user research discussion guide

Building Great Discussion Guides: How to Rethink the Most Important Part of Your Research Prep Process

Posted by Mitra Martin on Jan 19, 2021

Researchers, how much time are you setting aside to develop your discussion guide? In a busy world, it can easily become an afterthought. But, putting high-quality creative time into discussion guide development is one of the most high-leverage things you can do to contribute to high-quality insights. It can help you transform a pedestrian study into an experience that’s deeply connecting, satisfying, and illuminating — for stakeholders, participants, and yourself too. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you craft your next discussion guide. 

What is a discussion guide? Let’s define common terms.

A research study is a web of interconnecting questions that operate on different levels, directed to different audiences. We need to be clear about how our discussion guide fits into this web. A discussion guide is more than a list of questions. It's a specific instrument. Here are some useful distinctions: 

Research objectives:

Sometimes called “research questions,” research objectives represent the goals of the research. They frame the overall domain of insights you hope to uncover. Objectives may be written as questions (e.g., “What pain points do new users have when onboarding?”), or as statements (e.g., “To understand new users’ pain points when onboarding.”) 

Stakeholder questions:

When preparing for research as part of a cross-functional team, some researchers source questions from other team members. The result is a list of things those team members want to learn from the research. Sometimes this is referred to as “stakeholder questions” or, confusingly, “research questions.”

Research plan:

The term “research plan” is used in different ways by different organizations. Often, it refers to a sort of “primary document” that centralizes a variety of different pieces of information about the study, including research objectives, context from previous research, and the timeline — along with links to screeners, participant profiles, or other documentation. Often, the discussion guide is included or linked to in the research plan.

Discussion guide:

A discussion guide is an instrument designed to optimize the limited time we have with a participant, allowing for the exploration of all topics in a comfortable way. Pacing, timing, ordering, and craftsmanship of the guide must center the research objectives while also facilitating a warm, human experience for both the interviewer and the participant. It is a mix of scripted or semi-scripted statements or bullet point reminders, along with questions or question-like prompts offering areas to probe. It includes approximate and realistic time-allocations but always incorporates room for the unexpected. The guide helps the interviewer while they are moderating by providing an easy-to-use framework for the interview with visually scannable reminders about what is important.   

Here is a handy chart you can share with your stakeholders to show the distinction between these four instruments. 

Creating your discussion guide

The act of developing a discussion guide is essential preparation for the session itself. Imagine your participant and begin the process of attuning to them. Try to look at reality through their eyes, to think through their thoughts. Reach into their world and ask yourself: how is my participant going to experience the session? Am I speaking their language? What is their POV?

Writing the guide and crafting your questions helps you imagine the human you’ll be interviewing, prepare for the session, and get ready to improvise with the perfect probing questions and follow-ups that arise from the unexpected. It is an essential step in kindling a feeling for your participant that will energize the whole session and yield richer conversation and ultimately, deeper insights. Doing this with care and heart will also make you less likely to reproduce organizational blinders in your conversation, ensuring you sidestep preconceived assumptions and narratives.

It takes time, concentration, and imagination to transform objectives and stakeholder questions into questions that facilitate connection. Here are some examples of stakeholder questions transformed into participant-facing questions. 

Best practices: 

• Try to ensure the moderator develops the discussion guide themselves, based on a full and thorough understanding of context, research objectives, and stakeholder questions.
• When, as a moderator, you receive a pre-written discussion guide from someone else, take the time to write your own discussion guide based on your understanding of the objectives. Even if you don’t use it, it will help you moderate.

The flow of a discussion guide

Creating a comfortable experience for a participant is not only the right thing to do, it's the best way to really reach them and their experience to get valuable insights. Unfortunately, it's easy to overlook the importance of something as subtle and organic as “flow” in the often rushed process of pulling together a discussion guide, when the focus tends to be more on content. 

When studies have many objectives, there is a temptation to pack more and more content into the session than fits in the allotted time. Flow is the first thing out the window. As more gets packed into the session, it's easy to forget the need to save a few minutes to establish rapport, create transitions, and come to closure. And, for multi-topic studies there may be pressure to order topics based on criteria other than the participant's comfort, such as wanting a particular team's questions to be first. 

Don’t shortchange flow. It’s not worth it. A disjointed, mechanical, hurried flow doesn't support organic connection, can rattle a participant, and sacrifices the quality of the sessions, despite everyone's best interests. Engage your team with the following rules of thumb, reminding them that following them will serve the overall objectives:

• Don't limit the introduction. Make it spacious and include contextual questions. Use this time to honestly get to know the participant. 
• Move from the most abstract content to the least abstract, and from the most complex to the simplest. 
• Once rapport is built, move from the most emotional content to the least emotional.
• Embrace improvisation once the interview begins. 
• Do not ask or rely on participants to donate extra, unpaid time to your organization. 

In short, design for flow — and be willing to adjust the flow real-time, during the session. This provides a more comfortable, relevant, and often, more revealing interaction with the participant and whatever material you're exploring. To learn more about session flow and moderation techniques, check out our UX Research Moderator’s Rubric.

Criteria for a great discussion guide

At AnswerLab, we partner with teams who need insights on many, many topics very quickly. Team members have access to different sources of data, are curious about different things, have different needs and hopes. There is an art to compressing 13-page lists of 157 questions into a usable framework for a successful 60-minute interview that will please everyone. Fully understanding the purpose of the research enables us to (sometimes overnight!) transform incoming questions at a variety of different levels of abstraction into an experience that everyone will love — the stakeholders, researcher, and the participant. 

The session post-it

The structure of your research interview should fit on a single post-it, your "steering wheel" for the study, compressing all the preparation you've done into a clear plan: 4-5 areas of exploration with rough time allocations. If there are more sections than your post-it note can fit, consider how you might combine or adapt them — or shift them to other studies.

A concise outline

Your post-it should be built from a more detailed moderator-crafted discussion guide document, which often takes the form of an outline. Your outline is usually 2-3 pages long, with section headers and bullets with questions, and key prompts. This is crafted based on a thorough understanding of the research objectives, the stakeholder questions, and any other discussion guide drafts or skeletons that have been provided. 

Being disciplined about approaching a discussion guide this way supports reproducibility. When a guide is too complicated and unwieldy, it’s harder to ensure that the most important things will be consistently addressed across sessions. Boiling down a lengthy catalog of questions to a concise, human-centered outline makes it easier to stay connected with the core research goals from session to session. Although exact wording and even order will likely flex, the “steering wheel” post-it will ensure the session gets to its destination in time.

Take your discussion guides to a new level

To take your discussion guides to a new level, think carefully about fine-tuning your process for creating guides. Try some of these takeaways:

• Be sure you fully understand the research objectives. Ask clarifying questions. Re-read the objectives often, including several times immediately before the session and between sessions.
• Schedule high-quality, focused time to develop your discussion guide. 
• Give yourself time to synthesize stakeholder questions, acquaint yourself with the subject matter, use the product, and talk with others who know more. 
• Brainstorm on possible areas of inquiry and exercises. 
• Explore the system you're researching so you understand the user's flow through that interface. 
• When your session includes specific tasks, provide a larger context by offering a relatable real-world scenario for those tasks. This will help make the flow more meaningful for participants, and you'll get better results.
• While most discussion guides are not intended to be precisely scripted, you may need to include 'verbatim' questions or directions, depending on your objectives.
• Don't be afraid to push back. If you’re getting a lot of asks, facilitate conversations about the core objectives and tradeoffs that will enable you to deliver superb results. There may not be room for everything, and cramming too much in can compromise the outcome.
• Do mock interviews early in the process to refine your guide. Practicing with someone else gives you clear insight into whether your guide will facilitate flow. If this isn’t possible, minimally build in time for a thoughtful peer-review of your discussion guide.
• Champion the importance of space. A 60-minute session has at most 50-55 minutes of research content. Leave room for a spacious introduction, contextual getting-to-know-you questions, relaxed transitions and room for improvised probing, and a moment for reflection and closure.

Feeling confident in your discussion guides? Next, take your moderating skills to the next level with our UX Research Moderator's Rubric.

Mitra Martin

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How to conduct user research: A step-by-step guide

This is part one of a guide to User research.

Continue with part two: How to conduct user research: A Step-by-step guide

Continue with part three: What is exploratory research and why is it so exciting?

What user research did you conduct to reveal your ideal user?

Uh-oh. Not this question again. We both know the most common answer and it’s not great.

“Uhm, we talked to some users and had a brainstorming session with our team. It’s not much, but we don’t have time to do anything more right now. It’s better than nothing.”

Let’s be brutally honest about the meaning of that answer and rephrase it:

“ We don’t have time to get to know our actual user and maximize our chances of success. We’ll just assume that we know what they want and then wonder why the product fails at a later stage.”

If that sounds super bad, it’s because IT IS. You don’t want to end up in this situation. And you won’t.

After reading this guide, you’ll know exactly how to carry out the user research that will become your guiding star during product development.

On this page

Why is user research so important?

Step #1: define research objectives.

Go ahead – create that fake persona

Step #2: Pick your methods

Qualitative methods – the why, quantitative methods – the what, behavioral and attitudinal methods, step #3: find your participants, how to recruit participants, how many participants, step #4: conduct user research.

Focus groups

Competitive analysis

Field studies

What’s next?

User research can be a scary word. It may sound like money you don’t have, time you can’t spare, and expertise you need to find. That’s why some people convince themselves that it’s not that important.

Which is a HUGE mistake.

User research is crucial – without it, you’ll spend your energy, time and money on a product that is based around false assumptions that won’t work in the real world.

Let’s take a look at Segway, a technologically brilliant product with incredible introductory publicity. Although it’s still around, it simply didn’t reach initial expectations. Here are some of the reasons why:

• It brought mockery, not admiration. The user was always “that guy”, who often felt fat or lazy.
• Cities were not prepared for it. Neither users nor policemen knew if it should be used on the road or on the sidewalk.
• A large segment of the target market comprised of postal and security workers. However, postal workers need both hands while walking, and security workers prefer bikes that don’t have a limited range.

Segway mainly fell short because of issues that could’ve been foreseen and solved by better user research.

Tim Brown, the CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO, sums it up nicely:

“Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task.”

? Bonus material Download User research checklist and a comparison table

Never forget – you are not your user.

You require proper user research to understand your user’s problems, pain points, needs, desires, feelings and behaviours.

Let’s start with the process!

