user research methods fresco play answers

User Research Methods | Fresco Play

Question 1: Tree testing is not similar to card sorting.

Answer: False

Question 2: For users from other nationalities, it is enough to offer a product translated in their respective languages.

Question 3: It’s a sequential art, where images are arrayed together to visualize the story

Answer: Storyboard

Question 4: People with low uncertainty avoidance are restricted to new ideas.

Question 5: Surveys and questionnaires are primarily used for collecting information from a large number of users.

Answer: True

Question 6: A fictitious representation of a group of users is,

Answer: User Persona

Question 7: Card sorts are used to generate information architecture.

Question 8: If time is a constraint, the quickest deliverable format is an email message or word document.

Question 9: A Stakeholder could only be clients/customers.

Question 10: User Research is not the first step of a UX design process.

Question 11: Tree testing is similar to card sorting.

Question 12: A/B Testing involves having an experienced evaluator using his/her knowledge of testing products.

Question 13: Which of these techniques are used exclusively for designing hierarchy

Answer: Card Sorting

Question 14: Two types of benchmarking are:

Answer: Stand-alone and Competitive benchmarking

Question 15: What is key in a User Research?

Answer: Empathy

Question 16: Quick findings are comprehensive reports.

Question 17: Power Distance Index measures

Answer: the degree of a society’s level of inequality endorsed by the followers as much as by the leaders

Question 18: The purpose of user research is

Answer: All of these

Question 19: People from this cultural group are not tolerant of new ideas and opinions that differ from their own

Answer: People with high uncertainty avoidance

Question 20: The systematic process of collecting and analyzing target customer data, the competition, and the target market environment to aid in making messaging, positioning and pricing decisions.

Answer: Market Research

Question 21: User Research is essential because

Question 22: Questionnaire mode of approach is qualitative research.

Question 23: A/B testing is done for specific aspects of hierarchy alone.

Question 24: People possessing this cultural trait take initiative and make their own decisions

Answer: Individualistic

Question 25: Technique used for evaluating findability of topics in a website

Answer: Tree test

Question 26: A Stakeholder is,

Answer: anyone with an interest in the project output

Question 27: Which technique involves having an experienced evaluator using his/her knowledge for testing products

Answer: Expert Review

Question 28: Contextual Interview can be done without users.

Question 29: This is an additional deliverable that gathers all recommendations together in a simple table format—usually in Word or Excel—with a brief summary of the findings that led to each recommendation and, often, a severity rating for each issue.

Answer: Findings and Recommendations Matrix

Question 30: Expert Reviews are conducted during the development phase.

Question 31: User Persona is a quantitative approach.

Question 32: Obvious limitation with surveys and questionnaires is

Answer: lack of any interaction between researcher and users

Question 33: In Usability tests, we test the interface's usability.

Question 34: One size fits all' should not be the focus of UX design.

Question 35: Surveys are quantitative mode of research.

Question 36: In this technique, users are provided with two or more options for choice

Answer: A/B tests

Question 37: People from this cultural group are more tolerant to new ideas and opinions that differ from their own

Answer: People with low uncertainty avoidance

Question 38: These are comprehensive reports

Answer: Detailed Reports

Question 39: Design should not be changed based on iterations.

Question 40: The techniques used to evaluate the hierarchy of a website

Answer: Card Sorting & Tree Testing

Question 41: This user research method comes from motion picture production

Answer: Role play

Question 42: Storyboards are illustrations that represent shots that ultimately represent a story.

Question 43: Which of the following is also known as split testing

Answer: A/B Testing

Question 44: People with low uncertainty avoidance

Answer: are restricted to new ideas

Question 45: A process which emphasizes the tasks users must perform and the situation in which the tasks are performed

Answer: Task Analysis

Question 46: User Research means

Question 47: Expert Review is done by end users.

Question 48: A casual form of testing where random users at a social or community location are asked to use the product and provide informal feedback.

Answer: Guerilla Testing

Question 49: People from collectivist culture prefer having “most popular” categories, testimonials, or social media sharing options to gather instant and personal feedback from friends.

Question 50: User Persona is a

Answer: Qualitative Approach

Post a comment

Join the conversation and share your thoughts! Leave the first comment.

Get your FREE PDF on "100 Ways to Try ChatGPT Today"

Generating link, please wait for: 60 seconds

Checkout all hot deals now 🔥

You may also like, search blogs, noobgeek.in.

• Terms and Conditions
• Privacy Policy

MNC Answers

• Remove Ads!
• MNC Answers App

User Research Methods MCQs Solution | TCS Fresco Play

Disclaimer: The primary purpose of providing this solution is to assist and support anyone who are unable to complete these courses due to a technical issue or a lack of expertise. This website's information or data are solely for the purpose of knowledge and education.

Make an effort to understand these solutions and apply them to your Hands-On difficulties. (It is not advisable that copy and paste these solutions).

All Question of the MCQs Present Below for Ease Use  Ctrl + F  with the question name to find the Question. All the Best!

False — Correct

34. One size fits all’ should not be the focus of UX design.

The Complete Guide to UX Research Methods

UX research provides invaluable insight into product users and what they need and value. Not only will research reduce the risk of a miscalculated guess, it will uncover new opportunities for innovation.

By Miklos Philips

Miklos is a UX designer, product design strategist, author, and speaker with more than 18 years of experience in the design field.

PREVIOUSLY AT

“Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task.” —Tim Brown, CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO

User experience (UX) design is the process of designing products that are useful, easy to use, and a pleasure to engage. It’s about enhancing the entire experience people have while interacting with a product and making sure they find value, satisfaction, and delight. If a mountain peak represents that goal, employing various types of UX research is the path UX designers use to get to the top of the mountain.

User experience research is one of the most misunderstood yet critical steps in UX design. Sometimes treated as an afterthought or an unaffordable luxury, UX research, and user testing should inform every design decision.

Every product, service, or user interface designers create in the safety and comfort of their workplaces has to survive and prosper in the real world. Countless people will engage our creations in an unpredictable environment over which designers have no control. UX research is the key to grounding ideas in reality and improving the odds of success, but research can be a scary word. It may sound like money we don’t have, time we can’t spare, and expertise we have to seek.

In order to do UX research effectively—to get a clear picture of what users think and why they do what they do—e.g., to “walk a mile in the user’s shoes” as a favorite UX maxim goes, it is essential that user experience designers and product teams conduct user research often and regularly. Contingent upon time, resources, and budget, the deeper they can dive the better.

What Is UX Research?

There is a long, comprehensive list of UX design research methods employed by user researchers , but at its center is the user and how they think and behave —their needs and motivations. Typically, UX research does this through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies.

There are two main types of user research: quantitative (statistics: can be calculated and computed; focuses on numbers and mathematical calculations) and qualitative (insights: concerned with descriptions, which can be observed but cannot be computed).

Quantitative research is primarily exploratory research and is used to quantify the problem by way of generating numerical data or data that can be transformed into usable statistics. Some common data collection methods include various forms of surveys – online surveys , paper surveys , mobile surveys and kiosk surveys , longitudinal studies, website interceptors, online polls, and systematic observations.

This user research method may also include analytics, such as Google Analytics .

Google Analytics is part of a suite of interconnected tools that help interpret data on your site’s visitors including Data Studio , a powerful data-visualization tool, and Google Optimize, for running and analyzing dynamic A/B testing.

