Radical Collaboration: how teamwork really can make the dream work

What is UX research?

‍

User experience (UX) research, or user research as it’s commonly referred to, is an important part of the product design process. Primarily, UX research involves using different research methods to gather information about how your users interact with your product. It is an essential part of developing, building and launching a product that truly meets the requirements of your users. 

‍

UX research is essential at all stages of a products' life cycle:

‍

1. Planning
2. Building
3. Introduction
4. Growth & Maturity

‍

While there is no one single time to conduct UX research it is best-practice to continuously gather information throughout the lifetime of your product. The good news is many of the UX research methods do not fit just one phase either, and can (and should) be used repeatedly. After all, there are always new pieces of functionality to test and new insights to discover. We introduce you to best-practice UX research methods for each lifecycle phase of your product.

‍

‍

‍

1. Product planning phase

‍

While the planning phase it is about creating a product that fits your organization, your organization’s needs and meeting a gap in the market it’s also about meeting the needs, desires and requirements of your users. Through UX research you’ll learn which features are necessary to be aligned with your users. And of course, user research lets you test your UX design before you build, saving you time and money.

‍

‍

Qualitative Research Methods

‍

Usability Testing - Observational

‍

One of the best ways to learn about your users and how they interact with your product is to observe them in their own environment. Watch how they accomplish tasks, the order they do things, what frustrates them, and what makes the task easier and/or more enjoyable for your subject. The data can be collated to inform the usability of your product, improving intuitive design, and what resonates with users.

‍

Competitive Analysis

‍

Reviewing products already in the market can be a great start to the planning process. Why are your competitors’ products successful and how well do they behave for users. Learn from their successes, and even better build on where they may not be performing the best and find your niche in the market.

‍

‍

Quantitative Research Methods

‍

Surveys and Questionnaires

‍

Surveys are useful for collecting feedback or understanding attitudes. You can use the learnings from your survey of a subset of users to draw conclusions about a larger population of users.

‍

There are two types of survey questions:
‍

Closed questions are designed to capture quantitative information. Instead of asking users to write out answers, these questions often use multi-choice answers.

‍

Open questions are designed to capture qualitative information such as motivations and context.  Typically, these questions require users to write out an answer in a text field.

‍

‍

‍

2. Product building phase

‍

Once you've completed your product planning research, you’re ready to begin the build phase for your product. User research studies undertaken during the build phase enable you to validate the UX team’s deliverables before investing in the technical development.

‍

‍

Qualitative Research Methods

‍

Focus groups

‍

Generally involve 5-10 participants and include demographically similar individuals. The study is set up so that members of the group can interact with one another and can be carried out in person or remotely.
‍

‍
Besides learning about the participants’ impressions and perceptions of your product, focus group findings also include what users believe to be a product’s most important features, problems they might encounter while using the product, as well as their experiences with other products, both good and bad.

‍

‍

Quantitative Research Methods

‍

Card sorting gives insight into how users think. Tools like card sorting reveal where your users expect to find certain information or complete specific tasks. This is especially useful for products with complex or multiple navigations and contributes to the creation of an intuitive information architecture and user experience.

‍

Tree testing gives insight into where users expect to find things and where they’re getting lost within your product. Tools like tree testing help you test your information architecture.
Card sorting and tree testing are often used together. Depending on the purpose of your research and where you are at with your product, they can provide a fully rounded view of your information architecture.

‍

‍

‍

3. Product introduction phase

‍

You’ve launched your product, wahoo! And you’re ready for your first real life, real time users. Now it’s time to optimize your product experience. To do this, you’ll need to understand how your new users actually use your product.

‍

‍

Qualitative Research Methods

‍

Usability testing involves testing a product with users. Typically it involves observing users as they try to follow and complete a series of tasks. As a result you can evaluate if the design is intuitive and if there are any usability problems.

‍

User Interviews - A user interview is designed to get a deeper understanding of a particular topic. Unlike a usability test, where you’re more likely to be focused on how people use your product, a user interview is a guided conversation aimed at better understanding your users. This means you’ll be capturing details like their background, pain points, goals and motivations.

‍

‍

Quantitative Research Methods

‍

A/B Testing is a way to compare two versions of a design in order to work out which is more effective. It’s typically used to test two versions of the same webpage, for example, using a different headline, image or call to action to see which one converts more effectively. This method offers a way to validate smaller design choices where you might not have the data to make an informed decision, like the color of a button or the layout of a particular image.

‍

Flick-click testing shows you where people click first when trying to complete a task on a website. In most cases, first-click testing is performed on a very simple wireframe of a website, but it can also be carried out on a live website using a tool like first-time clicking.

‍

‍

‍

4. Growth and maturity phase

‍

If you’ve reached the growth stage, fantastic news! You’ve built a great product that’s been embraced by your users. Next on your to-do list is growing your product by increasing your user base and then eventually reaching maturity and making a profit on your hard work.

