User Research has come a long way in helping companies create great customer experiences. From defining the next idea for a killer mobile app, to putting the final touches on an eCommerce website, user research can make the difference to whether our product succeeds or fails.
User Research is the process of engaging with end-users to understand their needs, motivations and actions. A common form of this type of research is 1 on 1 interviews, where users are asked questions as they interact with a specific idea for a digital product.
Companies will often draw on user research at one stage of their creation cycle (eg. prototyping). However, User Research can reveal valuable insights at all 7 stages of the design process. It is a high useful activity in combination with building a digital product strategy.
#1 User Research to Gather Ideas
Every business has a process for gathering new ideas. Some try to spot trends in the market. Others look at the competition to find the next innovation. Engaging end users is a great way to get a pulse for what’s valuable or, even better, undiscovered. Asking users what they like in a category of services, and why they selected or did not select our product, can reveal insights and new ideas.
#2 User Research to Create a Concept
When a team has defined a specific concept to explore (eg. a Mobile App that collects store discounts), user research can help add colour and depth to the concept. We could ask the user “how do you collect discount vouchers at the moment”, “how do you keep track of these vouchers”, and “if you used a Mobile App to collect these vouchers, what would you expect to be in that App”. Based on the answers to these questions the product team can extend that specific concept.
#3 User Research to Refine Alternative Concepts
Creativity is about exploring multiple concepts and not stopping at the first concept that comes to mind. I always encourage product teams to define as many concepts as possible, because the most original and valuable idea is rarely the first one. From those concepts, they can select the top five they would like to submit to User Research. During the research process, each of the concepts can be tested with users. We can draw out the elements that have the most value to the user across the concepts. We can validate the unique appeal of each concept. Based on this work, the product team can select a preferred concept or choose the best elements of each to create a hybrid concept.
#4 User Research when Prototyping
Okay, so your product team is in the process of building the new digital product. They’re 30% through the work and are rushing to hit their release date. And they’ve taken some interesting directions during their development cycle. This is a perfect time to trial the early prototypes through User Research. Users will help your team validate the design is on track. Insights from research at this stage will also point out refinements important for the product’s success, as well as guard against blind-spots the product team have missed completely by being too close to the project.
#5 User Research Prior to Launch
So you’re digital product is almost complete and Go Live is only two weeks away. The project team is buzzing with excitement. What’s the point of doing User Research at this stage? Because we’ve missed something.
Things change all the time. From going from a concept to a prototype, or from the prototype to the full product; there will always be something we’ve missed or changed that might not make sense to the end user.
You’ll be amazed what User Research reveals just prior to launch, that the product team had not considered. And at the very least, if no issues are picked up, research will validate what a good job the team has done as well as a list of smaller improvements that can be corrected after Go Live.
#6 User Research to Improve After Launch
The highest performing teams include User Research on an ongoing basis to improve their digital product. Customer behaviours and attitudes evolve and trends re-shape markets entirely…so doing fresh User Research at regular intervals (whether it’s 1 month or 6 months) will help to continually tune the performance of your digital product.
#7 User Research when Exiting a Digital Product
By the time a company has decided to exit and switch off a digital product (whether a website or Mobile App), User Research is very rarely used.
But, research at this stage can help understand why people didn’t use the product, so the company can avoid similar services in the future.
It can also show if there are aspects of the service that some customers love, but didn’t use, because it was not a prominent enough feature.
While here I’ve covered some of the moments to draw on user research, in another post I’ve written of the benefits of user research. For an overall view of strong user experience pratices, I also recommend taking a look at the excellent Usability.gov site.
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