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Generative
Evaluative
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Attitudinal
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Behavioral
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Qualitative Behavioral
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Tl;dr: user interviews.
Directly ask users about their experiences with a product to understand their thoughts, feelings, and problems
✅ Provides detailed insights that survey may miss ❌ May not represent the wider user base; depends on user’s memory and honesty
User interviews are a qualitative research method that involves having open-ended and guided discussions with users to gather in-depth insights about their experiences, needs, motivations, and behaviors.
Typically, you would ask a few questions on a specific topic during a user interview and analyze participants' answers. The results you get will depend on how well you form and ask questions, as well as follow up on participants’ answers.
“As a researcher, it's our responsibility to drive the user to their actual problems,” says Yuliya Martinavichene , User Experience Researcher at Zinio. She adds, “The narration of incidents can help you analyze a lot of hidden details with regard to user behavior.”
That’s why you should:
Tanya Nativ , Design Researcher at Sketch recommends defining the goals and assumptions internally. “Our beliefs about our users’ behavior really help to structure good questions and get to the root of the problem and its solution,” she explains.
It's easy to be misunderstood if you don't have experience writing interview questions. You can get someone to review them for you or use our Question Bank of 350+ research questions .
This method is typically used at the start and end of your project. At the start of a project, you can establish a strong understanding of your target users, their perspectives, and the context in which they’ll interact with your product. By the end of your project, new user interviews—often with a different set of individuals—offer a litmus test for your product's usability and appeal, providing firsthand accounts of experiences, perceived strengths, and potential areas for refinement.
Tl;dr: field studies.
Observe users in their natural environment to inform design decisions with real-world context
✅ Provides contextual insights into user behavior in real-world situations ✅ Helps identify external factors and conditions that influence user experience ❌ Can be time-consuming and resource-intensive to conduct ❌ Participants may behave differently when they know they are being observed (Hawthorne effect)
Field studies—also known as ethnographic research—are research activities that take place in the user’s environment rather than in your lab or office. They’re a great method for uncovering context, unknown motivations, or constraints that affect the user experience.
An advantage of field studies is observing people in their natural environment, giving you a glimpse at the context in which your product is used. It’s useful to understand the context in which users complete tasks, learn about their needs, and collect in-depth user stories.
This method can be used at all stages of your project—two key times you may want to conduct field studies are:
Tl;dr: focus groups.
Gather qualitative data from a group of users discussing their experiences and opinions about a product
✅ Allows for diverse perspectives to be shared and discussed ❌ Group dynamics may influence individual opinions
A focus group is a qualitative research method that includes the study of a group of people, their beliefs, and opinions. It’s typically used for market research or gathering feedback on products and messaging.
Focus groups can help you better grasp:
As with any qualitative research method, the quality of the data collected through focus groups is only as robust as the preparation. So, it’s important to prepare a UX research plan you can refer to during the discussion.
Here’s some things to consider:
It’s easier to use this research technique when you're still formulating your concept, product, or service—to explore user preferences, gather initial reactions, and generate ideas. This is because, in the early stages, you have flexibility and can make significant changes without incurring high costs.
Another way some researchers employ focus groups is post-launch to gather feedback and identify potential improvements. However, you can also use other methods here which may be more effective for identifying usability issues. For example, a platform like Maze can provide detailed, actionable data about how users interact with your product. These quantitative results are a great accompaniment to the qualitative data gathered from your focus group.
Tl;dr: diary studies.
Get deep insights into user thoughts and feelings by having them keep a product-related diary over a set period of time, typically a couple of weeks
✅ Gives you a peak into how users interact with your product in their day-to-day ❌ Depends on how motivated and dedicated the users are
Diary studies involve asking users to track their usage and thoughts on your product by keeping logs or diaries, taking photos, explaining their activities, and highlighting things that stood out to them.
“Diary studies are one of the few ways you can get a peek into how users interact with our product in a real-world scenario,” says Tanya.
A diary study helps you tell the story of how products and services fit into people’s daily lives, and the touch-points and channels they choose to complete their tasks.
There’s several key questions to consider before conducting diary research, from what kind of diary you want—freeform or structured, and digital or paper—to how often you want participants to log their thoughts.
Remember to determine the trigger: a signal that lets the participants know when they should log their feedback. Tanya breaks these triggers down into the following:
Diary studies are often valuable when you need to deeply understand users' behaviors, routines, and pain points in real-life contexts. This could be when you're:
Collect quantitative data from a large sample of users about their experiences, preferences, and satisfaction with a product
✅ Provides a broad overview of user opinions and trends ❌ May lack in-depth insights and context behind user responses
Although surveys are primarily used for quantitative research, they can also provided qualitative data, depending on whether you use closed or open-ended questions:
Matthieu Dixte , Product Researcher at Maze, explains the benefit of surveys: “With open-ended questions, researchers get insight into respondents' opinions, experiences, and explanations in their own words. This helps explore nuances that quantitative data alone may not capture.”
