User Research

Do you want to save time and money by getting to the bottom of what your users actually want from your product, service or system? What are the essentials? What are the nice-to-haves? Where are your opportunities to do something different and better than your competition?

It’s easy to think that you know your clients or end users. But time and again, we’ve seen that good user research leads to unexpected insights about how people think and act. On the other hand, doing no user research usually leads to … bad decisions. (No project manager wants that on their CV.)

Rather than letting assumptions drive your projects, why not allow real observational data to help define your strategy?

• You need to uncover the pain points with an existing product or service.
• You want to learn about potential improvements, unmet needs, and innovation opportunities.
• You want to assess people’s sentiment towards a competitor’s products or services.
• You want to differentiate essential features from nice-to-haves.
• You want to understand actual human behaviour rather than following a hunch.

All of these can mean you save time and money by giving your users what they really want.

User research is also great for your development team. It gives them an active way to learn about user behaviour, and improves their chances of applying positive, helpful changes to their designs.

No. While direct surveying of opinions is useful in many contexts, it’s often the case that people’s actions don’t match their words.

As a project manager, you don’t want to rely on that sort of evidence alone.

On top of traditional surveying, we recommend observing real user behaviour and applying the lessons to your decision-making.

• Observational studies.
• Cognitive task analysis.
• Interview techniques.