Quantitative data from analytics platforms should ideally be balanced with qualitative insights gathered from other UX testing methods , such as focus groups or usability testing. The analytical data will show patterns that may be useful for deciding what assumptions to test further.

Qualitative user research is a direct assessment of behavior based on observation. It’s about understanding people’s beliefs and practices on their terms. It can involve several different methods including contextual observation, ethnographic studies, interviews, field studies, and moderated usability tests.

Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group feels that in the case of UX research, it is better to emphasize insights (qualitative research) and that although quant has some advantages, qualitative research breaks down complicated information so it’s easy to understand, and overall delivers better results more cost effectively—in other words, it is much cheaper to find and fix problems during the design phase before you start to build. Often the most important information is not quantifiable, and he goes on to suggest that “quantitative studies are often too narrow to be useful and are sometimes directly misleading.”

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. William Bruce Cameron

Design research is not typical of traditional science with ethnography being its closest equivalent—effective usability is contextual and depends on a broad understanding of human behavior if it is going to work.

Nevertheless, the types of user research you can or should perform will depend on the type of site, system or app you are developing, your timeline, and your environment.

Top UX Research Methods and When to Use Them

Here are some examples of the types of user research performed at each phase of a project.

Card Sorting : Allows users to group and sort a site’s information into a logical structure that will typically drive navigation and the site’s information architecture. This helps ensure that the site structure matches the way users think.

Contextual Interviews : Enables the observation of users in their natural environment, giving you a better understanding of the way users work.

First Click Testing : A testing method focused on navigation, which can be performed on a functioning website, a prototype, or a wireframe.

Focus Groups : Moderated discussion with a group of users, allowing insight into user attitudes, ideas, and desires.

Heuristic Evaluation/Expert Review : A group of usability experts evaluating a website against a list of established guidelines .

Interviews : One-on-one discussions with users show how a particular user works. They enable you to get detailed information about a user’s attitudes, desires, and experiences.

Parallel Design : A design methodology that involves several designers pursuing the same effort simultaneously but independently, with the intention to combine the best aspects of each for the ultimate solution.

Personas : The creation of a representative user based on available data and user interviews. Though the personal details of the persona may be fictional, the information used to create the user type is not.

Prototyping : Allows the design team to explore ideas before implementing them by creating a mock-up of the site. A prototype can range from a paper mock-up to interactive HTML pages.

Surveys : A series of questions asked to multiple users of your website that help you learn about the people who visit your site.

System Usability Scale (SUS) : SUS is a technology-independent ten-item scale for subjective evaluation of the usability.

Task Analysis : Involves learning about user goals, including what users want to do on your website, and helps you understand the tasks that users will perform on your site.

Usability Testing : Identifies user frustrations and problems with a site through one-on-one sessions where a “real-life” user performs tasks on the site being studied.

Use Cases : Provide a description of how users use a particular feature of your website. They provide a detailed look at how users interact with the site, including the steps users take to accomplish each task.

You can do user research at all stages or whatever stage you are in currently. However, the Nielsen Norman Group advises that most of it be done during the earlier phases when it will have the biggest impact. They also suggest it’s a good idea to save some of your budget for additional research that may become necessary (or helpful) later in the project.

Here is a diagram listing recommended options that can be done as a project moves through the design stages. The process will vary, and may only include a few things on the list during each phase. The most frequently used methods are shown in bold.

Reasons for Doing UX Research

Here are three great reasons for doing user research :

To create a product that is truly relevant to users

• If you don’t have a clear understanding of your users and their mental models, you have no way of knowing whether your design will be relevant. A design that is not relevant to its target audience will never be a success.

To create a product that is easy and pleasurable to use

• A favorite quote from Steve Jobs: “ If the user is having a problem, it’s our problem .” If your user experience is not optimal, chances are that people will move on to another product.

To have the return on investment (ROI) of user experience design validated and be able to show:

• An improvement in performance and credibility
• Increased exposure and sales—growth in customer base
• A reduced burden on resources—more efficient work processes

Aside from the reasons mentioned above, doing user research gives insight into which features to prioritize, and in general, helps develop clarity around a project.

What Results Can I Expect from UX Research?

In the words of Mike Kuniaysky, user research is “ the process of understanding the impact of design on an audience. ”

User research has been essential to the success of behemoths like USAA and Amazon ; Joe Gebbia, CEO of Airbnb is an enthusiastic proponent, testifying that its implementation helped turn things around for the company when it was floundering as an early startup.

Some of the results generated through UX research confirm that improving the usability of a site or app will:

• Increase conversion rates
• Increase sign-ups
• Increase NPS (net promoter score)
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Increase purchase rates
• Boost loyalty to the brand
• Reduce customer service calls

Additionally, and aside from benefiting the overall user experience, the integration of UX research into the development process can:

• Minimize development time
• Reduce production costs
• Uncover valuable insights about your audience
• Give an in-depth view into users’ mental models, pain points, and goals

User research is at the core of every exceptional user experience. As the name suggests, UX is subjective—the experience that a person goes through while using a product. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the needs and goals of potential users, the context, and their tasks which are unique for each product. By selecting appropriate UX research methods and applying them rigorously, designers can shape a product’s design and can come up with products that serve both customers and businesses more effectively.

Further Reading on the Toptal Blog:

• How to Conduct Effective UX Research: A Guide
• The Value of User Research
• UX Research Methods and the Path to User Empathy
• Design Talks: Research in Action with UX Researcher Caitria O'Neill
• Swipe Right: 3 Ways to Boost Safety in Dating App Design
• How to Avoid 5 Types of Cognitive Bias in User Research

Understanding the basics

How do you do user research in ux.

UX research includes two main types: quantitative (statistical data) and qualitative (insights that can be observed but not computed), done through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies. The UX research methods used depend on the type of site, system, or app being developed.

What are UX methods?

There is a long list of methods employed by user research, but at its center is the user and how they think, behave—their needs and motivations. Typically, UX research does this through observation techniques, task analysis, and other UX methodologies.

What is the best research methodology for user experience design?

The type of UX methodology depends on the type of site, system or app being developed, its timeline, and environment. There are 2 main types: quantitative (statistics) and qualitative (insights).

What does a UX researcher do?

A user researcher removes the need for false assumptions and guesswork by using observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies to understand a user’s motivation, behavior, and needs.

Why is UX research important?

UX research will help create a product that is relevant to users and is easy and pleasurable to use while boosting a product’s ROI. Aside from these reasons, user research gives insight into which features to prioritize, and in general, helps develop clarity around a project.

• UserResearch

Miklos Philips

London, United Kingdom

Member since May 20, 2016

About the author

World-class articles, delivered weekly.

By entering your email, you are agreeing to our privacy policy .

Toptal Designers

• Adobe Creative Suite Experts
• Agile Designers
• AI Designers
• Art Direction Experts
• Augmented Reality Designers
• Axure Experts
• Brand Designers
• Creative Directors
• Dashboard Designers
• Digital Product Designers
• E-commerce Website Designers
• Full-Stack Designers
• Information Architecture Experts
• Interactive Designers
• Mobile App Designers
• Mockup Designers
• Presentation Designers
• Prototype Designers
• SaaS Designers
• Sketch Experts
• Squarespace Designers
• User Flow Designers
• User Research Designers
• Virtual Reality Designers
• Visual Designers
• Wireframing Experts
• View More Freelance Designers

Join the Toptal ® community.

