User research, especially for complex apps and domain-specific design, may require study participants with high expertise who can be difficult to recruit. Here are 5 tips for getting expert users.
Improve design decisions by looking at the problem from multiple points of view: combine multiple types of data or data from several UX research methods.
To gain a holistic picture of your users, exchange data with the non-UX teams in your company who are collecting other forms of customer data, besides the user research you do yourself. You gain; they gain.
We compare the budgets needed for different kinds of qualitative user research: in-person usability testing vs. remote studies run by software (unmoderated) or run by a human moderator.
Tips for placing all information about users in a single place, so that the entire UX team can leverage this knowledge. Eden Lazaness shares her experience and demos the tools her team used. This was filmed during a participant experience panel after a recent UX Conference.
Usability testing can yield valuable insights about your content. Make sure you test with the correct users, carefully craft the tasks, and ask the right follow-up questions.
Qualitative and quantitative are both useful types of user research, but involve different methods and answer different questions for your UX design process. Use both!
Benchmark studies measure one or more KPIs (key performance indicators) of a user interface so that you can tell whether a redesign has measurably better (or worse) usability.
Users’ “productivity” tasks differ from “engagement” tasks, in whether more or less is better for metrics like time on tasks, interactions, and page views. Such KPIs are important, but they must be evaluated relative to users' tasks.
Nobody has enough user-research budget to test everything, so you must focus usability testing on those features that will matter the most for the user experience and have the most business impact. Here's a simple method to prioritize what to test.
Learn how to run a remote moderated usability test. This second video covers how to actually facilitate the session with the participant and how to end with debrief, incentive, and initial analysis with your team.
In remote usability studies, it's hard to identify test participants who should not be in the study because they don't fit the profile or don't attempt the task seriously. This is even harder in unmoderated studies, but it can (and should) be done.
A simple method for visually identifying strong vs. weak themes in qualitative data from user research: by placing individual observations in a spreadsheet and color-coding them.
The total customer journey and user experience quality will benefit from considering market research and user research to be highly related, and to integrate the two, instead of keeping different kinds of research teams from collaborating.
Usability studies with children and teenagers are as valuable as any other user research but require special attention to both participant recruiting and study facilitation. You can't act the same with kids as you would with adults.
Remote usability studies can be run completely by software (unmoderated), or a human UX researcher can facilitate the study, even if the test participant is remote (at home or their own office, rather than yours).
