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The Importance of User Research

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11 views2 pages

The Importance of User Research

Uploaded by

fejejrgnej
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The importance of user research

[MUSIC PLAYING]

In this video, we're going to look at why it is important to understand who your users are, how to interact
with them during the design process, and how to represent different user groups using personas. The key
topics we're going to cover are the importance of user feedback, use of research methods, and creating
personas. Let's start with the importance of user feedback.
The first step in the discovery phase is to understand who the users of your product will be. It is a
common trap to design for yourself. This may work if the user is just like you, but you're likely to miss out
on a huge part of needs or fail to address problems that you haven't seen because you are too close to
the issue. Research to try and find out what needs you are fulfilling for your users. What are their pain
points right now?
Are they familiar or brand new to the concept? Have they tried this technology before? What age,
nationality, hobbies, or activities do they have? Remember, your users may vary, so try to understand any
commonalities of differences that they may have so that you can cater for them.
Before you build anything, seek input from representatives of real users. It is by far the easiest and safest
way to ensure that you are on the right track. Now, let's move on to the user research methods. There are
many ways you can learn about your users. First, try to decide what's important, and then choose which
approach is best.
Interviews or focus groups with typical users are a great way to start. This can be with a variety of
members of the public, staff from a company, or even your friends. It completely depends on your project.
Surveys and questionnaires about what they do right now and how they feel about their interactions with
the product gives you direct feedback of what users need so that you and your team can improve their
experience.
Market research using reports and statistics can inform you of what most of your users would want and
how they would react to similar products. Watching users interact with existing sites or apps can also give
you a lot of information. Often what people say they do and what they actually do are very different.
Formal lab based usability studies can track people's eye gaze and emotions as they interact.
You can also gain really useful user insight simply through focus groups. Remember to avoid leading the
user into answers with your questions. Try and stay away from things like, wouldn't it be great if the
product did this, and go more towards questions that don't lead them to anywhere, such as what are your
frustrations? What would you like the product to do?
Now, let's talk about creating personas. You can't have all your users give input, especially if you're
marketing to a huge audience base. But there are ways of describing different types of users so you can
make sure your design works for them. These are called personas.
These are profile of an example user. A story about who they are, what motivates them, and what brands
they like. You can understand what preferences they have, what their pain points are, or any other
information to help you characterise them. You can have anywhere between one to a dozen personas
depending on your project.
But the more flavour and life you give to your personas the more you can tailor your design to them. Let's
go through an example persona. Imagine you're creating a food delivery app. There are things that you
would want to discover about your different types of users. Giving your persona a name and a photo can
help bring them to life. Take Mohammed, for example.
Mohammed is 25, and he's an IT consultant. He works from home and his schedule is too busy to allow
for cooking daily. For Mohammed, it's important to have a healthy cooked meal every day at lunchtime
that he can order whilst on work calls. Now, you should understand your persona's points of views and
attitudes, and you should also have a back story as to how they use existing products or services.
Characteristics and demographics are also important, along with capturing your user's key goals, such as
eating healthily. Trying to find some measures that you can mark on a scale such as how cost sensitive
they are. These can be handy to check your design against and make sure you're still fulfilling needs.
If you have less time to research, it is still worth having a summary of different types of users. Think about
all the different uses for the food delivery app. This may be office workers, families with small children,
everyday users or occasional users. They all have very different characteristics and motivations, and
although this example is far less detailed than the previous one, personas are still useful.
User research gives a real understanding of who you are creating for. Understanding who these people
are ensures you are building products that users actually want.
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