Google UX Design

Explore

Foundations of UXD

Week four

Research in UX Design

UX research focuses on understanding user behaviors, needs, and motivations through observation and feedback. The goal of user experience research is to prioritize the user.

How does UX research fit into the development of a product?

You may remember that the product development life cycle is the process used to take a product from an idea to reality.

User research is a continuous part of the product development life cycle and takes place before,

during, and after phase 3: Design.

Research that takes place before anything is designed is usually called foundational research.

"What should we build?""What are the user problems?" "How can we solve them?"

The goal of foundational research is to help define the problem you would like to design a solution for.

Research that takes place during the design phase, phase 3, of the product development life cycle, is called design research. Design research answers the question, "How should we build it?"

You might want to ask users “How was your experience using the prototype today?

How easy or difficult was it to use? Why?”

You can conduct design research very early in the design process when you have paper sketches, or you can wait until you have a prototype to test with users.

The most common method used to conduct design research is a usability study, which is a technique to evaluate a product by testing it on users. The goal of usability studies is to identify pain points that the user experiences with your prototypes, so the issues can be fixed before the product launches.

Additional research methods that might be used to conduct design research include:

A/B testing: A research method that evaluates and compares two different aspects of a product to discover which of them is most effective. For example, you might have users evaluate two layouts for the homepage of your app to find out which layout is more effective.

Cafe or guerrilla studies: A research method where user feedback is gathered by taking a design or prototype into the public domain and asking passersby for their thoughts. For example, you might sit in a local coffee shop and ask customers if they would be willing to test your app design for a couple of minutes and provide feedback.

Card sorting: A research method that instructs study participants to sort individual labels written on notecards into categories that make sense to them. This type of research is largely used to figure out the information architecture of your project, which we’ll discuss in the next course of the program — Course 3: Build Wireframes and Low-Fidelity Designs.

Intercepts: A research method that gathers on-site feedback from users as they engage in the activities being researched. Intercepts are often conducted in the field, so this type of research is often considered a subset of field research. An intercept study can provide quick, high-level feedback.

The third type of user research is called post-launch research. Post-launch research answers

the question, "Did we succeed?" The goal of post-launch research is to understand how users

experienced the product and whether it was a good or poor user experience.

Research methods you might use to conduct post-launch research include:

A/B testing

Usability studies

Surveys

Logs analysis: A research method used to evaluate recordings of users while they interact with your design, tools, etc.

Qualities of a good UX researcher include empathy, pragmatism, and collaboration.

Empathy is the ability to understand someone else's feelings or thoughts in a situation.

Pragmatism is a practical approach to problem-solving. Pragmatic people are focused on reaching goals.

Collaboration is the ability to work with a range of people, personalities, and work styles.

Primary research is research you conduct yourself. For example, you might interview users, survey users, or conduct a usability study to hear from users directly.

Secondary research is research that uses information someone else has put together.

Secondary research can be information from books, articles, or journals.

Data can be collected through qualitative or quantitative research.

Quantitative research focuses on data that can be gathered by counting or measuring.

Quantitative research is often based on surveys of large groups of people using numerical answers.

This type of research often answers questions like: How many? How much?

Qualitative research focuses on observations.

Qualitative research is often based on interviews, where we focus on a smaller number of users and understand their needs in greater detail.

This type of research answers questions like: Why? Or, how did this happen?

Interviews are research method used to collect in-depth information on people's opinions,

thoughts, experiences, and feelings.

Interviews are usually conducted in person and include a series of open-ended questions where the researcher asks the user about their experience.

Surveys are an activity where many people are asked the same questions in order to understand what most people think about a product.

Surveys allow us to hear from a larger number of users than we can during interviews.

Surveys include a mix of quantitative and qualitative questions.

Usability studies are a technique that help us evaluate a product by testing it on users.

The goal of a usability study is to identify pain points that the user experiences with different prototypes,

so the issues can be fixed before the final product launches.

