User Research Methods: What They Are, Which Ones to Use and Why

By integrating user research into your design and development process, you can build better digital interfaces and experiences for your users from the get-go. This post explores some of the more popular methods you can use.

Every website and app has a target user base. So why would we design these products without input from those exact users?

Time and money are the most common objections to doing user research. But think about what happens after a new digital product goes live. What do you do if users can’t find your website or app in search results? What if, when they do, they don’t stick around for very long or engage in a meaningful way with your content? And what if your conversion rate is disappointingly low?

You have to take your website or app back to the drawing board. While you could try to form another set of hypotheses on your own again, the most effective approach is to get real feedback from users.

Now, the question is: Which methods of user research do you use and why?

In this post, we’ll look at various research methods that can be used during the initial development of websites and apps as well as afterwards. We’ll classify them, explain what each method entails and provide tips on when to use them.

Different Categories of UX Research Methods

There are three categories of UX research methods. Understanding the differences between them will make it easier to decide which techniques to use during the different stages of development as well as the best way to gather sufficient data from your users.

Qualitative vs. Quantitative Research

Qualitative data consists of subjective input from your users. Surveys and questionnaires with open-ended questions are an example of a qualitative research method.

Quantitative data consists of numerical input. Data collected from Google Analytics about user demographics and on-site behavior is a good example of a quantitative research method.

Attitudinal vs. Behavioral Research

Attitudinal data answers the question of “why” your users do what they do. User interviews where a moderator directly discusses the product with users is an example of this.

Behavioral data answers the question of “what” your users do. Heatmap tracking which enables you to see click and scroll patterns is a good example of this observational technique.

Generative vs. Evaluative Research

Generative data provides digital teams with ideas that influence the development process. Typically, these research methods take place very early in the process, like open card sorting.

Evaluative data provides teams with insights that help them assess what they’ve created so far. These research methods take place later in development as well as once the product is live, like A/B testing.

Best User Research Methods for Digital Project Development

User research is a process that involves the collection of data and feedback from the target users of a digital product. By using a variety of methods, digital teams can make informed decisions about how to build great user-centered products and how to optimize the digital experiences for their users even further.

1. Surveys and Questionnaires

Categories:

• Qualitative or Quantitative
• Attitudinal or Behavioral
• Generative or Evaluative

What do they entail?
User surveys and questionnaires are forms that collect information from users—prospective as well as actual users.

This research method is unique because it can be used in so many different ways.

You can fill questionnaires with a mix of qualitative and quantitative questions. You can also evaluate them from both standpoints.

For instance, you can review respondents’ answers qualitatively to get a sense for who your users are on a personal level, what their goals and frustrations are, etc. You could also review the answers from a statistical point of view, looking at what the percentage of responses tells you.

When to use:
You can use questionnaires early on in your process to learn about your target user base. Or to even find out who your ideal audience is. These earlier questionnaires can be helpful for user segmentation as well.

You can also use surveys later on to evaluate how real users feel about your existing digital product. You can do this by emailing out surveys to customers. Another way to gather feedback would be to place a customer feedback survey on your website. If you’ve built an app, you can also invite users to provide input via your product’s dashboard.

2. Interviews

Categories:

• Qualitative
• Attitudinal
• Evaluative

What do they entail?
User interviews are one-on-one discussions held between a moderator and a participant. These interviews can take place in person or online.

The goal of a user interview is to have a frank discussion with the user about the product and their experiences using it. The moderator asks a series of open-ended questions and evaluative questions (like “On a scale of 1 to 10…”) to learn more about what they think about the product, how they felt using it, what they like, what they don’t and what they’d do to improve it.

While you can learn more about what it’s like for your users to use the product, you can also gain valuable information about what motivated them to visit your website in the first place, purchase from your brand, etc.

When to use:
This research technique is most useful once your digital product is live. You’ll also want to interview a mix of users, not just ones who absolutely love your product or who absolutely hate it. You want to get a sense for how a wide range of users and segments respond to what you’ve built.

