Why everyone should be doing more User Research

Those of us who are in the business of building products or rendering services with an intention of making profit or not for profit are normally faced with the challenge of whether or not the customer will adopt our product.

it turns out most people create their products from not from the customer point of view but through their own assumption what they think the customer will automatically want. User research should be at the centre of your to do list because it can quickly and easily uncover insights that will help you understand what the customers really want.

User research had different names attached to it, some times its called design research, it is sometimes called UX research and some times product research. You will find that most products that did not engage user at the beginning or even during the time of building, end-up coming up with product that have features that customers don’t find necessary and don’t find it necessary to invest interacting with it.

We also have to understand that people are not nearly as skilled in technology as we assume they are. By understanding that not everyone ha the same level of technical literary, when designing products we need to design interfaces that recognises this varying level of technical literacy.

What is user research?

User research is the process of understanding who the people we are doing research for are, their goals, needs and beliefs. Insights uncovered out of the user research exercise can be used to create better experiences and deliver great business value. There is actually a lot of data out there that supports the fact that UX Centric companies or companies that put customers actually have a better ROI (Return on investment)They do better on the stock market, their employees are happier because they engage with users who like their product. This companies are great places to work.

User research helps avoid building bad products, saves money, its saves you resources and saves you good will of your customer. User research is all about asking meaningful questions and critically thinking about the answers. User research nothing is taken for granted as it understand that we all have biases, beliefs, and assumptions.

User research should help users achieve their need by making sure the products achieve the basic functionality of what it outs to do. its reliable and be easily used. User research actually takes you from just being reliable to being useful. Through the help of user research you can build products that help customers achieve deep and meaningful experiences that create deep emotions hence making the product to achieve the toothbrush effect.

Being able to decrease cost of development through fewer cycles, committing few errors, lowering the cost of training users and supporting them to use your product results to increase in user’s productivity, user satisfaction, retention, sales, and more and better referrals.

Misconceptions about what user research is not

It isn’t usability testing, it isn't always right. User research is is perspective about how you will acquire insights that will shape your business. User research is focused on helping you understand users, focus on their goals, needs and beliefs.

Research is not only relevant to designers because traditionally it has been viewed as a sub-component of design. Research has a wider impact than just design, when done well it has an impact in the entire organisation

User research is different from market research in the sense that user research focuses on the user will end up you product, while market respect focuses on the buyers whose perspective is how the product they are buying will make their organisation more efficient.

Contrasts and similarities between User researchers, designers and Product managers

The three disciplines of UX entered companies differ in the sense that user researchers do research centred around personas, customers & User focused, foundational understanding, user flows and surveys. while, Designers do prototyping, wire framing, user focus groups, visual design and information architecture. Product manages focus on doing road maps, scope planning, prioritization of what needs to be built, understanding the market, customer focused management of the product.

All the three disciplines do competitive research, experiments, measure metrics, identify needs, do customer discovery and product vision.

As you can see from the list above the lines are blurry between user research and the other related disciplines. it is advisable for them to work together to create better experiences, regardless of tittle or role.

Case study: The OXO measuring cup.

When measuring liquid in the kitchen most users used to go through a challenging experience of having to lift the cup and try to see through to see if they get the measurement angle of the liquid right. OXO managed to design a pleasurable measuring cup through observing users who were using the traditional measuring cup from their kitchen. OXO took the insights they had uncovered from their observation and ended up coming up with the OXO angled measuring cup that you could measure even without having to lift it up and then look from the side, instead what you would do you would measure by just looking at it from the above which customers found it pleasurable.

So, user research is not just about listening what users say but it is also about observing what users do. These observations help you uncover users’ behaviours that otherwise you wouldn’t have noticed from any other method.

I will wrap up by pausing these questions back to you; How is does your organization conduct user research, if at all they do it. Out of that research, what works and what doesn’t work for them? Discovering this what would you recommend to your organization for them to move forward?

Choose your favourite product: write down some of the features you think create good experiences to the user? What do you think still need some work to be done?

In my case our public website has so many challenges, first of all its information architecture is very confusing. It is very difficult for most user to navigate and make sense of how to get information of what took them there. When you explore through the pages it doesn’t give you and pleasurable onboard experience.

The only thing that I find pleasurable is the news column on the upper left side of the website that normally updates users with what is happening in the county and the progress the county has made. The other item I find well done is the tender download section, as it turns out most of the website visitors it turned out are suppliers, so the tender download section is normally the place of interest.