So, how do you make sure you’re asking the right survey questions? Gregg Bernstein , UX Researcher at Signal, says that when planning online surveys, it’s best to avoid questions that begin with “How likely are you to…?” Instead, Gregg says asking questions that start with “Have you ever… ?” will prompt users to give more specific and measurable answers.
Make sure your questions:
To learn more about survey design, check out this guide .
While surveys can be used at all stages of project development, and are ideal for continuous product discovery , the specific timing and purpose may vary depending on the research goals. For example, you can run surveys at:
Tl;dr: card sorting.
Understand how users categorize and prioritize information within a product or service to structure your information in line with user expectations
✅ Helps create intuitive information architecture and navigation ❌ May not accurately reflect real-world user behavior and decision-making
Card sorting is an important step in creating an intuitive information architecture (IA) and user experience. It’s also a great technique to generate ideas, naming conventions, or simply see how users understand topics.
In this UX research method, participants are presented with cards featuring different topics or information, and tasked with grouping the cards into categories that make sense to them.
There are three types of card sorting:
Card sorting type comparison table
You can run a card sorting session using physical index cards or digitally with a UX research tool like Maze to simulate the drag-and-drop activity of dividing cards into groups. Running digital card sorting is ideal for any type of card sort, and moderated or unmoderated sessions .
Read more about card sorting and learn how to run a card sorting session here .
Card sorting isn’t limited to a single stage of design or development—it can be employed anytime you need to explore how users categorize or perceive information. For example, you may want to use card sorting if you need to:
Tl;dr: tree testing.
Evaluate the findability of existing information within a product's hierarchical structure or navigation
✅ Identifies potential issues in the information architecture ❌ Focuses on navigation structure, not visual design or content
During tree testing a text-only version of the site is given to your participants, who are asked to complete a series of tasks requiring them to locate items on the app or website.
The data collected from a tree test helps you understand where users intuitively navigate first, and is an effective way to assess the findability, labeling, and information architecture of a product.
We recommend keeping these sessions short, ranging from 15 to 20 minutes, and asking participants to complete no more than ten tasks. This helps ensure participants remain focused and engaged, leading to more reliable and accurate data, and avoiding fatigue.
If you’re using a platform like Maze to run remote testing, you can easily recruit participants based on various demographic filters, including industry and country. This way, you can uncover a broader range of user preferences, ensuring a more comprehensive understanding of your target audience.
To learn more about tree testing, check out this chapter .
Tree testing is often done at an early stage in the design or redesign process. That’s because it’s more cost-effective to address errors at the start of a project—rather than making changes later in the development process or after launch.
However, it can be helpful to employ tree testing as a method when adding new features, particularly alongside card sorting.
While tree testing and card sorting can both help you with categorizing the content on a website, it’s important to note that they each approach this from a different angle and are used at different stages during the research process. Ideally, you should use the two in tandem: card sorting is recommended when defining and testing a new website architecture, while tree testing is meant to help you test how the navigation performs with users.
Tl;dr: usability testing.
Observe users completing specific tasks with a product to identify usability issues and potential improvements
✅ Provides direct insights into user behavior and reveals pain points ❌ Conducted in a controlled environment, may not fully represent real-world usage
Usability testing evaluates your product with people by getting them to complete tasks while you observe and note their interactions (either during or after the test). The goal of conducting usability testing is to understand if your design is intuitive and easy to use. A sign of success is if users can easily accomplish their goals and complete tasks with your product.
There are various usability testing methods that you can use, such as moderated vs. unmoderated or qualitative vs. quantitative —and selecting the right one depends on your research goals, resources, and timeline.
Usability testing is usually performed with functional mid or hi-fi prototypes . If you have a Figma, InVision, Sketch, or prototype ready, you can import it into a platform like Maze and start testing your design with users immediately.
The tasks you create for usability tests should be:
Be mindful of using leading words such as ‘click here’ or ‘go to that page’ in your tasks. These instructions bias the results by helping users complete their tasks—something that doesn’t happen in real life.
With Maze, you can test your prototype and live website with real users to filter out cognitive biases, and gather actionable insights that fuel product decisions.
To inform your design decisions, you should do usability testing early and often in the process . Here are some guidelines to help you decide when to do usability testing:
To learn more about usability testing, check out our complete guide to usability testing .
Tl;dr: five-second testing.
Gauge users' first impressions and understanding of a design or layout
✅ Provides insights into the instant clarity and effectiveness of visual communication ❌ Limited to first impressions, does not assess full user experience or interaction
In five-second testing , participants are (unsurprisingly) given five seconds to view an image like a design or web page, and then they’re asked questions about the design to gauge their first impressions.
