Too many companies realize why they should do user research too late, when they’ve already missed out on opportunities to make product development more effective, deliver high-impact launches and capture market share.
At the start of a project, it’s easy to fall back on myths: That user research is expensive, time consuming, or simply a waste, because people believe they know enough already. In each case the opposite is true. Kicking off a project with a strong user research process gives you the foundation for everything else you build. And there’s plenty of proof to show the importance of user research, from the successes of our own clients like Tyson, Participate and Tend to research from firms like Forrester.
“‘Does it better’ will always beat ‘did it first.’”
Aaron Levie, CEO at Box
What is user research, and why does it matter?
User research is foundational to human-centered design. It’s what takes products from good to great. Today, it is not enough for companies to deliver okay products. To gain adoption, they must offer more than obvious solutions.
UX research can be described as a series of methods, questions and techniques designed to learn as much as possible about the users, so their needs and desires inform the products you build. Interviews, observations and A/B testing are some of our favorite user research methods, but there are plenty of other methodologies to get both quantitative and qualitative insights.
“Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what others see, feel and experience, design is a pointless task.”
Tim Brown, CEO at IDEO
People want to feel understood. Brands can provide that by delivering products that meet their users’ needs at a deep level. User research to support design thinking is the key.
Why do user research before product design and development?
Let’s imagine an extreme example. Say Spotify has a theory that all 128 million subscribers want curated Christmas playlists in November and December. Their product team pushes all the Christmas playlists to the landing screen. Each time a listener finishes an album or playlist, a Christmas song automatically plays. The team also creates a playlist generator that lets users select Christmas music by genre. To top it off, they change the color scheme to red and white instead of black and white. Proud of their work, they release these updates to a random audience of 15,000 listeners and start gathering feedback.
Overwhelmingly, the team learns that users dislike the changes, feeling they put too much emphasis on the holiday. A large number of users even drop Spotify altogether, finding the focus on Christmas offensive. The only favorable feedback is around the custom playlist generator, which people interacted with quite a bit.
In Spotify’s case, the changes only went out to a small group of users. The product team can take the learnings, undo the changes and revise the improvements based on users’ feedback. As for the few users who dropped Spotify altogether — Spotify can afford to lose them in order to learn.
70% of projects fail due to lack of user acceptance.
Source: Forrester Research
Most companies don’t have that option. They don’t have enough users to run a low-risk, high-reward test like this. Consider a startup or midsized company with less than 10,000 users. They release a beta version of a new app to try and “test” it, hoping to grow revenue. The feedback is negative, but the company doesn’t have funds to immediately implement changes. Worse, they’ve now left their entire user base with a negative impression.