Before you get in touch with your target users, you need to define why you are doing the research in the first place. 

Establish clear objectives and agree with your team on your exact goals – this will make it much easier to gain valuable insights. Otherwise, your findings will be all over the place.

Here are some sample questions that will help you to define your objectives:

• What do you want to uncover?
• What are the knowledge gaps that you need to fill?
• What is already working and what isn’t?
• Is there a problem that needs to be fixed? What is that problem?
• What will the research bring to the business and/or your customers?

Once you start answering questions like these, it’s time to make a list of objectives. These should be specific and concise .

Let’s say you are making a travel recommendation app. Your research goals could be:

• Understand the end-to-end process of how participants are currently making travel decisions.
• Uncover the different tools that participants are using to make travel decisions.
• Identify problems or barriers that they encounter when making travel decisions.

I suggest that you prioritize your objectives and create an Excel table. It will come in handy later.

Go ahead, create that fake persona

A useful exercise for you to do at this stage is to write down some hypotheses about your target users.

Ask yourself:

What do we think we understand about our users that is relevant to our business or product?

Yes, brainstorm the heck out of this persona, but keep it relevant to the topic at hand.

Here’s my empathy map and empathy map canvas to really help you flesh out your imaginary user.

Once you’re finished, research any and every statement , need and desire with real people.

It’s a simple yet effective way to create questions for some of the research methods that you’ll be using.

However, you need to be prepared to throw some of your assumptions out of the window. If you think this persona may affect your bias, don’t bother with hypotheses and dive straight into research with a completely open mind.

Alright, you have your research goals. Now let’s see how you can reach them.

Here’s the main question you should be asking yourself at this step in the process:

Based on our time and manpower, what methods should we select?

It’s essential to pick the right method at the right time . I’ll delve into more details on specific methods in Step #4. For now, let’s take a quick look at what categories you can choose from.

Qualitative research tells you ‘why’ something occurs. It tells you the reasons behind the behavior, the problem or the desire. It answers questions like: “ Why do you prefer using app X instead of other similar apps?” or “What’s the hardest part about being a sales manager? Why?” .

Qualitative data comes in the form of actual insights and it’s fairly easy to understand.

Most of the methods we’ll look at in Step #4 are qualitative methods.

Quantitative research helps you to understand what is happening by providing different metrics.

It answers questions such as “What percentage of users left their shopping cart without completing the purchase?” or “Is it better to have a big or small subscription button?”.

Most quantitative methods come in handy when testing your product, but not so much when you’re researching your users. This is because they don’t tell you why particular trends or patterns occur.

There is a big difference between “what people do” and “what people say”.

As their names imply, attitudinal research is used to understand or measure attitudes and beliefs, whereas behavioral research is used to measure and observe behaviors.

Here’s a practical landscape that will help you choose the best methods for you. If it doesn’t make sense now, return to it once you’ve finished the guide and you’ll have a much better understanding.

Source: Nielsen Norman Group

I’ll give you my own suggestions and tips about the most common and useful methods in Step #4 – Conducting research.

In general, if your objectives are specific enough, it shouldn’t be too hard to see which methods will help you achieve them.

Remember that Excel table? Choose a method or two that will fulfill each objective and type it in the column beside it.

It won’t always be possible to carry out everything you’ve written down. If this is the case, go with the method(s) that will give you most of the answers. With your table, it will be easy to pick and choose the most effective options for you.

Onto the next step!

This stage is all about channeling your inner Sherlock and finding the people with the secret intel for your product’s success.

Consider your niche, your objectives and your methods – this should give you a general idea of the group or groups you want to talk to and research further.

Here’s my advice for most cases.

If you’re building something from the ground up, the best participants might be:

• People you assume face the problem that your product aims to solve
• Your competitors’ customers

If you are developing something or solving a problem for an existing product, you should also take a look at:

• Advocates and super-users
• Customers who have recently churned
• Users who tried to sign up or buy but decided not to commit

There are plenty of ways to bring on participants, and you can get creative so long as you keep your desired target group in mind.

You can recruit them online – via social media, online forums or niche community sites.

You can publish an ad with requirements and offer some kind of incentive.

You can always use a recruitment agency, too. This can be costly, but it’s also efficient.

If you have a user database and are changing or improving your product, you can find your participants in there. Make sure that you contact plenty of your existing users, as most of them won’t respond.

You can even ask your friends to recommend the right kind of people who you wouldn’t otherwise know.

With that said, you should always be wary of including friends in your research . Sure, they’re the easiest people to reach, but your friendship can (and probably will) get in the way of obtaining honest answers. There are plenty of horror stories about people validating their “brilliant” ideas with their friends, only to lose a fortune in the future. Only consider them if you are 100% sure that they will speak their mind no matter what.

That depends on the method. If you’re not holding a massive online survey, you can usually start with 5 people in each segment . That’s enough to get the most important unique insights. You can then assess the situation and decide whether or not you need to expand your research.

Finally! Let’s go through some of the more common methods you’ll be using, including their pros and cons, some pro tips, and when you should use them.

Engaging in one-on-one discussions with users enables you to acquire detailed information about a user’s attitudes, desires, and experiences. Individual concerns and misunderstandings can be directly addressed and cleared up on the spot.

Interviews are time-consuming, especially on a per participant basis. You have to prepare for them, conduct them, analyze them and sometimes even transcribe them. They also limit your sample size, which can be problematic. The quality of your data will depend on the ability of your interviewer, and hiring an expert can be expensive.

• Prepare questions that stick to your main topics. Include follow-up questions for when you want to dig deeper into certain areas.
• Record the interview . Don’t rely on your notes. You don’t want to interrupt the flow of the interview by furiously scribbling down your answers, and you’ll need the recording for any potential in-depth analysis later on.
• Conduct at least one trial run of the interview to see if everything flows and feels right. Create a “playbook” on how the interview should move along and update it with your findings.
• If you are not comfortable with interviewing people, let someone else do it or hire an expert interviewer. You want to make people feel like they are talking to someone they know, rather than actually being interviewed. In my experience, psychologists are a great choice for an interviewer.

Interviews are not really time-sensitive, as long as you do them before the development process.

However, they can be a great supplement to online surveys and vice-versa. Conducting an interview beforehand helps you to create a more focused and relevant survey, while conducting an interview afterwards helps you to explain the survey answers.

Surveys are generally conducted online, which means that it’s possible to gather a lot of data in a very short time for a very low price . Surveys are usually anonymous, so users are often more honest in their responses.

It’s more difficult to get a representative sample because it’s tough to control who takes part in the survey – especially if you post it across social media channels or general forums. Surveys are quite rigid and if you don’t account for all possible answers, you might be missing out on valuable data. You have to be very careful when choosing your questions – poorly worded or leading ones can negatively influence how users respond. Length can also be an issue, as many people hate taking long surveys.

• Keep your surveys brief , particularly if participants won’t be compensated for their time. Only focus on what is truly important.
• Make sure that the questions can be easily understood. Unclear or ambiguous questions result in data on which you can’t depend. Keep the wording as simple as possible.
• Avoid using leading questions. Don’t ask questions that assume something, such as “What do you dislike about X?”. Replace this with “What’s your experience with X?”.
• Find engaged, niche online communities that fit your user profile. You’ll get more relevant data from these.

Similar to interviews. It depends on whether you want to use the survey as a preliminary method, or if you want a lot of answers to a few, very focused questions.

Focus Groups

Focus groups are moderated discussions with around 5 to 10 participants, the intention of which is to gain insight into the individuals’ attitudes, ideas and desires.

As focus groups include multiple people, they can quickly reveal the desires, experiences, and attitudes of your target audience . They are helpful when you require a lot of specific information in a short amount of time. When conducted correctly, they can act like interviews on steroids.

Focus groups can be tough to schedule and manage. If the moderator isn’t experienced, the discussion can quickly go off-topic. There might be an alpha participant that dictates the general opinion, and because it’s not one-on-one, people won’t always speak their mind.

• Find an experienced moderator who will lead the discussion. Having another person observing and taking notes is also highly recommended, as he or she can emphasize actionable insights and catch non-verbal clues that would otherwise be missed.
• Define the scope of your research . What questions will you ask? How in-depth do you want to go with the answers? How long do you want each discussion to last? This will determine how many people and groups should be tested.
• If possible, recruit potential or existing users who are likely to provide good feedback, yet will still allow others to speak their mind. You won’t know the participants most of the time, so having an experienced moderator is crucial.

Focus groups work best when you have a few clear topics that you want to focus on.

Competitive Analysis

A competitive analysis highlights the strengths and weaknesses of existing products . It explores how successful competitors act on the market. It gives you a solid basis for other user research methods and can also uncover business opportunities. It helps you to define your competitive advantage , as well as identify different user types.

A competitive analysis can tell you what exists, but not why it exists. You may collect a long feature list, but you won’t know which features are valued most by users and which they don’t use at all. In many cases, it’s impossible to tell how well a product is doing, which makes the data less useful. It also has limited use if you’re creating something that’s relatively new to the market.

• Create a list or table of information that you want to gather – market share, prices, features, visual design language, content, etc.
• Don’t let it go stale. Update it as the market changes so that you include new competitors.
• If you find something really interesting but don’t know the reason behind it, conduct research among your competitor’s users .
• After concluding your initial user research, go over the findings of your competitive analysis to see if you’ve discovered anything that’s missing on the market .

It can be a great first method, especially if you’re likely to talk to users of your competitors’ products

Field Studies

Field studies are research activities that take place in the user’s context, rather than at your company or office. Some are purely observational (the researcher is a “fly on the wall”), others are field interviews, and some act as a demonstration of pain points in existing systems.

You really get to see the big picture –  field studies allow you to gain insights that will fundamentally change your product design . You see what people actually do instead of what they say they do. A field study can explain problems and behaviours that you don’t understand better than any other method.

It’s the most time-consuming and expensive method. The results rely on the observer more than any of the other options. It’s not appropriate for products that are used in rare and specific situations.

• Establish clear objectives. Always remember why you are doing the research. Field studies can provide a variety of insights and sometimes it can be hard to stay focused. This is especially true if you are participating in the observed activity.
• Be patient. Observation might take some time. If you rush, you might end up with biased results.
• Keep an open mind and don’t ask leading questions. Be prepared to abandon your preconceptions, assumptions and beliefs. When interviewing people, try to leave any predispositions or biases at the door.
• Be warm but professional. If you conduct interviews or participate in an activity, you won’t want people around you to feel awkward or tense. Instead, you’ll want to observe how they act naturally.

