UX Research Methodology
Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Research
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As UX designers/product designers, we are all familiar with the term UX(user experience) research and its methods, we often refer qualitative research method as a user interview while the quantitative research method is carrying out a survey. Each research method can be broken down into 5 different methods. Let’s dive in
UX (user experience) research is the study of learning what end users of a system or product need and want, then employing those insights to enhance the design process for products, services, or software. UX research can take different forms depending on the area of focus
Types of UX Research
Qualitative Research
Quantitative Reasearch
Mixed Research
Qualitative Research
This research type answers the questions “What” and “Why”, these types of research methods are used to discover problems and gather insights and observations about users and products or services. They help understand attitudes(thoughts and beliefs) and behaviors
The common goals of qualitative research are — Discover problems or opportunities, Investigate Why the problem exists, and learn how to fix the problem
User Interview: This is the most common type of research method and the most widely known qualitative research method. These are one-on-one conversations to learn about users’ firsthand experiences, opinions, and interests. link
Direct Observation: This is a form of Field study where you directly observe the user in their element to better understand what they do.t is a way to validate and support the information received from the user interview. Direct observation is useful when conducting reasearch for design research and user processes.
Contextual Inquiry: This is also a form of Field study, it is a mix of direct observation and user interview. In this case, we ask them a set of standard questions, then we observe them and ask the users question. This is usually conducted in the User’s environment.
Diary Study: This is a longitudinal method for collecting a user’s interactions, activities, and behavior as they try to accomplish a particular task or goal. In a diary study, the data is self-reported by participants longitudinally. It means over a longer amount of time, participants are keeping a diary of those daily logs, of activities or specific experiences.
Focus Group: A group of 6–9 users is led through a moderated discussion about a set of questions, giving verbal and written feedback through discussions and exercises.
Quantitative Research
This research type answers the questions “How much” and “How many”, it is used to gather UX metrics (i.e number that describe some aspect of the user experience). It is used to either prove a hypothesis or disprove it. Primarily based on numbers and statistical significance. They help put things in categories and order.
Outcomes of quantitative research methods are usually based on statistically meaningful results.
Types of Quantitative Research
A/B Testing: The purpose of A/B testing is to conduct experiments leading to improvements in the user experience, while also collecting valuable data on the results. It leads to a deeper understanding of users’ behavior and which on-site elements impact it most. This is used when you want to compare two alternative design options and want to use data to inform your decision
Card Sorting: This method helps create or refine the information architecture of a system according to the users’ mental models. Participants are given content items (sometimes literally written on index cards) and asked to group and label those items in a way that makes sense to them.
Survey: This is the most popular quantitative research method, it’s simply a collection of information from a sample of individuals through their responses to questions This type of research allows for a variety of ways to recruit participants, collect data, and utilize various methods of instrumentation
Web Analytics: This method describes what people are doing with your live product — where they go, what they click on, what features they use, where they come from, and on which pages they decide to leave the site or app. there are a lot of application that helps in web analytics such as Google,
Eye Tracking: This requires special equipment that tracks users’ eyes as they move across an interface. Eyetracking can help you identify which interface and content elements need to be emphasized or deemphasized, to enable users to reach their goals
Tree Testing: This method is used in Evaluating information-architecture hierarchies. Participants attempt to complete tasks using only the category structure of your site. It’s essentially a way to evaluate your information architecture by isolating it from all other aspects of your UI.
Mixed Research
This is a type of research that uses both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Companies like Spotify, Airbnb, and Lyft are using Mixed Methods Research to combine rich user insights with actionable statistics for deeper user insights. You can start by gaining insights into a problem and develop a hypothesis(Qualitative research) and then test this hypothesis by conducting a survey(Quantitative research). This can also be done and vice versa. The trick to making this work is knowing what research method to use.
Mixed Methods Research is unique because the researcher can address multiple research objectives in one project — understanding the pains and motivations driving user behavior as well as the scale of their impact on the total user base.
Learning and Takeaway
UX Research boils down to two things: gathering data and synthesizing that data, also the outcome is solely based on the researcher’s analysis, impressions, and understanding, and prior knowledge.
