User Research
User research is the practice of studying what people actually do with a product, so decisions rest on evidence instead of assumption.
It covers interviews, observation, surveys and behavioural data. The goal is not to ask people what they want. It is to find out what they struggle with, because people describe their frustrations accurately and predict their own future behaviour badly.
How it works
Research splits into two kinds that answer different questions.
- Qualitative methods work with small numbers of people and answer *why*. Interviews, usability tests and field studies produce depth, context and explanation.
- Quantitative methods work at scale and answer *how many* and *how often*. Surveys, analytics and experiments produce numbers you can compare.
Neither is enough alone. Analytics can show that most people abandon a form at the third field. Only sitting with someone tells you the third field asks for a tax number they do not have to hand.
When to use it
Research earns its place when a decision is genuinely uncertain, expensive to reverse, or both.
Early on it identifies which problems are real. Mid-project it checks whether a proposed solution is understandable. After launch it measures whether the thing shipped actually helped.
It is not worth doing when the decision is already made and the study exists to justify it. It is also not worth doing when simply building the thing and measuring costs less than studying it first.
Common mistakes
- Asking people to predict themselves. "Would you use this?" produces polite agreement. "Tell me about the last time you did this" produces facts.
- Recruiting people like you. A study run among colleagues confirms what the team already believes. Barriers appear immediately when someone navigates by keyboard or screen reader.
- Treating five participants as a percentage. Small samples find problems well. They cannot size them.
Key takeaways
- Ask about past behaviour, not predicted behaviour.
- Qualitative explains what quantitative measures. Use both.
- Recruiting only people like you produces research that agrees with you.
- Research is worth it when a decision is uncertain and costly to reverse.
Learn this
Lessons and exercises mapped to this concept.
Common questions
- What is the difference between user research and market research?
- Market research studies demand, segments and pricing to decide what to build and for whom. User research studies interaction, meaning how specific people use a specific product and where they get stuck. Market research might establish that freelancers need invoicing software. User research establishes that your invoicing flow loses them at the tax settings.
- How many participants do I actually need?
- For qualitative work, patterns usually appear with five to eight people per distinct user group, because you are looking for recurring problems rather than measuring how common they are. For any claim involving a proportion you need a sample size worked out in advance. Using five people to support a percentage is the most common misuse of that number.
- When is research not worth doing?
- When the decision has already been made and the study is being commissioned to support it, and when building the thing and measuring the result costs less than studying it beforehand. Research is for decisions that are genuinely uncertain and expensive to undo.