If the product has already launched, a post-launch usability study might include data like success metrics and key performance indicators, which are commonly known as KPIs.

Key performance indicators are critical measures of progress toward an end goal.

The KPIs for an app or new product launch might include things like how much time the user spent on

a task or the number of clicks they used to make a purchase.

⁠

Identify biases in UX

In short, a bias is favoring or having prejudice against something based on limited information.

It's like making up your mind about someone before you've really gotten to know them.

The first bias to be aware of is confirmation bias. This bias occurs when you start looking for

evidence to prove a hypothesis you have.

Because you think you already have the answer, you're drawn to information that confirms your beliefs and preconceptions.

One of the most effective methods for overcoming confirmation bias during research is to ask open-ended questions when conducting interviews.

The false consensus bias, which is the assumption that others will think the same way as you do.

In UX research, the false consensus bias happens when we overestimate the number of people who will agree with our idea or design, which creates a false consensus.

It's possible for the false consensus to go so far as to assume anyone who doesn't agree with you is abnormal.

You can avoid false consensus bias by identifying and articulating your assumptions.

The recency bias. That's when it's easiest to remember the last thing you heard in an interview, conversation, or similar setting, because it's the most recent.

When talking to someone, you're more likely to remember things they shared at the end of the conversation.

To overcome the recency bias, you can take detailed notes or recordings for each interview or conversation you have.

UX designers may also struggle with primacy bias, where you remember the first participant most strongly.

Sometimes the first person you meet makes the strongest impression, because you're in a new situation or having a new experience.

Implicit bias, which is also known as unconscious bias.

Implicit bias is a collection of attitudes and stereotypes we associate to people without our conscious knowledge.

One of the most common forms of implicit bias in UX is when we only interview people within a limited set of identity profiles, such as race, age, gender, socioeconomic status, and ability.

The sunk cost fallacy. This is the idea that the deeper we get into a project we've invested in,

the harder it is to change course without feeling like we've failed or wasted time.

The phrase "sunk cost" refers to the time we've already spent or sunk into a project or activity.

It's easy to keep working on a design that you've invested time into.

But ultimately, you need to focus on work that positively impacts users.

To avoid the sunk cost fallacy, break down your project into smaller phases, and then outline

designated points where you can decide whether to continue or stop.

This allows you to go back based on new insights before the project gets too far along.

⁠

Choosing leading words can cause the framing effect, where users make a decision or choice based on the way information was presented to them.

⁠

Group interviews can be affected by the bandwagon effect, or going along with the group’s opinion instead of thinking creatively, which can discourage open discussion by people who have an opinion that doesn’t align with the majority of the group.

⁠

You’ll need to be careful to avoid confirmation bias, which is trying to find evidence to prove a hypothesis you already have.

⁠

When you’re conducting any type of UX research, you have to be cautious to avoid experiencing any false consensus, which is the assumption that others will think the same way as you do.

⁠

To avoid experiencing implicit biases, which are based on the collection of attitudes and stereotypes you associate with people without your conscious knowledge, it’s important to clarify when you think you’re getting mixed signals from a participant.

⁠

Social desirability bias can happen when a participant answers a question based on what they think you want to hear. If you ask a question to a participant, and they notice you exhibiting a visual or audible clue that suggests your own opinion about the question, they might answer in a way that they think will please you.

⁠

Availability bias occurs when you rush the user recruitment process or skip screener questions to attract a bigger pool of users, even if they don’t fit the qualifications or characteristics that you’ve already determined are present in your ideal user.

⁠

When you’re conducting research, you have to work hard to treat all information equally to avoid both primacy bias, which is remembering the first user more than others, and recency bias, which is most easily remembering the last thing you heard.To help combat these biases in your own research, it’s helpful to space out the scheduling of interviews, ask your colleagues to join you during interviews to provide additional opinions, and take careful notes.

⁠

Take a Test⁠

⁠

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.