Use a field study when no other method will do or if it becomes clear that you don’t really understand your user. If needed, you should conduct this as soon as possible – it can lead to monumental changes.

We started with a user persona and we’ll finish on this topic, too. But yours will be backed by research 😉

A persona outlines your ideal user in a concise and understandable way. It includes the most important insights that you’ve discovered. It makes it easier to design products around your actual users and speak their language. It’s a great way to familiarize new people on your team with your target market.

A persona is only as good as the user research behind it. Many companies create a “should be” persona instead of an actual one. Not only can such a persona be useless, it can also be misleading.

• Keep personas brief. Avoid adding unnecessary details and omit information that does not aid your decision making. If a persona document is too long, it simply won’t be used.
• Make personas specific and realistic. Avoid exaggerating and include enough detail to help you find real people that represent your ideal user.

Create these after you’ve carried out all of the initial user research. Compile your findings and create a persona that will guide your development process.

Now you know who you are creating your product for – you’ve identified their problems, needs and desires. You’ve laid the groundwork, so now it’s time to design a product that will blow your target user away! But that’s a topic for a whole separate guide, one that will take you through the process of product development and testing 😉

PS. Don’t forget -> Here is your ? User Research Checklist and comparison table

About the author

Oh hey, I’m Romina Kavcic

I am a Design Strategist who holds a Master of Business Administration. I have 14+ years of career experience in design work and consulting across both tech startups and several marquee tech unicorns such as Stellar.org, Outfit7, Databox, Xamarin, Chipolo, Singularity.NET, etc. I currently advise, coach and consult with companies on design strategy & management, visual design and user experience. My work has been published on Forbes, Hackernoon, Blockgeeks, Newsbtc, Bizjournals, and featured on Apple iTunes Store.

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How to write an unbiased and conversation-starting discussion guide

Writing discussion guides for my one-on-one interview sessions used to terrify me. Would I sound like a robot? Would the participant feel like they were in a police interrogation? Would I ask too many questions? Too few? And, most scary, would I bias, lead, or confuse the participant? 

With all those questions spinning through my mind, it was challenging for me to write my discussion guides. And, because of that, my questions felt stunted and forced. As a result, I often struggled to go deep with participants and have them open up during these sessions.

And then I met TED(W)—who got the How I Met Your Mother reference?

So, how do we use TEDW to write the best interview questions? First, we have to plan for success!

.css-1nrevy2{position:relative;display:inline-block;} Start with your question and goals

If you know me, I am (annoyingly) strict about beginning projects with valid and answerable research questions and goals. I always begin this way because I have learned it is imperative to the success of a project. If you don't have a clear research question and goals, you will have difficulty creating discussion questions that make sense to you, your stakeholders, and the participant. Without a solid research question and goals, you can find yourself all over the place, with little focus, in your interviews.

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How to write a good research question

A good research question is :

Centered around understanding or discovering something about people (not your product)

A problem/idea we don't fully understand

A concept or idea we need more information on to move forward

Often, I get asked to answer questions like :

“Do users prefer this or that design?”

“Do people like the product/feature/idea?” 

“Can users use the product/feature/idea?”

“Would people use the product/feature/idea?”

“Do people find value in the product/feature/idea?” 

“What do users want?" / "Do users want this product/feature/idea?”

“Is this product/feature/idea (good) enough for users?”

I’m sorry in advance, but these questions aren’t answerable by qualitative research! These are impossible to answer between the small sample size of qualitative research and future-based questions. So if you get questions like this, you can instead propose:

“Do users prefer this or that design?” -> A/B testing

“Do people like the app?” -> look at usability/satisfaction 

“Can users use the app?” -> “ How do users interact with the app?”

“Would people use the feature?” -> “ Have people used something similar before, and what was their experience like?”

“What do users want?” / “Do users want this product/feature/idea?” -> Focus on top pain points through a survey and solve those

“Is this product/feature/idea (good) enough for users?” -> look at usability/satisfaction

“Do people find value in the product?” -> market research , value prop brainstorming, or product-market fit

So, how do we write a good research question? Valid research questions for qualitative research:

Start with “how” or “why”

Are about processes, mental models, journeys, and perceived feelings/impact 

Focus on the past rather than the future

Think about the questions you have and what you are trying to learn, and ensure it is something you can answer with qualitative research. And then, you can use the following formulas to create a valid research question:

How do users [think about/make decisions on/interact with] [subject of research/product]?

How do users perceive [process/event/concept]?

How do users perceive and report the impact of [process/event/concept]?

Here’s an example of a previous research question I’ve asked before:

How do our users plan for leisure travel?

How to write research goals

The next step is writing research goals based on your initial question. Research goals are specific ideas or areas you want to learn more about during the research/the questions you want to answer. They break the larger research question into smaller, answerable parts. You might find them slightly repetitive of the initial question, so you’re doing it right if that's the case!

These goals help you focus your interviews and get the most pertinent information from participants. Luckily, there are five overarching research goals:

Discover people’s current processes/decision-making about [research subject], and how they feel about the overall experience

Learn about people’s current pain points, frustrations, and barriers about [current process/current tools] and how they would improve it

Uncover the current tools people use to [achieve goal] and their experience with those tools. Also, uncover how they would improve those tools.

Understand what [research subject] means to people (how they define it) and why it is important to them

Evaluate how people are using a [product/website/app/ service] OR Evaluate how people are currently interacting with a [product/ website/app/service]

Now, if we think about qualitative research, specifically generative research, three goals, in particular, stand out:

The research findings should ultimately answer the research question and all the goals. By building these goals, I can ensure I ask the right questions and create a path to guide participants down. Often a research question might be a broad topic, so these objectives narrow the scope while allowing for natural conversation and innovation.

Here are some sample goals based on the above research question:

Discover people’s decision-making about planning leisure travel and how they feel about the overall experience

Learn about people’s current pain points, frustrations, and barriers about planning leisure travel and how they would improve it

Understand what leisure travel means to people and why it is important to them

And now, the discussion guide

Hopefully, it will become clear why I harped on research questions and goals earlier on. Each interview question you write should be related to your research goals and question. 

So, let's go back to TEDW as a method for writing these questions.

TEDW stands for :

T = "Tell me more about..."

E = “Explain…”

D = “Describe…”

W = "Walk me through...

I spend less time thinking about what to say next with these types of questions. Additionally, the TEDW framework means I am not always asking “why, why, why” repeatedly, but I can still dig deeper into what the user is saying. The TEDW framework is not about asking questions but about having open-ended conversations. Instead of asking people direct questions, you use active listening and open-ended statements to extract the stories from them. Using this technique makes it a lot easier for participants to give you reliable past data, as it reduces biases that come through in research.

To start writing TEDW questions, go back to your question and goals. Write down all the questions you would want to ask to answer each goal. 

So taking the example above, it might look like:

Discover people’s decision-making about planning leisure travel and how they feel about the overall experience:

How do people make decisions to plan a leisure trip?

What is the step-by-step process for planning a leisure trip?

How do people feel while planning a leisure trip?

What are people’s pain points when it comes to planning leisure travel?

What are some frustrating experiences people have had while planning leisure travel?

What did they do when they encountered those experiences?

How did they feel during the experiences?

How would they improve those experiences?

What does planning leisure travel mean to people?

How important or unimportant is leisure travel to people?

How does planning leisure travel fit into people's lives?

We then take these questions and turn them into TEDW-based questions:

And you have your discussion guide! I always recommend three to five questions per goal and always write them in priority order, just in case you run out of time.

Using these questions should get participants to share their past experiences with you. And, whenever there is a break in the conversation, you can always go deeper by either asking “why” or using another TEDW phrased question. For example:

Participant: I was frustrated when customer support wouldn’t answer my calls after seeing they changed my flight completely

Interviewer: Explain what you mean by frustrated?

Interview: Talk me through what you did next?

TEDW is a way to start conversations and begin the storytelling process. Once the participant starts giving you nuggets of the story, you can dig deeper into the critical parts based on our research goals. So give it a try in your next project!

Written by Nikki Anderson, User Research Lead & Instructor. Nikki is a User Research Lead and Instructor with over eight years of experience. She has worked in all different sizes of companies, ranging from a tiny start-up called ALICE to large corporation Zalando, and also as a freelancer. During this time, she has led a diverse range of end-to-end research projects across the world, specializing in generative user research. Nikki also owns her own company, User Research Academy, a community and education platform designed to help people get into the field of user research, or learn more about how user research impacts their current role. User Research Academy hosts online classes, content, as well as personalized mentorship opportunities with Nikki. She is extremely passionate about teaching and supporting others throughout their journey in user research. To spread the word of research and help others transition and grow in the field, she writes as a writer at dscout and Dovetail. Outside of the world of user research, you can find Nikki (happily) surrounded by animals, including her dog and two cats, reading on her Kindle, playing old-school video games like Pokemon and World of Warcraft, and writing fiction novels.

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Best practices for crafting a discussion guide that results in effective research.

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Qualitative methods.

• Safety and (dis)comfort in qualitative research
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• The post-pandemic dominance of CRM and UX research

Discussion guides are essential if you want to generate powerful research outcomes. Whether you’re a moderator looking to effectively facilitate a focus group or an executive looking to deepen your understanding of market insights, your discussion guide is the roadmap that leads you to the golden nuggets — the rich insights that can help propel your business forward.What is a discussion guide?

A discussion guide is a script or set of questions/topics to guide participants through a conversation for research purposes. On the Remesh platform, discussion guides can have a variety of questions and elements that engage participants — polls, open-ended questions, rank questions, images, video, and more. 

Your participants’ time is valuable, and discussion guides assist you in making the most of your session. 

Why use a discussion guide?

Using a discussion guide keeps you focused on your research goals so you can maximize the productivity of your session. 

While it’s absolutely OK to veer from your script sometimes (we think it’s important to have this flexibility), it’s a great idea to have a strong discussion guide to work from that keeps you on track. A strong discussion guide is key to preparing for the most effective research study and for gathering quality insights from your audience.

Best practices: 3 steps to writing a discussion guide

Most of the work in writing the discussion guide isn’t in the writing at all; it’s in the prep work. Don’t take shortcuts here. Doing your due diligence upfront will reap the biggest reward. 

Follow these steps to write a discussion guide that will lead to actionable recommendations. 