3. Focus Groups

Categories:

• Qualitative
• Attitudinal
• Generative and Evaluative

What do they entail?
Focus groups are live discussions that take place between a moderator and a group of people. They are commonly held in person, though they can also take place online.

There are different ways you can put focus groups to use.

One way is to use them for market research. So before developing your brand identity, product or marketing campaign, you’d use a focus group to find out what your target audience wants and needs, what their preferences are like, what motivates them to make a purchase, etc.

Another way is to use the group to gather feedback on your existing product, branding or messaging. So, it would be similar to user interviews, but in a group format.

When to use:
Focus groups are an effective way to gather qualitative, attitudinal data to inspire your next steps.

It could be at the very beginning of a project before you’ve even fleshed out what your branding or marketing is going to look or sound like.

It could also take place once you have an established brand and product. In this case, you’d likely use focus groups to figure out what’s gone wrong with your initial approach. You could also use it to test out new ideas and offerings.

4. Card Sorting

Categories:

• Qualitative
• Behavioral
• Evaluative or Generative

What does it entail?
Card sorting is an exercise whereby participants are asked to organize a series of cards that represent the information architecture (IA) of a website or app. This exercise is especially useful for establishing the organization and hierarchy for blogs, stores, enterprise sites, content-filled apps, software and other larger digital products.

Card sorting can be done in an open, closed or hybrid format.

In open card sorting, you give the participants a list of topics. You ask them to come up with categories and then to organize the topics within them.

In closed card sorting, you provide participants with both the topics and categories. It’s their job to line up the topics under the categories the best that they can.

In hybrid card sorting, you provide participants with topics and categories. However, they have the option to create new categories as needed.

When to use:
You can use card sorting in both an evaluative and generative manner.

For instance, open card sorting is a good way to let your users guide the direction of your IA. What’s nice about this method is your users can help you come up with labels and/or wording that will make your IA more intuitive and natural sounding.

Closed and hybrid card sorting, on the other hand, is useful for evaluating the IA you’ve already come up with. You’ll be able to see if your users experience any confusion when associating topics with categories. Inconsistencies in how they categorize topics can also lead to problems if not resolved early on.

If your users get confused just working with a set of cards, imagine how that would translate to the discoverability of content (or lack thereof) on your site or app.

5. Tree Testing

Categories:

• Qualitative
• Behavioral
• Evaluative

What does it entail?
Tree testing is another user research method that assesses the usability of your navigational structure.

To run a tree test, you create a text-based version of your navigation. Participants are able to interact with it, clicking on top-level categories to reveal subcategories or topics.

You then give them a series of tasks to complete. For example, if you’ve created a dating mobile app, you could ask participants to disable push notifications. You’d observe the steps they take to locate these settings within your navigation.

Missteps, frustration and even clicking the wrong links will show you where your IA needs improvement.

When to use:
Tree tests can be used once your IA has been developed. So this method would be just as useful to do during product development as it would be post-launch.

During development, tree testing will help you iron out the kinks in your site structure and user journey. Post-development, you can use tree testing to evaluate alternative structures if the one you currently have isn’t working.

6. Field Studies

Categories:

• Qualitative
• Attitudinal and Behavioral
• Evaluative

What do they entail?
Field studies are observational studies done in your users’ real environments. Because of this, field studies are also referred to as ethnographic research.

The goal of these studies is to monitor how users engage with your digital product in real time. You can learn a lot about the context in which they use it. For instance:

• What kind of device do they use?
• Is the site bookmarked or saved to their primary home screen?
• Which search engines or browsers do they use to access it?
• What does it look like from their perspective?
• What’s the first thing they do when they enter it?
• How do they navigate around it?
• Are they taking the most logical pathway?
• How easy or complex does conversion seem?

You can also observe obstacles or constraints they encounter and how they respond to them.

Field studies aren’t passive either. You can talk to your users as they engage with your product to find out more about what they’re thinking, what’s driving their actions and so on.

When to use:
There are ways to passively observe your users as they interact with your digital product. However, there’s a huge benefit to listening to them talk through the experience, express their frustrations and even ask you questions in real time.

If your goal is to remove common obstacles from your users’ journey or to take the user experience to the next level, field studies are extremely helpful.