Why five seconds? According to data , 55% of visitors spend less than 15 seconds on a website, so it;s essential to grab someone’s attention in the first few seconds of their visit. With a five-second test, you can quickly determine what information users perceive and their impressions during the first five seconds of viewing a design.
And if you’re using Maze, you can simply upload an image of the screen you want to test, or browse your prototype and select a screen. Plus, you can star individual comments and automatically add them to your report to share with stakeholders.
Five-second testing is typically conducted in the early stages of the design process, specifically during initial concept testing or prototype development. This way, you can evaluate your design's initial impact and make early refinements or adjustments to ensure its effectiveness, before putting design to development.
To learn more, check out our chapter on five-second testing .
Tl;dr: a/b testing.
Compare two versions of a design or feature to determine which performs better based on user engagement
✅ Provides data-driven insights to guide design decisions and optimize user experience ❌ Requires a large sample size and may not account for long-term effects or complex interactions
A/B testing , also known as split testing, compares two or more versions of a webpage, interface, or feature to determine which performs better regarding engagement, conversions, or other predefined metrics.
It involves randomly dividing users into different groups and giving each group a different version of the design element being tested. For example, let's say the primary call-to-action on the page is a button that says ‘buy now’.
You're considering making changes to its design to see if it can lead to higher conversions, so you create two versions:
Over a planned period, you measure metrics like click-through rates, add-to-cart rates, and actual purchases to assess the performance of each variation. You find that Group B had significantly higher click-through and conversion rates than Group A. This indicates that showing the button above the product description drove higher user engagement and conversions.
Check out our A/B testing guide for more in-depth examples and guidance on how to run these tests.
A/B testing can be used at all stages of the design and development process—whenever you want to collect direct, quantitative data and confirm a suspicion, or settle a design debate. This iterative testing approach allows you to continually improve your website's performance and user experience based on data-driven insights.
Tl;dr: concept testing.
Evaluate users' reception and understanding of a new product, feature, or design idea before moving on to development
✅ Helps validate and refine concepts based on user feedback ❌ Relies on users' perception and imagination, may not reflect actual use
Concept testing is a type of research that evaluates the feasibility, appeal, and potential success of a new product before you build it. It centers the user in the ideation process, using UX research methods like A/B testing, surveys, and customer interviews.
There’s no one way to run a concept test—you can opt for concept testing surveys, interviews, focus groups, or any other method that gets qualitative data on your concept.
*Dive into our complete guide to concept testing for more tips and tricks on getting started. *
Concept testing helps gauge your audience’s interest, understanding, and likelihood-to-purchase, before committing time and resources to a concept. However, it can also be useful further down the product development line—such as when defining marketing messaging or just before launching.
The best research type varies depending on your project; what your objectives are, and what stage you’re in. Ultimately, the ideal type of research is one which provides the insights required, using the available resources.
For example, if you're at the early ideation or product discovery stage, generative research methods can help you generate new ideas, understand user needs, and explore possibilities. As you move to the design and development phase, evaluative research methods and quantitative data become crucial.
Discover the UX research trends shaping the future of the industry and why the best results come from a combination of different research methods.
In an ideal world, a combination of all the insights you gain from multiple types of user research methods would guide every design decision. In practice, this can be hard to execute due to resources.
Sometimes the right methodology is the one you can get buy-in, budget, and time for.
Gregg Bernstein , UX Researcher at Signal
UX research tools can help streamline the research process, making regular testing and application of diverse methods more accessible—so you always keep the user at the center of your design process. Some other key tips to remember when choosing your method are:
A good way to inform your choice of user experience research method is to start by considering your goals. You might want to browse UX research templates or read about examples of research.
Michael Margolis , UX Research Partner at Google Ventures, recommends answering questions like:
If your team is very early in product development, generative research —like field studies—make sense. If you need to test design mockups or a prototype, evaluative research methods—such as usability testing—will work best.
This is something they’re big on at Sketch, as we heard from Design Researcher, Tanya Nativ. She says, “In the discovery phase, we focus on user interviews and contextual inquiries. The testing phase is more about dogfooding, concept testing, and usability testing. Once a feature has been launched, it’s about ongoing listening.”
If you're looking for rich, qualitative data that delves into user behaviors, motivations, and emotions, then methods like user interviews or field studies are ideal. They’ll help you uncover the ‘why’ behind user actions.
On the other hand, if you need to gather quantitative data to measure user satisfaction or compare different design variations, methods like surveys or A/B testing are more suitable. These methods will help you get hard numbers and concrete data on preferences and behavior.
*Discover the UX research trends shaping the future of the industry and why the best results come from a combination of different research methods. *
Think of UX research methods as building blocks that work together to create a well-rounded understanding of your users. Each method brings its own unique strengths, whether it's human empathy from user interviews or the vast data from surveys.
