Research plays a vital role in creating user-centric products. In this article, we’ll explore some of the most popular user research methods used across industries worldwide.
If there is one trait that separates great products from the rest, it’s their ability to solve real-world problems. And a business can only do that if it truly understands its customers.
That’s why user research is often touted as a cheat code to outpace competitors. Most strategic initiatives either focus on innovation or optimization. User research is critical because it helps with both. Its insights help you de-risk product development and develop a competitive advantage by focusing on the right problems.
User Research Categories
Before diving into the user research methods, let’s look at two important ways to categorize them.
Generative and Evaluative Research Methods
Generative research methods generate an understanding of who your customers are as humans. These methods are geared toward exploring opportunities. They are often used to:
- Understand users’ problems at a deep, emotional level
- Prioritize which user problems to solve first
- Understand users’ motivations
- Understand users’ environment and context and how these affect product usage
- Uncover what users actually do, rather than what they say they do.
Evaluative research methods evaluate your understanding of the problem space or how well a solution works. Its scope is more specific as researchers use them to evaluate how effective a proposed solution might be. Evaluative research methods are used to:
- Test a hypothesis
- Find usability issues
- Evaluate a feature or product’s value to the user
Behavioral and Attitudinal Research Methods
Behavioral methods focus on measuring actual user behavior, i.e. what users do, rather than what they say they do. For example, observing how a user interacts with your application.
Attitudinal methods revolve around qualitative insights, such as user motivations, fears, feelings, etc. For example, asking a user questions such as “Would you pay for this app?” or “Did you like the overall experience?” Striking the right balance between behavioral and attitudinal methods is critical to the success of any user research.
Popular User Research Methods
There are no rigid lines between the categories that we just discussed. Certain user research methods can be both behavioral and attitudinal or evaluative and generative.
1. Ethnography
In this method, researchers study participants in their natural environment where they are most likely to encounter the problems their product solves. Field studies are great for revealing needs that users have trouble articulating. This method highlights the differences between what users say they do and what they actually do. It also provides rich evidence in photographs, videos, audio recordings, and detailed narratives to help stakeholders empathize with users.
For example, in 2011, Palo Alto Research Center performed field studies to improve parking in Oakland, California. They observed drivers park their cars and use parking meters, workers make deliveries, and officers issue tickets. They also conducted short, in situ interviews and surveys with people as they left or returned to their vehicles.
2. Contextual Inquiry
Contextual inquiry combines a semi-structured interview with observing the user in their natural environment. Let’s say you’re building an app to help construction workers manage their tasks. In a contextual inquiry, you would schedule a session with workers at a construction site. You might first interview them about what tasks they plan to complete that day. From there, you would ask the construction worker to go about their work. Finally, you might ask the construction worker to expand on the topic or clarify if you see something of note.
Contextual inquiry requires careful preparation. Participants often expect a normal interview and might get surprised to find out they are doing something more in-depth if you don’t explain exactly how the session will work.
3. Diary and Camera Studies
In this method, participants are given a diary or camera to record and describe aspects of their lives relevant to the product. Diary/camera studies pair well with ethnography or contextual inquiry, as it extends the research period without the need for researchers to always be with participants.
For example, to study task switching and interruptions, researchers would ask participants to document answers to specific questions in a diary each time they switched between tasks. The questions would be relevant to the target behavior, such as – when the task started, how difficult switching to the task was, what documents were involved, what the participant forgot, etc.
4. Interviews
Researchers meet with participants one-on-one to discuss various topics in depth. Interviews can be structured (follow a rigid script) or semi-structured (allows the researcher to go off-script). Interviews require little resources, but they can stray away from product use or actual tasks, leading to misleading data.
5. Surveys
A survey is a method of gathering information from a sample of people, traditionally intending to generalize the results to a larger population. Avoid trying to gather behavioral data from a survey. Also, be sure to pilot test your survey before launching. Ideally, the survey should be tested until you no longer find any issues for multiple respondents.
6. Usability Testing
Participants use a prototype or product to attempt specific goals or tasks while researchers observe issues they encounter. You can either use a live product or a low-code/no-code prototype for usability testing. Sessions can be moderated or unmoderated, in person or remote.
For example, we created an Invision prototype to help realtors track their listings’ performance. We asked realtors to use the prototype to attempt specific tasks, such as find out how many times someone had viewed their listing on the web. We tracked how often realtors completed their tasks, as well as why they ran into issues.
7. Customer Feedback Analysis
User research doesn’t always require you to collect feedback from scratch. Organizations often have a wealth of data that’s collecting dust. Feedback analysis is just what it sounds like: analyzing customer feedback that has already been captured via previous research or in-product feedback mechanisms. This method helps you find trends, which can aid future research.
8. Clickstream Analysis
In this method, you analyze what users click on within individual screens and how they navigate through the product or where they stop engaging with the product. Clickstream analysis can help diagnose problematic steps in a flow. It can also provide insight into how visible or enticing different interface elements are.
Sample heatmap on Hotjar
9. A/B Testing
In A/B testing, we show two or more variants of a page to different users. We then measure which version performs best for a given conversion goal. A/B tests are great for optimizing your existing products and improving conversion rates. However, there are some things to be careful about:
- You need a large sample size for your results to be reliably significant. This calculator from AB Testguide helps you calculate the ideal sample size for your test.
- A/B tests will tell you which version performs best, but they won’t tell you why it performs best.
- You should isolate one variable to test. Otherwise, you won’t know which variable changed the page’s performance. For example, you might change the color for the primary call to action button on a page.
For more info on AB Testing, check out this wonderful guide from HubSpot.
10. Card Sorting
Card sorting is a method to help design or evaluate a product’s information architecture. In a card sorting session, participants organize topics into categories that make sense to them. They may also help you label these groups. To conduct a card sort, you can use actual cards, pieces of paper, or one of several online card-sorting software tools.
Usability.gov has a great guide on card sorting.
11. Tree Testing
A tree test evaluates an information architecture. It tests whether people can use your navigation to find what they are looking for. Think of it as the opposite of card sorting. Ideally, tree testing is conducted not on the actual website but a lightweight version that removes additional clutter. This helps in generating insights specifically around the structure and terminology of your information architecture.
You can use tools like Optimal Workshop’s Treejack to run tree tests.
Conclusion
Experienced researchers use a combination of these methods as relying on only one approach can skew the results. Using multiple research methods also helps you strike the right balance between qualitative and quantitative information.
Wondering which methods would be ideal for your user research project? Talk to Modus. Our experts have helped both startups and the Fortune 500 unlock valuable customer insights with user research.