• Reviews / Why join our community?
• For companies
• Frequently asked questions

User Research – Methods and Best Practices

How this course will help your career, what you’ll learn.

What qualitative user research is and why you should do it

How to fit user research into your own design process

How to plan user research projects that are valid and ethically sound

How to run a usability test, conduct a user interview, perform a contextual inquiry and make user observations

How to deal with the results of your research and apply qualitative analysis

How to make your research matter by communicating effectively about your research results—to clients, bosses and other stakeholders

How do you plan to design a product or service that your users will love , if you don't know what they want in the first place? As a user experience designer, you shouldn't leave it to chance to design something outstanding; you should make the effort to understand your users and build on that knowledge from the outset. User research is the way to do this, and it can therefore be thought of as the largest part of user experience design .

In fact, user research is often the first step of a UX design process—after all, you cannot begin to design a product or service without first understanding what your users want! As you gain the skills required, and learn about the best practices in user research, you’ll get first-hand knowledge of your users and be able to design the optimal product—one that’s truly relevant for your users and, subsequently, outperforms your competitors’ .

This course will give you insights into the most essential qualitative research methods around and will teach you how to put them into practice in your design work. You’ll also have the opportunity to embark on three practical projects where you can apply what you’ve learned to carry out user research in the real world . You’ll learn details about how to plan user research projects and fit them into your own work processes in a way that maximizes the impact your research can have on your designs. On top of that, you’ll gain practice with different methods that will help you analyze the results of your research and communicate your findings to your clients and stakeholders—workshops, user journeys and personas, just to name a few!

By the end of the course, you’ll have not only a Course Certificate but also three case studies to add to your portfolio. And remember, a portfolio with engaging case studies is invaluable if you are looking to break into a career in UX design or user research!

We believe you should learn from the best, so we’ve gathered a team of experts to help teach this course alongside our own course instructors. That means you’ll meet a new instructor in each of the lessons on research methods who is an expert in their field—we hope you enjoy what they have in store for you!

Gain an Industry-Recognized UX Course Certificate

Use your industry-recognized Course Certificate on your resume , CV , LinkedIn profile or your website.

Our courses and Course Certificates are trusted by these industry leaders:

Is This Course Right for You?

This is an intermediate-level course recommended for anyone involved or interested in product design and development:

• UX designers looking to broaden their UX careers with additional research techniques
• Project managers who are interested in techniques that will enable their design team to develop a greater understanding of users
• Entrepreneurs interested in building a user-centered product that users will want and purchase
• Marketers looking to gain a holistic view of customers’ needs and motivations
• Newcomers who are considering making the switch to UX design

Courses in the Interaction Design Foundation are designed to contain comprehensive, evidence-based content, while ensuring that the learning curve is never too steep. As a participant, you will have the opportunity to share ideas, seek help with tests, and enjoy the social aspects afforded by our open and friendly forum.

Learn and Work with a Global Team of Designers

You’ll join a global community and work together to improve your skills and career opportunities. Connect with helpful peers and make friends with like-minded individuals as you push deeper into the exciting and booming industry of design.

Lessons in This Course

• Each week, one lesson becomes available.
• There’s no time limit to finish a course. Lessons have no deadlines .
• Estimated learning time: 32 hours 15 mins spread over 8 weeks .

Lesson 0: Welcome and Introduction

• 0.1: Welcome and Introduction (11 mins) Start course now
• 0.2: Build Your Portfolio Project (9 mins) Start course now
• 0.3: An introduction to courses from the Interaction Design Foundation (37 mins) Start course now
• 0.4: Let our community help you (1 min) Start course now
• 0.5: How to Earn Your Course Certificate (16 mins) Start course now
• 0.6: Meet your peers online in our discussion forums (5 mins) Start course now
• 0.7: Meet and learn from design professionals at an upcoming meet-up (1 min) Start course now
• 0.8: Gain Timeless Skills Through Courses From the Interaction Design Foundation (21 mins) Start course now
• 0.9: Mandatory vs. Optional Lesson Items (7 mins) Start course now
• 0.10: A Mix Between Video-Based and Text-Based Lesson Content (6 mins) Start course now
• 0.11: Discussion Forum (6 mins) Start course now
• See all lesson items See less lesson items

Lesson 1: Why do User Research and How to Fit User Research into Your Everyday Work

• 1.1: Welcome and Introduction (6 mins) Start course now
• 1.2: User Research: What It Is and Why You Should Do It (24 mins) Start course now
• 1.3: When to do User Research (21 mins) Start course now
• 1.4: How to Involve Stakeholders in Your User Research (21 mins) Start course now
• 1.5: Return on Investment of User Research (2 hours 20 mins) Start course now
• 1.6: Discussion Forum (7 mins) Start course now
• 1.7: Congratulations and Recap (6 mins) Start course now

Lesson 2: The Basics of Qualitative User Research

• 2.1: Welcome and Introduction (6 mins) Start course now
• 2.2: The Basics of Recruiting Participants for User Research (19 mins) Start course now
• 2.3: Planning a User Research Project (1 hour 7 mins) Start course now
• 2.4: Best Practices for Qualitative User Research (27 mins) Start course now
• 2.5: Conducting Ethical User Research (20 mins) Start course now
• 2.6: Discussion Forum (8 mins) Start course now
• 2.7: Congratulations and Recap (6 mins) Start course now

Lesson 3: Usability Testing

• 3.1: Welcome and Introduction (11 mins) Start course now
• 3.2: Introduction to Usability Testing Methods and Metrics (1 hour 3 mins) Start course now
• 3.3: Planning a Usability Test (1 hour 20 mins) Start course now
• 3.4: Running a Usability Test (1 hour 2 mins) Start course now
• 3.5: Reporting on the Results of a Usability Test (47 mins) Start course now
• 3.6: Discussion Forum (7 mins) Start course now
• 3.7: Congratulations and Recap (6 mins) Start course now

Lesson 4: Semi-Structured Qualitative Interviews

• 4.1: Welcome and Introduction (8 mins) Start course now
• 4.2: Pros and Cons of Conducting User Interviews (46 mins) Start course now
• 4.3: How to Prepare for a User Interview and Ask the Right Questions (52 mins) Start course now
• 4.4: How to Moderate User Interviews (1 hour 55 mins) Start course now
• 4.5: How to Do a Thematic Analysis of User Interviews (57 mins) Start course now
• 4.6: Discussion Forum (6 mins) Start course now
• 4.7: Build Your Portfolio Project: User Interviews (18 mins) Start course now
• 4.8: Congratulations and Recap (6 mins) Start course now

Lesson 5: Contextual Inquiry

• 5.1: Welcome and Introduction (7 mins) Start course now
• 5.2: Introduction to Contextual Inquiry (1 hour 50 mins) Start course now
• 5.3: Planning a Contextual Inquiry (1 hour 0 mins) Start course now
• 5.4: Running a Contextual Inquiry (1 hour 55 mins) Start course now
• 5.5: Analyzing a Contextual Inquiry (1 hour 27 mins) Start course now
• 5.6: Discussion Forum (7 mins) Start course now
• 5.7: Build Your Portfolio Project: Contextual Inquiry (19 mins) Start course now
• 5.8: Congratulations and Recap (6 mins) Start course now

