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!
When stakeholders observe user research sessions, the credibility and acceptance of findings will increase. Since they are busy, make it easy to participate and work on increasing the value they get out of going.
Ask users to keep a diary throughout a fairly long period is great for researching customer journeys or other bigger-scope issues in user experience that go beyond a single interaction.
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.
Virtual reality (VR) user interfaces are currently more difficult for users to manipulate than a traditional GUI, partly because of more degrees of freedom and partly because VR is still new, so people have less experience using it. Advice for how to employ usability studies to alleviate this problem.
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.
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).
At the first Virtual UX Conference, Jakob Nielsen answered participant questions about topics ranging from user-experience careers and skill development to foldable smartphones and the future of user interfaces.
Qualitative and quantitative methods both have their place in user research, but they address different issues in the UX design process. Understand the differences to pick the right method to learn what you need.
To get useful and valid results from a usability study requires a skilled facilitator who avoids biasing the test while ensuring that the users are comfortable. And who can interpret the participants' actions and statements correctly.
To learn something useful from a usability study, you must have the test participants perform tasks that are representative of typical user goals, while avoiding bias caused by giving too detailed directions or hints.
