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UX Research Case Studies & Examples: A Comprehensive Guide

As businesses continue to focus on providing an exceptional user experience (UX) for their customers, user research has become increasingly crucial. User experience research is a process of understanding the needs, behaviors, and preferences of users in order to create a product that meets their expectations.

In this article, we'll explore the importance of UX research, provide some case studies and examples of UX research in action, and discuss how this research can lead to better design and an improved user experience.

Table of Contents

• User Research Case Studies

Case Study 1: Amazon

Case study 2: airbnb, case study 3: dropbox, ux research examples, example 1: user surveys, example 2: focus groups, example 3: a/b testing, ux research case studies.

Let's take a look at some case studies where UX research has been used to create products that meet user expectations and provide an exceptional user experience.

Amazon is one of the most successful e-commerce companies in the world, and their success can be attributed, at least in part, to their focus on UX research. One of their most successful initiatives was the introduction of the "Buy Now" button.

When Amazon first introduced the "Buy Now" button, they noticed that it was not getting as much use as they expected. After conducting user research, they discovered that the button was not prominent enough, and users were having difficulty finding it. As a result, they redesigned the button and made it more prominent, resulting in a significant increase in conversions.

Airbnb is a global online marketplace that allows users to rent vacation homes, apartments, and rooms. To ensure that they are providing a seamless user experience, Airbnb uses UX research to understand user needs and preferences.

One notable example of their UX research success was the introduction of the "Wish List" feature. After conducting user research, they discovered that users were creating lists of their favorite properties, but had no way to save or share them. To address this, Airbnb introduced the "Wish List" feature, allowing users to easily save and share their favorite properties.

Dropbox is a cloud storage service that allows users to save and share files online. To ensure that they are providing a user-friendly experience, Dropbox uses UX research to understand user behavior and preferences.

One example of their success in UX research was the redesign of their homepage. After analyzing user behavior, they discovered that most users were simply looking for a way to sign in to their account. As a result, they redesigned their homepage to make the sign-in button more prominent, resulting in a significant increase in sign-ins.

There are many different examples of user research, and the techniques used will depend on the specific goals of the research. Let's take a look at some common examples.

User surveys are often used to gather quantitative data about user behavior and preferences. These surveys can be conducted online, in-person, or via email, and typically include questions about user demographics, usage habits, and satisfaction.

User surveys can provide valuable insights into user behavior and preferences, helping businesses to design products that meet their needs.

Focus groups are typically used to gather qualitative data about user behavior and preferences. These groups usually consist of 6-10 participants and are moderated by a trained researcher.

During a focus group, participants are asked to discuss their experiences with a specific product or service. This can provide businesses with valuable insights into user behavior and preferences that can be used to design a better user experience.

A/B testing involves creating two different versions of a product or website and testing them with users to see which version is more effective. This can be used to test different design elements, messaging, or features.

A/B testing allows businesses to make data-driven decisions about design and can lead to a better user experience.

User research is an essential component of any successful product or website design. By understanding user behavior and preferences, businesses can create products that meet user needs and provide an exceptional user experience.

We have explored the importance of user experience research, provided some case studies and examples of UX research in action, and discussed how this research can lead to better design and an improved user experience. By using UX research tools and techniques, businesses can create products that meet user needs and achieve long term success.

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Understanding user stories in UX design

User stories play a pivotal role in UX design, helping designers empathize with users and craft meaningful user experiences. Here, we explore what user stories are, why they matter, and how designers use them during the UX design process.

By understanding user stories better, designers can ensure their efforts align with user goals while simultaneously increasing overall user satisfaction and experience.

What are user stories?

Why are user stories essential in ux design, components of a user story, the 3 c’s formula for writing a good user story in ux design, creating effective user stories: a step-by-step guide, good and bad examples of user stories.

At the heart of it, a user story is a casual narrative that depicts an interaction between a user or a group of users and a product or service. It outlines their goals, behaviors, and motivations as well as any anticipated outcomes or value they hope to gain from this interaction. We should typically write these narratives from their perspective to allow designers to better empathize with their needs and desires.

User stories are a vital part of user experience design, offering numerous benefits that help create successful, user-centered experiences. Here are a few reasons why they’re crucial:

1. User-centric approach

User stories guarantee a user-centric perspective in design decisions by highlighting user goals, motivations, and pain points as designers develop narratives from their viewpoint. If we implement this user-centric method of working, decisions informed by user needs will result in experiences that are more meaningful and relevant for everyone involved in the design process.

2. Clear communication

As an effective communication tool, user stories bridge the gap among designers, developers, and stakeholders involved in projects. By explicitly outlining user requirements and minimizing ambiguities and miscommunications, user stories ensure a shared understanding of users and their needs among everyone in the project.

3. Contextual design

User stories equip designers with insights into the unique situations in which users interact with a product or service. This includes devices, platforms, environments, and scenarios that they must account for when creating solutions tailored specifically for users’ needs. Such insight leads to heightened usability and satisfaction for end users.

4. Agile development

User stories serve as a crucial component in Agile methodologies like scrum. By aiding teams in breaking complex features into smaller, manageable tasks, user stories foster iterative and incremental development that favors regular user feedback and adaptation.

The inclusion of user stories into Agile workflows provides designers with an efficient means of promptly meeting user needs while continuously refining designs.

5. Prioritization and scope management

User stories aid in prioritizing features and functionalities based on their value to users. This enables designers to make well-informed decisions about what to include or exclude in designs by evaluating the effects of user stories. And to add to this, this process aids in managing scope while efficiently meeting crucial user needs.

Recognizing the key components that make user stories valuable is crucial to crafting your effective user stories. Let’s take a closer look at these components, complete with examples to illustrate more clearly.

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1. The user

A user story should clearly identify the user or user group for whom the story is being written. This component offers important context and helps designers empathize with the target audience. For example:

“As a frequent online shopper (User), I want to easily filter search results by price range (Action) so that I can find affordable products within my budget (Outcome).”

2. The action

A well-crafted user story should describe the action or task a user intends to complete, with clear goals in mind and a focus on meeting these demands. For example:

“As a new student (User), I want to easily navigate through the course catalog (Action) so that I can explore available courses and make informed decisions about my academic path (Outcome).”

3. The outcome

User stories must clearly outline the desired results or values that a user hopes to attain by performing a particular action. This aspect helps highlight user motivation while setting clear design objectives:

“As a fitness enthusiast (User), I want to track my daily step count and set personal goals (Action) to stay motivated and monitor my progress toward a healthier lifestyle (Outcome).”

4. Acceptance criteria

User stories must include clear acceptance criteria to prevent confusion and ensure clarity and avoid ambiguity. These conditions must be met for a story to be considered complete, such as:

“As a project manager (User), I want to generate comprehensive reports of team performance (Action) that include data on task completion, time tracking, and individual contributions (Outcome). Acceptance Criteria: The report should be downloadable in PDF format and sortable by date range and team member.”

By encompassing these essential components in user story UX design, an effective user story can convey user goals, actions and expected outcomes to designers, developers, and stakeholders — furnishing clear direction toward user-centric design decisions.

Remember, user stories should be refined over time as you garner more insight and feedback. Revisit and update user stories to keep them in line with user needs throughout your process.

The 3 C’s formula, composed of Cards, Conversation, and Confirmation, is a tried-and-true approach when drafting user stories. This formula presents a structured framework for developing effective stories that encourage collaboration and mutual understanding among team members. Let’s examine its components more closely:

The Card represents the physical or digital depiction of a user story. This concise statement captures the crux of user goals, actions, and outcomes. It serves as a reminder and starting point for conversations and discussions. A well-crafted Card should provide just enough information to spark further exploration.

2. Conversation

The Conversation refers to the collaborative dialogue and discussion surrounding a user story. It involves stakeholders, designers, developers, and other team members engaging in dialogue to gain a better understanding of user needs and expectations.

Through dialogue, the team can uncover potential obstacles or hurdles and align expectations as they delve into the details and generate ideas to address possible challenges or opportunities for improvements.

3. Confirmation

Confirmation reflects the criteria or conditions that must be met to consider a user story complete. These serve as an effective checklist ensuring that implementation efforts fully address all needs and expectations of users, guiding testing, and validation processes.

1. Focus on user needs

User stories must revolve around the needs and goals of users. Prioritize their perspective, taking care to address pain points and motivations within each story. By centering user needs in our design process, we ensure that we meet the requirements of our target audiences effectively.

2. Use a simple and consistent format

Adopt a clear and standardized format for your user stories. A structured template covering user, action, and outcome components will facilitate understanding and comparing stories across projects while enhancing communication among teams.

3. Keep stories independent and valuable

User stories should stand on their own and offer independent value. Whenever possible, eliminate dependencies between stories as much as possible to permit prioritization and flexibility during development, allowing teams to focus on delivering the features that users value most first.

4. Make stories specific and testable

Ensure that user stories are specific and come with testable acceptance criteria. Specificity provides clarity and leaves no room for ambiguity. Testable criteria aid in evaluating the implementation of user stories, ensuring shared understanding of what needs achievement.

5. Collaborate and involve stakeholders

The creation of user stories should be a collaborative effort, involving stakeholders, designers, developers, and other team members. This collaborative approach promotes shared understanding, increases collaboration, and gathers diverse perspectives and insights.

6. Iterate and refine

User stories should be adjustable, not set in stone. Regularly iterate and modify them based on user feedback and changing requirements. This ensures that they remain relevant and in sync with user needs throughout the design process.

7. Continuously validate and learn

Regularly validate user stories through user testing, prototyping, and feedback loops. This constant validation and learning help to create better user experiences and drive designs towards success.

Good examples

As a frequent traveler (User), I want to easily search for and book flights (Action) so that I can plan my trips efficiently and save time (Outcome).

Acceptance criteria : The flight search should allow filtering by dates, destinations, and airlines, and the booking process should be intuitive and secure.

Explanation : This user story is clear, detailed, and provides acceptance criteria with ample guidance for implementation. It addresses user needs, desired actions and expected outcomes.

As an online shopper (User), I want to receive order confirmation emails with detailed information (Action) so that I can track my purchases and ensure accuracy (Outcome).

Acceptance criteria : The order confirmation email should include the order number, item names, quantities, prices, shipping details, and a link to track the shipment.

Explanation : This user story clearly defines the user, their desired action, and the expected result. Additionally, there are specific acceptance criteria which outline all necessary details that must be included in order confirmation emails.