1. Establish the parameters for your research

At its core, what is the purpose of your research? What overall question do you want to research and answer? Creating clear goals keeps your research focused and purposeful. 

2. Create your information wishlist

Make a list of the information you need to answer the question/goals you identified in step one. Data you might need could include annual reports/filings, financial reports, statistical data, consumer information, industry reports, among others. 

3. Start the search

Here’s the fun part. Find the information listed in step two. This will likely include both internal and external data. Internal data is owned by you or your client’s company — things like market trend reports, financial statements, and inventory records. External data includes secondary research that already exists by third parties.

The importance of secondary research

Using secondary research to create a discussion guide is becoming more popular. Secondary research (or secondary data) is data that has already been collected or research that has already been conducted. Secondary research is more accessible than ever, less time-consuming, and cost efficient when compared to primary research. 

You can use secondary research to:

Identify gaps in data that you want to dig into for your own research

Help you form your own hypothesis

Get familiar with your audience’s behavior/preferences before ever starting a conversation with them

Inform recruitment of research participants

Support your own research goals

Frame additional insights that are not tied to your company 

A word of caution: the relevance and accuracy of secondary research may be limited. It may also be inaccurate or outdated. While secondary research can be very valuable, it’s also important to check methodologies.

Crafting the perfect survey questions

The heavy lifting of your discussion guide is in the upfront planning and research — setting clear goals and gathering information. But the questions won’t write themselves, and there are some do’s and don’ts to consider. 

Start with onboarding questions to collect demographic information and warm up participants before moving on to the meat of the conversation

Ensure each question is within your research parameters and contributes to a goal

Ask open-ended questions to prevent bias and gather valuable qualitative data 

Restrict answers to poll questions alone

Force your preconceived notions and opinions on participants

Forget to thank your participants at the end of the conversation

 As a researcher, it’s vital to ask the right questions that uncover the best insights. The resource guide includes 200 open-ended survey questions to help you get started. Download the guide now to gain access to the question bank as well as a more in-depth look at discussion guides and market research best practices.

Alexandra Gendes

Alexandra is a dedicated Marketing Professional passionate about creating innovative marketing solutions. She shows excellent communication and leadership skills and is able to work with teams at all levels of an organization. She is a motivational leader who engages and supports all team members in alignment with projects and organizational goals. Her approachable style has enabled her to create relationships with team members and clients in a variety of work environments. Alexandra is known for taking the lead in turning ideas into actionable marketing initiatives and finds inspiration in creating a positive vision for a company’s long-term impact.

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14 Mar 2024

UX research discussion guide template

Optimize your user interviews with this comprehensive discussion guide template..

Michele Ronsen

User research interview discussion guides can be both overwhelming and lack context. To address this gap, I developed a UX discussion guide template for all of my applied research studies, including both moderated and unmoderated studies.

In this article, you’ll find an overview of what I include in my discussion guide template, where I gather my information from, and how I flesh out each section of my guide. 

Need help understanding the purpose of discussion guides? Check out my UX discussion guide article . It explains what discussion guides are and when and how to use them for your user research sessions.

How I structure my UX discussion guide templates for effective stakeholder collaboration 

It’s important to note that I use my discussion guides as a working document when collaborating with stakeholders. Therefore, I give primary consideration to the stakeholder experience. You’ll see how this information is repurposed for actual user interview sessions as well.

Once this template is completed and approved by my stakeholders, I repurpose parts of it into a Google Sheet in the following manner:

Tab 1: Introduction (Section 6). 

Tab 2: Warm-up (Section 7) to wrap-up (Section 9), with time blocks listed in column A. 

I list each section's title along with the time frame for that section.

I leave a few blank rows between each section to provide a visual break and to indicate transitions, as well as to allow for extra notes. 

Column A is “frozen” so it’s always visible. 

The rest of the columns, for example B-J, are used for participant notes. These notes are taken vertically to align with each question.

Tab 3: A list of the interview schedule and other details for easy management and stakeholder access, such as: 

The date and time for each session.

The Zoom link or other access details for stakeholders.

The participants' names and contact information.

The participants’ most important screener responses.      

Before creating a discussion guide, it’s paramount that you have a final research plan that was developed in collaboration with your stakeholders. My template includes the names of these core collaborators, as well as several sections that are repurposed from the research plan. I copy this information into the discussion guide template to make the most important information easily accessible for my stakeholders. 

In each discussion guide, I include the following key information at the top: 

Research Project: The study’s name  Date: The date the discussion guide was created  Key Stakeholders: The core collaborators   Researcher: My name Moderated Session Time Frame: The length of each session (e.g. 60 minutes) 

Now, I’ll share an overview of each section I include in my discussion guide template, along with context about what I include.

Section 1: A high-level overview of the client/company

In the first section, I include a few sentences about the organization and how the research fits into their key performance metrics, OKRs, or similar goals.    

Where does this information come from? It should be repurposed from your research plan.

Is this section always necessary? I always include it for consulting clients, however it may not be necessary if you’re working in-house. 

Section 2: Background

In this section, I provide an overview of why the organization is interested in the research, how this study came to be, and the broad research goals (e.g. the long-term outcomes of this work or a description of the destination). Metrics, decisions to be made, and key considerations may clarify or substantiate the above.

I usually follow with three to four bullet points with additional context, for example, Challenge/Goal 1: One or two-sentence description of the challenge or goal to study. 

Is this section always necessary? Yes.

Section 3: Research objective  

In this section, I include an overview of how the research will be approached in “chunks.” I often list these as single, achievable outcomes that are tangible and narrow in scope, with clear actions and deliverables. Ideally, they include the metrics your stakeholders are trying to establish or enhance so your readers can grasp the bigger picture of the study. 

I usually follow the bullet points with additional context, for example, Objective 1: One-sentence description.

Is this section always necessary? Yes

Is there anything else to keep in mind? 

Sometimes I author these objectives as questions and other times as statement goals. It depends on the study and the question set I’m exploring.

Not all objectives are equal. You may have one primary objective and a few smaller, less important objectives, or some other hierarchy. It’s important to clarify the hierarchy with stakeholders while developing your research plan.  

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Section 4: Must-have questions/criteria to cover   

In this section, I add three to four bullet points with additional context about the most important user research questions or topics the session must gather data on . For example, Question 1: One-sentence description, Question 2: One-sentence description, and so on.

Where does this information come from? It should be informed by your stakeholders and iterated upon in your regular stakeholder meetings. 

Anything else to keep in mind? 

These questions should be unbiased . 

Similar to objectives, not all must-have questions are equal. You may have one primary must-have question and a few smaller, less important questions, or some other hierarchy. It’s important to discuss the hierarchy with stakeholders when developing your discussion guide.

How to make sure your questions match your goals and objectives

Above, I mentioned that not all research goals/objectives and must-have questions are equal in our studies. I like to use the example table below to align the questions, tasks, and activities listed in the discussion guide to the objectives.

Every question, task, and activity should support at least one goal or objective. This is a great way to evaluate if your proposed question set aligns with your study’s intentions.

To take this one step further, you can also create a separate table to align your questions to your assumptions. This way, you can make sure you’re asking the right questions to either validate or disprove the assumptions in your research plan. 

Section 5: Nice-to-have questions/topics to explore

In this section, I add three to four bullet points with additional context about any nice-to-have questions or topics the session could gather data on, time permitting.

These questions should be unbiased. 

Similar to must-have questions, not all nice-to-have questions are equal. You may have one primary nice-to-have question and a few smaller, less important questions, or some other hierarchy. It’s important to clarify the hierarchy with stakeholders when developing your discussion guide and be prepared to rearrange or remove them as clarity sets in.  

Section 6: Introduction (5 minutes) 

In a moderated study , this is where you introduce yourself to your participant, confirm the time frame for the session, set the expectations, and let them know how you'll be spending your time together (at a high level). I also like to provide a little context about the topic we’re discussing and how the learnings will be applied, and mention if any of my teammates are joining us. 

If the study requires participants to look at or listen to something (e.g. this is evaluative research ), it’s important to let them know that you either didn’t contribute to the design or creation in any way (assuming you didn’t). If you did contribute, don't mention this. 

Instead, you can simply say you’re on the product team (as opposed to the design team, or you're the designer who developed what they'll be evaluating). We do this so that participants feel comfortable freely expressing negative feedback. 

My standard intro includes: “Please know that there are no right or wrong responses to anything we're going to discuss. And I have no vested interest in how you respond to anything today. In fact, the more candid and detailed you can be, the easier my job will be.”

In an unmoderated study , this is where you'll provide a brief overview of the unmoderated study to set the context. For example, if the research is gathering feedback on a travel planning prototype , let the participant know. If it’s a low-fidelity prototype, explain that some things won't be working properly, and that’s okay. If it’s a preference study and the participants will be comparing two options, set the stage. If participants will be doing some activities, let them know. Remember, unmoderated sessions are typically 15 minutes or less.   

Where does this information come from? I have an intro template I use and revise accordingly. This saves me from reinventing the wheel for each study. 

Is this section always necessary? Yes. 

Anything else to keep in mind? You’ll want to get consent from your participants to record and confirm they’re joining the session from the right device or browser, if applicable. 

Each section in the discussion guide from here on out is labeled with a time frame. This helps you make sure you’re allocating your time appropriately within the session.  

Section 7: Warm-up (10 minutes)  

The purpose of this section is to create a comfortable atmosphere for the interviewee, to build rapport with easy-to-answer questions, and to get the conversation started. Typically, I begin with a few simple questions that also help me learn more about the participant and the product, service, or topic I’m exploring. 

Where does this information come from? These warm-up questions are typically specific to the study, platform, or brand, so you'll need to craft them for each study individually.

Anything else to keep in mind? Use this warm-up time to gauge how interested your participant is in the topic and whether they’re verbose or more withdrawn. Also check that they're framed and lit properly (for video capture) and that their sound is strong (for audio capture). If any of these things need to be adjusted, now is the time to address them. 

Section 8: Digging deeper (25 minutes)  

Here, we spend most of our time on the main topic. In this section, you’ll dive into specifics, details, stories, contexts, etc. 

Begin by listing your 3–5 must-have questions (from your research plan). They should be listed in Section 4. Then, add in sub-questions, probing follow-ups, and pictures, screenshots, soundbites, or any other evidence you'll gather, in sequence.

