How to do UX research for your project?
After concluding my learnings from course 2 and course 3 of google UX Design specialization which is “Start the UX design process: Empathize, Define and Ideate” and “Building wireframes and low fidelity prototypes”. Here I am concluding my learnings from the next course which is “Understanding the UX research process".
If You want to read my previous two articles about this course, you can access them from the links below
Build wireframes and low-fidelity prototypes: https://uxplanet.org/what-did-i-learn-from-google-ux-design-specialization-3-7-90ea20cabc76
Start the UX Design Process: Empathize, Define & Ideate: https://uxplanet.org/what-did-i-learn-from-google-ux-design-specialization-4f3ddc3e0670
After the initial research that has been conducted to make sure that users actually need an app, defining the actual problem statements, ideating various solutions for that problem, and creating paper, digital wireframes, and lo-fi prototypes, it’s high time to conduct another research to make sure that the designing we are doing for the product is actually going in the right direction or not.
This research is important to make sure that the flow we are designing is easy for users to complete their tasks and if there are any issues, we can solve them before launching the final product.
In definition terms, the UX research process is a research study which is a step-by-step examination of a diverse group of users and their needs, so that we as designers can make our designs more usable and intuitive.
The four steps in this UX Research Process are:
- Plan the study
- Conduct the research
- Analyse and synthesize the results
- Share and promote the insights
The goal of conducting this research study is to prioritize user needs and create a product that is intuitive and easy to use for users.
Build a user research plan
For conducting the research study, the first important task is to plan the study. It is as similar to planning for the trip before going for it.
The 7 key elements of a UX Research Plan are:
- Project background: In this, we have to list down what the project is about, why there is a need to conduct the research, is there any previous research has been done. Writing the project background is necessary so to get all the team members including the stakeholders on the same page.
- Research goals: In this, we have to note down the outcomes which we want from the research we are conducting. For eg., If we are creating an E-commerce app then research goals can be to figure out whether the app is actually helping people to browse and buy products easily or not.
- Research questions: the purpose of research questions is to find out the ‘direction’ to build the flow of the product. Secondly, the research questions will tell us whether our study is qualitative or quantitative in nature.
- Key performance indicators: these are the measures to evaluate critically the effectiveness of our product.
- Methodology: It involves the steps we will take to conduct our research, collect data and analyze that data.
- Participants: This is one of the most important steps as the participant we are going to choose and the feedback they are going to give will further decide the fate of our product. Participants should be chosen in such a way they represent a large and diverse user group. Also include participants with disabilities so that we could be able to create a product that is inclusive and accessible to all.
- Scripts: before starting doing the research with participants let’s make sure that we prepare a script for what’s going to happen in the research study such as questions to ask the participants, tasks each participant will do etc.
Respect user data and privacy issues
While conducting the research study, it is important to keep user data private.
The common reasons for doing so are:
- Ethically it is the organization's responsibility to protect the users' data if they are collecting some sensitive information such as email ID, phone number etc.
- We need to secure the sensitive data of users to avoid getting hacked and letting hackers share it with others without the user’s consent.
- There are several government rules and regulations related to information privacy due to which it is necessary to secure the user's data.
- By empathizing with data protection, you gain the trust of users and are thus able to protect the company brand
If we make data privacy a part of the UX design process then we can surely protect the data and for this
- we need to tell users why we are collecting their personal
information and who will have access to it. - We need only to collect information that is necessary to collect for our research.
- Get active consent from users while collecting their personal data.
- Provide complete details to users about how we will use such information and how we will protect it etc.
- Allow participants to withdraw at any time during the research.
Conducting the research study
One of the methods for conducting the research study is a usability study which focuses on how easy it is for participants to complete the core tasks of the designs.
Usability studies are of two types:
- Moderated Usability Study
- Unmoderated Usability Study
In a moderated usability study, a person guides the participant through the study in real time and is known as the moderator.
Moderator along with helping the participant also collects real-time feedback from users.
In an unmoderated usability study, there is not any moderator and participants had to go through the prototype by itself. This study is recorded and later UX team reviews the footage.
For more information read the article from NN group: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/usability-testing-101/
Identify biases while conducting a research study
As we are interviewing a diverse group of participants, we need to make sure that we are conscious of our susceptibility to biases.
As human beings, the type of biases we could have are:
- Implicit bias: The collection of attitudes and stereotypes we associate with people without our conscious knowledge.
- Serial Position Effect: It is a psychological bias that states when given a list of items, people are more likely to remember the first few and the last few and the items in the middle tend to blur.
- Friendliness bias: It describes the tendency of people to agree with those they like in order to maintain a non-confrontational conversation.
- Social desirability bias: This bias describes the tendency of people to answer questions in a way that will be viewed favourably by others.
Read more about biases: https://xd.adobe.com/ideas/process/user-research/how-to-overcome-cognitive-bias-in-ux-research/
Reduce bias in interviews
As human beings, we are susceptible to biases and that is why as UX designers, we often made various assumptions and apply those assumptions without validation.
But if we start questioning our assumptions and test them with our research insights then we can save ourselves from making those mistakes.
Another way to reduce bias is to recruit our research participants from diverse groups of users including people with disability.
Read more about reducing biases: https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/5-useful-tips-to-reducing-bias-in-ux-research-a-beginners-guide-83ee67c2b370
Notes taking
While we are conducting the research study whether it is moderated or unmoderated, it is important to take notes on paper, sticky notes or spreadsheets because there are some points that later we can easily forget.
Secondly taking notes while conducting the research study is also favourable to better understanding the flow user takes to complete the tasks, their behaviours, and what the users say, thinks and feel while doing the task.
Analyse and synthesize results
While conducting a research study whether it is moderated or unmoderated there are many people at the same time who are collecting insights because everyone is observing the study from a different perspective.
Since every human being is unique in their perspective hence they will note different views or opinions about that research study.
Hence while analysing and synthesizing the results it is essential to collect all the insights from various people who are observing the usability study.
After collecting the data from everyone, we will organise and arrange it so that it is easy to gather the proper insights.
One method of organizing data is an affinity diagram which in definition terms means organising data into groups with common themes or relationships.
Read more about affinity diagramming: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/affinity-diagram/
Share and promote the insights
For sharing the insights or the conclusions that we have gathered during your research study with the stakeholders there are mainly two methods
- Presentation
- Reports
Sharing the insights and the conclusions in a presentable manner with the stakeholders is essential so to make the stakeholders feel confident about our research.
Simultaneously the insights we have concluded from the research are going to be helpful for making changes in our low-fidelity prototypes.
