As a new designer in the design field, it can be quite a daunting task when you want to conduct user research, be it for a personal project or a client’s work.
User Research is a broad topic, which cannot be covered in one article. In this article, I will walk you through what user research is, the purpose of user research, the processes to be followed when carrying out user research, and also the importance of user research.
What is User Research?
User Research can be plainly said to be trying to understand how a user would feel and what they might go through when using a product or service. This answers so many questions such as:
- What will be the first thing that comes to the user’s mind?
- What will be the next step a user will take?
- Will the user have trouble navigating the product?
- Will the user be willing to pay for the service?
- What will make the user satisfied and not complain, or at least, have the barest complaints?
These and many more questions, depending on the type of product or service, are answered when carrying out user research.
What is the Purpose of Conducting User Research?
Simply put, the purpose of conducting user research is to help you understand the problem you’re trying to solve; telling you who your users are, how they will use your product or service, and most importantly, what they need from you. You are offering them a service so it is only wise you know what they want and how they want it or expect it to be.
What Processes Should be Followed?
When Conducting user research, a conventional process is followed. Although, most people would want to go the extra mile. Here are five (5) processes I follow:
- Identify the problem
- Create solutions
- Carry out feedback and surveys
- Evaluate the feedback and surveys
- Recreate
When you are carrying out user research, the processes above are meant to be followed. As a good user researcher, the identification of the problem you intend to solve should be the first thing. If you can’t identify any problem(s), then you can not proffer any solution. When you identify the problem(s), you create solutions. It could be a product you want to build, or a service to render or anything. Carrying surveys and getting feedback from people (users) about the solution you created is vital. Without people using your product or service, you wouldn’t know if you created a solution. Working on the feedback gotten is also very important because you don’t know the minds of everyone and you have to provide what they (users) are okay with. This is a repeated process, hence the need to always check the service you are offering or listen to the users using that service.
Importance of User Research
Many benefits come with conducting proper user research.
- Customers Satisfaction: When you conduct proper user research for a product or service and build it according to the research findings, based on what the users want, you satisfy them in ways that you can’t fathom. You will gain their trust because the product/service is tailored to their needs.
- Product/Service Usage: If a customer or user is satisfied with a service that you provided them, they are more likely to make more use of it. Hence, the product/service will not just be dormant but will be used for what it is created for.
- Revenue Generation: When there is continuous use of your product, you get more profit, if it’s a paid service. The more people use it, the more money you generate.
- Awareness: When a user makes use of your product/service and is satisfied with it, they go on to tell the next person. There’s this feeling of having tasted something good, you can’t keep it to yourself.
Conclusively, user research is just a way of knowing and understanding what your target users need to know the best possible way to create the best products with a great user experience and they are carried out using various methods.
Carrying out research makes you better!
As a User Researcher, you feel I have not covered the processes involved, please, do well to leave a comment. I appreciate your feedback and suggestions.
Visit: https://techrity.org and join the community to join other user researchers and designers.
Thank you.