As a student (User), I want to be able to download lecture notes from the course website (Action) so that I can access them offline and review them at my convenience (Outcome).

Acceptance criteria : The course website should provide a download button next to each lecture, and the downloaded files should be accessible offline and in a readable format.

Explanation : This user story is specific, addresses an identifiable user need and includes clear acceptance criteria which outline what functionality must exist for downloading lecture notes.

Bad examples

As a website visitor (User), I want the website to be better (Action) so that I can use it easily (Outcome).

Explanation : This user story is too generalized and lacks specificity. It does not provide clear guidance as to which improvements or usability aspects should be addressed.

As a mobile app user (User), I want the app to be more user-friendly (Action) so that I can enjoy using it (Outcome).

This user story is too vague and lacks specificity, offering no guidance as to which aspects of user friendliness require improvement or what features or functionalities need attention.

User stories are an indispensable component of UX design, enabling designers to empathize with users, understand their needs and design meaningful experiences for them.

By empathizing with user goals and expectations, UX professionals can craft user-centric designs that align with user goals and expectations. With user stories as a tool for collaborative design processes and effective communication among teammates, these professionals can produce products and services that truly meet them all.

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How to Create a Customer-Centered Ecommerce Experience with User Stories

9 Min Read User stories are powerful tools for marketers and developers because they inform product features. They create context to understand the users’ goals and how the product fits into their lives. Without user stories, our default is to create something we want, not necessarily something the customer wants.

Written by UserInput Team

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If you want your ecommerce store to be successful, you have to create an experience that satisfies the needs, wants, and expectations of your shoppers. But how do you translate those needs into your site’s design? Through user stories.

User stories are the bridge between your customers and your store; the tools that help you build a site your customers find simple, helpful, and engaging. Most importantly, they support conversions.

In this article, we dive deep into user stories, why they are important, how they fit into the design process for an ecommerce brand, and how to write your own.

What are User Stories?

User stories are first-person anecdotes of an individual users’ needs. They describe what users want to achieve with a particular product. (When we say “product,” we’re referring to your ecommerce site.)

User stories are powerful tools for marketers and developers because they inform product features. They create context to understand the users’ goals and how the product fits into their lives. Without user stories, our default is to create something we want,  not necessarily something the customer wants.

And after all, ecommerce is all about the customer.

User stories don’t tell you exactly how to improve your ecommerce site, but they can point you in the right direction. They can help you design projects, run experiments, and analyze your results. In some cases, they can inspire more questions to ask your customers about their experience with your brand and what can make it better.

During development, user stories are traditionally written on index cards or post-it notes and posted in some central location, such as a Scrum board, though digital boards have become popular. This helps the development team focus on creating a customer-centric experience.

Why You Need User Stories

Creating user stories isn’t a pointless exercise. They offer several powerful benefits for your marketing and development teams.

• They keep you focused on the customer so you are always designing an experience that meets their needs and suits their shopping habits.
• They convey knowledge to the development and marketing teams in a clear, easy-to-digest manner.
• They create clear, bite-sized objectives that can be delegated and implemented quickly.
• They help prevent feature creep by focusing you on what matters most.
• They serve as a vital source of truth that aligns all other marketing and development activities.

Anatomy of Ecommerce User Stories

Generally, the product owner or product manager are the ones to write user stories, though the content of those stories is usually sourced from extensive conversations with customers and website/app users. Here are some examples of what they look like:

User story template

A user story typically consists of three key elements: the subject taking the action, the action they want to perform, and the expected transformation. They look like this:

As a [who], I want to [what], so that [outcome].

Here’s an example: As a mother, I want more time to myself, so that I’m less stressed.

That’s just the basics. A user story can have a lot more information, especially if the subject is a narrow segment, the action is specific, and the outcome is complex or subtle.

Whenever you write a user story, keep these two rules in mind:

First, the story should represent a meaningful interaction with the product, not a partial interaction. For instance, suppose you’re building a signup form. You would write one story for displaying the form and accepting submissions. Both elements are part of the same interaction, so they fall under the same story. It would be inappropriate to write one story for displaying the form and another for submitting it.

However, a signup form may have optional elements that only some users interact with. For instance, your form might have a section for VIP members that’s inaccessible to most users. In cases like this, it could be appropriate to write a separate user story.

Second, a story should be small enough to implement in one sprint. “Sprint” is a development term that refers to a short, time-boxed period where teams work on a set of work, usually lasting one to four weeks. If work on a story spans multiple sprints, the scope should be reduced.

The acceptance criteria / tasks

Whereas a user story is written from the customer’s point of view, the acceptance criteria is the counterpart that’s written from the product’s point of view (your ecommerce store). It defines the tasks that will satisfy the story, which is why it’s sometimes called the conditions of satisfaction.

Suppose we have this user story: As an online shopper, I need to know what other customers think, so I can be sure I’m making the right decision.

In this case, the acceptance criteria might look like this:

• View rating for each product on details page or otherwise
• Sort products by rating/reviews on category pages
• View and sort product reviews on details page
• View testimonials and/or case studies from customers

Types of Ecommerce User Stories

There are five different types of user stories. You don’t necessarily need to use them all, but it helps to understand how they work and their differences.

1. Behavior-driven stories

These are stories where the focus is on the user’s actions or decisions.

Example: As a customer, I need to authenticate myself so I can see my order status.

In this case, there are multiple possible scenarios:

• The user enters the correct login credentials.
• The user enters incorrect login credentials.
• The user forgot their login credentials.
• The user realizes they do not have an account and needs to open one.

Each of those possible scenarios requires unique acceptance criteria. We can use WHEN/THEN statements to create solutions.

For instance: WHEN the user enters the correct login credentials and selects “sign in,” THEN route the user to My Account page.

Similarly: WHEN the user enters incorrect login credentials and selects “sign in,” THEN display an error message that says, “Sorry, those login details are incorrect.”

2. Rules-drive stories

These are stories that focus on business rules. User behavior isn’t relevant here, though you might have similar behavior-driven stories that address the same issue.

Example: As a customer searching for a product, I need to see the most appropriate choices that match my criteria so that I find what I need.

A story like this governs how you build the support feature on your site. The acceptance criteria for this story might look like this:

• For finding matching products, use the following attributes: product name, product description, and product reviews.
• For finding matching categories, use the following attributes: category name and category description.
• Attempt full and partial matches. For partial matches, five characters should match.

3. Content-driven stories

Content-driven stories relate to the different kinds of content that’s displayed throughout your site. They sit somewhere in the middle of behavior-driven and rules-driven stories. They have a behavior element, but the rules of displaying content are usually more complex than user behavior.

Example: As a customer, I need to be informed of the shipping policies so I know when and how I will receive my order.

The acceptance criteria might look like:

• This page should include shipping FAQs
• An abridged version of the policy should be displayed on the product details page, shopping cart page, and checkout page.
• Relevant portions of the shipping policy should be explained in the order confirmation email and shipping email.

4. Improvement stories

These are stories that incrementally improve previous stories. They help us get closer to a truly customer-centered product.

Let’s say you have an order confirmation page that doesn’t use clear language. After talking with customers, you realize that some of them weren’t even sure if their order was processed. We could create a user story like this:

Example: As a customer, I need to know if my order was accepted so I know if I need to try again or move on.

In this case, the acceptance criteria is simple: Edit the order confirmation page to make it clear that the order was accepted. You might also add clarity by posting their order details and what they can expect to happen next.

5. Integration stories

This refers to stories that result in technical integrations between platforms. They deserve their own category because they seem like back-end work even though they facilitate customer-centered design. That said, determining the technical details of the integration should not  be part of the story.

Example: As a customer who made a purchase, I need my order fulfilled correctly in a timely manner so that I don’t have to contact customer service.

Acceptance criteria:

• Send order details to the fulfillment system within one hour.
• Send order details to the inventory system (if different than the fulfillment system).

How to Design a User Experience with User Stories

Now that you understand why user stories are important for ecommerce sites, you’re probably anxious to create your own. Instead of creating user stories randomly, it’s important to walk through the entire process of your ecommerce site. This process is called user story mapping  and it’s key to building a comprehensive and smooth experience.

Step 1: Identify user tasks

First, identify the tasks a user must take to follow your website’s flow. What steps do they need to take to ultimately make a purchase on your site? That might include…

• Go to website
• Provide personal details
• Proceed to checkout
• Add item(s) to basket
• Confirm payment
• Receive order confirmation
• Review product details page

As you can see, this part is pretty straightforward, though you may have some unique tasks depending on the types of product you sell. Don’t list everything a user could possibly do on your site, just what they must  do to achieve the desired outcome of making a purchase.

Step 2: Turn those tasks into a path

Next, organize your tasks into a story. This is the path you expect users to follow as they move through your website toward a conversion. A typically ecommerce story map looks like this:

Some tasks are naturally related to others. In some cases, tasks are so closely related that their functionality should be equally similar. For instance, adding an item to the wishlist and removing an item from the wishlist can be achieved in nearly the same way. We can group these related tasks into “activities” or “epics.”

Step 3: Prioritize your tasks

You can’t build everything at once, so it helps to slice your story into pieces that need to happen right now and pieces that can wait a while. In software development, this is called iteration planning and it’s an important way to work on the product features that matter most at any given time.

Focus on the tasks that are essential to get your customer through checkout. For instance, your store needs  to accept credit cards immediately, but the Apple Pay integration can come later.

Step 4: Give your tasks detail

The final step is to expand your tasks into as much detail as you can to be sure you’re creating a good user experience. Look at each task critically and consider if it requires any sub-tasks or parallel tasks.

For example, you may have a task that lets users create an account. Simple, right? Well, you also need a task that redirects them to the next page, possibly the My Account page or the primary shopping category. You also need a task that validates the form in case they submitted improper information.

Step 5: Turn tasks into user stories

Finally, turn each task from your story map into user stories. Remember, the purpose of a user story is to get into the mind of the customer so you’re always thinking about their needs. User stories help you understand what the customer wants to achieve, not what you want them to achieve.

Each task could have multiple user stories. For instance, the task of “search for items” might have several user stories that all deserve consideration:

• As a shopper, I want to search for items so I can find something appropriate to buy.
• As a shopper, I want to search for items so I can fill my wishlist.
• As a shopper, I want to search for items so I can compare prices.

Create User Stories with Confidence

One of the hardest parts of creating user stories is figuring out what your customers need and expect. How do you know what your users (your website shoppers) want in their ecommerce experience? Well, you have to talk to them.