Pro tip 1: For evaluative research projects, insert screenshots into your guide alongside your questions and activities. This will help your stakeholders understand what the participants will be looking at, and when, while responding to specific questions. It will also help you make sure the participants are looking at the right thing when you’re asking your questions. 

Pro tip 2: When conducting sessions with different segments and your question sets vary, you’ll want to make sure it’s clear which aspects deviate. If it’s just one line of questions, I find it’s ok to call them our per segment. If it’s more than that, I repeat the entire guide for the second segment to make it easier for my stakeholders to digest. 

Where does this information come from? These questions are specific to the research and are crafted for each study individually.

Anything else to keep in mind? I like to start broad and then work my way into more specific questions. When changing topics, I use visual or verbal sign posting to let the participant know we’re switching gears. 

Section A: Tasks (10 minutes)  

Tasks, scenarios, and activities may or may not be relevant to your particular study. Some examples include card sorting , empathy mapping , journey mapping , mind mapping, plotting, sentence completion, and so many other fun options! If any tasks or activities are a part of your study, this is where you'll provide the set-up directions, links, and any other relevant information about them.

Where does this information come from?

Tasks/activities are specific to the research, so you’ll need to craft them for each study individually.

Is this section always necessary?

Anything else to keep in mind?

Make sure you pilot all tasks/activities in advance with a participant who either doesn’t have internal access to your tools and platforms, or with someone in incognito mode. 

Section B: Shots or soundbites to gather (10 minutes)  

Sometimes I plan to gather specific audio, video clips, or screenshots as artifacts from my sessions. I usually build this into the “Digging Deeper” or “Tasks/Activities” section in sequence. Calling this out in a specific section in my discussion guide helps to remind me to gather these artifacts. 

Where does this information come from? The screenshots and soundbites you want to gather are specific to the research, so you’ll need to craft these for each study individually.

Is this section always necessary? No. 

Section 9: Wrap-up (5 minutes) 

This is where I create space for subjects to share additional information and context. I ask if there’s anything related to the topic I should have asked about and if there’s anything else they think may be helpful for me to know. 

I also repeat what I think I heard in response to the must-have questions and ask the participants to correct or confirm for accuracy. 

Lastly, if there are stakeholders on the call, I ask them if they have any further questions. Then I end by genuinely thanking the participant.

I also include a scratch pad in my discussion guide template. I use this as a “parking lot” to save key questions and other information that I may want to refer to in the future.

In sum, my interview discussion guide template contains far more than simply the questions I pose to my participants. It includes pertinent research plan information to enable easy alignment with the study’s goals and to mitigate the need for me and my stakeholders to review multiple documents. It also includes other details, like links and visuals. 

I find this template works well for me and my students. I hope you’ll give it a try and adjust it to meet your needs!

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This article was authored by Michele Ronsen , Founder and CEO of Curiosity Tank . Michele is a user research executive, coach and educator. She teaches design and user research to people around the world. Her corporate trainings and workshops are inspired by working with Fortune 500s and start-ups for more than twenty years. Fuel Your Curiosity is her award winning, free, user-research newsletter. In 2020, LinkedIn honored Michele with a TopVoices award in the Technology category. She is the first and only researcher to receive this award. 

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World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience

Writing an effective guide for a ux interview.

February 28, 2021 2021-02-28

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In This Article:

Introduction, step 1: write your research questions, step 2: brainstorm interview questions, step 3: broaden your questions, step 4: fill in for unaccounted research questions, step 5: arrange your questions, step 6: prepare additional probing and followup questions, step 7: pilot your guide.

In the discovery phase of product development, user interviews are often used to capture important information about users: their backgrounds, beliefs, motivations, desires, or needs. Typically, the interviews carried out at this stage are semistructured (referred to as “depth interviews” by market researchers) — they generally have a predefined structure, but also allow the interviewer the flexibility to follow up on significant statements made by participants.

In a semistructured interview, the interviewer uses an interview guide (also referred to as a discussion guide). Unlike an interview script — which is used in structured interviews — an interview guide can be used flexibly: interviewers can ask questions in any order they see fit, omit questions, or ask questions that are not in the guide.

A good interview guide paves the way for a deep, free-flowing conversation with participants. (Obviously, the way you conduct the interview will also be important, but that’s another article!) Interview guides should include a few concise, open-ended questions to encourage participants to tell their stories. These will be followed by carefully crafted, probing questions to uncover motivations or beliefs behind certain reported behaviors or utterances.

Constructing a good interview guide can be tricky and time-consuming. It’s not uncommon to spend a full day crafting one. However, it’s important to have one to ensure you get the most out of your interviews. Without an interview guide you run the risk of:

• Asking leading questions as you try to think of questions on the spot
• Not covering topics relevant to your research questions in each interview

Ultimately, without an interview guide, you are in danger of compromising the validity of your data. Here are some steps meant to help you create an interview guide if you’re new to this practice.

Sometimes the research questions are clear and obvious. However, sometimes they’re not. Maybe you’ve realized you need to speak to users because you don’t know anything about them. Good! But what do you want to find out from them? These are your research questions. Write these out first before working on your interview guide, as they will shape your interview questions. Below are some examples of research questions:

• What are users’ expectations in this situation?
• How do users make a decision in this situation?
• How have users managed to solve this problem in the past?
• What aspects of this product do users care most about, and why?

Next, note down all interview questions that come to mind. It doesn’t matter whether they are good or poor — you’ll deal with that later. You can use mind maps , digital whiteboards, or a simple list — whatever works for you! Sometimes, further research questions pop up here. That’s fine; add them to your list of research questions.

It’s typical after step 2 to have a long list of mostly closed questions. Those kinds of questions wouldn’t make for a good interview because they won’t allow for unanticipated stories and statements to emerge and can limit your ability to build rapport with the participant. (Rapport is important if you’re looking to gather accurate, in-depth information from your participants.)

Review your list of questions and ask yourself, for each interview question, is there a broader, more open-ended version of that question that you can ask instead?

For example, consider the following closed questions that could be asked in an interview with an employee.

• Do you work in an office?
• Is the work mostly desk-based or paper-based?
• Do you have to attend meetings during the workday?
• Do you work in a team?

The above questions could be answered by asking the participant to describe a typical day at work. It’s likely that in doing so, the participant may cover all or many of the above. If the participant has not covered everything, then some of these can be asked as follow-up questions.

Example questions, that prompt the user to recall a certain event and are similar to those used in the critical-incident method , are excellent for gathering stories and unanticipated statements. For instance, imagine you’re conducting an interview to learn about people’s experiences cooking at home. The following example questions provide the opportunity for participants to tell many different stories and give you a glimpse into their lives.

• Tell me about the last time you cooked at home.
• Tell me about a time where you cooked something new.
• Tell me about a time when you cooked something that turned out well.
• Tell me about a time when you cooked something that didn’t turn out as you hoped.
• Tell me about a time when you were thinking about cooking something but decided to get takeout instead?

Align each interview question to your research questions. If you have research questions that are not addressed by any of your interview questions, fill in the gap by crafting some more interview questions. Repeat step 3 if needed.

The interview guide can include your research questions. Some researchers like to remind themselves of the aims of the research by displaying these either at the top of the guide or alongside the interview questions.

To make the conversation flow in a logical order and seem natural think about the best order for your questions . For example, if you’re talking about an experience people have had, it makes sense to move in a chronological order. If the experience has set phases (such as discover , choose , purchas e, use , review ) that you might have documented in a user-journey map , service blueprint , or experience map then you may want to align your questions to these phases. That’s not to say you can’t depart from this order in the interview if you need to!

You should also think about preparing some warmup questions that are open-ended and easy to answer to build rapport at the beginning of your interview. For example, “Tell me a little about yourself” is a typical opening question which gets the participant talking. Any questions that require reflection should be featured later in your guide; introducing them too early could be overwhelming and you might get stereotypical responses, as participants haven’t had a chance to recall events, feelings, and form judgments.

Once you’ve ordered your questions, go through each one and prepare followup questions meant to provide you with additional detail and clarification , such as “Where were you when this happened?”, “When did that happen?”, “Tell me why you did that?”, and so on.

You can include probing questions , too, to help you to remember to ask them — for example, “Tell me more about that”, “Tell me why you felt that way”, “Why is that important to you?”

Piloting your guide will give you an idea of:

• Questions you should ask but aren’t yet included in your guide
• Questions that need rewording
• Whether the question order works
• Whether you will have time for all your questions

Recruit a pilot participant and give yourself enough time to make some changes. It’s okay to make updates to your guide throughout your interviews, but the point of piloting your guide is to fix any glaring issues before commencing research.

A guide will provide focus to your interviews and ensure that they are successful. Your interview guide should consist of broad, open-ended questions that allow participants to tell you about their experience in detail. These questions will be accompanied by many probing and followup questions, used to capture further details and gain clarification. You can download an example of an interview guide to refer to as you create your own interview guides.

Example Interview Guide (PDF)

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What Is User Research, and What Is Its Purpose?

User research, or UX research, is an absolutely vital part of the  user experience design process.

Typically done at the start of a project, it encompasses different types of research methodologies to gather valuable data and feedback. When conducting user research, you’ll engage with and observe your target users, getting to know their needs, behaviors, and pain points in relation to the product or service you’re designing.

Ultimately, user research means the difference between designing based on guesswork and assumptions, and actually creating something that solves a real user problem. In other words: Do not skip the research phase!

If you’re new to user research, fear not. We’re going to explain exactly what UX research is and why it’s so important. We’ll also show you how to plan your user research and introduce you to some key user research methods .

We’ve divided this rather comprehensive guide into the following sections. Feel free to skip ahead using the menu below:

• What is user research?
• What is the purpose of user research?
• How to plan your user research.
• An introduction to different research methods—and when to use them.

Ready? Let’s jump in.

1. What is user research?

User experience research is the systematic investigation of your users in order to gather insights that will inform the design process. With the help of various user research techniques, you’ll set out to understand your users’ needs, attitudes, pain points, and behaviors (processes like task analyses look at how users actually navigate the product experience —not just how they should or how they say they do). 

Typically done at the start of a project—but also extremely valuable throughout—it encompasses different types of research methodology to gather both qualitative and quantitative data in relation to your product or service.

Before we continue, let’s consider the difference between qualitative and quantitative data .

Qualitative vs. Quantitative data: What’s the difference?