But it's not just about choosing the right UX research methods; the research platform you use is equally important. You need a platform that empowers your team to collect data, analyze, and collaborate seamlessly.
Simplifying product research is simple with Maze. From tree testing to card sorting, prototype testing to user interview analysis—Maze makes getting actionable insights easy, whatever method you opt for.
Meanwhile, if you want to know more about testing methods, head on to the next chapter all about tree testing .
Conduct impactful UX research with Maze and improve your product experience and customer satisfaction.
How do you choose the right UX research method?
Choosing the right research method depends on your goals. Some key things to consider are:
What is the best UX research method?
The best research method is the one you have the time, resources, and budget for that meets your specific needs and goals. Most research tools, like Maze, will accommodate a variety of UX research and testing techniques.
When to use which user experience research method?
Selecting which user research method to use—if budget and resources aren’t a factor—depends on your goals. UX research methods provide different types of data:
Identify your goals, then choose a research method that gathers the user data you need.
What results can I expect from UX research?
Here are some of the key results you can expect from actioning the insights uncovered during UX research:
Tree Testing: Your Guide to Improve Navigation and UX
The User Research and Insights Tool for Design and Product Teams
Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail”. While Benjamin Franklin wasn’t talking about UX research, the statement applies.
Many researchers fail to plan because they assume they understand user research well enough to create a budget, timeline, process, and more. They conveniently forget that planning is the cornerstone of a successful project and expertise is never enough to see anything through.
Creating a UX research plan allows you to leverage multiple perspectives from project stakeholders and teammates. Stakeholders can help you understand where techniques might not work, timelines may be too tight, or budget insufficient to execute a research project.
Research planning prevents surprises that may come up along the way. It reduces cost and helps you determine how each step of the UX research will be executed to ensure success.
In this guide, we’ll lead you through the steps of creating a UX research plan. You’ll also get a free template so you can create your first research plan immediately.
UX research is the study of user interaction to obtain insights that improve the design process. UX researchers study a group of target users to collect and analyze data that leads to user-friendly products.
The primary goal of UX research is to build products for the end-user based on real data not what you think the user wants. When you conduct UX research, you can give your audience the best solutions because you know what they need.
As a UX researcher, you could begin with qualitative research methods to collect data and understand the user’s needs and motivation. Next, you use quantitative measures such as usability testing to test your hypothesis and results.
A UX research plan is a document that sets expectations and highlights the most important information you need to communicate with stakeholders in a research project. It is usually a collaboration between all stakeholders to ensure it meets the goals and objectives you’ve laid out.
A user research plan acts as a starting point to help you write easily and keep your team focused on the who, what, why, and when of a UX research project.
In most scenarios, project sponsors do not care about the process or the user research techniques you choose. They want to know what your research will achieve and how much it will cost to execute. A brief research plan lays out the objective of the research and how it will benefit product design.
A written research plan is also a great way to engage stakeholders and ensure they’re involved with the research project and the results. You’ll also be leveraging the experience of team members who’ve conducted similar research in the past.
When you write something down, it looks different from what you pictured in your head. It eliminates the risk of missing steps in the process, going above budget, or losing sight of your research objectives. Think of a research plan as a list of checkpoints to make sure you’ve achieved each goal in your research.
A research plan helps you to learn what works or doesn’t work and questions you need to be asking. As you write down your plan and process, you can find holes and improve your research plan. It makes it easier to focus and prepare for the study.
The background section should be brief. Tell stakeholders and clients about the recent history of the project, why you’re conducting the research, and what you’re going to accomplish. In a few sentences (no more than five lines of text), everyone should understand the purpose of the study.
The background section should also include the problem statement. A few ways to identify the problem statement include interviews with stakeholders, a deep analysis of the current data, or team sessions to brainstorm.
You must have an objective before getting in a room with users. The research objective drives all the research questions you’ll be asking participants during the user interview process.
Why are you conducting user research? What problems do you hope to solve? What is the end goal after completing the research?
Getting answers to these questions should be a collaborative effort between stakeholders and team members involved in the project.
Who are the stakeholders that will benefit from the results? Research project stakeholders could be employees in sales, customer support, C-level executives, or product teams.
When you’ve listed everyone you think should be involved, set up a meeting to brainstorm ideas and collect input. It’s easier to deliver the right insights when you’re involving the right stakeholders in your project.
Have any studies been done on this topic in the past? Perhaps your competitors or in-house teammates have published previous findings that will work as the basis of your research? The answers will help you determine where to begin.
If your team uses Aurelius as a research repository , you’ll be able to easily search through past research projects to quickly find information and make Cross-Project Insights and recommendations from past research with your current project.