Sadly, conducting customer interviews is time consuming and tedious. Plus, how do you know if their feedback is even valuable? Recruiting real users who can give you the right information is challenging, and even harder if you don’t have a big customer base to begin with.

UserInput gives you insights from your target market. We pair you with real people who are trained to give valuable user feedback. They help you identify their needs, where they get stuck, and how you can help them be successful on your site. Armed with these insights, you can quickly create your own user stories to aid your site’s development and design.

UserInput is a powerful way to collect the research necessary to put together user stories with confidence. Start your research project today .

Learn more about Customer Research

Unlocking the Power of Qualitative Insights for Your Ecommerce Brand

by UserInput

6 Min Read While quantitative data can offer you a wealth of important information, qualitative insights help you fully understand your customers. When you combine both research methods, it can significantly enrich your overall data so that you can inform your decisions more effectively.

Complete Guide to User Interviews: Definition, Benefits, and How to Conduct

11 Min Read User interviews are one of the best ways to gain a comprehensive understanding of your best customers. When conducted effectively, they give you the insights you need to accelerate your business growth.

The Complete Guide to Mobile Usability Testing

10 Min Read Mobile devices power a larger percentage of online shopping every single year. If you’re not doing usability testing to ensure that your store looks and functions properly on mobile devices, you’re leaving money on the table.

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What is UX Research: The Ultimate Guide for UX Researchers

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11 Key UX research methods: How and when to use them

After defining your objectives and planning your research framework, it’s time to choose the research technique that will best serve your project's goals and yield the right insights. While user research is often treated as an afterthought, it should inform every design decision. In this chapter, we walk you through the most common research methods and help you choose the right one for you.

What are UX research methods?

A UX research method is a way of generating insights about your users, their behavior, motivations, and needs. You can use methods like user interviews, surveys, focus groups, card sorting, usability testing to identify user challenges and turn them into opportunities to improve the user experience.

More of a visual learner? Check out this video for a speedy rundown. If you’re ready to get stuck in, jump straight to our full breakdown .

The most common types of user research

First, let’s talk about the types of UX research. Every individual research method falls under these types, which reflect different goals and objectives for conducting research.

Here’s a quick overview:

Qualitative vs. quantitative

All research methods are either quantitative or qualitative . Qualitative research focuses on capturing subjective insights into users' experiences. It aims to understand the underlying reasons, motivations, and behaviors of individuals. Quantitative research, on the other hand, involves collecting and analyzing numerical data to identify patterns, trends, and significance. It aims to quantify user behaviors, preferences, and attitudes, allowing for generalizations and statistical insights.

Qualitative research also typically involves a smaller sample size than quantitative research (40 participants, as recommended by Nielsen Norman Group ).

Attitudinal vs. behavioral

Attitudinal research is about understanding users' attitudes, perceptions, and beliefs. It delves into the 'why' behind user decisions and actions. It often involves surveys or interviews where users are asked about their feelings, preferences, or perceptions towards a product or service. It's subjective in nature, aiming to capture people's emotions and opinions.

Behavioral research is about what users do rather than what they say they do or would do. This kind of research is often based on observation methods like usability testing, eye-tracking, or heat maps to understand user behavior.

Generative vs. evaluative

Generative research is all about generating new ideas, concepts, and insights to fuel the design process. You might run brainstorming sessions with groups of users, card sorting, and co-design sessions to inspire creativity and guide the development of user-centered solutions.

On the other hand, evaluative research focuses on assessing the usability, effectiveness, and overall quality of existing designs or prototypes. Once you’ve developed a prototype of your product, it's time to evaluate its strengths and weaknesses. You can compare different versions of a product design or feature through A/B testing—ensuring your UX design meets user needs and expectations.

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11 Best UX research methods and when to use them

There are various UX research techniques—each method serves a specific purpose and can provide unique insights into user behaviors and preferences. In this section, we’ll highlight the most common research techniques you need to know.

Read on for an at-a-glance table, and full breakdown of each method.

User interviews

User interviews are a qualitative research method that involves having open-ended and guided discussions with users to gather in-depth insights about their experiences, needs, motivations, and behaviors.

Typically, you would ask a few questions on a specific topic and analyze participants' answers. The results you get will depend on how well you form and ask questions, as well as follow up on participants’ answers.

“As a researcher, it's our responsibility to drive the user to their actual problems,” says Yuliya Martinavichene , User Experience Researcher at Zinio. She adds, “The narration of incidents can help you analyze a lot of hidden details with regard to user behavior.”

That’s why you should:

• Start with a wide context : Make sure that your questions don’t start with your product
• Ask questions that focus on the tasks that users are trying to complete
• Invest in analysis : Get transcripts done and share the findings with your team

Tanya Nativ , Design Researcher at Sketch recommends defining the goals and assumptions internally. “Our beliefs about our users’ behavior really help to structure good questions and get to the root of the problem and its solution,” she explains.

It's easy to be misunderstood if you don't have experience writing interview questions. You can get someone to review them for you or use our Question Bank of 350+ research questions .

When to conduct user interviews

This method is typically used at the start and end of your project. At the start of a project, you can establish a strong understanding of your target users, their perspectives, and the context in which they’ll interact with your product. By the end of your project, new user interviews—often with a different set of individuals—offer a litmus test for your product's usability and appeal, providing firsthand accounts of experiences, perceived strengths, and potential areas for refinement.

Field studies

Field studies are research activities that take place in the user’s environment rather than in your lab or office. They’re a great method for uncovering context, unknown motivations, or constraints that affect the user experience.

An advantage of field studies is observing people in their natural environment, giving you a glimpse at the context in which your product is used. It’s useful to understand the context in which users complete tasks, learn about their needs, and collect in-depth user stories.

When to conduct field studies

This method can be used at all stages of your project—two key times you may want to conduct field studies are:

• As part of the discovery and exploration stage to define direction and understand the context around when and how users interact with the product
• During usability testing, once you have a prototype, to evaluate the effectiveness of the solution or validate design assumptions in real-world contexts

3. Focus groups

A focus group is a qualitative research method that includes the study of a group of people, their beliefs, and opinions. It’s typically used for market research or gathering feedback on products and messaging.

Focus groups can help you better grasp:

• How users perceive your product
• What users believe are a product’s most important features
• What problems do users experience with the product

As with any qualitative research method, the quality of the data collected through focus groups is only as robust as the preparation. So, it’s important to prepare a UX research plan you can refer to during the discussion.

Here’s some things to consider:

• Write a script to guide the conversation
• Ask clear, open-ended questions focused on the topics you’re trying to learn about
• Include around five to ten participants to keep the sessions focused and organized

When to conduct focus groups

It’s easier to use this research technique when you're still formulating your concept, product, or service—to explore user preferences, gather initial reactions, and generate ideas. This is because, in the early stages, you have flexibility and can make significant changes without incurring high costs.

Another way some researchers employ focus groups is post-launch to gather feedback and identify potential improvements. However, you can also use other methods here which may be more effective for identifying usability issues. For example, a platform like Maze can provide detailed, actionable data about how users interact with your product. These quantitative results are a great accompaniment to the qualitative data gathered from your focus group.

4. Diary studies

Diary studies involve asking users to track their usage and thoughts on your product by keeping logs or diaries, taking photos, explaining their activities, and highlighting things that stood out to them.

“Diary studies are one of the few ways you can get a peek into how users interact with our product in a real-world scenario,” says Tanya.

A diary study helps you tell the story of how products and services fit into people’s daily lives, and the touch-points and channels they choose to complete their tasks.

There’s several key questions to consider before conducting diary research, from what kind of diary you want—freeform or structured, and digital or paper—to how often you want participants to log their thoughts.

• Open, ‘freeform’ diary: Users have more freedom to record what and when they like, but can also lead to missed opportunities to capture data users might overlook
• Closed, ‘structured; diary: Users follow a stricter entry-logging process and answer pre-set questions

Remember to determine the trigger: a signal that lets the participants know when they should log their feedback. Tanya breaks these triggers down into the following:

• Interval-contingent trigger : Participants fill out the diary at specific intervals such as one entry per day, or one entry per week
• Signal-contingent trigger : You tell the participant when to make an entry and how you would prefer them to communicate it to you as well as your preferred type of communication
• Event-contingent trigger : The participant makes an entry whenever a defined event occurs

When to conduct diary studies

Diary studies are often valuable when you need to deeply understand users' behaviors, routines, and pain points in real-life contexts. This could be when you're:

• Conceptualizing a new product or feature: Gain insights into user habits, needs, and frustrations to inspire your design
• Trying to enhance an existing product: Identify areas where users are having difficulties or where there are opportunities for better user engagement

Although surveys are primarily used for quantitative research, they can also provided qualitative data, depending on whether you use closed or open-ended questions:

• Closed-ended questions come with a predefined set of answers to choose from using formats like rating scales, rankings, or multiple choice. This results in quantitative data.
• Open-ended question s are typically open-text questions where test participants give their responses in a free-form style. This results in qualitative data.

Matthieu Dixte , Product Researcher at Maze, explains the benefit of surveys: “With open-ended questions, researchers get insight into respondents' opinions, experiences, and explanations in their own words. This helps explore nuances that quantitative data alone may not capture.”

So, how do you make sure you’re asking the right survey questions? Gregg Bernstein , UX Researcher at Signal, says that when planning online surveys, it’s best to avoid questions that begin with “How likely are you to…?” Instead, Gregg says asking questions that start with “Have you ever… ?” will prompt users to give more specific and measurable answers.

Make sure your questions:

• Are easy to understand
• Don't guide participants towards a particular answer
• Include both closed-ended and open-ended questions
• Respect users and their privacy
• Are consistent in terms of format

To learn more about survey design, check out this guide .

When to conduct surveys

While surveys can be used at all stages of project development, and are ideal for continuous product discovery , the specific timing and purpose may vary depending on the research goals. For example, you can run surveys at:

• Conceptualization phase to gather preliminary data, and identify patterns, trends, or potential user segments
• Post-launch or during iterative design cycles to gather feedback on user satisfaction, feature usage, or suggestions for improvements

6. Card sorting

Card sorting is an important step in creating an intuitive information architecture (IA) and user experience. It’s also a great technique to generate ideas, naming conventions, or simply see how users understand topics.

In this UX research method, participants are presented with cards featuring different topics or information, and tasked with grouping the cards into categories that make sense to them.