Qualitative UX research results in descriptive data which looks more at how people think and feel. It helps to find your users’ opinions, problems, reasons, and motivations. You can learn all about in-depth in this video by professional UX designer Maureen Herben:

Quantitative UX research , on the other hand, generally produces numerical data that can be measured and analyzed, looking more at the statistics. Quantitative data is used to quantify the opinions and behaviors of your users.

User research rarely relies on just one form of data collection and often uses both qualitative and quantitative research methods together to form a bigger picture. The data can be applied to an existing product to gain insight to help improve the product experiences, or it can be applied to an entirely new product or service, providing a baseline for UX, design, and development.

From the data gathered during your user research phase, you should be able to understand the following areas within the context of your product or service:

• Who your users are
• What their needs are
• What they want
• How they currently do things
• How they’d like to do them

As you consider the  why  of user research, remember that it’s easier than you might realize to overlook entire groups of users. It’s important to ensure that you’re conducting inclusive UX research and that starts in the earliest stages!

2. What is the purpose of user research?

The purpose of user research is to put your design project into context. It helps you understand the problem you’re trying to solve; it tells you who your users are, in what context they’ll be using your product or service, and ultimately, what they need from you, the designer! UX research ensures that you are designing with the user in mind, which is key if you want to create a successful product.

Throughout the design process, your UX research will aid you in many ways. It’ll help you identify problems and challenges, validate or invalidate your assumptions, find patterns and commonalities across your target user groups, and shed plenty of light on your users’ needs, goals, and mental models.

Why is this so important? Let’s find out.

Why is it so important to conduct user research?

Without UX research, you are essentially basing your designs on assumptions. If you don’t take the time to engage with real users, it’s virtually impossible to know what needs and pain-points your design should address.

Here’s why conducting user research is absolutely crucial:

User research helps you to design better products!

There’s a misconception that it’s ok to just do a bit of research and testing at the end of your project. The truth is that you need UX research first, followed by usability testing and iteration throughout.

This is because research makes the design better. The end goal is to create products and services that people want to use. The mantra in UX design is that some user research is always better than none .

It’s likely at some point in your UX career that you will come across the first challenge of any UX designer—convincing a client or your team to include user research in a project.

User research keeps user stories at the center of your design process.

All too often, the user research phase is seen as optional or merely “nice-to-have”—but in reality, it’s crucial from both a design and a business perspective. This brings us to our next point…

User research saves time and money!

If you (or your client) decide to skip the research phase altogether, the chances are you’ll end up spending time and money developing a product that, when launched, has loads of usability issues and design flaws, or simply doesn’t meet a real user need. Through UX research, you’ll uncover such issues early on—saving time, money, and lots of frustration!

The research phase ensures you’re designing with real insights and facts — not guesswork! Imagine you release a product that has the potential to fill a gap in the market but, due to a lack of user research, is full of bugs and usability issues. At best, you’ll have a lot of unnecessary work to do to get the product up to scratch. At worst, the brand’s reputation will suffer.

UX research gives the product a competitive edge. Research shows you how your product will perform in a real-world context, highlighting any issues that need to be ironed out before you go ahead and develop it.

User research can be done on a budget

There are ways that you can conduct faster and less costly user research , utilizing Guerrilla research outlined later on in this article (also handy if budget and time are an issue). Even the smallest amount of user research will save time and money in the long run.

The second challenge is how often businesses think they know their users without having done any research. You’ll be surprised at how often a client will tell you that user research is not necessary because they know their users!

In a 2005 survey completed by Bain, a large global management consulting firm, they found some startling results. 80% of businesses thought they knew best about what they were delivering. Only 8% of those businesses’ customers agreed.

The survey may be getting old, but the principle and misperception still persist.

In some cases, businesses genuinely do know their customers and there may be previous data on hand to utilize. However, more often than not, ‘knowing the users’ comes down to personal assumptions and opinions.

“It’s only natural to assume that everyone uses the Web the same way we do, and—like everyone else—we tend to think that our own behavior is much more orderly and sensible than it really is.” (Don’t Make Me Think ‘Revisited’, Steve Krug, 2014.) A must on every UX Designer’s bookshelf!

What we think a user wants is not the same as what a user thinks they want. Without research, we inadvertently make decisions for ourselves instead of for our target audience. To summarize, the purpose of user research is to help us design to fulfill the user’s actual needs, rather than our own assumptions of their needs.

In a nutshell, UX research informs and opens up the realm of design possibilities. It saves time and money, ensures a competitive edge, and helps you to be a more effective, efficient, user-centric designer.

3. How to plan your user research

When planning your user research , it’s good to have a mix of both qualitative and quantitative data to draw from so you don’t run into issues from the value-action gap, which can at times make qualitative data unreliable.

The value-action gap is a well-known psychology principle outlining that people genuinely don’t do what they say they would do, and is commonly referred to as what people say vs. what people do.

More than 60% of participants said they were “likely” or “very likely” to buy a kitchen appliance in the next 3 months. 8 months later, only 12% had. How Customers Think, Gerald Zaltman, 2003

When planning your user research, you need to do more than just User Focus Groups—observation of your users really is the key. You need to watch what your users do.

Part of being a great user researcher is to be an expert at setting up the right questions and getting unbiased answers from your users.

To do this we need to think like the user.

Put yourself in your user’s shoes without your own preconceptions and assumptions on how it should work and what it should be. For this, we need empathy (and good listening skills) allowing you to observe and challenge assumptions of what you already think you know about your users.

Be open to some surprises!

4. When to use different user research methods

There’s a variety of different qualitative and quantitative research methods out there. If you’ve been doing the CareerFoundry UX Design course , you may have already covered some of the list below in your course.

It isn’t an exhaustive list, but covers some of the more popular methods of research. Our student team lead runs through many of them in the video below.

Qualitative Methods:

• Guerrilla testing: Fast and low-cost testing methods such as on-the-street videos, field observations, reviews of paper sketches, or online tools for remote usability testing.
• Interviews: One-on-one interviews that follow a preset selection of questions prompting the user to describe their interactions, thoughts, and feelings in relation to a product or service, or even the environment of the product/service.
• Focus groups: Participatory groups that are led through a discussion and activities to gather data on a particular product or service. If you’ve ever watched Mad Men you’ll be familiar with the Ponds’ cold cream Focus Group !
• Field Studies: Heading into the user’s environment and observing while taking notes (and photographs or videos if possible).
• In-lab testing: Observations of users completing particular tasks in a controlled environment. Users are often asked to describe out loud their actions, thoughts, and feelings and are videoed for later analysis
• Card sorting : Used to help understand Information Architecture and naming conventions better. Can be really handy to sort large amounts of content into logical groupings for users.

Quantitative Methods:

• User surveys: Questionnaires with a structured format, targeting your specific user personas. These can be a great way to get a large amount of data. Surveymonkey is a popular online tool.
• First click testing: A test set up to analyse what a user would click on first in order to complete their intended task. This can be done with paper prototypes, interactive wireframes or an existing website.
• Eye tracking: Measures the gaze of the eye, allowing the observer to ‘see’ what the user sees. This can be an expensive test and heatmapping is a good cheaper alternative.
• Heatmapping: Visual mapping of data showing how users click and scroll through your prototype or website. The most well-known online tool to integrate would be Crazyegg.
• Web analytics: Data that is gathered from a website or prototype it is integrated with, allowing you to see the demographics of users, page views, and funnels of how users move through your site and where they drop off. The most well-known online tool to integrate would be Google Analytics .
• A/B testing: Comparing two versions of a web page to see which one converts users more. This is a great way to test button placements, colors, banners, and other elements in your UI.

Further reading

Now you know what user research is and why it’s so important. If you’re looking for a way to get trained in this particular discipline, there’s good news—owing to demand and popularity, there’s a growing number of UX research bootcamps out there.

If you’d like to learn more about UX research, you may find the following articles useful:

• What Does A UX Researcher Actually Do? The Ultimate Career Guide
• How to Conduct User Research Like a Professional
• How to Build a UX Research Portfolio (Step-by-Step Guide)

User research is the process of understanding the needs, behaviors, and attitudes of users to inform the design and development of products or services. It involves collecting and analyzing data about users through various methods such as surveys, interviews, and usability testing.

2. How to conduct user research?

User research can be conducted through various methods such as surveys, interviews, observations, and usability testing. The method chosen depends on the research goals and the resources available. Typically, user research involves defining research objectives, recruiting participants, creating research protocols, conducting research activities, analyzing data, and reporting findings.

3. Is user research the same as UX?

User research is a part of the broader UX (User Experience) field, but they are not the same. UX encompasses a wide range of activities such as design, testing, and evaluation, while user research specifically focuses on understanding user needs and behaviors to inform UX decisions.

4. What makes good user research?

Good user research is characterized by clear research goals, well-defined research protocols, appropriate sampling methods, unbiased data collection, and rigorous data analysis. It also involves effective communication of research findings to stakeholders, as well as using the findings to inform design and development decisions.

5. Is user research a good career?

User research is a growing field with many opportunities for career growth and development. With the increasing importance of user-centered design, there is a high demand for skilled user researchers in various industries such as tech, healthcare, and finance. A career in user research can be fulfilling for those interested in understanding human behavior and designing products that meet user needs.

• Utility Menu

User Research Center

User research analysis guide, by meg mcmahon.

Analyzing the notes from a user research study is an essential part of answering the research questions that prompted the study. 

During the analysis, you or your team decide what insights are generated from the notes taken about the research studies. The insights should relate to the research questions posed at the beginning of the study or point to future research.

Before Analysis 

Become familiar with the study.

Read over the research questions, script, background information on the project, and any notes moderators took during interviews.

Decide on analysis type

There are two types of analysis that the URC team uses frequently, an affinity diagramming session and thematic coding.

• Affinity diagramming: this is a process in which all of the notes are separated into individual sticky notes (virtual or physical) and grouped by question or participant at first. Then the analyzers take an even number of groups and sort them individually and then together to find themes. We at the URC use Miro or Dovetail to virtually facilitate this process. 
• Thematic coding: this is a process where the notes or a transcript are marked up using codes. Codes are like tags or hashtags. They are bits of metadata that you use to describe other data. After the codes are created the analyzers go through and draw insights from the coded information. We at the URC use Dovetail for this type of analysis.

Decide on who should help with analysis

Often it is a good idea to include stakeholders, as well as yourself, in the analysis process for two primary reasons. One, the stakeholders are able to be a subject matter expert on the system, process, or workflow you are evaluating and two, by participating in the analysis process they are more likely to feel ownership over the final findings and recommendations.

