“I don’t want to waste time doing user research because that will only give us something trivial.” That was one of the many reasons I heard from other designers about why we shouldn’t do user research.
“Research” seems to be a dry word, something in stark contrast with the beautiful colors, the nice-looking visuals that some of us are so obsessed with. Combined with the fact that poorly planned and conducted research reveals only answers that we already kind of knew, no wonder some of us embrace the kind of misconception that doing research is not helpful at all.
Knowing the right way to research is hugely important in product design. To have deep and meaningful insights, it’s best to shut up, observe and analyze. That’s, in my opinion, how the best research happens.
To Observe Is Better than to Interview
Actions speak louder than words. What the users do is more important than what they say because users don’t always know what they want, or sometimes their words contradict their actions for various reasons without them being aware of it.
So don’t just interview users, ask them what they want or need and take their answers at face value. It’s possible that they’ll tell you something superficial. Better to observe what they do and how they actually do it silently without interfering or interrupting them, and then figure out what they actually want or need.
That’s why contextual inquiry, when done properly, can offer richer, more valuable and more accurate insights than just talking to the users.
Be Like a Detective
Being a UX researcher is like being a detective. The goal is to understand the users better than they understand themselves so as to uncover their hidden needs and goals. When we think this way, we open up to all the possibilities of doing research.
Besides directly observing and talking to users, we can indirectly infer their behaviors from various sources, such as the heat map of a web page.
These data and records serve as solid evidence on how users actually interact with our product, and could lead us to very useful insights when we become sensitive to them and put in the work to analyze them.
For example, when working on my AI color palette generator project, through data analysis, I noticed that users sometimes searched with RGB color codes even though my project at that time only supported keyword search. That was a strong indicator of the user need to find palettes based on a single color. Because of this observation, color search was added to the plugin, and it led to an increase in the usage of the plugin.
Separate Signal from Noise
The number of participants in our research is also important. If we talk to or observe just 1 person, we won’t be able to tell whether what we get is signal or noise. If, however, we research multiple people that come from a good sample of the actual user group, we’ll then be able to aggregate all the answers and observations, see what issues stand out and tease out the signal.
Trust Our Gut
Being user-centered doesn’t mean to stop thinking independently or critically, throw away our knowledge, experience, intuition and taste in design, and blindly let people who use our product dictate how we should design it.
Trust our gut when user feedback doesn’t seem to align with our intuition. Human beings are inevitably biased and flawed. Dig deeper and see if there are bigger problems or reasons behind their feedback. Persistent user engagement is the ultimate sign that things are working fine.
Final Thoughts
Silence is golden. This applies to life as well as user research. When we shut up, we observe, and researching users stops being dry. We become sensitive to the nonverbal — the subtle emotions and cues, and the data that reveal their underlying needs and goals. When we become attuned to them and come up with features that lead to sustained user engagement, we know that we’ve successful carried out user-centered design.