There are three types of card sorting:

• Open card sorting: Participants organize topics into categories that make sense to them and name those categories, thus generating new ideas and names
• Hybrid card sorting: Participants can sort cards into predefined categories, but also have the option to create their own categories
• Closed card sorting: Participants are given predefined categories and asked to sort the items into the available groups

You can run a card sorting session using physical index cards or digitally with a UX research tool like Maze to simulate the drag-and-drop activity of dividing cards into groups. Running digital card sorting is ideal for any type of card sort, and moderated or unmoderated sessions.

Read more about card sorting and learn how to run a card sorting session here .

When to conduct card sorting

Card sorting isn’t limited to a single stage of design or development—it can be employed anytime you need to explore how users categorize or perceive information. For example, you may want to use card sorting if you need to:

• Understand how users perceive ideas
• Evaluate and prioritize potential solutions
• Generate name ideas and understand naming conventions
• Learn how users expect navigation to work
• Decide how to group content on a new or existing site
• Restructure information architecture

7. Tree testing

During tree testing a text-only version of the site is given to your participants, who are asked to complete a series of tasks requiring them to locate items on the app or website.

The data collected from a tree test helps you understand where users intuitively navigate first, and is an effective way to assess the findability, labeling, and information architecture of a product.

We recommend keeping these sessions short, ranging from 15 to 20 minutes, and asking participants to complete no more than ten tasks. This helps ensure participants remain focused and engaged, leading to more reliable and accurate data, and avoiding fatigue.

If you’re using a platform like Maze to run remote testing, you can easily recruit participants based on various demographic filters, including industry and country. This way, you can uncover a broader range of user preferences, ensuring a more comprehensive understanding of your target audience.

To learn more about tree testing, check out this chapter .

When to conduct tree testing

Tree testing is often done at an early stage in the design or redesign process. That’s because it’s more cost-effective to address errors at the start of a project—rather than making changes later in the development process or after launch.

However, it can be helpful to employ tree testing as a method when adding new features, particularly alongside card sorting.

While tree testing and card sorting can both help you with categorizing the content on a website, it’s important to note that they each approach this from a different angle and are used at different stages during the research process. Ideally, you should use the two in tandem: card sorting is recommended when defining and testing a new website architecture, while tree testing is meant to help you test how the navigation performs with users.

8. Usability testing

Usability testing evaluates your product with people by getting them to complete tasks while you observe and note their interactions (either during or after the test). The goal of conducting usability testing is to understand if your design is intuitive and easy to use. A sign of success is if users can easily accomplish their goals and complete tasks with your product.

There are various usability testing methods that you can use, such as moderated vs. unmoderated or qualitative vs. quantitative —and selecting the right one depends on your research goals, resources, and timeline.

Usability testing is usually performed with functional mid or hi-fi prototypes . If you have a Figma, InVision, Sketch, or prototype ready, you can import it into a platform like Maze and start testing your design with users immediately.

The tasks you create for usability tests should be:

• Realistic, and describe a scenario
• Actionable, and use action verbs (create, sign up, buy, etc)

Be mindful of using leading words such as ‘click here’ or ‘go to that page’ in your tasks. These instructions bias the results by helping users complete their tasks—something that doesn’t happen in real life.

Product tip ✨

With Maze, you can test your prototype and live website with real users to filter out cognitive biases, and gather actionable insights that fuel product decisions.

When to conduct usability testing

To inform your design decisions, you should do usability testing early and often in the process . Here are some guidelines to help you decide when to do usability testing:

• Before you start designing
• Once you have a wireframe or prototype
• Prior to the launch of the product
• At regular intervals after launch

To learn more about usability testing, check out our complete guide to usability testing .

9. Five-second testing

In five-second testing , participants are (unsurprisingly) given five seconds to view an image like a design or web page, and then they’re asked questions about the design to gauge their first impressions.

Why five seconds? According to data , 55% of visitors spend less than 15 seconds on a website, so it;s essential to grab someone’s attention in the first few seconds of their visit. With a five-second test, you can quickly determine what information users perceive and their impressions during the first five seconds of viewing a design.

Product tip 💡

And if you’re using Maze, you can simply upload an image of the screen you want to test, or browse your prototype and select a screen. Plus, you can star individual comments and automatically add them to your report to share with stakeholders.

When to conduct five-second testing

Five-second testing is typically conducted in the early stages of the design process, specifically during initial concept testing or prototype development. This way, you can evaluate your design's initial impact and make early refinements or adjustments to ensure its effectiveness, before putting design to development.

To learn more, check out our chapter on five-second testing .

10. A/B testing

A/B testing , also known as split testing, compares two or more versions of a webpage, interface, or feature to determine which performs better regarding engagement, conversions, or other predefined metrics.

It involves randomly dividing users into different groups and giving each group a different version of the design element being tested. For example, let's say the primary call-to-action on the page is a button that says ‘buy now’.

You're considering making changes to its design to see if it can lead to higher conversions, so you create two versions:

• Version A : The original design with the ‘buy now’ button positioned below the product description—shown to group A
• Version B : A variation with the ‘buy now’ button now prominently displayed above the product description—shown to group B

Over a planned period, you measure metrics like click-through rates, add-to-cart rates, and actual purchases to assess the performance of each variation. You find that Group B had significantly higher click-through and conversion rates than Group A. This indicates that showing the button above the product description drove higher user engagement and conversions.

Check out our A/B testing guide for more in-depth examples and guidance on how to run these tests.

When to conduct A/B testing

A/B testing can be used at all stages of the design and development process—whenever you want to collect direct, quantitative data and confirm a suspicion, or settle a design debate. This iterative testing approach allows you to continually improve your website's performance and user experience based on data-driven insights.

11. Concept testing

Concept testing is a type of research that evaluates the feasibility, appeal, and potential success of a new product before you build it. It centers the user in the ideation process, using UX research methods like A/B testing, surveys, and customer interviews.

There’s no one way to run a concept test—you can opt for concept testing surveys, interviews, focus groups, or any other method that gets qualitative data on your concept.

*Dive into our complete guide to concept testing for more tips and tricks on getting started. *

When to conduct concept testing

Concept testing helps gauge your audience’s interest, understanding, and likelihood-to-purchase, before committing time and resources to a concept. However, it can also be useful further down the product development line—such as when defining marketing messaging or just before launching.

Which is the best UX research type?

The best research type varies depending on your project; what your objectives are, and what stage you’re in. Ultimately, the ideal type of research is one which provides the insights required, using the available resources.

For example, if you're at the early ideation or product discovery stage, generative research methods can help you generate new ideas, understand user needs, and explore possibilities. As you move to the design and development phase, evaluative research methods and quantitative data become crucial.

Discover the UX research trends shaping the future of the industry and why the best results come from a combination of different research methods.

How to choose the right user experience research method

In an ideal world, a combination of all the insights you gain from multiple types of user research methods would guide every design decision. In practice, this can be hard to execute due to resources.

Sometimes the right methodology is the one you can get buy-in, budget, and time for.

Gregg Bernstein , UX Researcher at Signal

UX research tools can help streamline the research process, making regular testing and application of diverse methods more accessible—so you always keep the user at the center of your design process. Some other key tips to remember when choosing your method are:

Define the goals and problems

A good way to inform your choice of user experience research method is to start by considering your goals. You might want to browse UX research templates or read about examples of research.

Michael Margolis , UX Research Partner at Google Ventures, recommends answering questions like:

• “What do your users need?”
• “What are your users struggling with?”
• “How can you help your users?”

Understand the design process stage

If your team is very early in product development, generative research —like field studies—make sense. If you need to test design mockups or a prototype, evaluative research methods—such as usability testing—will work best.

This is something they’re big on at Sketch, as we heard from Design Researcher, Tanya Nativ. She says, “In the discovery phase, we focus on user interviews and contextual inquiries. The testing phase is more about dogfooding, concept testing, and usability testing. Once a feature has been launched, it’s about ongoing listening.”

Consider the type of insights required

If you're looking for rich, qualitative data that delves into user behaviors, motivations, and emotions, then methods like user interviews or field studies are ideal. They’ll help you uncover the ‘why’ behind user actions.

On the other hand, if you need to gather quantitative data to measure user satisfaction or compare different design variations, methods like surveys or A/B testing are more suitable. These methods will help you get hard numbers and concrete data on preferences and behavior.

*Discover the UX research trends shaping the future of the industry and why the best results come from a combination of different research methods. *

Build a deeper understanding of your users with UX research

Think of UX research methods as building blocks that work together to create a well-rounded understanding of your users. Each method brings its own unique strengths, whether it's human empathy from user interviews or the vast data from surveys.

But it's not just about choosing the right UX research methods; the research platform you use is equally important. You need a platform that empowers your team to collect data, analyze, and collaborate seamlessly.

Simplifying product research is simple with Maze. From tree testing to card sorting, prototype testing to user interview analysis—Maze makes getting actionable insights easy, whatever method you opt for.

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about testing methods, head on to the next chapter all about tree testing .

Get valuable insights from real users

Conduct impactful UX research with Maze and improve your product experience and customer satisfaction.

Frequently asked questions

How do you choose the right UX research method?

Choosing the right research method depends on your goals. Some key things to consider are:

• The feature/product you’re testing
• The type of data you’re looking for
• The design stage
• The time and resources you have available

What is the best UX research method?

The best research method is the one you have the time, resources, and budget for that meets your specific needs and goals. Most research tools, like Maze, will accommodate a variety of UX research and testing techniques.

When to use which user experience research method?

Selecting which user research method to use—if budget and resources aren’t a factor—depends on your goals. UX research methods provide different types of data:

• Qualitative vs quantitative
• Attitudinal vs behavioral
• Generative vs evaluative

Identify your goals, then choose a research method that gathers the user data you need.

Tree Testing: Your Guide to Improve Navigation and UX

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World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience

Two tips for better ux storytelling.

May 15, 2022 2022-05-15

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“We need a story that starts with an earthquake and works up to a climax.” This is a quote attributed to Sam Goldwyn, a Hollywood movie producer. Even though most UX professionals are not working on a scenario for the next blockbuster, they do need to capture other people’s attention and interest, to share insights in a memorable way, and to get everybody else in the organization to support their endeavors. Storytelling is a powerful tool that can accomplish all of these.   