Lesson 6: User Observations

• 6.1: Welcome and Introduction (8 mins) Start course now
• 6.2: Introduction to Observational Methods (1 hour 39 mins) Start course now
• 6.3: Planning an Observational Study (34 mins) Start course now
• 6.4: Running an Observational Study (1 hour 22 mins) Start course now
• 6.5: Analyzing an Observational Study (1 hour 41 mins) Start course now
• 6.6: Discussion Forum (7 mins) Start course now
• 6.7: Build Your Portfolio Project: Observations (20 mins) Start course now
• 6.8: Congratulations and Recap (6 mins) Start course now

Lesson 7: How to Make Your Research Matter

• 7.1: Welcome and Introduction (8 mins) Start course now
• 7.2: How to Visualize Your Qualitative User Research Results for Maximum Impact (20 mins) Start course now
• 7.3: Creating Personas from User Research Results (44 mins) Start course now
• 7.4: Workshops to Establish Empathy and Understanding from User Research Results (17 mins) Start course now
• 7.5: Discussion Forum (9 mins) Start course now
• 7.6: Build Your Portfolio Project: Create Design Deliverables (17 mins) Start course now
• 7.7: Congratulations and Recap (6 mins) Start course now

Lesson 8: Course Certificate, Final Networking, and Course Wrap-up

• 8.1: Get Your Course Certificate (1 min) Start course now
• 8.2: Course Evaluation (1 min) Start course now
• 8.3: Continue Your Professional Growth (1 min) Start course now

Learning Paths

This course is part of 4 learning paths:

How Others Have Benefited

Ulrike Bruckenberger, Austria

“I enjoyed the mix between video and text very much and I am sure that it improved my learning experience. In general the content of the course was very interesting to me and I consider it very useful for improving in doing user research. I really like the possibility to download templates about different methods because they enable me to easily look up the most important information.”

Laura Gieco, Australia

“A strength of the course was the instructors' knowledge and examples from their own experience. I find it very useful when someone tells you stories, in this case about situations when they did research. The lessons where very easy to follow and understand.”

Juan Esteban Arango Florez, Colombia

“The course instructor has a lot of knowledge and experience, and can explain the topics without a problem.”

How It Works

Lessons are self-paced so you’ll never be late for class or miss a deadline. Learning and life, hand in hand.

Your answers are graded by experts, not machines. Get an industry-recognized Course Certificate to show you’ve put in the work.

Grow your professional knowledge by watching Master Classes, networking within our UX community, and more.

Start Advancing Your Career Now

Join us to take “User Research – Methods and Best Practices”. Take other courses at no additional cost. Make a concrete step forward in your career path today.

• Frequently Asked Questions

Don't worry if you missed the course . We will re-run it shortly. One of the reasons we continually open and close courses is in order to control the classroom size.

Networking is a large part of our value proposition, so we want just the right number of people inside the courses. That is also why we display the "XX % percent booked" on our course icons.

No . You can set your own study schedule. There are no "live sessions" since we have members from all timezones around the world. We are a truly global community.

Thus, once you are enrolled, you can take all the time to complete a given course. Every "classroom" in each course will never close , so you’ll have permanent access to your classmates and your course material (as well as your own answers).

Yes. You will get a digital industry-recognized course certificate every time you complete a course. Certificates never expire and can be saved as a .jpg file, so it's easy to be shared. Also, there is no limit to how many certificates you can earn during your membership.

You can see an example of a Course Certificate at the bottom of the Course Catalogue .

Don't worry; once you change your name, your certificate will be updated automatically in the next 48 hours.

Sure! We will be marking all your answers for as long as you are an active member.

You will have access to the course materials for the entire duration of your membership . So, if you pay for a one-year membership, you will have access for one year. Renewing your membership for a second year means you will have access to one more year, and so on.

No, you will not be locked out of any lesson or course. You will have access to all course materials throughout your membership, so there is no pressure to keep at the same pace as the specified lesson release dates.

All we recommend is that you try to stick to the same schedule as other participants. The reason is they may have moved on to other lessons, thereby meaning you could miss out on the social aspects of the course(s).

No, you can generate your certificate as soon as you score at least 70% of the total course points.

Course certificates will be given to participants when they have scored more than 70% or more of the total course points. For example, if a course contains ten lessons each with ten questions, you will receive a course certificate when the instructor has awarded you at least 70 points (70% of the total course points).

There is no specified time that certificates will be awarded — instead, they are given to participants as and when they have answered all questions, even if this is long after the official end date.

Below is a step-by-step guide on how to add your Interaction Design Foundation course(s) to your LinkedIn profile: 

Log in to your LinkedIn account, then go to your profile.

Below your profile description, click on the button Add profile section , choose Recommended and then select Add license or certification .

3. In the following fields add: 

Name – Course name

Issuing organization – The Interaction Design Foundation

Check the field “This credential does not expire”

Issue date - Input the date written on your certificate (e.g., May 2021)

Credential ID – Your membership ID number – it's written on your certificate. (For non-members, you can leave this field blank or, if you prefer, insert the certificate ID, which can be extracted from the certificate link. This ID will begin with "mcc_" and be followed by a string of numbers and letters.")

Credential URL: Input the certificate URL provided on your course page

Congratulate yourself!  Earning the certificate is a great accomplishment and now you can share it with the world! 

Name – Membership Certificate

Issue date - Input the date when you joined our community (e.g., May 2019)

Credential ID – Your membership ID number (it's written on your certificate)

Credential URL: Input the certificate URL provided on your profile page

It is as simple as that. Now, anyone who visits your profile can see your certificate! 

After you pay for your membership, you can take as many courses as you want with no additional costs . There are no further charges on top of the membership fee.

You will need approximately 5-8 hours to complete one lesson. Each course has between 3 and 16 lessons.

Once enrolled in a course, you will gain access to a new lesson each week, which you are free to complete without any deadlines and no end date, either.

Yes! Everyone's learning journey looks different, and we'd never stop our members from trying again. To retake a course, just follow these steps:

1. Go to your profile and click on the relevant course you'd like to retake.

2. Underneath your progress bar, you'll see a phrase "UX Courses" with an arrow (>) pointing to a clickable landing page of that course. Click on that link.

3. Once on the landing page, scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. You'll see a red button, which you can simply click to drop the course.

4. Head back to our main list of UX Courses, and re-enroll yourself in the course. You'll all set to try again!

Please note that when you drop a course, you will lose any answers and progress you submitted. We advise that you screenshot or save any answers you'd like to reuse.

In some cases, we can open up lessons for members who are retaking a course, so that they don't have to wait for familiar lessons to unlock each week. If you'd like us to do this for you, please get in touch with our support team at [email protected] , and we can help you out.

To drop a course, the following should be done:

1. Visit your profile page and click the 'continue lesson...' button for the course you want to drop.

2. Click the course name link breadcrumb near the top of the page that opens (this only appears in unlocked lessons, not upcoming lessons)

3. Click the red 'drop my course now' button at the bottom of the page that opens

Privacy Settings

Our digital services use necessary tracking technologies, including third-party cookies, for security, functionality, and to uphold user rights. Optional cookies offer enhanced features, and analytics.