Analysis Basics 

Keep a scratch document.

While analyzing your data, it can be helpful to have a scratch document (a document separate from the main notes document) open to the side. You can use this scratch document to:

• Write down quotes from notes that are especially powerful or meaningful. 
• Write down any initial insights you have. An insight informs the research questions or furthers your research goals in some way. 

Give insights specific names

Insights are created from the themes or codes created during affinity diagramming or thematic coding. Look at the connections between themes or codes, what are larger insights you can draw from them?

Give each insight a name and be as specific as possible. Insights should help your stakeholders understand their research questions.

• DO: use a strong, clear insight: Participants collaboratively search with a collection specialist as a part of the search process. This was noted to build researchers' special collections research skills.
• DON’T: use a hard to understand, non-specific insight: collaborative search

Review the data with other analyzers 

After reviewing the data on your own, discuss what you think of the first themes. Why are they important? What pattern do they surface? How do they relate to the research questions?

Back up insights with quotes

Quote or paraphrase ideas directly from the participants that relate to insights add more impact in the future report.

Look for research gaps

After having insights figured out the next step is to review the insights for any research gaps. Can you answer the research questions in your research plan? If not, what additional research is needed? Or are there other themes that don’t directly relate to the research questions which point to a future follow up study?

Prioritize insights most closely related to research questions

As a user researcher your job is to answer the research questions that started the study. If there is an insight that is only tangentially related to the research questions, it is okay to prioritize insights that are more directly related to the research questions when writing the report. 

Affinity diagramming

Take the time to set up session.

Affinity diagramming takes time to set up, but it is important to have every note grouped either by participant or by question. 

Create top level themes and sub themes

Start to sort the notes into themes. It is okay to create multiple levels of themes if the data lends itself to this kind of grouping. This is helpful for reports to group like insights together for readability. 

Themes are not insights

Themes are not insights, they are building blocks for insights. When you are grouping themes it is okay to keep them more vague than you would an insight.

Collapse themes together if necessary 

Often when affinity diagramming you may find similar themes within different questions. It is okay to collapse those themes together under a unifying heading. Themes (and insights) don’t need to be based on only a single question.

Avoid creating a "group" of unrelated notes

There are times in affinity diagramming where there are notes that don’t relate easily to any other notes for the study. It is okay to have orphan notes, notes that don’t relate to any theme. If the finding is important enough, it is okay for the orphan note to be its own theme.

Thematic coding

Codes (tags) are not insights.

Codes (tags) are not insights, they are building blocks for insights. When you are adding codes to the notes or transcripts it is okay to keep them more vague than you would an insight.

Use nested coding

When coding you may need to use nested codes. For example, say you’ve created a tag labeled “Coffee”. Now, if you are talking about how people like their coffee served you may make it a two word code/tag like “Coffee Served”.

If you want to specify that someone likes the coffee “black”, you can add a third word. However, considering “black” is a word that now describes “Coffee Served”, it would be best to create a nested tag which should look something like this: “Coffee Served: Black”.

This makes the tag structure easy to use again. For example, if you have to tag a comment later where someone mentions they like the coffee  with cream and sugar, it’s easy to add that as “Coffee Served: Cream & Sugar”.

Repeat codes if necessary 

Your codes should inform your research questions and you should repeat codes as necessary. If someone talks about the same thing at various times throughout the interview, code each of those instances with the same code.

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How to Write a Discussion Guide for Qualitative Research

• January 18, 2023

Article Summary:  Discussion guides are the “script” used by qualitative researchers when conducting interviews. Though they shouldn’t be read like a script (questions asked verbatim), they are fundamental when conducting interviews. Understanding the structure of the guide and how to frame the questions is key to a good guide.

In  qualitative research,  the discussion guide is the fundamental document that outlines the questions that the interviewer asks a participant or group of participants.

In this post, I’m going to focus on discussion guides that are used in interview-based research, and not on platforms (for example, mobile ethnography platforms, bulletin boards, or online diaries). Although, keep in mind that the best platform-research  ends  with an  in-depth interview or group discussion , so a discussion guide will come after the first phase.

Discussion guides are fundamental to good interviewing. Moderators often have various techniques with how they use guides (some digest the key questions they need to know and skip around, others follow the question outline closely), but most moderators will agree that setting up your questions first is the key to a good interview.

Before I get started and dive into the key components every discussion guide has, let me first say that discussion guides are  not a  script. They’re a guide – and the key to being a good moderator is to know how to let participants go on tangents and when to guide people back to the core questions. Rarely, though, are guides read through verbatim.

Step 1 to writing a good discussion guide: First, know the goal of the research and the essential question

There is a lot of pre-work that has to happen before a discussion guide ever gets written. This includes understanding the core goals of the research, defining the outputs, and aligning the stakeholders. Our process for this stage is to conduct workshops on Miro with stakeholders, but everyone has their own methods.

This initial stage is where the researcher will define what I like to call “the essential question.”

In other words, if you could only learn one thing from the research, what would it be?

Additionally, you’ll want to clearly label and record the various hypotheses that are being tested. Once you know this – and the team is aligned – you’ll be able to choose the methodology, define the participant criteria, and, once everyone has signed off, start on the guide. (Keep in mind this is a general description of qualitative projects, but of course the details will differ depending on the specific project goals.)

Step 2 to writing a good discussion guide: The introduction

When a moderator begins a research discussion, the introduction is critical. This is the part where the moderator builds rapport with the participant and sets the scene. Be sure to include the following in this stage:

–          Purpose of the study and length of the interview (be sure to keep the client name out if the study is being done blindly)

–          Confidentiality details: If it’s being recorded, how it will be used, and what information will be shared with whom

–          Length of the study

–          Ground rules (this is mostly used in  focus groups or co-creation groups) : Not trying to build consensus, letting everyone speak, participants can discuss ideas with each other as well as the moderator

Once the key expectations are covered, it’s then good to add in a sort of ice-breaker or non-study related question to get the group members or the individual participant to relax. For example, you can ask people what their dream car is or where they most want to travel. I typically try to tie the ice-breaker question to the study theme.

Step 3 to writing a good discussion guide: General questions about the topic

Discussion guides can be seen as an upside-down triangle: Start general at the top (broad at top) and get narrower as you go along.

In this second section, the next goal is to set the scene: Ask general questions about the topic and participant(s). This phase helps build empathy and also slowly invites the participant(s) into the topic. A key component here is that you want the participants to define and name their perceptions of the category before you name it. This is a great opportunity to add in  projective techniques . One favorite one that I typically do at this stage – if I’m leading groups – is to do an association exercise. I’ll write down a few words related to the topic on a board and have everyone write down all the associations they have with the category on sticky notes. They first write it down individually, so as not to bias each other – and then we collect the stickies and discuss as a group. This brings everyone in and sets the tone. Importantly, it also gives the moderator context and helps the moderator to be grounded in the category knowledge or opinions.

Step 4 to writing a good discussion guide: Specific questions and activities

Once the participants have defined the category and the researcher has “set the scene,” the discussion guide then moves into the next section: the specifics. If the study is a user test, this is where the moderator has the participant move through the product design. If it’s a focus group, the researcher will start to hone-in on the Essential Question that was defined at the outset of the study. This is where moderator training is so crucial: Good moderators know how to probe, guide, and ask non-leading questions – while still capturing how people think, feel, and do. Projective techniques and exercises are also commonly used in this phase.

Step 5 to writing a good discussion guide: Closing the interview

As the interview winds down, this is where the researcher has a chance to share the brand name (if the study is blind in the beginning but not 100% blind) to test perceptions. If it’s a completely blind study, this last phase of the discussion guide is to close-the-loop. For example, how would the participant rate the concepts? Where would the participant expect to purchase the product? What type of media outlets does the participant pay attention to (to test brand placement)? Or how is the decision-making done at an organization (to understand the buying process). The closing section is crucial as it allows the moderator to then capture more direct responses without leading the participant, since the categories and initial perceptions/ideas were captured organically – with the participant defining the terms – in the very beginning of the interview.

The discussion guide is crucial: Spend time on this step!

To close up, expect to spend 5-8 hours developing your discussion guide. How the questions are set up, the order of the questions, and, super important – the exercises included in the interview – require creativity and thought to put together.

Once the guide is together, practice and know it well – this will help you skip around if the participant brings up topics before you get to them. When appropriate, be able to skip around as well as probe on ideas that are the most pertinent to the study’s objectives.

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EXPERT INSIGHTS

Apr-19-2024

The 2024 social media demographics guide

Khoros Staff

Editor's Note: This post was originally created in 2018 and has since been updated to reflect the latest data available.

According to Statista , 61.4% of the world’s population — a whopping 4.95 billion people — use social media.

That’s a lot of social media demographic research to sort through when you want to zero in on understanding audience characteristics of specific platforms — and we know the last thing a social media marketer has is time to spare. That’s why we’ve done all the heavy lifting for you.

Our updated 2024 Social Media Demographics Guide surfaces the demographic data you need to inform a smart strategy, like age, gender, and income — plus device usage and site behavior in one easy-to-read infographic.

View the 2024 Social Media Demographics Guide to discover more about what makes the audiences of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok unique or bookmark it now to reference anytime.

General social media demographics

Before we jump into platform-specific demographics, let’s cover some high-level insights about social media in general.

Social media usage over time

There are currently 4.95 billion social media users and 5.3 billion total internet users, meaning 93.4% of people who use the internet also use social media. What’s more astounding is the rate that social media usage has grown and is expected to continue growing. The number of social media users has grown by 79.1% since 2017 , when there were only 2.73 billion social media users. By the end of 2024, Statista predicts there will be 5.17 billion social media users which would be 5.7% growth compared to 2023. By 2027, the number of social media users is expected to reach 5.85 billion, with an annual growth rate between 3.7-5.7% each year until then.

(Source: Statista )

Social media usage by age

According to new data from eMarketer , most U.S. social media users are between the ages of 27 and 42 and fall under the Millennial generation. With 68.5 million Millennials using social media in the U.S., this group accounts for nearly one-third (30.3%) of all U.S. social media users. The next closest age group by usage is Gen Z (ages 11-26), with 56.4 million social media users, followed by Gen X (ages 43-58), with 51.8 million users. Baby Boomers between the ages of 59 and 77 are the age group with the lowest social media usage, with only 36.9 million users.

