User Research

Learning how users perform tasks and find needed information, and understanding their requirements and goals, is at the heart of designing a good user experience. When asked at what points of the design process to involve users, we say “early and often!”

It is easier to omit users from the process than to include them. However, the designers and developers of an application are rarely identical to its intended users. The cost of omitting user research can be market failure, high call volume to customer support, and re-coding. User research always delivers gems of new information.

User research is any information collection activity with users, from in-depth individual interviews to large-sample surveys. Even a usability test is a form of user research, although its purpose is primarily to measure improvement or need for improvement. Non-testing forms of user research include field research, focus groups, and user surveys.