Experience the full potential of our site that remembers your preferences and supports secure sign-in.

Governs the storage of data necessary for maintaining website security, user authentication, and fraud prevention mechanisms.

Enhanced Functionality

Saves your settings and preferences, like your location, for a more personalized experience.

Referral Program

We use cookies to enable our referral program, giving you and your friends discounts.

Error Reporting

We share user ID with Bugsnag and NewRelic to help us track errors and fix issues.

Optimize your experience by allowing us to monitor site usage. You’ll enjoy a smoother, more personalized journey without compromising your privacy.

Analytics Storage

Collects anonymous data on how you navigate and interact, helping us make informed improvements.

Differentiates real visitors from automated bots, ensuring accurate usage data and improving your website experience.

Lets us tailor your digital ads to match your interests, making them more relevant and useful to you.

Advertising Storage

Stores information for better-targeted advertising, enhancing your online ad experience.

Personalization Storage

Permits storing data to personalize content and ads across Google services based on user behavior, enhancing overall user experience.

Advertising Personalization

Allows for content and ad personalization across Google services based on user behavior. This consent enhances user experiences.

Enables personalizing ads based on user data and interactions, allowing for more relevant advertising experiences across Google services.

Receive more relevant advertisements by sharing your interests and behavior with our trusted advertising partners.

Enables better ad targeting and measurement on Meta platforms, making ads you see more relevant.

Allows for improved ad effectiveness and measurement through Meta’s Conversions API, ensuring privacy-compliant data sharing.

LinkedIn Insights

Tracks conversions, retargeting, and web analytics for LinkedIn ad campaigns, enhancing ad relevance and performance.

LinkedIn CAPI

Enhances LinkedIn advertising through server-side event tracking, offering more accurate measurement and personalization.

Google Ads Tag

Tracks ad performance and user engagement, helping deliver ads that are most useful to you.

New to UX Design? We’re Giving You a Free ebook!

Download our free ebook The Basics of User Experience Design to learn about core concepts of UX design.

In 9 chapters, we’ll cover: conducting user interviews, design thinking, interaction design, mobile UX design, usability, UX research, and many more!

6 User Research Methods & When To Use Them

Learn more about 6 common user research methods and how they can be used to strengthen your UX design process.

Stay in the know with The Brief

Get weekly insightful articles, ideas, & news on UI/ UX and related spaces  – in to your inbox

User research is the process of understanding user needs and desires through observation and feedback. 

It's one of the most important aspects of UX design, and it's used to inform all aspects of the design process, from initial sketches to the final product. Through user research, we can answer important questions about our design, such as Who are our users? and What do they need?

In this blog post, we will discuss six common user research methods, what they are, when to use them, and some common challenges associated with each one.

Let’s get started …

What is User Research?

Why is user research integral to the ux process, 6 common user research methods, how to get started with user research in ux design projects, key takeaways.

User research is a process of gathering data about users in order to design better products that meet their needs . 

It's used in every part of the design process, from the initial market research and concepting stages, through the final interface design testing and iteration stages.

The goal: to gather data that will allow you to make informed decisions as you create design solutions.

Term Check: User Research vs. UX Research

Depending on what you read, you might come across the terms user research , UX research , or simply design research —all used interchangeably. 

While they all tend to refer to the process of collecting user-centric data, there is some distinction that can be applied:

The term user research is often used when you want to learn more about the target audience for a product or service; who they are, how they think, what their goals are, etc.

UX research , on the other hand, tends to be used when you’re conducting research that focuses on how users interact with a product or service. 

In this article, we’ll be looking at user research holistically, whether specifically talking about the users themselves, or learning more about how they interact with and experience your design work.

User research is an integral part of the design process: it ensures you have enough data and insights to make informed decisions about the design work you produce, reducing the risk of making assumptions and creating something no one truly wants.

Successful UX design requires a deep understanding of the people who will be using your product and how they interact with it. No matter how experienced you are as a designer, there is no way to validate your assumptions about design solutions without data. And the only way to acquire this understanding is by collecting data from the users themselves.

There are a variety of user research methods, each with its own strengths and weaknesses. Here are 6 common methodologies that are easy to incorporate into your UX design process.

1. User Interviews

Interviews are a type of user research method in which the researcher talks with participants to collect data. This method is used to gather insights about people's attitudes, beliefs, behaviors, and experiences. Interviews are a great way to gather in-depth, qualitative data from users. 

Interviews are best conducted in a live conversation, whether that takes place in person, on a video call, or even on the phone. They can be structured or unstructured, depending on what best fits your research needs:

• Structured interviews follow a set list of questions
• Unstructured interviews are intended for more open-ended conversation

Challenges:

When deciding whether to use interviews as a user research method, it is important to consider the goals of the research, the target audience, and the availability of resources. Interviews are extremely time-consuming, both for the interviewer and the interviewee. However, if the goal of the research is to observe behavior in a natural setting, or if the target audience is not available to participate in interviews, then another user research method may be more appropriate.

Surveys are a user research method in which participants are asked to answer a series of questions, usually about a specific topic. Surveys are well suited for collecting data that can be quantified, but they are not as well suited for collecting qualitative data, since answers are often nuanced and lack appropriate context.

Surveys are best used when …

Since surveys can be easily distributed to a large number of people, they’re often a good choice for gathering information from people who might not be able—or willing—to participate in other types of user research (such as usability testing). 

Since surveys rely on self-reported data, it’s important to avoid phrases or words that might influence the users’ answers. Furthermore, this type of user research often provides data without context, since you aren’t able to follow up and understand some of the nuances of the responses.

3. Focus Groups

Focus groups are a type of user research method in which a group of people are brought together to discuss a product, service, or experience. Focus groups provide an opportunity for users to discuss their experiences and opinions with each other in a guided setting. When done correctly, focus groups can provide valuable insights that can help shape both product design and marketing strategies.

Focus groups are best used when … 

Focus groups can help uncover user needs and perspectives that may not be apparent through individual interviews or surveys.

Tips to make it work:

To get the most out of a focus group, it is important to carefully select participants that are representative of the target audience, as well as those who represent various accessibility needs, which might otherwise be overlooked or receive less consideration. The moderator should also be skilled in leading discussions and facilitating group dynamics to avoid participants from influencing each other.

4. A/B Testing

A/B testing is a user research method in which two versions of a design are created, then tested against each other to determine which is more effective. 

These versions can be identical except for one small change, or they can be completely different. Once the two versions have been created, they are then assigned to users at random. The results of the test are then analyzed to see which version was more successful. 

A/B testing is best used when …

You can incorporate A/B testing at any stage of the design process, but you might find you get the most helpful insights when you’re in a state of refinement, or are at a crossroads and need some data to help you decide which route to take. 

Once you have your design variations ready to test, it’s up to the developers (or an A/B testing software program) to make the test live to users. It’s important to let the test run long enough so that any statistical significance is steady and repeatable. (If the test does not provide statistically significant results, it’s time to go back to the drawing board and try out a different variation.)

5. Card Sorting

Card sorting is a user research method that can be used to help understand how people think about the items in a given category. Card sorting involves providing users with a set of cards, each of which contains an item from the category, and asking them to sort the cards into groups. The groups can be based on any criteria that the users choose, and the sorted cards can then be analyzed to identify patterns in the way that the users think about the items. Card sorting can be used with both small and large sets of items, making it a versatile tool for user research.