(Source: Oberlo )

Although Millennials are the age group that uses social media the most, eMarketer predicts their usage will remain relatively flat through 2027, while the number of Gen Z users is expected to grow significantly. The data also suggests that the number of Gen X and Baby Boomers who use social media will decrease over time.

(Source: eMarketer )

Daily time on social media

On average, people spend 2 hours and 24 minutes on social media each day. Combined, it’s estimated that users will have spent 4 trillion hours on social media in 2023. Not all social media platforms are equally engaging, as Statista found people spent more time on TikTok than anywhere else. On average, social media users in the U.S. spent 53.8 minutes on TikTok, with the next closest being YouTube at 48.7 minutes per day. After that, there was a steep drop off to 34.1 minutes for Twitter/X and other platforms before reaching last place, Reddit at only 24.1 minutes per day.

Despite TikTok having the most time on average per day, DataReportal found that YouTube has the highest average session duration at 7 minutes and 29 seconds. This could be because users are watching longer-form content on YouTube compared to the shorter content that TikTok is known for.

(Source: DataReportal via Exploding Topics )

Facebook demographics

Given that Facebook is the number one platform for adults , understanding its audience is crucial for devising the social media strategy for your business.

2024 Facebook demographics data

Active monthly users

Facebook has 3.03 billion active monthly users

Active daily users

Facebook has 2.085 billion daily active users

4.6% of Facebook’s users are between the ages of 13-17

22.6% of Facebook’s users are between the ages of 18-24

29.4% of Facebook’s users are between the ages of 25-34

19.1% of Facebook’s users are between the ages of 35-44

11.4% of Facebook’s users are between the ages of 45-54

7.2% of Facebook’s users are between the ages of 55-64

5.7% of Facebook’s users are 65+

43.7% of Facebook users are female

56.3% of Facebook users are male

On average, U.S. Facebook users spend 30.9 minutes a day on the platform

98.5% of users access Facebook via mobile devices

81.8% of users access Facebook via mobile devices only

16.7% of users access Facebook via mobile devices and computers

1.5% of users access Facebook via laptop or desktop only

Businesses and shopping

19% of U.S. users search for products on Facebook before shopping

The global advertising audience of Facebook is 2.249 billion

90% of social media marketers use Facebook to promote their business.

Most followed accounts

Cristiano Ronaldo: 163 million followers

Mr. Bean: 136 million followers

Shakira: 122 million followers

Instagram demographics

Instagram is the Meta-owned photo and video sharing app that continues to grow its user base, with 2 billion people using Instagram every month (up from 800 million in 2018).

2024 Instagram demographics data

Instagram has 2 billion monthly active users

Instagram has 500 million daily active users

8% of Instagram’s users are between the ages of 13-17

30.8% of Instagram’s users are between the ages of 18-24

30.3% of Instagram’s users are between the ages of 25-34

15.7% of Instagram’s users are between the ages of 35-44

8.4% of Instagram’s users are between the ages of 45-54

4.3% of Instagram’s users are between the ages of 55-64

2.6% of Instagram’s users are 65+

48.2% of Instagram users are female

51.8% of Instagram users are male

On average, U.S. Instagram users spend 33.1 minutes per day on the platform

90% of Instagram users follow a business

2 out of 3 people say Instagram enables interaction with brands

83% of Instagram users say they discover new products and services on Instagram

Cristiano Ronaldo: 613 million followers

Lionel Messi: 494 million followers

Selena Gomez: 429 million followers

Pinterest demographics

Pinterest is a visual search engine that pioneered online shopping through social media. On Pinterest, people are 90% more likely to say they’re ‘always shopping’ than on other platforms. Additionally, shoppers on Pinterest spend 80% more monthly than on other platforms. Why? Pinterest claims it’s because they take the best of shopping offline and bring it online, with strong visual connections between products and what users can do with those products. There’s a lot marketers can learn from the platform, but it all starts with gaining a better understanding of the audience.

2024 Pinterest demographics data

Pinterest has 465 million monthly active users

27% of Pinterest’s users are between the ages of 18-24

30.9% of Pinterest’s users are between the ages of 25-34

15.8% of Pinterest’s users are between the ages of 35-44

10.4% of Pinterest’s users are between the ages of 45-54

8.7% of Pinterest’s users are between the ages of 55-64

4.3% of Pinterest’s users are 65+

Pinterest is one of the most gendered social media channels, which may inform which brands target this audience and how they do so.

76.2% of Pinterest users are female

17.2% of Pinterest users are male

6.6% of Pinterest users did not specify their gender

On average, U.S. Pinterest users spend 14.2 minutes per day on the platform

85% of users access Pinterest via the mobile app

Business and Shopping

More than 25% of time spent on Pinterest is spent shopping

85% of users have bought something based on pins from brands

X (formerly Twitter) demographics

X (formerly known as Twitter) allows users to reach practically any person or business simply by tagging them in a Tweet. That’s why Twitter is such a popular platform for customer service — allowing users to air complaints in real time and for customer service teams to react quickly.

2024 X demographics data

X has 666 million monthly active users

X has 245 million monetizable daily active users

28.35% of X’s users are between the ages of 18-24

29.63% of X’s users are between the ages of 25-34

17.96% of X’s users are between the ages of 35-44

11.63% of X’s users are between the ages of 45-54

7.61% of X’s users are between the ages of 55-64

4.83% of X’s users are 65+

Like Pinterest, X is highly gendered, although this channel skews the other direction.

23.28% of X users are female

66.72% of X users are male

On average, U.S. X users spend 34.1 minutes per day on the platform

Elon Musk: 156.9 million followers

Barack Obama: 132 million followers

Justin Bieber: 111.7 million followers

Business and shopping

82% of B2B content marketers use X

79% of X users follow brands on the platform

X drives 40% higher ROI than other social media channels

LinkedIn demographics

LinkedIn is a professional networking site and the top social media platform for B2B marketing . As a result of its focus on business, it’s a great way for companies to drive leads, share news, and keep up with others in their industry.

2024 LinkedIn demographics data

LinkedIn has 310 million monthly active users

16.2% of LinkedIn’s users login to the platform daily

21.7% of LinkedIn’s users are between the ages of 18-24

60% of LinkedIn’s users are between the ages of 25-34

15.4% of LinkedIn’s users are between the ages of 35-54

2.9% of LinkedIn’s users are 55+

43.7% of LinkedIn users are female

56.3% of LinkedIn users are male

On average, LinkedIn users spend just over 7 minutes per day on the platform

58.5% of LinkedIn traffic is through desktop devices

41.5% of LinkedIn traffic is through mobile devices

More than 61 million companies are on LinkedIn

96% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for organic social marketing

Marketers see up to 2x higher conversion rates on LinkedIn compared to other social media platforms

Most Followed Accounts

Bill Gates: 34.9 million followers

Richard Branson: 18.7 million followers

Jeff Weiner: 10.4 million followers

YouTube demographics

YouTube is as utilitarian (think “how to change a spare tire”) as it is entertaining (think funny pet videos). With 2.5 billion monthly active users, YouTube offers expansive opportunities for businesses to share and market information.

2024 YouTube demographics data

YouTube has 2.491 billion monthly active users

YouTube has 122 million daily active users

15.5% of YouTube users are between the ages of 18-24

21.3% of YouTube users are between the ages of 25-34

17.5% of YouTube users are between the ages of 35-44

12.5% of YouTube users are between the ages of 45-54

9.2% of YouTube users are between the ages of 55-64

9.2% of YouTube users are between the ages of 65+

45.6% of YouTube users are female

54.4% of YouTube users are male

On average, U.S. YouTube users spend 48.7 minutes per day on the platform

70% of viewers have made a purchase after seeing a brand on YouTube

54% of marketers use YouTube

T-Series: 254 million subscribers

MrBeast: 217 million subscribers

Cocomelon: 168 million subscribers

Snapchat Demographics

Snapchat has become popular among teens and young adults under 35, making it a great platform for marketers to reach Gen Z. Interestingly, Gen Z spends less time looking at content on Snapchat but shows higher advertising recall than other generations. After watching two seconds or less of an advertiser video, 59% of Gen Z was able to recall it. Outside of Gen Z Snapchat statistics, here’s some other information about the platform’s demographics.

2024 Snapchat demographics data

Snapchat has 750 million monthly active users

Snapchat has 406 million daily active users

19.7% of Snapchat users are between the ages of 13-17

38.1% of Snapchat users are between the ages of 18-24

23.4% of Snapchat users are between the ages of 25-34

14% of Snapchat users are between the ages of 35-49

3.8% of Snapchat users are 50+

51% of Snapchat users are female

48.2% of Snapchat users are male

On average, U.S. Snapchat users spend 30 minutes per day on the platform

Snapchat users hold $4.4 trillion in global spending power

Snapchat users are 2x more likely to share their purchases with their network

Kylie Jenner: 37 million followers

Kim Kardashian: 27.2 million followers

Khloe Kardashian: 15 million followers

TikTok demographics

TikTok’s explosive growth in recent years has marked its place as a major player in the social media world (even though it doesn’t call itself a social media platform ). Like Snapchat, younger audiences dominate TikTok’s user base with 37.3% of users being between 18-24. It’s also a great platform for brands, with spending reaching 2.5 billion globally. Here’s some other information about TikTok’s user demographics to bear in mind when creating marketing strategies.

2024 TikTok demographics data

TikTok has 1.218 billion monthly active users

TikTok has 45.1 million daily active users

37.3% of TikTok users are between the ages of 18-24

32.9% of TikTok users are between the ages of 25-34

15.7% of TikTok users are between the ages of 35-44

8.3% of TikTok users are between the ages of 45-54

5.8% of TikTok users are 55+

49.2% of TikTok users are female

50.8% of TikTok users are male

On average, U.S. TikTok users spend 53.8 minutes per day on the platform

Khabane lame: 162 million followers

Charli D’Amelio: 151.6 million followers

Bella Poarch: 93.6 million followers

Consumer spending on TikTok has surpassed $2.5 billion globally

58.2% of TikTok users said they used the platform for shopping inspiration

49% of TikTok users say the platform helped them make purchasing decisions

55% of TikTok users made a purchase after seeing a brand or product on the platform

Which social media networks should your business prioritize?

Of course, knowing who’s using each social media platform is one thing, and engaging those people is a completely different thing. If your business needs help organizing and managing your social media activity, request a demo of our social media management software to see how you can understand your audience and seamlessly manage efforts across social media channels.

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