In UX, user stories build  empathy  by putting the audience in the users’ shoes. They also establish a common  vocabulary  and, because they emotionally involve the audience, they are  memorable  and often get audience members to buy in the UX endeavors behind the story.

Great stories, however, are not easy to come by. Not everyone is a confident storyteller at their workplace. But the good news is that you can learn how to create good user stories. This article presents two tips for improving storytelling:

• Plan for an active role of your audience in the story.
• Use a story template. 

In This Article:

The story triangle, the story-mountain template.

Effective storytelling is a dynamic exchange between the story, the storyteller, and the audience; these three elements form the  story triangle . An engaging story is a conversation rather than a one-way broadcast.  The same story can be understood differently by different audiences because each will make slightly different inferences and fill in missing information based on highly specific prior experiences. 

Imagine that we are sharing a story about a user, Mary. Mary is deciding whether to take a bus or a taxi to the central station after an evening concert. It is getting late and the perspective of missing her train is not very appealing to her. We are telling this story with the intent to pitch a bus-tracking app, which could compete with ride-sharing apps and promote public transportation. 

Some people in our audience will instantly empathize because they know what it feels like to miss a train and be left freezing on the train platform. (Even if the story did not mention the weather, the season, or the type of the station, it is easy for people to imagine such details.) In our audience, we might also have people who never take the bus and would always prefer a taxi. They are convinced that buses take longer. Others assume trains always run on schedule and the biggest challenge for Mary will be to easily access the schedule. All these inferences could be made by our audiences while they are listening to the story and could affect what part of the story stands out for them. 

This example illustrates the active role of the audience — people make associations between the stories they hear and their own motivations and lived experiences. The storyteller should invite audience members to share their assumptions by providing space for feedback and accounting for the possibility of misinterpretation. In the bus-tracking–app example, if we were to incorporate audience feedback, we might get ideas for new features such as a real-time comparison between waiting times for the bus and for a ride share.  

The active role of the audience can, however, be a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it gives storytellers the opportunity to tap into people’s experiences and to appeal to their emotions; on the other hand, it leaves room for distortions and misunderstanding. Think of the  telephone  game — the first player whispers a word to a second person, who whispers what they heard to the third, and so forth. What the last person hears is often astonishingly different from the original word!

We do not want that to happen to our user-experience stories, so we try to keep them simple, structured, and with the appropriate level of detail. Too  few  details leave a lot of room for the listeners to imagine, and an over-active imagination can easily sidetrack the audience. Too  many  details may force the audience onto a too rigid path and give people little opportunity for emotional involvement or for dreaming up new solutions or ideas.

The right amount of detail will also depend on your goals as a storyteller — do you want to keep your audience focused on a very specific problem (like it may be the case when your story is about particular usability hurdles)? Then give as many details as possible. Do you want to allow people to imagine new solutions, ideas, situations (for example, because your story is meant to justify the purpose of a new app)? Then give only as many details as needed to keep the story going. 

One time-tested and highly successful story structure is presented in a visual known as  the story   mountain.  The story mountain is often associated with Freytag’s pyramid. Published in the middle of the 19th century by Gustav Freytag, a German novelist and playwright, this structure originally provided a five-part map for a tragedy:  introduction, rise, climax, return or fall, and catastrophe. In his version of the pyramid, the plot ends with a catastrophe; this part has become denouement, resolution, or conclusion in modern interpretations. 

The story mountain, or the hero’s journey, is widely used to help students from elementary school to college to structure their thoughts before writing a story. A story following this template includes five parts: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.

In UX, you can follow the story-mountain template to create stories for your internal team:

Exposition . You start out at the bottom left of the mountain to establish your users and the setting. You introduce the user, give her a name, for example Mary in our bus-tracking–app story. You can add additional details about Mary if they are relevant to your story. For example, you might want to share whether Mary is looking for wheelchair-accessible transportation, how she first heard about the app, her level of technological literacy, her age, how often she has to commute for work or leisure. The more details you fill in, the less will be left for the audience to imagine. Remember that any detail should be deliberate and serve the purpose of the story!

• Rising action . You work your way up the mountain to communicate the problem your users face. In our example, Mary needs to get home and she must figure out how to get to the train station in time. Should she wait for the bus or get a ride share? You can raise the stakes and escalate the story to emphasize that the train station is quite far, beyond a walking distance, that there is usually heavy traffic, and that there is only one evening train that she cannot miss.

If we wanted your audience to get excited with your concept and align everybody towards a shared vision, you would emphasize the benefits of your new bus-tacking app. You’d describe how Mary decides to use the new app, which shows her that the bus is only 3 minutes away on a live tracking map. She is not worried about her transportation and feels confident that she will make it on time to the station. 

If you wanted to get your team to pay attention to the customer feedback and to the bugs in your product, you would share an unsatisfactory, disappointing experience. Mary decides to use the app, but it requires her to log in. She forgot her password and her password manager does not recognize the app. When she eventually restores access, she needs to type the bus-stop number and her destination bus-stop number. While she is busy interacting with the app, Mary misses the bus and must order a ride share, which already has surge pricing. 

If, in your story, your user either decided not to engage any further with the product or was left in a difficult position without a resolution, you need to offer your audience a roadmap towards mitigating that situation. 

• Resolution . You end the story by showing whether the product or the process worked. In our example, you could say whether Mary got to the station on time and recommended the app to a friend or whether she was left annoyed with yet another gimmicky app that did not serve its purpose.

The story-mountain template is a recipe for good stories. It helps the storyteller add necessary setting, introduce the user, describe the problem and how it is affecting the user, build tension throughout the story, and finally show what steps were taken or can be taken to resolve the situation. The resulting story has a main character with clear problems or goals and a clear resolution, which brings closure and actionable recommendations for the audience.

Good UX often implies skillful storytelling throughout the design process — from defining the problem to sharing stories with our stakeholders. However, all stories, especially the user stories we tell in our organizations, live in the minds of our audiences. This means it is our responsibility as UX professionals to clarify and craft stories that help our audiences make them their own. One way to do that is by following the story-mountain template. 

Joe Bunting. 2020. Freytag’s Pyramid: Definition, Examples, and How to Use this Dramatic Structure in Your Writing. Retrieved March 28, 2022 from https://thewritepractice.com/freytags-pyramid/ .

Ellen Lupton. 2017. Design is storytelling , New York: Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. 

Whitney Quesenbery and Kevin Brooks. 2011.  Storytelling for user experience , Sebastopol: Rosenfeld Media. 

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Storytelling in UX research

UX researchers are storytellers who have devised tools like personas and user journey maps to tell the story of their research. Focusing on the story, rather than the tool, is a powerful way to become more effective. —  David Travis  Oct 1, 2018

By David Travis Oct 1, 2018 / ethnography , guidelines , ISO 9241 , tools

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Tools v Principles

On my training courses, I notice that people new to UX research tend to view the field as a collection of tools, like personas, user journey mapping and paper prototyping. There's a perception that they need to master these tools and implement them on projects to be user centred.

The problem with this way of looking at UX research is that the tools become an end in themselves. A good example comes from the world of personas. I've argued before that creating personas should never be your goal —understanding users' needs, goals and motivations should be your goal. It's about the research, not about the artefact. But because personas (or more accurately, personas done badly) are often criticised, this can make it hard to argue for the time needed to carry out field research. This is despite the fact that your new project may be crying out for ethnographic data to inform early decision making.

In truth, we don't need tools to encourage the development team to be more user centred. We need principles . What distinguishes more experienced practitioners is that they place principles above tools. Working from a core set of principles helps the more experienced researcher know when to stand their ground, when to relent, and when to swap out one tool for another.

One example of a set of user centred design principles comes from ISO 9241-210 :

• The design is based upon an explicit understanding of users, tasks and environments.
• Users are involved throughout design and development.
• The design is driven and refined by user-centred evaluation.
• The process is iterative.
• The design addresses the whole user experience.
• The design team includes multidisciplinary skills and perspectives.

A thorough set of principles—but I sometimes wonder if there is one missing.

Note that these principles do not provide guidance on how to communicate the results of UX research to the development team. As a consequence, I'm tempted to add a seventh principle of user centred design:

• Thou shalt engage the development team in UX research.

Engaging the development team in UX research

UX research has more than a passing resemblance to storytelling. A storyteller might write a book, create a stage play, or make a movie. The question the storyteller asks is, "Which tool will help me tell the story in the most engaging way?"

UX researchers are storytellers too. Our job is to tell the story of our research and of our users, their behaviours and day-to-day activities in the most compelling manner. The metaphor of storytelling makes it clear we need to identify characters and collect their stories before we can pass them on. In other words, we need to visit users, understand their lives, and identify their needs and their abilities. Once we have collected the data from our primary sources, we can decide on the best way to tell the story.

Principles first, tool second.

How UX researchers tell stories

Some of the main ways that UX researchers tell stories about their users and their needs are:

• Empathy Maps : When researching the meaningful activity that our product is meant to support, what do users say? What are their behaviours? What might they be thinking? How do they feel?
• Persona : Use a name and an image to help people empathise with this group of users. Include a description of common behaviours and this user group's needs and goals.
• Photo-ethnographies : Share stories of your users' environments through photographs. Combine wide shots (e.g. of a room), with medium shots (e.g. the user carrying out an activity) and close up shots (e.g. of the app on a phone).
• Storyboard : A frame-by-frame representation of the user's workflow when interacting with a product or service. Commonly represented as a comic, UX researchers can use storyboards to describe both the current experience and how the future experience is envisioned.
• Scenarios : Perhaps the easiest to compare with a traditional story, scenarios are narrative descriptions of a user attempting to complete a goal. These stories can describe the current experience — "As Is" scenarios — or the way the experience could be re-designed — "Future" scenarios.
• User stories: Borrowed from Scrum, UX researchers can use the format of user stories ("As a user role… I want to… so that I can") to tell a short story about the user's task within a context.
• User journey map : A graphic that allows you to tell the story of the user experience from the beginning of a process to the end.
• Concept video : Create an inspirational movie showing the story of how your users will interact with the product in the future.

There are many other tools that UX researchers use to tell the story of their user research, including swimlanes, mental model diagrams, and case studies. More tools but with the same goal: to tell the story in our data.

How might we further explore this metaphor? What other storytelling techniques could UX researchers adopt? Perhaps creating a musical or a stage play might be a bridge too far for most development teams but at the very least it may help us to think principles first, rather than tool first.