Card sorting is best used when …

You are looking for insight into categorical questions like how to structure the information architecture of a website.

For example, if you were designing a website for a library, you might use card sorting to understand how users would expect the website's content to be organized.

Like the other research methods mentioned so far, a successful card sorting exercise requires a significant amount of thought and setup ahead of time. You might use an open sorting session , where the users create their own categories, if you want insight into the grouping logic of your users. In a closed sorting session , the categories are already defined, but it’s up to the participants to decide where to file each card. 

6. Tree Test

Tree testing is a user research method that helps evaluate the findability and usability of website content. It is often used as a follow-up to card sorting, or when there are large amounts of website content, multiple website navigation structures, or changes to an existing website.

To conduct a tree test, participants are asked to find specific items on a website, starting from the home page. They are not told what the navigation options are, but are given hints if they get stuck. This helps researchers understand how users find and interact with the website content.

Tree testing is best used when ...

This method is most effective when combined with other user research methods, such as interviews, surveys, and focus groups. This is because it’s really a way to finesse the user’s experience at the end of the design process, rather than a method of collecting the preliminary data that’s needed to arrive at this point.

Tree testing can be a challenging method to conduct, as it requires specific instructions and data collection methods for each test. In addition, participants may not use the same navigation paths that you intended, making it difficult to analyze the results. To account for this, it’s important to have a large enough sample size to be able to differentiate between outliers and general trends.

User research is a critical part of any project or product development process. It helps you to understand the needs and expectations of your target users, and ensures that your final product meets their requirements. 

There are many different ways to conduct user research, but the most important thing is to start early and to continually iterate throughout the development process.

For this, you’ll need to make sure that you have enough resources to incorporate the research successfully, which includes:

• A budget that accounts for the various expenses incurred during the research process, whether that’s subscribing to a user research tool or compensating participants for their time.
• An awareness of your own personal biases, and how they might affect the data you collect and the interpretation of results.
• Time for research and analysis , since you might need to adjust the research method, or number of participants, that you were initially planning on including.
• Buy-in from stakeholders , since the results might be jarring and contradict some of the assumptions that the project was built on.

Finally, it is important to be aware of your own personal biases. Despite these challenges, user research is an essential tool for designers, as it provides insights into how people interact with products and what their needs and wants are. 

• User research is essential for designing products that meet the needs of your target audience.
• By understanding your users, you can design better products that meet user needs and improve the overall user experience.
• Getting started with user research can be daunting, but there are a few common methods that are easy to learn and incorporate into your design process.
• By being aware of the challenges involved in conducting user research, you can create a research plan that minimizes potential problems and maximizes the chances of obtaining valuable insights.
• Once you have collected your data, it is important to analyze and interpret it so that you can use it to improve your product or design process. 
• User research can be challenging, but by following best practices and being prepared for common challenges, you can conduct successful user research studies that will help you create better products.

To learn more about establishing a UX design practice rooted in research and user-centered data, check out UX Academy Foundations , an introductory course that teaches design fundamentals with practical, hands-on projects and 1:1 mentorship with a professional designer.

Get weekly insightful articles, ideas,& news on UI/ UX and related spaces  – in to your inbox

Launch a career in ux design with our top-rated program

Top Designers Use Data.

Gain confidence using product data to design better, justify design decisions, and win stakeholders. 6-week course for experienced UX designers.

HOW TO BECOME A UX DESIGNER

Send me the ebook and sign me up for other offers and content on transitioning to a career in UX design.

Related posts

The 14 Best UX Design Courses for 2024 (For Beginner & Experienced Designers)

UX Design for Emerging Technologies: AR, VR, and MR

The Impact of Emotional Design on User Engagement

Integrations

What's new?

Prototype Testing

Live Website Testing

Feedback Surveys

Interview Studies

Card Sorting

Tree Testing

In-Product Prompts

Participant Management

Automated Reports

Templates Gallery

Choose from our library of pre-built mazes to copy, customize, and share with your own users

Browse all templates

Financial Services

Tech & Software

Product Designers

Product Managers

User Researchers

By use case

Concept & Idea Validation

Wireframe & Usability Test

Content & Copy Testing

Feedback & Satisfaction

Content Hub

Educational resources for product, research and design teams

Explore all resources

Question Bank

Research Maturity Model

Guides & Reports

Help Center

Future of User Research Report

The Optimal Path Podcast

Maze Guides | Resources Hub

What is UX Research: The Ultimate Guide for UX Researchers

0% complete

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.

Remove the guesswork from product decisions

Collect both quantitative and qualitative insights from your customers and build truly user-centric products with Maze.

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

• Set up your Design System Workshop
• Tečaj: oblikovalski sistem
• UI tečaj: od ideje do prototipa
• DSG Newsletter
• The Design Strategy Cards
• The Ultimate Design Strategy e-book
• Free Design Strategy Crash Course

No products in the cart.

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

This is part one of a guide to User research.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On this page

Why is user research so important?

Step #1: define research objectives.

Go ahead – create that fake persona

Step #2: Pick your methods

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

Focus groups

Competitive analysis

Field studies

What’s next?

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

Which is a HUGE mistake.

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

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

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

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

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

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

? Bonus material Download User research checklist and a comparison table

Never forget – you are not your user.

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

Let’s start with the process!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Go ahead, create that fake persona

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

Ask yourself:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Nielsen Norman Group

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

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

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

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

Onto the next step!

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

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

Here’s my advice for most cases.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Focus Groups

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

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

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

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

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

Competitive Analysis

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

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

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

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

Field Studies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About the author

Oh hey, I’m Romina Kavcic

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

More about me  *  Let’s connect on Linkedin   *  Let’s connect on Twitter

Explore more

Username or email address  *

Password  *

Remember me Log in

Lost your password?

Insert/edit link

Enter the destination URL

Or link to existing content

Understanding Your Users: A Practical Guide to User Research Methods

Research areas.

Human-Computer Interaction and Visualization

Meet the teams driving innovation

Our teams advance the state of the art through research, systems engineering, and collaboration across Google.

Skip navigation

World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience

When to use which user-experience research methods.

July 17, 2022 2022-07-17

• Email article
• Share on LinkedIn
• Share on Twitter

The field of user experience has a wide range of  research methods  available, ranging from tried-and-true methods such as lab-based usability testing to those that have been more recently developed, such as unmoderated UX assessments.

While it's not realistic to use the full set of methods on a given project, nearly all projects would benefit from multiple research methods and from combining insights. Unfortunately, many design teams only use one or two methods that they are most familiar with. The key question is what to use when.

In This Article:

Three-dimensional framework, the attitudinal vs. behavioral dimension, the qualitative vs. quantitative dimension, the context of product use, phases of product development (the time dimension), art or science, 20 ux methods in brief.

To better understand when to use which method, it is helpful to view them along a  3-dimensional framework  with the following axes:

• Attitudinal vs. Behavioral
• Qualitative vs. Quantitative
• Context of Use

The following chart illustrates where 20 popular methods appear along these dimensions:

This distinction can be summed up by  contrasting "what people say" versus "what people do"  (very often the two are quite different). The purpose of attitudinal research is usually to understand or measure people's stated beliefs, but it is limited by what people are aware of and willing to report.

