“User experience (abbreviated as UX) is how a person feels when interfacing with a system. The system could be a website, a web application or desktop software and, in modern contexts, is generally denoted by some form of human-computer interaction (HCI).” – Jacob Gube, Smashing Magazine.
To easily understand more about UX, it is essential to know the concept of Design thinking. Design thinking is a human-centred method to innovation where every problem is tackled by following five stages. Still, as the Interaction Design Foundation mentioned, this process is carried out in a flexible and non-linear fashion. These stages are: Empathise, understanding the human needs involved, Define, analysing all the information gathered to define the core problem, Ideate, identifying innovative solutions to the problem, Prototype, experimenting and producing scaled-down versions of the product and Test, the outcome would be tested using the best solutions identified during the prototype stage.
UX Research and UX Design are two fundamental aspects of user experience. The research will help you deeply comprehend user needs so the design solution you aim for can be narrowed down. Both work in tandem. You would generally use UX research to understand a broad idea while using UX design to refine it.
Based on my experience, I have summarised ten things about UX research and design you should know if you are pursuing a career in user experience or want to gain some helpful knowledge in this field.
- User research focuses on understanding the relationship between the users and a product or service. It consists of doing audience research to create a model that could appeal to as many potential customers as possible. Make sure that the promise given by the product or service can be fulfilled while keeping the essence of the brand and a value proposition is highlighting the distinctive features. User research has valuable tools to help you understand the user needs, which is essential for the second stage of design thinking, the define stage. One of these tools is the User Needs Statement, which gives importance to the user’s profile. “A user need statement is an actionable problem statement used to summarise who a particular user is, the user’s need, and why the need is important to that user.” Sarah Gibbons, NNGroup. Also, you can use the Job Story, which gives priority to the situation. This tool is considered an excellent method to think about motivation and context, so instead of focusing on the who and how, it focuses on the why, opening your mind to think out of the box.
- Research is requested when a deeper understanding of a specific area is needed, hence the importance of understanding the research context to comprehend why the research is required, what outcomes are expected, and the impact that you are hoping to achieve. Therefore, setting the research objectives in an early stage is essential. These objectives will give you a clear goal of what you would like to achieve, guiding you in the different steps of your research process and aligning you and your team on the expected outcomes. There is a helpful tool that you can use for this process called ‘The Research Canvas’ by Stephanie Troeth. Filling this canvas will help your research have clear metrics and stay meaningful, as stated by Tiago Pedras in his post about a UX case study. Also, keep in mind two of the most fundamental things to get right when approaching research, assumptions and hypotheses. Assumptions are an assertion of what you consider could be true, but there is no evidence behind that statement. On the other hand, a hypothesis is a statement that can be tested through experiments and research.
- Methodology is a very important aspect of your research design. It is how you approach the research, deciding on who you will speak to and what research methods you will use. There are open-ended research methods called Formative Generative, which will provide more open-ended information that you can explore in different directions, such as diary studies. And there are close-ended methods, called Summative Evaluative, which will give you a closer frame on the obtained results, such as usability testing.
- Research methods can be interpreted as quantitative data, referring to data expressed in numbers, and qualitative data, which is more about understanding information given during interviews and conversations. Research methods can also be interpreted in attitudinal data, focusing on user’s opinions and behavioural data and how the users behave when interacting with the product. Also, your research can be moderated by having a researcher facilitating the conversation with the interviewer, or it can be unmoderated, meaning that the participant can complete the task without supervision. It can also be in-person in places like a usability lab or remote by phone calls or digital platforms.
- You can use different types of research methods depending on the project stage you are in. Some useful research methods include Usability Testing, “usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word usability also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process” Jakob Nielsen, NNGroup. It consists of testing the five different usability components: learnability, efficiency, memorability, error, and satisfaction. Other research methods include Concept Testing for validating mental models, Participating Design Research, where you work closely with users through co-design sessions and ‘Guerilla’ Research, where you show your prototypes to people in the street.
- Sampling refers to choosing suitable profiles for your research as they will represent your audience. To do this, you should look at people’s behaviour, including users who are familiar with your product and potential users, so that you can group them based on their interaction with your product. If you wonder how many users you should interview, based on a study backed up by the NNGroup, five users are enough to find 85% of the usability problems. When you perform a usability test is because your problems are more defined. However, if you are conducting discovery research, then you should interview as many people as possible. There is a tool called Sample Size Calculator that will give you a minimum number of samples depending on your statistical design constraints. To get the advised number of users provided by this tool, you can go to online panels, recruitment agencies, or streets (‘Guerilla’ Research).
- User Experience Design uses design to investigate and explore user problems to find practical, imaginative and elegant designs to the identified needs, creating human-centred solutions. There are three factors to keep in mind when designing a solution: Users, how desirable the product can be for them, Business, is it sustainable to create that product, and technology, do we have the necessary technology to bring the product to the end-user.
- Visualising your research is essential. There are different ways to represent your research, such as using Personas, showing common behaviours that you found in the research interviews. By creating these characters, you and your team will visualise the users to whom you are designing, helping you find out which projects are more suitable to meet your audience needs. Also, using the Job Story (mentioned in the first point of this post) can help you understand the outcome needed from the design. Other ways to represent your research are by using a Journey Map and an Empathy Map Canvas. These tools can help you develop empathy and a deeper understanding of other people, as explained in this post by Dave Gray.
- Turning the insights collected from research into interfaces. You should map your system by using User Interface Flows, which will help you create lightweight, scalable information architecture to get a high level of understanding of the product you are designing. UI Flows are beneficial to explain each step and option that a user can find in your product, stating what they see and what they can do, without diving into too much detail. When you are ready to start the prototype, gather all the key content obtained from the research, and do some rapid sketches to get all the possible ideas out and iterating them as you progress. A technique called ‘The Crazy 8s‘ can help you with this step and then use all these sketches to find the best solutions. By doing all this, you have turned your research into design guidance, framing the problem and consequently generating a range of imaginative ideas from which the best ones will be chosen for your prototype phase.
- Tips to keep in mind to create better UX design. You are not the user; therefore, it is essential to know as much as possible about your user’s behaviour and needs. Keep asking questions to uncover the real reasons behind what you see on the surface. Design is a team effort, so you should collaborate with stakeholders and all your team members. Use walls to brainstorm your ideas as they are more visible on a wall than on a computer screen. Digital design is a great tool, but pen and paper should still be the dominant tools. The final tip is always to validate your assumptions with your audience so you can evaluate if it works and what areas might need improvement.
Good design is hypothesis and evidence-driven, and research is the way to help you get to that point. UX research and design work together by following the phases shown on the double diamond. The double diamond is used to represent the process for design. From the left of the diagram to the right, moving through different stages of research to understand the problems through exploration of the ideas and creating a solution design in a prototype form, so it can be tested and iterate as needed.
“User-centered design means understanding what your users need, how they think, and how they behave – and incorporating that understanding into every aspect of your process.” – Jesse James Garrett