7. Diary Studies

Categories:

• Qualitative
• Attitudinal and Behavioral
• Evaluative

What do they entail?
Diary studies are just what they sound like. You recruit participants to keep a log of their usage of your product.

In this digital diary, they track when and why they used your product. They also describe their thoughts and feelings as they interact with it. They can even include screenshots and videos to go with their entries, elaborating on things that might not be so easy to describe or to emphasize certain findings.

When to use:
Diary studies are an interesting way to get into the minds of your users. Because of the reflective nature of diaries, you might be able to gain insights that you wouldn’t be able to when they’re put on the spot during, say, usability testing or focus groups.

So, this particular research method would be helpful if your goal is to get to know your users better. It could be for the purposes of creating a more enjoyable user experience. It could also be if you’re struggling to create content that connects with your target users.

8. Usability Testing

Categories:

• Qualitative or Quantitative
• Attitudinal or Behavioral
• Evaluative

What does it entail?
Usability testing is done once you have a working prototype of your website, app or revamped digital product. Users are provided with a link to the prototype and have to complete a series of tasks.

It’s similar to tree testing, only the goal is to evaluate the usability of the entire product as well as the intuitive nature of your user journey.

There are different ways to conduct usability tests. For starters, these tests can be moderated or unmoderated. Moderated usability tests give you the ability to engage with the user to find out why they make certain choices, how they feel during the experience and so on. Unmoderated tests allow you to observe how your users naturally make decisions and solve problems when left to their own devices.

Also, you can make these tests be qualitative or quantitative. So, again, you can observe each test, evaluating the users’ perceived behavior when they’re on your website or app. Or you can evaluate each session from a purely statistical manner. For instance, you can look at how many tries it takes the average user to complete each task. Or how many clicks or taps occur before they reach the target button.

When to use:
Usability testing is a valuable process to use after you’ve completed prototyping your product. If there’s any friction remaining in the user experience, you should be able to find it during these sessions.

You can also use usability testing before launching major changes to your digital product or experience in the future. This will help you prevent pushing anything out to the live site that creates discomfort or distrust in existing users or that negatively affects your existing conversion rates.

9. Heuristic Review

Categories:

• Qualitative
• Behavioral
• Evaluative

What does it entail?
Heuristic review is the only research method that doesn’t involve your users. Instead, this review is conducted by a usability expert or group of experts.

Instead of getting insights about the user experience, what you get is input regarding the quality of the digital product and the interface you’ve designed. Typically, these experts evaluate your site or app against established design principles, web standards and UX laws. They’ll also work to identify bugs and errors.

When to use:
Before bringing a prototype or live product to your users, a heuristic review can be really helpful. If there are glaring issues with usability—especially with regards to responsiveness and accessibility—these experts will point them out.

Now, if you’re well-versed in UX principles and laws and know that you built your interface to those standards, then a heuristic review might not be necessary. However, if you’ve taken an experimental approach to UI design or are testing out new design trends, it might be worth engaging with an expert to ensure that these creative choices don’t come at the expense of your users’ ability to engage with the interface.

10. A/B Testing

Categories:

• Quantitative
• Behavioral
• Evaluative

What does it entail?
A/B or split testing is a process by which you create two or more versions of a page or screen. Many times, it’s just a small element or component that is changed and not the entire design or content of the page. So, it could be something like:

• Choice of typography
• Number of fields in a form
• Button color or size
• Headline in the hero section
• Layout of the header

A/B testing software displays the new version of the design, feature or functionality to the same number of people as those who see the original version. In split testing, that makes it a 50/50 split. In multivariate testing with more than one variation, it becomes a 33/33/33 split.

The test runs over a long enough timeframe to gather sufficient data from users. The designer then evaluates the results to determine if there’s a winning design. If so, it’ll be implemented on the site or app and then continuously monitored to keep it the optimal solution.

When to use:
Before running A/B tests, it’s the job of the designer to come up with a hypothesis about why a revised design will improve engagement or conversion. So, A/B testing is usually done in conjunction with other research methods.