While most  usability studies should rely on behavior , methods that use self-reported information can still be quite useful to designers. For example,  card sorting  provides insights about users' mental model of an information space and can help determine the best information architecture for your product, application, or website.  Surveys  measure and categorize attitudes or collect self-reported data that can help track or discover important issues to address.  Focus groups tend to be less useful for usability  purposes, for a variety of reasons, but can provide a top-of-mind view of what people think about a brand or product concept in a group setting.

On the other end of this dimension, methods that focus mostly on behavior seek to understand "what people do" with the product or service in question. For example  A/B testing  presents changes to a site's design to random samples of site visitors but attempts to hold all else constant, in order to see the effect of different site-design choices on behavior, while  eyetracking  seeks to understand how users visually interact with a design or visual stimulus.

Between these two extremes lie the two most popular methods we use: usability studies and  field studies . They utilize a mixture of self-reported and behavioral data and can move toward either end of this dimension, though leaning toward the behavioral side is generally recommended.

The distinction here is an important one and goes well beyond the narrow view of qualitative as in an open-ended survey question. Rather, studies that are qualitative in nature generate data about behaviors or attitudes based on observing or hearing them  directly , whereas in  quantitative studies , the data about the behavior or attitudes in question are gathered  indirectly , through a measurement or an instrument such as a survey or an  analytics tool . In field studies and usability testing, for example, researchers directly observe how people use (or do not use) technology to meet their needs or to complete tasks. These observations give them the ability to ask questions, probe on behavior, or possibly even adjust the study protocol to better meet study objectives. Analysis of the data is usually not mathematical.

In contrast, the kind of data collected in quantitative methods is predetermined — it could include task time, success, whether the user has clicked on a given UI element or whether they selected a certain answer to a multiple-choice question. The insights in quantitative methods are typically derived from mathematical analysis, since the instrument of data collection (e.g., survey tool or analytics tool) captures such large amounts of data that are automatically coded numerically.

Due to the  nature of their differences ,  qualitative  methods are much better suited for answering questions about  why  or  how to fix  a problem, whereas  quantitative  methods do a much better job answering  how many  and  how much  types of questions. Having such numbers helps prioritize resources, for example to focus on issues with the biggest impact. The following chart illustrates how the first two dimensions affect the types of questions that can be asked:

The third distinction has to do with how and whether participants in the study are using the product or service in question. This can be described as:

• Natural  or near-natural use of the product
• Scripted  use of the product
• Limited  in which a limited form of the product is used to study a specific aspect of the user experience
• Not using  the product during the study (decontextualized)

When studying  natural use  of the product, the goal is to minimize interference from the study in order to understand behavior or attitudes as close to reality as possible. This provides greater external validity but less control over what topics you learn about. Many ethnographic field studies attempt to do this, though there are always some observation biases. Intercept surveys and data mining or other analytic techniques are quantitative examples of this.

A  scripted  study of product usage is done in order to focus the insights on specific product areas, such as a newly redesigned flow. The degree of scripting can vary quite a bit, depending on the study goals. For example, a benchmarking study is usually very tightly scripted, so that it can produce reliable  usability metrics by ensuring consistency across participants.

Limited  methods use a limited form of a product to study a specific or abstracted aspect of the experience. For example, participatory-design methods allow users to interact with and rearrange design elements that  could  be part of a product experience, in order discuss how their proposed solutions would meet their needs and why they made certain choices. Concept-testing methods employ an expression of the idea of a product or service that gets at the heart of what it would provide (and not at the details of the experience) in order to understand if users would want or need such a product or service.  Card sorting and tree testing focus on how the information architecture is or could be arranged to best make sense to participants and make navigation easier.

Studies where the  product is not used  are conducted to examine issues that are broader than usage and usability, such as a study of the brand or discovering the aesthetic attributes that participants associate with a specific design style.

Many of the methods in the chart can move along one or more dimensions, and some do so even in the same study, usually to satisfy multiple goals. For example, field studies can focus a little more on what people say (ethnographic interviews) or emphasize studying what they do (extended observations); concept testing, desirability studies, and card sorting have both qualitative and quantitative versions; and eyetracking can be natural or scripted.

Another important distinction to consider when making a choice among research methodologies is the phase of product development and its associated objectives.  For example, in the beginning of the product-development process, you are typically more interested in the strategic question of what direction to take the product, so methods at this stage are often generative in nature, because they help generate ideas and answers about which way to go.  Once a direction is selected, the design phase begins, so methods in this stage are well-described as formative, because they inform how you can improve the design.  After a product has been developed enough to measure it, it can be assessed against earlier versions of itself or competitors, and methods that do this are called summative. This following table describes where many methods map to these stages in time:

While many user-experience research methods have their roots in scientific practice, their aims are not purely scientific and still need to be adjusted to meet stakeholder needs. This is why the characterizations of the methods here are meant as general guidelines, rather than rigid classifications.

In the end, the success of your work will be determined by how much of an impact it has on improving the user experience of the website or product in question. These classifications are meant to help you make the best choice at the right time.

Here’s a short description of the user research methods shown in the above chart:

Usability testing (aka usability-lab studies): Participants are brought into a lab, one-on-one with a researcher, and given a set of  scenarios that lead to tasks  and usage of specific interest within a product or service.

Field studies : Researchers  study participants in their own environment (work or home), where they would most likely encounter the product or service being used in the most realistic or natural environment.

Contextual inquiry : Researchers and participants collaborate together in the participants own environment to inquire about and observe the nature of the tasks and work at hand. This method is very similar to a field study and was developed to study complex systems and in-depth processes.

Participatory design : Participants are given design elements or creative materials in order to construct their ideal experience in a concrete way that expresses what matters to them most and why.

Focus groups : Groups of 3–12 participants are led through a discussion about a set of topics, giving verbal and written feedback through discussion and exercises.

Interviews : a researcher meets with participants one-on-one to discuss in depth what the participant thinks about the topic in question.

Eyetracking : an eyetracking device is configured to precisely measure where participants look as they perform tasks or interact naturally with websites, applications, physical products, or environments.

Usability benchmarking : tightly scripted usability studies are performed with larger numbers of participants, using precise and predetermined measures of performance, usually with the goal of tracking usability improvements of a product over time or comparing with competitors.

Remote moderated testing :  Usability studies are conducted remotely , with the use of tools such as video conferencing, screen-sharing software, and remote-control capabilities.

Unmoderated testing: An automated method that can be used in both quantitative and qualitative studies and that uses a specialized research tool to capture participant behaviors and attitudes, usually by giving participants goals or scenarios to accomplish with a site, app, or prototype. The tool can  record a video stream of each user session, and can gather usability metrics such as success rate, task time, and perceived ease of use.

Concept testing : A researcher shares an approximation of a product or service that captures the key essence (the value proposition) of a new concept or product in order to determine if it meets the needs of the target audience. It can be done one-on-one or with larger numbers of participants, and either in person or online.

Diary studies : Participants are using a mechanism (e.g., paper or digital diary, camera, smartphone app) to record and describe aspects of their lives that are relevant to a product or service or simply core to the target audience.  Diary studies  are typically longitudinal and can be done only for data that is easily recorded by participants.

Customer feedback : Open-ended and/or close-ended information is provided by a self-selected sample of users, often through a feedback link, button, form, or email.