After defining the problem and objectives, it’s time to create a participant profile. Choosing the right participants is one of the most crucial parts of a project.
When creating participant profiles start with characteristics such as occupation, age group, geography, and level of engagement with the product. Next, determine the number of participants to recruit for each UX research method.
We advise internal collaboration with all stakeholders such as sales, marketing, and customer support teams to brainstorm a hypothesis on who your ideal user is. Analyze your competitors to see what type of users they have in their audience.
If you have a database, consider looking inwards to customers who already know your product. If you don’t, use a research recruitment platform to find participants.
When recruiting externally, use a screener to hone in on your ideal participant. Is there a particular behavior you’re looking for? A qualifying action they must have taken within a specific timeframe? Do they need to be a certain age? Screeners ensure you’re bringing in the right users for your research.
How will success be determined? What criteria will you use to check milestone achievements? Examples of success metrics include:
Outlining the focus areas leads to efficient research planning. The deeper you’re able to hone in on the specific information you want to collect from the research, the more clarity you’ll have.
This is the section where you’ll write down the research questions to ask during user interviews. Start by examining what you already know about the problem such as insights from previous research . Find the knowledge gaps and create questions to answer them.
When brainstorming research questions, it’s important to determine if the goal is to create a new design or to fix an existing design.
If your objective is to build the right design, then your questions will focus on observing user behavior and leveraging mental models.
If the goal is to fix an existing design, then you’ll ask questions about usability to improve the current design. Whatever the goal is, aim for open-ended questions.
Here’s a comprehensive list of questions to ask when conducting UX research interviews
Budget plays a role in the amount of data you gather and how you conduct research. More budget equals flexibility to outsource to a dedicated recruitment service, run paid campaigns to attract more people, or even increase the incentives for participants.
More money also makes it easier to choose the right UX research methods that translate into quality insight. Conversely, with a small budget, you have to think of ways to stretch your funds such as using zoom over in-person meetings, limiting the number of research participants, or choosing inexpensive research techniques.
Having a timeline for executing the research plan lets stakeholders and clients know how long the research will take. There might be different expectations between what you think the timeline should be versus the client’s expectation.
When establishing a timeline consider the following:
The research protocol is a list of questions and tasks you’ll cover during in-person sessions. It also includes a list of research methods you’ve chosen.
A common practice is to write down the opening and closing statement of your UX interview. It begins with an explanation of the product, research objectives, and how long each interview session will take. In the end, you thank the participant for their time and answer any questions they might have.
Make sure you get feedback from stakeholders on the research questions as well as the following:
In this section, you’ll discuss the UX research methods you’ll use during the research and explain why you’ve chosen these techniques.
While there are dozens of research methods to choose from, your choices should be informed by your research questions. Some, like A/B tests and surveys, are suited for quantitative research while others like user interviews and contextual inquiries work best for qualitative research .
Learn more about how to choose a UX research method plus options to choose from during user research
Similar to research protocols, the research tools you choose should be based on your research objectives and questions.
When choosing UX research tools, consider the following:
There are different tools that fulfill each of these objectives. For example, you can recruit participants from platforms like User Interviews and Userbrain . You can build a research repository to store data and get insights with Aurelius . Tools like Optimizely and Crazy Egg are great for A/B testing.
Get a comprehensive list of UX research tools to complete each stage of the research process in this article
This is the final stage when creating a UX research plan. The insights will be determined by the goals of the research. Is the goal to improve an existing product or create a new product? Which stakeholders will need access to the result?
Make sure you document your process and include details about setbacks you faced along the way, methodologies used, and session materials. This way, your team can have an overview to look back on when conducting the next research project.
To get insight from your research data, use Aurelius to analyze dozens of notes, audio/video recordings as well as spreadsheets.
Create a new project in Aurelius, import your data from anywhere, find information quickly with Tags, search for patterns with Keywords, highlight major findings with Key Insights and make suggestions with Recommendations.
Aurelius turns your recommendations and key insights into shareable reports that you can customize as you like. You can share or present your research findings via email, a PDF, or a live link to your report.
Learn More About How Aurelius Can Help You Improve the Research Process
Asides from having a plan of action for research issues, you must have a plan for working with research participants.
A few things to do during the first interaction with research participants include:
If you feel like it’s too much information, remember that it’s better to overshare than to not give sufficient information.
Templates help you create research plans quickly. Think of it as a starting point for your research project. It includes all the essential elements you need to conduct research and communicate your findings.
Go ahead and download our free UX research plan template. Then, use the tips above to fill out the template.
The concept of research planning can be met with mixed emotions. Some may say that planning delays action. However, a good plan should really do the opposite by providing a clear guide for action and deliverables. In this post, we’ll detail how a well-conceived UX research plan will help streamline your research and foster understanding and engagement from all stakeholders involved.
