of research built in to check the development of features. But ultimately this approach is likely to turn out the best product. One that has been considered, checked and well thought out through the whole product development process. To help you on the way we have laid out 6 key steps to help you integrate UX research into your product development process.

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6 key steps to integrate UX research 👟

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Step 1: Define your research questions

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Take a step back, look at your product and define your research questions.

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It may be tempting just to ask, ‘do users like our latest release?’ This however does not get to why or what your users like or don’t like. Try instead:

What do our users really want from our product?
Where are they currently struggling while using our website?
How can we design a better product for our users?

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These questions help to form the basis of specific questions about your product and specific areas of research to explore which in turn help shape the type of research you undertake.

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Step 2: Create your research plan

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With a few key research questions to focus on, it’s time to create your research plan.

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A great research plan covers your project’s goals, scope, timing, and deliverables. It’s essential for keeping yourself organized but also for getting key stakeholder signoff.

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Step 3: Prepare any research logistics

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Every project plan requires attention to detail including a user research project. And with any good project there are a set of steps to help make sense of it.

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Method: Based on your questions, what is the best user research method to use?
Schedule: When will the research take place? How long will it go on for? If this is ongoing research, plan how it will be implemented and how often.
Location: Where will the research take place?
Resources: What resources do you need? This could be technical support or team members.
Participants: Define who you want to research. Who is eligible to take part in this research? How will you find the right people?
Data: How will you capture the research data? Where will it be stored? How will you analyze the data and create insights and reports that can be used?
Deliverables: What is the ultimate goal for your research project?

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Step 4: Decide which method will be used

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Many user research methods benefit from an observational style of testing. Particularly if you are looking into why users undertake a specific task or struggle.

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Typically, there are two approaches to testing:

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Moderated testing is when a moderator is present during the test to answer questions, guide the participant, or dig deeper with further questions.
Unmoderated testing is when a participant is left on their own to carry out the task. Often this is done remotely and with very specific instructions.Your key questions will determine which method will works best for your research. Find our more about the differences.

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Step 5: Run your research session

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It’s time to gather insights and data. The questions you are asking will influence how you run your research sessions and the methods you’ve chosen.

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If you are running surveys you will be asking users through a banner or invitation to fill out your survey. Unmoderated and very specific questions. Gathering qualitative data and analyzing patterns.

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If you’re using something qualitative like interviews or heat mapping, you’ll want to implement software and gather as much information as possible.

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Step 6: Prepare a research findings report and share with stakeholders

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Analyze your findings, interrogate your data and find those insights that dive into the way your users think. How do they love your product? But how do they also struggle?

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Pull together your findings and insights into an easy to understand report. And get socializing. Bring your key stakeholders together and share your findings. Bringing everyone across the findings together can bring everyone on the journey. And for the development process can mean decisions can be user-driven.

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Wrap Up 🥙

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Part of any project, UX research should be essential to developing a product that is user-driven. Integrating user research into your development process can be challenging. But with planning and strategy it can be hugely beneficial to saving time and money in the long run.

Quantitative Research

Research

User Experience

Qualitative Research

Quantitative Research

Research

User Experience