‍

Growing your product involves building new or advanced features to satisfy specific customer segments. As you plan and build these enhancements, go through the same research and testing process you used to create the first release. The same holds true for enhancements as well as a new product build — user research ensures you’re building the right thing in the best way for your customers.

‍

‍

Qualitative research methods

‍

User interviews will focus on how your product is working or if it’s missing any features, enriching your knowledge about your product and users.

‍

It allows you to test your current features, discover new possibilities for additional features and think about discarding  existing ones. If your customers aren’t using certain features, it might be time to stop supporting them to reduce costs and help you grow your profits during the maturity stage.

‍

‍

Quantitative research methods

‍

Surveys and questionnaires can help gather information around which features will work best for your product, enhancing and improving the user experience. 

‍

A/B testing during growth and maturity occurs within your sales and onboarding processes. Making sure you have a smooth onboarding process increases your conversion rate and reduces wasted spend — improving your bottom line.

‍

‍

‍

Final Thoughts: Why Continuous UX Research Matters

‍

UX research testing throughout the lifecycle of your product helps you continuously evolve and develop a product that responds to what really matters - your users.

‍

Talking to, testing, and knowing your users will allow you to push your product in ways that make sense with the data to back up decisions. Go forth and create the product that meets your organizations needs by delivering the very best user experience for your users.

At Optimal Workshop, we're dedicated to building the best user research platform to empower you with the tools to better understand your customers and create intuitive digital experiences. We're thrilled to announce some game-changing updates and new products that are on the horizon to help elevate the way you gather insights and keep customers at the heart of everything you do. 

‍

What’s new…

‍

Integration with Figma 🚀

‍

Last month, we joined forces with design powerhouse Figma to launch our integration. You can import images from Figma into Chalkmark (our click-testing tool) in just a few clicks, streamlining your workflows and getting insights to make decisions based on data not hunches and opinions.  

‍

What’s coming next…

‍

Session Replays 🧑‍💻

‍

With session replay you can focus on other tasks while Optimal Workshop automatically captures card sort sessions for you to watch in your own time.  Gain valuable insights into how participants engage and interpret a card sort without the hassle of running moderated sessions. The first iteration of session replays captures the study interactions, and will not include audio or face recording, but this is something we are exploring for future iterations. Session replays will be available in tree testing and click-testing later in 2024.  

‍

Reframer Transcripts 🔍

‍

Say goodbye to juggling note-taking and hello to more efficient ways of working with Transcripts! We're continuing to add more capability to Reframer, our qualitative research tool, to now include the importing of interview transcripts. Save time, reduce human errors and oversights by importing transcripts, tagging and analyzing observations all within Reframer. We’re committed to build on transcripts with video and audio transcription capability in the future,  we’ll keep you in the loop and when to expect those releases. 

‍

Prototype testing 🧪

‍

The team is fizzing to be working on a new Prototype testing product designed to expand your research methods and help test prototypes easily from the Optimal Workshop platform. Testing prototypes early and often is an important step in the design process, saving you time and money before you invest too heavily in the build. We are working with customers and on delivering the first iteration of this exciting new product. Stay tuned for Prototypes coming in the second quarter of 2024.   

‍

Workspaces 🎉

‍

Making Optimal Workshop easier for large organizations to manage teams and collaborate more effectively on projects is a big focus for 2024. Workspaces are the first step towards empowering organizations to better manage multiple teams with projects. Projects will allow greater flexibility on who can see what, encouraging working in the open and collaboration alongside the ability to make projects private. The privacy feature is available on Enterprise plans.

‍

Questions upgrade❓

‍

Our survey product Questions is in for a glow up in 2024 💅. The team are enjoying working with customers, collecting and reviewing feedback on how to improve Questions and will be sharing more on this in the coming months. 

‍

Help us build a better Optimal Workshop

We are looking for new customers to join our research panel to help influence product development. From time to time, you’ll be invited to join us for interviews or surveys, and you’ll be rewarded for your time with a thank-you gift.  If you’d like to join the team, email product@optimalworkshop.com

User experience research is super important to developing a product that truly engages, compels and energises people. We all want a website that is easy to navigate, simple to follow and compels our users to finish their tasks. Or an app that supports and drives engagement.

‍

We’ve talked a lot about the various types of research tools that help improve these outcomes. 

‍

There is a rising research trend in 2021.

‍

Mixed method research - what is more compelling than these user research quantitative tools? Combining these with awesome qualitative research! Asking the same questions in various ways can provide deeper insights into how our users think and operate. Empowering you to develop products that truly talk to your users, answer their queries or even address their frustrations.

‍

Though it isn’t enough to simply ‘do research’, as with anything you need to approach it with strategy, focus and direction. This will funnel your time, money and energy into areas that will generate the best results.

‍

Mixed Method UX research is the research trend of 2021

‍

With the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Ford and many more big organizations offering newly formed job openings for mixed methods researchers it becomes very obvious where the research trend is heading.

