Research Methods

Audience (or user) research is any research conducted on specific, target users to gain information about their background, knowledge, preferences and behaviors. This way, questions about usability, satisfaction and error prevention can be answered by receiving direct insight from the system’s main stakeholders.

UX benchmarking is the process of evaluating a product or service’s user experience by using metrics to measure its relative performance against a meaningful standard. Examples of metrics we may track for tasks are time on task, success rate, ease of use, and success rate.

Comparative or competitive analysis is a way to compare two or more websites' content in the industry to understand their marketing strategy. This method is to help identify the company strength and weaknesses relative to the competitors.

Design-thinking workshops are workshops centered around better understanding and connecting to users by defining problems, ideating to find possible solutions and prototyping or testing ideas in a hands-on, activity-based manner. Such workshops will often involve using sticky notes, whiteboards and brainstorming sessions.

An enterprise architecture, or “conceptual blueprint”, is a comprehensive approach to analytics, design, testing and implementation for an organization, to best strategically identify and execute necessary changes.

Ethnographic field studies are a qualitative research method in which a UX researcher studies user interaction with technology while immersed in the user’s natural environment instead of a separate testing environment.

Expert evaluation is when an evaluator specializing in UX research identifies which areas of a product should be focused on for testing. It differs from heuristic evaluation in that the expert does not necessarily assign issues to heuristics, instead directly utilizing their expertise to help them with evaluation.

Governance and Compliance refers to an organization’s strategy for managing corporate governance and compliance as well as risk management via regulation. Governance is a procedural and policy framework for overall direction and performance. Compliance is the process and policies by which the organization demonstrates conformance to standard laws, contracts and regulations.

Idea creation, or ideation, is the process of creating and developing new ideas, which are then communicated and/or actualized as designs. Ideas can be visual, concrete or abstract, and ideation consists of the entire creative thought process.

Pluralistic and cognitive walkthroughs are both usability evaluation methods. Pluralistic walkthroughs involve group discussion, assigning tasks to a group of users and including developers and other product team members in the process. Cognitive walkthroughs are not group-based and focus on product learnability and usability; a user goes through tasks assigned by the administrators, who ask user-centric questions in the process.

User (or usability) testing refers to tests done on a prototype, function or product with real users. Setup involves research, creating a testing plan, finding participants, running the test and analyzing results. Typically, usability testing is conducted one-on-one by a UX researcher through interactive interviews where the user completes designated tasks while providing real-time feedback.

User interface (UI) design is the design of interfaces for software or hardware, such as computers and mobile devices. It includes both graphical and tangible interfaces and focuses on improving usability, satisfaction, accessibility and user experience through informed design.

Wireframes are web page mock-up layouts used to visualize different interactive elements and interface components that will exist in the final, actual user interface. Wireframing is important in order to make sure that terminology and structure are aligned to user needs and satisfaction.

Prototypes are simulations of the final product used to test the product or product idea in a cost-effective and time efficient manner. Prototypes can be low fidelity (a mix of sketches and wireframes) or high fidelity (custom coded, polished representations of the final design). They’re used to get initial user feedback on the design to see what changes need to be made before creating the actual product.

Web development is the process of developing a website and can range from creating a single static page to producing fully responsive, ADA-compliant websites to making web-based applications.