About the author

Dr. David Travis ( @userfocus ) has been carrying out ethnographic field research and running product usability tests since 1989. He has published three books on user experience including Think Like a UX Researcher . If you like his articles, you might enjoy his free online user experience course .

If you liked this, try…

• Evangelising user research
• Why you need a user experience vision (and how to create and publicise it)
• The UX debrief: A tale of two meetings
• Communicating User Experience Design
• Institutionalising Usability: 5 ways to embed usability in your company

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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.

• User stories: 3 examples to drive user ...

User stories: 3 examples to drive user value

A user story is an informal explanation of a software feature written from the perspective of the end user. A typical user story will follow the format “As a [persona], I want to [software goal], so that [result].” Find out how to write effective user stories to accurately represent how a software feature will drive user value.

When it comes to expanding your product capabilities, software updates are the key to increasing user value. 

We’ve put together important details around how to write effective user stories. Learn how focusing on the end user’s experience can drive the most value. 

What is a user story?

A user story is an informal explanation of a software feature written from the perspective of the end user. These stories should be written using non-technical language to provide context to the development team.

A user story is typically told in one sentence, following the format: “As a [persona], I want to [software goal], so that [result].”

The purpose of writing user stories is to accurately represent how a software feature translates to user value. In other words, how does this software feature impact the end user? 

An end user, also referred to as a customer, doesn’t necessarily describe an external consumer. An end user can also be an internal customer or team member who will benefit from this work. Defining your end user will ultimately depend on the purpose of the software feature you’re building. 

User stories are a core component of an Agile approach. You can write them in a lot of ways, including using Post-it notes or index cards, but the most effective way to create and track user stories is with project management software . Effective project management software allows you to adjust, edit, and track user stories in real-time so your team knows exactly how they can best serve their end users. Keep in mind that Agile software development aims to put people first, and user stories help you do that by positioning your focus on the end user. 

Who writes user stories?

Most commonly, the product owner writes user stories based on user research and organizes them into a list for the development team, also known as a product backlog . Though anyone can technically write user stories, it’s the product manager’s responsibility to ensure they have all of the information the development team needs in order to execute their initiatives.

Then, the development team will prioritize and decide which user stories to tackle during their sprint planning meeting . 

Who uses user stories?

User stories are used in Scrum and Kanban frameworks. 

In Scrum , user stories help your team gain a better understanding during sprint planning. 

In Kanban , teams pull stories into their backlog and work on them during their sprint. User stories give teams the context and clarification they need to manage work and meet their deadlines.

User stories are tackled by dev teams during a workflow or sprint to accomplish tasks and prevent scope creep . Break large user stories into multiple sprints or epics if needed. Epics are large stories broken down into multiple smaller stories. Multiple epics make up an initiative.

How to write a good user story

A user story is written in three steps and represents the end user’s viewpoint. 

The three steps of writing a user story are:

Persona: The end user’s character

Need: The goal the software feature has on the end user’s journey

Purpose: The goal of the end user’s experience with the software feature

Your user story should contain all three of these components. Let’s dig into each of these elements to give you a better understanding of how to write an effective user story. 

Step 1. Identify the persona

Identify the end user’s persona by evaluating your target audience . Consider who will be impacted by the software feature. 

Here are some questions to ask yourself and your team when identifying the user persona:

Who are we building this software feature for?

What kind of product features does the end user want?

What are the demographics and psychographics of the end user?

There may be multiple personas in a given user story depending on the size of the target audience. 

Example persona: Kat, a project manager who leads 10 team members

Step 2. Describe the need

Describe how the end user will use your software feature and why. This is critical so your team understands why the target audience would use your feature in the first place. 

Consider these questions when analyzing the intent of the end user:

What is the end user trying to accomplish?

How will your software feature help the end user accomplish their goals?

Avoid focusing on the specific features—instead, consider what the end user is searching for and how your software will help them reach their goals. 

Example need: Help team members understand how individual tasks contribute to larger business goals

Step 3. Define the purpose

Define the purpose by analyzing the bigger picture of the software release. Consider how the software feature fits into your internal goals. 

Ask yourself these questions to help define the purpose:

What’s the benefit of the software feature?

What is the problem that’s being solved?

How does this fit into larger goals?

The purpose here is to define the value of your software feature related to big-picture goals.

Example purpose: To increase efficiency by creating a clear path

User story examples

To take your understanding of Agile user stories one step further, we’ve put together a few examples. The more effective your user stories are, the more value you’ll be able to drive for the end user. 

Here are three examples to represent different user story scenarios: 

User story example 1: Product development 

As a product manager, I want a way for team members to understand how individual tasks contribute to larger business goals to motivate efficiency.

User story example 2: Customer experience

As a returning customer, I expect my information to be saved in order to create a more streamlined checkout experience.

User story example 3: Mobile application

As a frequent app user, I want a way to digest relevant information in the quickest way possible. 

In all three examples, you can see how important it is to pose software updates from the perspective of the end user. This way, updates are made with the customer’s best interest in mind.

Tips for achieving an effective user story

In addition to the three steps outlined above, an effective user story should follow the 3 Cs and INVEST acronym. Both of these help to take your user stories to the next level, resulting in more effective software updates. 

Let’s dig into each of these to gain a better understanding of what makes up an effective user story. 

The 3 Cs are C ard, C onversation, and C onfirmation. The 3 Cs break each user story into three different benchmarks, creating a more organized process. Let’s dive into each of the 3 Cs to gain a better understanding:

Card: A written description of the user story used for sprint planning. To create and share story cards, try using a work management tool . 

Conversation: A discussion between customers, users, and developers around the priority and potential solutions to the user story.

Confirmation: An agreement between stakeholders that user story objectives and solutions have been reached.

The 3 Cs help to break down a user story into simple tasks. This gives a clear direction for involved stakeholders.

INVEST stands for I ndependent, N egotiable, V aluable, E stimable, S mall, and T estable. Let’s dive into these components deeper to give you a better understanding of how the INVEST criteria can help you write stronger stories:

Independent: A user story should be independent, meaning it does not depend on other tasks and is self-contained. 

Negotiable: A user story should be negotiable. This means it leaves room for discussion. 

Valuable: A user story should convey value to the end user, bringing you closer to larger long-term goals . 

Estimable: A user story should be estimated to ensure it fits within a sprint and is prioritized properly. 

Small: A user story should be a small chunk of work that can be completed in a short amount of time. 

Testable: A story should go through acceptance tests and meet predetermined acceptance criteria to verify quality. 

Ensure your user stories are written in a specific and attainable way by following the INVEST acronym.

The importance of an accurate user story

Writing user stories effectively may seem like a small piece of product development, but in reality, these stories help drive creative outcomes for new product functionality. Attention to detail is incredibly important, because it helps you ensure you’re investing in user needs.

Here are three ways writing accurate user stories can help you achieve user goals:

Put customers first: User stories put end users at the center of the conversation—an important component of the Agile framework. Your team can then prioritize user needs and focus on ways to contribute to a positive user experience. 

Drive innovative solutions: The deeper you dive into your end user’s persona, the more innovative your software solutions will be. This is because your focus is on the needs of your users, which you can connect to internal business goals. The more you understand the type of user you’re targeting, the more effective your results will be.

Promote team collaboration: With multiple team members talking through and prioritizing user stories, collaboration in the workplace thrives. This brings multiple viewpoints to the table, offering new solutions to existing roadblocks. From testable outcomes to understanding product requirements, the more your team communicates the easier it will be to reach your desired results.

Positioning updates from the user’s perspective helps create a robust user experience, which improves business value and the overall requirements gathering process.

Drive value through user experience

Putting customers first is an effective way to center the conversation around end users and ultimately drive more value. By holding conversations around the end user’s experience, you can create more innovative software solutions that better the product development process. 

Enable your Agile team to achieve results with the help of Agile management software. From collaborating as a team to organizing sprints, Asana can help. 

Related resources

How Asana uses work management to streamline project intake processes

6 ways to develop adaptability in the workplace and embrace change

How to run more effective stand-up meetings

Waterfall, Agile, Kanban, and Scrum: What’s the difference?

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User Story Mapping in Design

User Story Mapping is a crucial technique for visualizing product development from the user's perspective. Here, we outline essential components and steps for crafting a User Story Map. You’ll learn how  User Story Mapping can help create engaging and effective user experiences through different examples and practical tips and tools for mapping user stories .

Consider a scenario: a team developing a new app struggles to align their vision with user needs . They have extensive documents like product requirements and technical specifications but do not understand the user experience . 

People don't have the time or focus to read technical specifications fully. Even if they do, they usually misunderstand what to build. Instead of boosting productivity, these long documents limit creativity , communication , teamwork and new ideas. That’s where you can use user story maps as a better option. They offer a clear view of what an agile team plans to build .

So, let’s talk about user story mapping in more detail. You'll find this helpful if you’re a designer, product manager , or eager to enhance user experiences. 

What is User Story Mapping?

User story mapping is a visual tool that helps product managers and development teams plan work that creates an excellent user experience. A software leader, Jeff Patton, developed and spread knowledge about this method. 

In this video, Laura Klein, UX designer and author, explains what user stories are and how to create them. 

• Transcript loading…

User story mapping in UX design involves activities, steps, and details. You outline a typical user's interactions with a product. You identify the most valuable steps for the user and decide what to build next. 

Activities focus on high-level tasks like "Plan a vacation" 

Steps like "Select Destination" detail how to complete an activity. 

Details show specific interactions, such as "Browse destinations" or  "View images" under the particular step. 

User story maps guide teams in planning their minimum viable product (MVP) release. They visually map out what to include in the initial and future releases. Teams draw lines on the map to separate what goes into the MVP from what can wait for later. The team places items above the line for the MVP and below the line for future updates. As they learn and reprioritize, they add new activities, steps, and details to the map for upcoming sprints and releases.

Agile organizations find user story mapping useful as an alternative to simple backlog lists or long requirements documents. It has become a key strategy in user-centered design and agile product development .

User Story Maps vs User Stories

User Stories are individual narratives focused on specific functionalities or requirements from the user's perspective. 

User story mapping first outlines the user's journey with the product. Teams then extract specific user stories from this map. Each story focuses on a particular functionality. This process aligns all development work with the user's overall experience.

While user stories focus on small, specific features, user story maps offer a big picture of a product and provide the context of specific features. Agile teams can use these maps to prioritize smaller tasks and turn them into user stories. These stories help you validate and build a common understanding of the steps needed to create a product users will love. You write these stories in a specific format: " As a [ type of user], I want to [action] so that [benefit]. " This format helps you focus on product interactions from the user's perspective .

