Research Methods Articles & Videos

  • Pilot Testing: Getting It Right (Before) the First Time

    Pilot testing (a session or two before the real test) helps fine-tune usability studies, leading to more reliable results.

  • Redesigning Your Website? Don’t Ditch Your Old Design So Soon

    Testing your site’s existing design along with a few competitor websites provides valuable insight for new designs. Competitive studies help you avoid developing unusable new features.

  • Segment Analytics Data Using Personas

    Persona-inspired segments can be used in website analytics to uncover trends in data and derive UX insights. Better than (a) lumping everybody together or (b) segmenting on demographics that don't relate to user behavior.

  • Low Findability and Discoverability: Four Testing Methods to Identify the Causes

    Use IA- and UI-focused user research to determine if low findability and discoverability are caused by site information architecture or navigation design.

  • Define Stronger A/B Test Variations Through UX Research

    Complement A/B split tests with user research to identify true causes and develop well informed design variations.

  • Five Essential Analytics Reports for UX Strategists

    Google Analytics is filled with very useful information for UX Strategists defining a baseline and tracking trends in order to define goals, strategies, and concepts for a brighter tomorrow.

  • Talking with Participants During a Usability Test

    Talk less and learn more by being prepared to use 3 sound, practical techniques for interrupting or answering users while facilitating a usability test or other behavioral research study.

  • Three Uses for Analytics in User-Experience Practice

    In order to make the most of analytics data, UX professionals need to integrate this data where it can add value to qualitative processes instead of distract resources.

  • Remote Usability Tests: Moderated and Unmoderated

    Remote usability testing allows you to get customer insights when travel budgets are small, timeframes are tight, or test participants are hard to find.

  • Making Usability Findings Actionable: 5 Tips for Writing Better Reports

    For usability testing to be valuable, study findings must clearly identify issues and help the team move toward design solutions.

  • Flexible Usability Testing: 10 Tips to Make Your Sessions Adapt to Your Clients’ Needs

    For testing assignments where client teams are ready, willing and able to take immediate action, being flexible with tasks within and between participants can offer better bang for your buck.

  • Strength of User Research Evidence

    Usability findings derived from a broad base of diverse studies have higher credibility than those based on many users with a single stimulus.

  • User Satisfaction vs. Performance Metrics

    Users generally prefer designs that are fast and easy to use, but satisfaction isn't 100% correlated with objective usability metrics.

  • Traveling Usability Lab

    User testing can be done anywhere; witness our international studies, carried out with equipment that fit in a carry-on bag.

  • The Most Important Usability Activity

    What's worth the most: field studies or user tests? Depends on your company's usability maturity, but user testing is the safe bet if you can do only one thing.

  • A/B Testing, Usability Engineering, Radical Innovation: What Pays Best?

    3 approaches to better design: each has its uses, but the costs, benefits, and risks differ dramatically.

  • Accuracy vs. Insights in Quantitative Usability

    Better to accept a wider margin of error in usability metrics than to spend the entire budget learning too few things with extreme precision.

  • Interviewing Users

    Despite many weaknesses, interviews are a valuable method for exploratory user research.

  • Testing Expert Users

    It's more difficult to conduct usability studies with experienced users than with novices, and the improvements are usually smaller. Still, improving expert performance is often worth the effort.

  • Building Respect for Usability Expertise

    Enemies of usability claim that because 'the experts disagree,' they can safely ignore user advocates' expertise and run with whatever design they personally prefer.