Desirability studies : Participants are offered different visual-design alternatives and are expected to associate each alternative with a set of attributes selected from a closed list. These studies can be both qualitative and quantitative.

Card sorting : A quantitative or qualitative method that asks users to organize items into groups and assign categories to each group. This method helps  create or refine the information architecture  of a site by exposing users’  mental models .

Tree testing : A quantitative method of testing an information architecture to determine how easy it is to find items in the hierarchy. This method can be conducted on an existing information architecture to benchmark it and then again, after the information architecture is improved with card sorting, to demonstrate improvement.

Analytics : Analyzing data collected from user behavior like clicks, form filling, and other recorded interactions. It requires the site or application to be instrumented properly in advance.

Clickstream analytics:  A particular type of analytics that involves analyzing the sequence of pages that users visit as they use a site or software application.

A/B testing  (aka  multivariate testing , live testing, or bucket testing): A method of scientifically testing different designs on a site by randomly assigning groups of users to interact with each of the different designs and measuring the effect of these assignments on user behavior.

Surveys : A quantitative measure of attitudes through a series of questions, typically more closed-ended than open-ended .  A survey that is triggered during the use of a site or application is an intercept survey, often triggered by user behavior. More typically, participants are recruited from an email message or reached through some other channel such as social media.

In-Depth Course

More details about the methods and the dimensions of use in the full-day training course  User Research Methods: From Strategy to Requirements to Design  and the article  A Guide to Using User-Experience Research Methods .

Free Downloads

Related courses, user research methods: from strategy to requirements to design.

Pick the best UX research method for each stage in the design process

Discovery: Building the Right Thing

Conduct successful discovery phases to ensure you build the best solution

Usability Testing

Learn how to plan, conduct, and analyze your own studies, whether in person or remote

Related Topics

• Research Methods Research Methods
• User Testing
• Analytics & Metrics

Learn More:

Please accept marketing cookies to view the embedded video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtUWbsvCujM

When to Use Which UX Research Method

Always Pilot Test User Research Studies

Kim Salazar · 3 min

Level Up Your Focus Groups

Therese Fessenden · 5 min

Inductively Analyzing Qualitative Data

Tanner Kohler · 3 min

Related Articles:

Open-Ended vs. Closed Questions in User Research

Maria Rosala · 5 min

Competitive Usability Evaluations

Tim Neusesser · 6 min

Why and How to Use Demographics in UX

Samhita Tankala · 6 min

A Guide to Using User-Experience Research Methods

Kelley Gordon and Christian Rohrer ·

Confounding Variables in Quantitative Studies

Caleb Sponheim · 5 min

UX Research Methods: Glossary

Raluca Budiu · 12 min

•   Monday, April 29, 2024
• Privacy Policy

technicalblog.in

Life is a piece of code, one day we will crack it.

• #python tutorial
• #java tutorial
• Languagewise MCQs

AWS Essentials Questions and Answers- Fresco Play

This is a set of AWS Essentials Questions and Answers. Please  NOTE  that all questions and answers are based on our research and self-study.

AWS Essentials – Fresco Play Questions and Answers

1.) When to choose C4 instances? A.) Low compute and High Memory footprint B.) High compute and High memory footprint C.) Low compute and Low Memory footprint

Answer.) High compute and Moderate Memory footprint

2.) You are using an S3 bucket through which you are running a photo-sharing website. It is found that some of the other site owners also use your bucket URL causing a loss to your business. How will you protect your bucket content from unauthorized usage? A.) Deleting data after usage B.) Firewall rules C.) None of the options D.) Utilize bucket policies, ACLs, and user policies

Answer.) Utilize bucket policies, ACLs, and user policies

3.) When you need to move data over long distances using the internet, for instance across countries or continents to your Amazon S3 bucket, which method or service will you use? A.) Amazon Glacier B.) Amazon Snowball C.) Amazon CloudFront D.) Amazon Transfer Acceleration

Answer.) Amazon Transfer Acceleration

4.) What does S3 stand for? A.) Super Storage Service B.) Storage Simple Service C.) Simple Storage Service D.) Single Storage Service

Answer.) Simple Storage Service

5.) Which of the following is not true about Amazon Glacier A.) Optimized for data for which retrieval times of several hours are suitable B.) Services enable rapid disaster recovery C.) Optimized for data that is infrequently accessed D.) Secure and durable storage for data archiving and backup

Answer.) Services enable rapid disaster recovery

6.) What does ARN stand for? A.) Amazon Resource Network B.) Amazon Reserved Network C.) Amazon Resource Name D.) Amazon Risk free Network

Answer.) Amazon Resource Name

7.) Does Stopping and Terminating instances have the same effect? A.) False B.) True

Answer.) False

8.) Are the Reserved Instances available for Multi-AZ Deployments? A.) Available for all instance types B.) Not Available for Reserved Instances C.) Only available for M3 instance types D.) Multi-AZ Deployments are only available for Cluster Compute instance types

Answer.) Available for all instance types

9.) Which of these services will help in better availability A.) RDS and EBS B.) SNS and SES C.) Instance store and spot instances D.) load balancer and auto-scaling

Answer.) SNS and SES

10.) Service-oriented architecture advocates______ A.) EaaS B.) PaaS C.) laas D.) Saas

Answer.) EaaS

11.) If I want my instance to run on a single-tenant hardware, which value do I have to set the instance’s tenancy attribute to? A.) Dedicated B.) Isolated C.) One D.) Reserved

Answer.) Dedicated

12.) How can you restrict access to the contents delivered in Cloudfront? A.) IAM B.) bucket policy C.) All the options mentioned D.) Origin access identity

Answer.) Origin access identity

13.) Does Amazon support region-based services on all Services? A.) False B.) True

14.) Which service in AWS allows you to create and delete stacks of AWS resources which are defined in templates? A.) CloudFront B.) Route 53 C.) Redshift D.) CloudFormation

Answer.) CloudFormation

15.) The committee which designs the standards & characteristics for the cloud computing is A.) NICT B.) NIFT C.) NCCC D.) NIST

Answer.) NIST

16.) Route 53 can be used to route users to infrastructure outside of AWS

A.) False B.) TRUE

Answer.) TRUE

17.) What is the boot time for an Instance store-backed instance? A.) 15 minutes B.) Around 5 minutes C.) 1 minute D.) 10 minutes

Answer.) Around 5 minutes

18.) Which is a fully managed desktop computing service A.) AWS Data Pipeline B.) Amazon Workspaces C.) Amazon Direct Connect D.) Amazon ElastiCache

Answer.) Amazon Workspaces

19.) What’s the maximum size of the S3 bucket? A.) 1 GB B.) 100 TB C.) 100 GB D.) 5 TB

Answer.) 5 TB

20.) How will you secure the data at rest in EBS? A.) restrict access using lAM that prevents write operations to the EBS B.) Placement groups C.) security groups and ACLS D.) EBS data is secure and always

Answer.) Restrict access using lAM that prevents write operations to the EBS

Capgemini Interview Questions of PL/SQL 2024

• Mindtree Interview Questions for PL/SQL 2024

aws essentials aws essentials aws essentials aws essentials

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Introduction to PostgreSQL: A Comprehensive Tutorial for Beginners

Azure fundamentals question and answers.