A UX research plan can take many forms. It can be a document, spreadsheet, set of slides, or anything else you can imagine as long as it acts as an overview for kicking off the project.
While a UX research plan doesn’t have to be a formal document, it shouldn’t only live in the mind of a single person. Consolidating ideas, milestones, and deliverables together in one, accessible place allows for a guided conversation that has major benefits on the outcomes of a set of research.
When it comes to user research, it may seem daunting to be too prescriptive when building your UX research plan. After all, how can you account for everything a user might need, say, or want? Nonetheless, it’s important to try, because making progress on your goals is rarely made through random activity. And, there’s nothing wrong with making adjustments as you go.
Even when faced with uncertainty—often compounded by the everchanging world we live in—effective planning facilitates progress.
The benefits of a UX research plan are numerous, but some include:
Every organization is different, so the teams within them may be responsible for different business goals. This means that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to creating a UX research plan.
In this section, we’ll provide an overview of steps to consider when creating your plan.
A well-oiled UX research plan should include:
Let’s get started.
As with most plans, you should start by clearly identifying and stating the problem that you’re trying to solve. A UX research plan is no different. Your problem statement should be clear, specific, and give enough detail that stakeholders understand what the research is trying to solve.
Problem statements don’t just stem from nowhere. Some great sources for inspiration might be your support team which deals with customer issues on a daily basis, customer reviews on your website, or feedback from social media. Understanding what data already exists—and what you still need to know—is a fantastic starting point for building a strong UX research plan. Let's take a closer look at some of the steps involved in creating a great problem statement:
Begin by articulating the issue in a manner that is concise yet comprehensive. A well-crafted problem statement should communicate the essence of the issue succinctly, making it immediately apparent to all stakeholders what the research will address. It’s important that this statement avoids generalities and is rooted in specific user experiences or observed difficulties. For example, instead of saying "improve website navigation," specify "users are struggling to locate the search function on the homepage, which is impacting conversion rates."
Before formalizing your problem statement, gather preliminary data to understand the context better. Chat to your customer support team to identify common complaints or challenges users face. Review customer feedback collected through surveys, feedback forms on your website, or direct interactions. Social media platforms can also be a goldmine of user opinions and issues, often providing raw, unfiltered feedback on what users like or struggle with regarding your product or service.
Analyze the data you’ve gathered to detect patterns or recurring themes. This analysis might reveal that users feel a particular feature is too complicated or that there are barriers to completing a purchase. Such insights help refine your problem statement by focusing on specific user challenges that your research needs to address.
With a clear understanding of user challenges, refine your problem statement to reflect these specifics. Ensure it encapsulates the user's perspective, focusing on their experiences and the difficulties they encounter. For instance, if users find an application form daunting due to its length and complexity, your problem statement could be, "Users are abandoning the application form because its length and complex questions create a perception that the process is tedious and time-consuming."
Ensure your problem statement communicates why addressing this issue is crucial for the business or product. Link the problem directly to business outcomes, such as improved user satisfaction, increased sales, or reduced customer churn. This not only highlights the importance of the research but also aligns it with broader business goals, facilitating stakeholder buy-in.
Once you have a draft, share it with key stakeholders—include team members from design, development, marketing, customer service etc. This will help provide new insights, validate the problem’s relevance, and make sure it resonates across all areas of the business. This feedback might prompt revisions that make the statement more inclusives and more robust.
Once you've used that feedback to refine your problem statement, you'll have a well-defined statement that will lead to powerful and useful reseaarch insights.
Once you’ve put together your problem statement, it’s time to define your objectives.
Think about defining your objectives as telling the story of what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what you expect to learn from your UX research . The objectives you set should be the driving force behind every task you assign and every question that you ask research participants.
This means it’s important to be specific. Setting clear objectives will help you define the project scope and the questions you have to ask participants to get the information you need. If the scope is too broad, anything and everything becomes a research question—which becomes overwhelming to manage.
If you like to think visually, consider this chart.
A well-defined objective keeps you from falling into the rabbit hole of scope creep. Without specific targets, your project can easily grow unwieldy, trying to cover too much ground and diluting the impact of your findings. To avoid this, break down large goals into smaller, focused tasks that you can tackle effectively. For instance, if improving website navigation is your goal, you could focus specifically on enhancing the visibility of the main menu, reducing clicks to reach key content, or improving search functionality.
To make your objectives really work for you, frame them using the SMART criteria—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Here’s how you might apply these to a UX project:
Objectives aren’t set in stone. As you dive into your research and start gathering data, be ready to tweak and refine your objectives based on what you learn. UX research is inherently iterative, and being flexible allows you to pivot as you uncover new insights or face unexpected challenges. Regularly revisiting your objectives ensures your research stays relevant and aligned with both user needs and business priorities.
