User Research - the missing link

You’re deep in the discovery process for your new website. Ideally you’re using Google Analytics to analyse user-flows, looking at heat mapping results and watching session recordings as a means to making decisions around your new UX, design and site messaging. Patterns and themes are emerging and you think you know where your user pain points are based on the quantitative insights the above tools provide.

Analytics don’t lie but they’re certainly not all there is to uncovering the true behaviours, motivations and attitudes of your users. If you really want to get the full picture you’re going to need to step out from behind the keyboard and speak with your users face-to-face.

Making it happen

Yes, it’s a lot of effort. First you’ll have to find people willing to meet with you. Incentives will help here. The offer of cold hard cash will usually get you a handful of willing participants but depending on the nature of your research and the availability of users, you might need to offer a higher incentive to get in front of the right users. Put it this way, you’re probably not going to find users for a high-end funds manager research platform offering $40 for the hour through craigslist.

Put it this way, you’re probably not going to find users for a high-end funds manager research platform offering $40 for the hour through craigslist.

When you first meet your research participant you want to be well prepared. Apart from the obvious things like having a recording device ready you’ll want to have taken time to develop a list of questions grouped into logical themes. A good mix of direct questions aimed at testing your quantitative hypotheses and some open-ended questions will provide you with a good mix of fact validation and further discovery.

Starting the discussion by finding out a bit about the persons history, their interests and what circumstances have led them to the interview is usually a good way to match your research subject to any persona profiles you’ve created and what’s more an easy way to warm the conversation up.

Once you get going, don’t let the script limit your conversation. Look for interesting tangents but at the same time be prepared to steer the conversation back to your topic of interest if need be. It’s a balancing act between seeking the information you need and uncovering new insights that you may not have thought of.

What now?

After you’ve interviewed as many participants as your budget/time allows for you’ll have a collection of comments and stories that your site analytics could never have told you. Try to group the comments into themes and summarise any top level findings. By applying these themes to your quantitative data you should be able to match user behaviours with supporting comments from your qualitative research. Hopefully you’ll also have insights beyond what’s happening online. Understand that the user journey starts well before they type in your URL. If you really want to understand user behaviour, you’ll need to look beyond landing pages and entry points.

By using the stories to influence your messaging, brand and design you’re already ahead your competitors in that you’re basing your decisions on a holistic understanding of your users motivations, fears and perceptions of your product.