The Benefits of User Story Mapping in UX Design

User story mapping transforms how teams approach product development, especially from a UX design perspective. 

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0

1. Focus on Users 

When based on user research , a user story map shows the product from the user’s perspective instead of a technical one. This user-centric approach drives satisfaction by focussing on understanding and prioritizing user requirements.

2. Better Teamwork and Clear Communication

User story mapping unites the team with a shared vision. It reduces misunderstandings and fosters better teamwork. It establishes the context for the individual user stories so teams can develop better solutions. 

3. Clear Picture of Your Project

User story mapping in UX design focuses on visualizing the user's journey with a product. Imagine a roadmap showcasing every feature and user interaction. This map helps teams see how individual parts form the whole picture. It's like piecing together a puzzle, where each piece represents a user's step or a product feature. Mapping user interaction becomes clearer and guides the team to prioritize effectively.

4. Make Decisions Faster

The user story map helps teams identify the minimum viable product, allowing them to ship products incrementally, with just the right level of detail, without shipping a broken experience.

5. Keep Track of Progress Easily

This method can act as an alternative to traditional backlogs. It provides a transparent view of the project's status and lets teams detect gaps in the user experience early on.

User Story Mapping Examples in Design

Here are three user story mapping examples to help you understand the concept better and visualize how you do it. 

1. E-commerce User Story Map

© Hubspot, Fair Use

In this example, we focus on the detailed journey of a user engaging with an e-commerce platform.

The Activities (in orange) represent the primary goals of the user, such as "Search," "Get product details," and "Check out."

Within these activities, Steps (in green) outline the necessary actions to achieve these goals, like "Scroll through search results" under "Search" and "Review and compare product" under "Get product details."

Finally, Tasks ((in yellow) detail the individual actions for each step, including "Filter by price" or "See product in AR ."

This user story map facilitates a clear understanding of the user's journey. It can help teams prioritize development to create a user-friendly and efficient path from search to purchase.

2. Document Management User Story Map

© Lucidchart, Fair Use

This user story map is a structured visual that outlines the user experience for a document management system. It is broken down into three main components:

Activities (in blue) show the high-level goals or functions within the system, such as "Log into account," "Manage documents," "Edit documents," and "Complete documents."

Steps/Tasks (in blue) detail specific actions within each activity. For example, under "Manage documents," the tasks include "Open documents," "Manage documents," and "Delete documents."

Sub-tasks (in gray) provide an even finer level of granularity. They describe individual actions required to complete the tasks. Under the task "Open documents," we find subtasks like "Create new document," "Open existing document," "Open template," and "Import existing diagram."

Each task and sub-task receives a priority ranking from top to bottom. The map assigns these rankings on the left, ranging from Priority 1 to Priority 3. The color coding on the subtasks—green for complete and yellow for blocked—provides an at-a-glance status report on where each action stands.

The best part about this example ? You can use it as a user story mapping template to start your mapping journey. 

5 User Story Mapping Tools Worth Trying/ Top 5 User Story Mapping Tools

Exploring the right tools can significantly enhance your user story-mapping process. These five tools stand out for their ability to simplify and streamline the mapping of user stories.

1. Jira Software

© Jira Software, Fair Use

Jira offers comprehensive agile project management features, including user story mapping add-ons. Teams committed to agile methodologies find this tool helpful as it integrates well with other development tools.

© Trello, Fair Use

You can easily adapt Trello's simple, card-based interface for user story mapping. Its flexibility and intuitive design make it an excellent option for teams looking to organize their development process visually.

© Miro, Fair Use

Miro is a user story mapping software that provides an expansive virtual whiteboard perfect for user story mapping. Its collaborative features allow teams to work together in real time, regardless of location.

4. Lucidchart

Lucidchart offers a range of diagramming tools that you’ll find useful to create detailed user story maps. Its drag-and-drop interface and collaboration capabilities make it a solid choice for mapping complex user stories.

5. StoriesOnBoard

© StoriesOnBoard, Fair Use

StoriesOnBoard is one of the best user story mapping tools that turns customer feedback into actionable user stories. The user-friendly tool focuses on enhancing the product development cycle from the user's perspective.

How to Run a User Story Mapping Session

Running a user story mapping session can streamline your development process, align your team and ensure your product meets users' needs. With careful planning and execution, this method can transform your approach to building user-centered products. 

Preparing for the Session

Before you start:

Gather all necessary technical documentation, like the Product Requirement Document, standards, ecosystem map , estimates and user personas .

Choose whether to use digital tools or stick to the classic pen-and-paper approach.

If you go digital, opt for tools with sharing capabilities like Lucidchart or Miro.com.

User personas in story mapping represent target users. They guide feature development to meet specific needs and preferences. Frank Spillers, CEO at Experience Dynamics, discusses why personas are important and how to create them. 

Step 1: Select Your Team

Choose the key people for your mapping session. Limit your workshop to no more than 10 decision-makers from various departments, including a product owner, UX designer and stakeholders . A smaller group promotes easier and more effective discussions.

Step 2: Frame Your Map and Set Goals

Set clear boundaries for your user story map to avoid scope creep . Concentrate on the Minimal Viable Product (MVP) to focus on essential features. Decide on additional sections like ideas or thrash and if you'll use color coding for clarity.

MVPs in user story mapping identify essential features for focused development and early user feedback collection. Laura Klein explains MVP in more detail. 

Step 3: Implement User Personas

Base your map on user personas to guide the story's epics and activities. This ensures you address real user needs and behaviors in your product.

Step 4: Organize the Meeting and Brief Your Team

Explain the mapping process once you choose the team and have the tools ready. Make everyone comfortable and outline the session's structure and expectations. Clarify the map's layout, including any color codes or sections.

Step 5: Add Activities, Steps, and Tasks

User story mapping aims to define the entire product from the user's perspective. This process involves adding activities, steps, and tasks to the map. 

Activities represent high-level user goals in the product. 

Steps break down these activities into more specific actions. 

Tasks further detail these steps with granular interactions.

Reading the map from left to right should reveal the user's journey from start to finish. This horizontal view shows the sequence of user interactions. On the other hand, reading from top to bottom should highlight prioritization. This vertical view helps you understand the most important features or tasks you should tackle first.

Incorporating these elements into the map provides a comprehensive, user-focused view of the product development lifecycle. It ensures that every feature aligns with user needs and that the team prioritizes effectively.

Step 6: Prioritize Stories and Plan Releases

Sort user stories based on importance. Use visual cues like tape or digital tools to define different releases, starting with the MVP. Discuss and agree on features essential for the initial release. 

The team draws or tapes lines to mark release boundaries. They place essential features for the MVP above this line. Features suitable for later releases go below the line. This clarifies the development team's immediate focus and outlines a roadmap for future updates. As the project evolves, the team adds new activities, steps, and details to the map, which inform the planning for future sprints and releases

Step 7: Create User Stories Based on User Story Map

The last step involves using the user story map to create user stories. To create user stories from a user story map, follow these steps:

Identify Epics : Start with the high-level activities on the map, which will serve as your epics.

Break Epics into Stories : For each epic, define the steps as individual user stories that express specific user goals.

Specify Tasks for Each Story : Detail the tasks for every user story to establish the acceptance criteria or detailed requirements.

Compose the User Story : Write each story in the format: "As a [type of user], I want [an action] so that [a benefit/outcome]."

Prioritize the Stories : Sort the user stories. Place the most critical ones for the MVP at the top and schedule the rest for future development. Use the story map's structure as a guide.

This process turns the visual user journey into a prioritized backlog of user stories, ready for the team to tackle in a focused and user-centric manner.

User Story vs Customer Journey Mapping 

User-story and customer journey mapping serve distinct purposes in product development and user experience design.

Customer journey mapping is all about stepping into the shoes of your users. It illustrates a user's journey to achieve a goal with your product. It captures their emotions , the channels they use, and the devices they interact with. The mapping creates a narrative highlighting the user's experience from start to finish. It focuses on the emotional highs and lows.

Journey maps provide you with information from a customer’s perspective. Watch this video to understand the power of journey mapping as Matt Snyder, Head of Product & Design at Hivewire, discusses it. 

On the other hand, user story mapping looks at things from the product's perspective. It helps teams plan and prioritize the product's features based on the problems they solve for users. It focuses more on functionality. Thus, it helps you turn insights from the customer journey map into actionable items for product development.

Both tools work well together or separately. They start from the same research but focus on different parts of design and development.

The Take Away

User story mapping can help you visualize the product journey, focusing on user activities and steps. This method breaks down complex projects into manageable parts. It aligns development with user expectations and business goals. It helps: 

Visualize the Customer Journey : User Story Mapping offers a clear, step-by-step view of how users interact with a product. This helps you identify areas for improvement and ensures a user-centric design approach.

Enhance Collaboration and Clarity : Mapping out user stories helps your team gain a shared understanding of project goals and user needs. This improves teamwork and communication.

Prioritize User Needs : This technique ensures that development efforts align with what users value the most. It leads to products that truly meet user demands.

Start familiarizing yourself with the basics to apply user story mapping. Then,

Understand the components of user story maps and how they fit into a larger map.

Consider exploring digital mapping tools like Jira, Trello, Miro, Lucidchart, or StoriesOnBoard. 

Run a user story mapping session, focusing on user needs and product goals. 

This approach can transform your development process into a more user-focused and efficient one. 

Where to Learn More

Agile is one of the most misunderstood methodologies in software development. Laura Klein breaks down common “anti-patterns” and how to avoid them in this hour-long Master Class.

Read more about product development and user story mapping from Jeff Patton and associates .

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User experience (ux) research: definition and methodology.

17 min read To build outstanding products and services for your customers, you need a thorough understanding of who they are, what they need and where their pain points and priorities lie. UX research helps you fully step into your customers’ shoes.

What do we mean by user experience?

User experience (UX) is a customer’s-eye view of your business as it relates to completing tasks and using interactive platforms and services.

It’s closely tied to the idea of customer experience (CX) , but rather than being a holistic view of your brand, it’s more focused on utility and usability testing – the hands-on side of things. You can think of UX as a sub-discipline of CX .

For example, CX research might consider how customers perceive a company’s customer service levels and how confident they feel in having their issues resolved. Meanwhile, UX research would focus on how successfully those customers navigate a self-service website, whether the language on that site is clear and how easy it is to use.