By keeping your objectives clear and focused, you make sure that your UX research is effective, impactful, and tightly connected to enhancing user experience. This isn't just about sticking to a plan—it's about making the plan work hard for you, every step of the way.
Start with a problem statement, define the objectives you need to address the problem, then build out tasks and questions that will uncover the necessary information from your participants.
Once you have a clear understanding of what your problem is and how you’re going to aim to solve it, you’ll need to choose the right research method for your plan.
Next, you'll have to choose the research method that will achieve your stated goals—based on the objectives you've already identified. Before we jump into individual research methods, or the tactics used for conducting UX research, there are big-picture questions that need to be addressed first. And that’s: What types of UX research are there?
We won’t dive too deep into this here, but here’s some additional reading that might help you understand the type of research you’ll need to conduct:
Now that you’ve got a lay of the land, it’s time to match your research method to your project goals. Here’s how you can ensure the method you pick will deliver the goods:
Often, no single method will tell the whole story. Consider using a mix of approaches to get both the depth and breadth of insights you need. For instance, you might start with a survey to get a general sense of user satisfaction and follow up with interviews to dive deeper into specific issues highlighted by the survey results.Once you understand the types of results you're trying to achieve, make sure that the research method you choose delivers the evidence you need to make informed decisions.
Related reading: The UX research methodology guidebook
One of the most important factors that contribute to a successful UX research plan lies in choosing the right participants (and the right number of them). There’s some debate out there over how many participants you should include in UX research, and the right answer depends on what you’re trying to learn.
Figuring out the right number of participants Let’s unpack this a bit:
Selecting the right participants is more than just filling seats—it’s about ensuring that every voice you hear from can directly contribute to richer, more actionable insights. So take your time, think it through, and choose wisely to make your UX research as impactful as possible.
Finally, make sure they’re a good fit for what you’re trying to learn:
Finding these people and convincing them to take part in your study is next on the agenda. Here are a few strategies:
But it’s not just about numbers. Who these people are matters a ton. Here’s how to get the right mix:
Defining who your participants should be will require you to go back to the goals you’ve set and the questions that need answering.
There's a certain art to crafting a great test plan. Admittedly, it can take a bit of practice. From moderated user interviews to unmoderated usability tests to prototyping—test plans can take many different shapes and sizes. Lucky for you, our education and research teams have come together to build out this outstanding resource for building test plans.
Check out all of our articles on the UserTesting Knowledgebase for building a test plan .
Establishing your research project’s timeline is an essential step in creating a UX research plan. Estimating how long the research project will take place and when the findings could be expected are necessary considerations in any project.
Even if not exact, determining an approximate timeline (e.g., 2-3 weeks) will enable you to manage stakeholders’ expectations of the process and the results.
Let’s dive into how to effectively map out the time your research will take and when you can expect to roll out the findings.
Here’s how you can approach it:
While it’s great to have a timeline, it’s also important to stay flexible:
An accurate timeline helps in setting and managing expectations:
Locking in a timeline isn’t just about sticking to dates. It’s about creating a structured approach to your research that allows for informed planning, anticipates adjustments, and aligns with the broader goals of your project. By taking the time to map out each phase and communicate this effectively, you ensure that your UX research delivers valuable insights in a timely and efficient manner.
Finally, determining how you’ll present the findings of your project from the start ensures they will be impactful and implemented across the organization. Setting this understanding from the beginning will also determine if all of your stakeholders have been properly identified. It can be frustrating to find out that you need to present to an executive halfway through a project.
Ultimately, for the purpose of your UX research plan, it’s important to choose a presentation medium that’s appropriate for your key stakeholders. Perhaps it’s a UX research report , a set of slides, or even a Jira ticket for your product team; the point is, you want to deliver the information to stakeholders in a way they’re comfortable with—and will be most receptive to.
So now you’ve built a UX research plan from scratch. While it may seem like an arduous process, we can assure you that it’s well worth your time. Being able to confidently embark on a project with clear deliverables, milestones, stakeholder buy-in, and a plan for presenting results is a major feat—one that will be recognized and appreciated by all of those involved.
Nevertheless, time is money. So once you’ve gone through an entire UX research project, we encourage you to hold a retrospective meeting to identify all the ways you could improve the process. Once you uncover what went well and what can be improved, turn your UX research plan into a template for you and your peers to leverage within your organization.
Need some inspiration for your next UX research project? Check out our list of curated test templates to get you started.
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About the author(s).
Steven is a Marketing Content Strategist. When he’s not inserting oxford commas where they belong, you can find him shooting pool at a local dive or building killer playlists on Spotify.
Human understanding. Human experiences.
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Research Aim Example 1:Assess the impact and usability of our daily meditation feature in the app. Objective Examples: Uncover usability issues for new users looking to find a relevant meditation that meets their needs. Understand typical usage patterns of our most dedicated daily meditators.