‍

It’s not only good to have, but now becoming imperative, to gather data, dive deeper and generate insights that provide more information on our users than ever before. And you don't need to be Facebook to reap the benefits. Mixed method research can be implemented across the board and can be as narrow as finding out how your homepage is performing through to analysing in depth the entirety of your product design.

‍

And with all of these massive organizations making the move to increase their data collection and research teams. Why wouldn’t you?

‍

The value in mixed method research is profound. Imagine understanding what, where, how and why your customers would want to use your service. And catering directly for them. The more we understand our customers, the deeper the relationship and the more likely we are to keep them engaged.

‍

Although of course by diving deep into the reasons our users like (or don’t like) how our products operate can drive your organization to target and operate better at a higher level. Gearing your energies to attracting and keeping the right type of customer, providing the right level of service and after care. Potentially reducing overheads, by not delivering to expected levels.

‍

What is mixed method research?

‍

Mixed methods research isn’t overly complicated, and doesn’t take years for you to master. It simply is a term used to refer to using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data. This may mean using a research tool such as card sorting alongside interviews with users. 

‍

Quantitative research is the tangible numbers and metrics that can be gathered through user research such as card sorting or tree testing.

‍

Qualitative research is research around users’ behaviour and experiences. This can be through usability tests, interviews or surveys.

‍

For instance you may be asking ‘how should I order the products on my site?’. With card sorting you can get the data insights that will inform how a user would like to see the products sorted. Coupled with interviews you will get the why.

‍

Understanding the thinking behind the order, and why one user likes to see gym shorts stored under shorts and another would like to see them under active wear. With a deeper understanding of how and why users decide how content should be sorted are made will create a highly intuitive website. 

‍

Another great reason for mixed method research would be to back up data insights for stakeholders. With a depth and breadth of qualitative and quantitative research informing decisions, it becomes clearer why changes may need to be made, or product designs need to be challenged.

‍

How to do mixed method research

‍

Take a look at our article for more examples of the uses of mixed method research. 

‍

Simply put mixed method research means coupling quantitative research, such as tree testing, card sorting or first click testing, with qualitative research such as surveys, interviews or diary entry.

‍

Say, for instance, the product manager has identified that there is an issue with keeping users engaged on the homepage of your website. We would start with asking where they get stuck, and when they are leaving.

‍

This can be done using a first-click tool, such as Chalkmark, which will map where users head when they land on your homepage and beyond. 

‍

This will give you the initial qualitative data. However, it may only give you some of the picture. Coupled with qualitative data, such as watching (and reporting on) body language. Or conducting interviews with users directly after their experience so we can understand why they found the process confusing or misleading.

‍

A fuller picture, means a better understanding.

‍

Key is to identify what your question is and honing in on this through both methods. Ultimately, we are answering your question from both sides of the coin.

‍

Upcoming research trends to watch

‍

Keeping an eye on the progression of the mixed method research trend, will mean keeping an eye on these:

‍

1. Integrated Surveys

‍

Rather than thinking of user surveys as being a one time, in person event, we’re seeing more and more often surveys being implemented through social media, on websites and through email. This means that data can be gathered frequently and across the board. This longitude data allows organizations to continuously analyse, interpret and improve products without really ever stopping. 

‍

Rather than relying on users' memories for events and experiences data can be gathered in the moment. At the time of purchase or interaction. Increasing the reliability and quality of the data collected. 

‍

2. Return to the social research

‍

Customer research is rooted in the focus group. The collection of participants in one space, that allows them to voice their opinions and reach insights collectively. This did used to be an overwhelming task with days or even weeks to analyse unstructured forums and group discussions.

‍

However, now with the advent of online research tools this can also be a way to round out mixed method research.

‍

3. Co-creation

‍

The ability to use your customers input to build better products. This has long been thought a way to increase innovative development. Until recently it too has been cumbersome and difficult to wrangle more than a few participants. But, there are a number of resources in development that will make co-creation the buzzword of the decade.

‍

4. Owned Panels & Community

‍

Beyond community engagement in the social sphere. There is a massive opportunity to utilise these engaged users in product development. Through a trusted forum, users are far more likely to actively and willingly participate in research. Providing insights into the community that will drive stronger product outcomes.

‍

What does this all mean for me

‍

So, there is a lot to keep in mind when conducting any effective user research. And there are a lot of very compelling reasons to do mixed method research and do it regularly. 

‍

To remain innovative, and ahead of the ball it remains very important to be engaged with your users and their needs. Using qualitative and qualitative research to inform product decisions means you can operate knowing a fuller picture.

‍

One of the biggest challenges with user research can be the coordination and participant recruitment. That’s where we come in.

‍

Taking the pain out of the process and streamlining your research. Take a look at our Qualitative Research option, Reframer. Giving you an insight into how we can help make your mixed method research easier and analyse your data efficiently and in a format that is easy to understand.

‍

User research doesn’t need to take weeks or months. With our participant recruitment we can provide reliable and quality participants across the board that will provide data you can rely on.

‍

Why not get in deeper with mixed method research today!