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What is user experience (UX) research?

User experience (UX) research is about diving deep into how customers interact with your brand on a practical, functional level, and observing how easily they can complete their tasks and meet their goals.

User research is the process of discovering the behaviors , motivations, and needs of your customers through observation, task analysis, and other types of user feedback . It can involve working directly with members of your target audience through UX testing sessions, remote session observation using digital tools, surveys to collect user feedback, and many more UX research methods and techniques.

Why is UX research important?

So what exactly is the value of user experience research? After all, you understand your business and its workings better than anyone. How can uninformed external users help you learn more?

The fresh perspective of your end-users is exactly why UX research is so valuable. Because they’re not already immersed in your language, processes, and systems, user testing participants are in the best position to help you see where things might be confusing to a newcomer who isn’t involved with your business.

Better yet, they can show you where confusion or frustration might lead a new or potential customer to miss out on product benefits, fail to convert, or even give up and look toward your competitors instead.

In areas like new product design and development , user research allows you to head off potential issues with products and services before they even hit the shelves. You can design the product correctly the first time, instead of having to fix it later when customers are unhappy.

Simply put, UX research is critical because it keeps you from wasting time, money, and effort designing the wrong product or solution. It’s valuable for all areas of your business and yields clear benefits for your product, your users, and your bottom line.

• Product benefits By asking your customers for direct feedback about a potential product, you can discover how and when customers prefer to use a product, what pain points your product will solve, and how to improve your product design .
• User benefits UX research is unbiased feedback, straight from the most valuable source: your customers. Because this type of research is not biased by investors, company leaders, or outside influences, it is the best resource for getting actionable product feedback.
• Business benefits Knowing what your users value helps you spend less time and money fixing flawed designs, speeds up the product development process , and increases customer satisfaction.

UX research helps brands and organizations to:

• Understand how users experience products, websites, mobile apps, and prototypes
• Evaluate and optimize prototypes and ideas based on UX research discoveries – and nail the design and experience early in a product’s life cycle
• Unearth new customer needs and business opportunities
• Find and fix hidden problems with products and services that arise in real-world use cases
• Make informed decisions through the product development process by testing various aspects of product designs
• Provide user experiences that outperform other businesses in your sector ( UX competitor research )
• Understand each user interaction across complete customer journeys
• Build a richer, more useful picture of your target audiences for better marketing and advertising

What’s the ROI of performing UX research?

The ROI of UX research is tricky to pin down because there often isn’t a direct, easy-to-spot correlation between time spent on it and resulting revenue. UX research can and does drive revenue, but it more directly influences metrics that show customer satisfaction, customer retention, and behavioral goals like user signups.

A simple way to draw a straight (if basic) line between UX research and its associated ROI is to calculate your conversion rate, where ‘conversion’ simply means completing the action you had in mind:

Number of people who took your desired action

—————————————————————       x 100

Total visitors/users

That percentage can be calculated and revisited over time to see how UX changes resulting from your research are having an effect.

Generally, when we talk about ROI, we’re talking about the highest possible rates of return you can attribute to an investment. But – while PWC research suggests that ROI on UX research can rise to as high as 301% – it’s better not to get caught up in absolutes with operational data like revenue.

Instead, it’s worth thinking more about the benefits that come out of tracking human behavior associated with improving your UX in general.

For example, IBM research states that 3 out of 5 users think that a positive user experience is more influential than strong advertising, while Forrester Research estimates that as many as 50% of potential sales fall through because users can’t find the information they need.

Thorough UX research can also cut a project’s development time by up to 50% .

Ultimately, when trying to track the ROI of your time spent doing quantitative and qualitative research on UX, you want to look at behavior and sentiment. If your main goal is website use, you should notice a decline in bounce rate as a sign of positive ROI. If you sell services, run regular CSAT surveys to determine how satisfied customers are with everything.

You might also find that data in unusual places. For example, if you spot a decline in chatbot requests around how to do or perform certain actions, or for information, then you know your new UX implementations are working as desired.

Those kinds of behavioral data points will shine a light on how worthwhile your UX research has been more readily than changes in revenue.

User experience research methods

The type of UX research techniques you choose will depend on the type of research question you’re tackling, your deadline, the size of your UX research team, and your environment.

There are three research dimensions to consider as you decide which methods are best for your project:

Attitudinal and behavioral

“Attitudinal” refers to what people say, while “ behavioral ” refers to what people actually do – and these are often very different. Attitudinal research is often used in marketing because it measures people’s stated beliefs and needs. However, in product design and user experience research, what people do tends to be more relevant.

For example, A/B testing shows visitors different versions of a site at random to track the effect of site design on conversion and behavior.

Another behavioral method is eye tracking, which helps researchers understand how users interact and visually engage with the design of an interface by following their gaze.

Qualitative and quantitative methods

Quantitative UX research studies collect and analyze results, then generalize findings from a sample to a population. They typically require large numbers of representative cases to work with and are structured in their approach.

Quantitative research uses measurement tools like surveys or analytics to gather data about how subjects use a product and are generally more mathematical in nature. This type of inquiry aims to answer questions like ‘what,’ ‘where’ and ‘when’.

Qualitative research methods, on the other hand, gather information about users by observing them directly, as in focus groups or field studies.

Qualitative research aims to understand the human side of data by gaining a sense of the underlying reasons and motivations surrounding consumer behavior. It tends to use small numbers of diverse (rather than representative) cases, and the data collection approach is less structured. Qualitative methods are best suited to address the ‘how’ or ‘why’ of consumer behavior.

Qualitative UX research methods

Several UX research methodologies can help UX researchers answer those big ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions, and influence the design process of any product or service you’ve got cooking. Here are just a few …

1. Participatory design

In participatory design, people are asked to draw or design their own best-case version of the tool, product, or service in question. This gives UX researchers the ability to ask qualitative questions about why specific choices have been made. If multiple participants make similar choices, it’s easy to spot patterns that should be adopted.

You might ask participants how they would redesign your website. While their responses will naturally vary, you might spot that several of them have moved your site’s navigation to a more prominent spot, or have moved the checkout from the left of the screen to the right.

2. Card sorting

Card sorting involves giving participants a range of cards that represent business-specific topics and asking them how they would sort them into groups. UX researchers are then able to probe into why their audience might group certain things, and make changes to existing offerings as a result.

If you have a wide range of products and solutions, card sorting would be a useful way to gauge how your target audience would naturally bucket them on your website. A furniture seller, for example, might use this technique to find that people are naturally inclined to group items by room, rather than by furniture type.

3. Diary studies

If you’d like to know how the UX of your product or service varies over time or throughout the length of its use, a diary study can help. Here, participants are given a way to record their thoughts as they set about using the product or service in question, noting things that occur to them as they go. This is useful as it provides real-world insight over a longer period than a one-off focus group.

Giving people access to an early build of an app and asking them to keep usability testing notes can highlight pain points in the user interface. In a one-off focus group, having to tap three times to get to an oft-used screen might seem fine – whereas participants are more likely to find it annoying in the day-to-day. This kind of longer-term usability test can provide really valuable insights.

Both quantitative and qualitative UX research methodologies can be useful when planning the design and development of your brand presence, as well as for usability testing when it comes to product and service design.

Context-of-use

By collecting and analyzing information about users, the intended use of the application, the tasks they perform with the application, and the technical constraints presented by the application, context-of-use analysis allow UX researchers to better understand the overall experience.

Typically, context-of-use analysis data is collected through research surveys, focus groups, interviews, site visits, and observational studies.

Context-of use-analysis is one method for identifying the most important elements of an application or product in the context of using that application or product. This type of UX research is typically done early in the product lifecycle and continued as data identifies which components of the product and UX are most critical.

Types of user research tools

There are many types of user research methods for discovering data useful for product design and development. Below are some common examples of tools user experience researchers may use to gather information and draw insights into mental models, or users’ thought processes.

UX research surveys or questionnaires can discover data at scale through in-person or remote polling, with specific questions designed to collate useful information about user experience.

User groups or focus groups are a form of a structured interview that consults members of a target audience on their experience, views, and attitudes towards the product or solution. They usually involve neutral parties, such as a moderator and note-taker, and are led by a researcher who asks open-ended questions focused on specific aspects of an investigation.

User interviews are one-on-one structured interviews with a target audience member, led by a UX researcher to understand more about personal experiences with the product. These user interviews can be directed to compare and contrast answers between users, or non-directed, where users lead the conversation.

Ethnographic interviews take place within the target users’ typical environment to get a better context-of-use view. Field studies and site visits are similarly observational in nature, and take place in situ where the product or service is used, but may involve larger groups.

This is not a comprehensive list of research techniques but represents some of the main ways UX researchers might perform usability testing or trial UX design.

When to conduct user experience research

Before launching a new product or service, understanding user preferences that could impact your design or development is key to success. The earlier user experience research is performed, the more effective the end product or service will be, as it should encompass the insights learned about your target audience.

As a product and service’s use and value evolve over its lifecycle, the user experience will change over time. User research should be undertaken on an ongoing basis to determine how to adapt to users’ new needs and preferences.

Five basic steps to conducting UX research

If you’re new to UX research, here’s a step-by-step list of what to consider before you begin your UX testing program:

• Objectives What do you need to find out about your users and their needs?
• Hypothesis What do you think you already know about your users?
• Methods Based on your deadline, project type, and the size of your research team, what UX research methods should you use?
• Process Using your selected UX research method(s), begin collecting data about your users, their preferences, and their needs.
• Synthesis Analyze the data you collected to fill in your knowledge gaps, address your hypothesis and create a plan to improve your product based on user feedback.

Qualtrics makes UX research simple and easy

User experience research and user testing are multifaceted and can involve a lot of both quantitative and qualitative data. To ease the process and make sure it is efficient and scalable, it’s best conducted using a highly responsive platform that allows you to collect data, analyze trends and draw conclusions all in one place.

Whether you need attitudinal or behavioral insights, Qualtrics is your go-to solution for collecting all kinds of UX data and making use of it in the context of your wider CX program .

Conduct in-person studies or send beautifully designed surveys easily and quickly, and view your results via custom dashboards and reports using the most sophisticated research platform on the planet.

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Related resources

User experience 20 min read, user experience surveys 9 min read, ux research tools 8 min read, user analytics 11 min read, rage clicks 11 min read, user experience analytics 10 min read, website user experience 14 min read, request demo.

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