“Do it, don’t do it, or do it in a different way”the Philosophy behind UX research

One of the most important aspects of business today, especially as more of it is increasingly conducted digitally, is the user experience. A user’s experience is important to your business on many different levels, but you might be surprised at what that experience includes. If you rely on your website or mobile app to sell your products or services, for example, it makes sense that user experience would be vital to your success.

What many people don’t consider, however, is that user experience actually goes far beyond a single channel. You need to craft a positive user experience from the time a user first hears about your business to well after they’ve received their product or service, and that’s true for businesses in many different industries. But how do you know what your users will appreciate and how to create an experience that impresses them? Well, that’s where UX (user experience) research comes in.

What is UX research?

UX research is systematic exploration of user needs, behaviors, and motivations. This information is collected in a variety of different ways and provides insight into what your users need, what they want, and how they want to achieve their goals. It is against this backdrop of information that the design process is placed.

What is the philosophy of UX research?

UX research is based on the idea that user experience is both vital to success and can be created given enough information. Users are free to “do it, don’t do it, or do it in a different way”. As UX researchers, our job is to learn. What are users doing? You might be surprised at the methods some of them come up with to meet their needs.

You also want to know why users are doing something. What is their motivation and how might it affect their actions in the future? Once you know how users are currently meeting their needs and what their motivations are, you can begin to build a user experience that directly targets their pain points and makes your business indispensable.

A UX researcher understands how to ask these questions and get to the bottom of users’ answers. They can work together with your designers and developers to help create a comprehensive and cohesive experience from your first contact with a user to after they’ve received their service or product and are reflecting upon the process.

By Thomas George, Director of DoWell Research GmbH

Enhancing innovation by crowdsourcing and co-creation with users in product/service design, Open innovation consulting