Writing your own UX research objective can be daunting. After all, it serves as the foundation for your entire UX research project. A wrong objective is a missed opportunity to start your UX research strong and guide your research team, resources, and efforts in the direction of actionable insights. That's why we've outlined steps and best ...
Research objectives. One of the biggest problem with using hypotheses is that they set the wrong expectations about what your research results are telling you. In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman points out that: "extreme outcomes (both high and low) are more likely to be found in small than in large samples".
These objectives should center on specific features or processes of your product. Think of it this way: the better your objective, the better your feedback will be. Keeping your objective front and center will help you figure out your UX research deliverables. It will ensure you structure your studies to gain insights into the right set of ...
The objective should be used as a way to sell your research in order to get stakeholder buy-in; Make them care about this research project by showing how it affects them. Keep in mind who you are ...
How to plan a UX research study. This is a step-by-step guide to planning user research. It explains the process by which a research plan comes together into a shareable document (like the one above) that enables team alignment, accountability, and efficiency throughout your study. 1. Identify your research goals.
Step 1: Alignment & Requirements Gathering. Research rarely will happen in a vacuum. Usually you are working with a team—product, engineering, design, for example. When the need for a research study arises, the first thing you want to do is meet with your team to understand the questions they're trying to answer.
Master templates are the best way to create a successful and effective UX research plan. Using a template as a starting point makes planning and writing easier and helps you and your team stay focused on the who, what, why, and when of research. Read on for tips and examples for how you can build a user research plan that works.
Before you begin writing a test plan for your remote study, you'll want to set a research objective and determine what you'll be studying. Define your UX research objective. The first step toward gathering helpful feedback is setting a clear and focused objective. If you don't know exactly what sort of information you need to obtain by ...
Here are 10 things to think about when defining your UX research objectives: ... Communicate and document: Share your research goals with your team and write them down in a plan. This will help ...
On the other hand, a UX strategy is an overarching plan of action that outlines how to develop a product or service's user experience to align with product goals and business objectives. It's a guide to ensure your final product offers a positive user experience. UX strategy deals with the bigger picture of how to design the user experience ...
Objectives should be the driving force behind every task you assign and every question that you ask. These objectives should be focused on particular features or processes on your product. As a UX researcher, I've learned that the more specific the objectives, the easier it is to write tasks and questions, and the easier it is to extract ...
6. Prepare the brief. The next component of a research plan is to create a brief or guide for your research sessions. The kind of brief you need will vary depending on your research method, but for moderated methods like user interviews, field studies, or focus groups, you'll need a detailed guide and script.
Step 2: Write the Story section of your one-page research plan. Now that you've brainstormed with your colleagues, and you have all of the information that motivated you to start planning research in the first place, you're ready to start drafting your plan.
Well-defined research objectives provide a solid foundation for conducting meaningful UX researchand generating valuable insights. Write your research objective following these 4 tips: Identify the problem:Begin by understanding the purpose of your research. Clearly define the problem or area of investigation that needs to be addressed.
Research Objectives. In the book Interviewing Users by Steve Portigal, two researchers, Nate Bolt, UX Research Manager at Facebook and Cyd Harrel, a former VP of UX Research at BOLT/Peters, talk about a time when they were approached by a client who needed UX research conducted but did not have the time or budget for full-blown research.
Below is an example structure on how to write an interview script. Try not to be too structured with your approach as part of being a good researcher is to listen to what the user has to say and ask meaningful follow up questions. a. Introduction. Introduce yourself, your role and the purpose of the interview.
The UX researcher's toolkit: 11 UX research methods and when to use them. After defining your objectives and planning your research framework, it's time to choose the research technique that will best serve your project's goals and yield the right insights. While user research is often treated as an afterthought, it should inform every ...
A common practice is to write down the opening and closing statement of your UX interview. It begins with an explanation of the product, research objectives, and how long each interview session will take. In the end, you thank the participant for their time and answer any questions they might have.
The 7 core components of a user research plan: The background of the research project detailing why we are conducting this study. This can also include the internal stakeholders involved. The objectives and goals of the research, what the teams want to learn from the research, or what they would like the outcome to be.
Craft a clear problem statement. As with most plans, you should start by clearly identifying and stating the problem that you're trying to solve. A UX research plan is no different. Your problem statement should be clear, specific, and give enough detail that stakeholders understand what the research is trying to solve.
In a general, a goal is an achievable outcome that is generally broad and long term while an objective is a shorter term and defines measurable actions to achieve an overall goal. In a simple word, a goal is a destination, meanwhile an objective is an actionable step to reach that destination. As in a research process, a research goal is the ...
The document proposes slashing federal money for research and investment in renewable energy, and calls for the next president to "stop the war on oil and natural gas".