A/B testing is usually done for two reasons. One reason is because something on a website or app isn’t converting the way it’s supposed to.

Another reason is because a designer or developer simply wants to see if they can create better outcomes by changing an element. There might be nothing wrong with the existing design. However, they have a theory that a new approach would boost engagement and the A/B test would provide sufficient evidence to make the change.

11. Eye-tracking Studies

Categories:

• Quantitative
• Behavioral
• Evaluative

What do they entail?
Eye-tracking studies use the eye, mouse and/or finger movements of a user to determine how effectively designed a user interface is.

Eye-tracking studies can be performed in a couple of manners.

One option is to recruit participants for the study and then outfit them or their computer/phone with eye-tracking devices. These devices will detect eye movement as the user interacts with a website or app. They may be tasked with using the website in a general manner or given a series of tasks to complete.

Another option—which is the more affordable and convenient one—is to do heatmap tracking and session recording. You can do this with software like Hotjar and without the need for recruiting participants. A tracker is set up on your website and it provides data on user clicks, cursor movements and scroll depth. You can also enable session recordings to watch how individual users engage with your site or certain pages.

When to use:
The point of these studies is to see for yourself what users are doing on your site when no one is looking. You might discover that the vast majority of critical pages aren’t being explored or engaged with. You could also find that the user journey you laid out isn’t being taken.

So, the best time to run eye-tracking studies is when your website or app is underperforming. While you won’t be able to hear your users’ rationale for taking certain steps or to hear them express their frustrations, the data and observations you gather from these studies will tell a similar story.

Eye-tracking and heatmaps can take some time to run, but, with substantial data, you’ll be able to perform an accurate audit of your website or app.

12. Analytics

Categories:

• Quantitative
• Attitudinal and Behavioral
• Evaluative

What does it entail?
The last form of user research is perhaps the most popular one on this list, and that’s thanks to the accessibility of Google Analytics.

With analytics, you’re able to learn quite a lot about who uses your website or app and what they do from page to page. Things like:

• User demographics
• Device and browser preferences
• Referring sources
• Most and least popular pages or screens
• Number of visitors
• New vs. returning users
• Average page view time
• Conversion rate
• Bounce rate
• User flows

That’s just the beginning. Data collection tools built into Sitefinity Insight, for instance, track your users as they engage with various channels. So, you can learn more about the entire user journey in addition to what they do once they’re on your website or app.

When to use:
You should be tracking the metrics for every website or app you build. It’s the easiest user research method to implement and it’s a useful jumping off point for all the other methods. What you observe in your analytics will get you thinking about what more you can do, why certain things are happening and so on.

Wrap-up

While user research can be a time-consuming and somewhat costly process, it can save digital teams a ton of time and money over the long run.

That’s because products built based on general market research, hypotheses and even our own biases are flawed. And flawed digital experiences are often full of friction and obstacles to conversion. Our real users are the only ones who can tell us what works, what feels good, what sounds right and what motivates them to take the next steps.

User research allows us to get to know our target users better within the context of what we’re building for them. We’ll get answers to questions like:

• Who are you?
• Why are you searching for a website/app like this?
• What has been your experience with similar digital products? And why weren’t they sufficient enough?
• What does your ideal user experience look and feel like?
• What kinds of features, functionality or content do you need to feel more confident?
• What would motivate you most to convert?
• What do you like about the experience we’ve created for you? And what don’t you like?

Many times, we don’t even need to directly ask users these questions. In those cases, we glean valuable insights from them through observation and statistics.

While the ultimate goal of user research is to learn more about our users’ behaviors, motivations and needs, it’s also to make our job easier.

For starters, user research can help to rein in the design and development process. We might have a much loftier vision in mind than what our users actually need or want. Our users will have no problem telling us when we’ve gone overboard or in the wrong direction.

Also, if we can create a positive digital experience, we can minimize the number of revisions we need to do and optimize our conversion rate during the first go-round. That will leave us with more time to spend on enhancing the user experience, decreasing user attrition and improving user loyalty over time.

Read next: Customer Segmentation, Personalization and the User Experience