User Research
Understanding exactly who we’re designing for – their motivations, frustrations and where the opportunities lie along with your business needs and what your competitors are doing are all part of our UX research services.
What is user research?
User research, also known as UX research, is about understanding why people will want your product or service and how it will fit into their lives. It takes out the guesswork and enables us to make informed decisions for every design choice – a solid foundation for the rest of the project work to come.
It’s also called UX research as it focuses on the user experience – getting insights on where the problems might be with their current way of doing things and how we can provide better solutions. How we can create a better user experience that connects with the user better and solves their problems more effectively.
Speaking to your target audience is just one part of this – understanding the market, reviewing your analytics and gaining insights from other subject matter experts is also part of the user research process. A process that should continue through the project and after the website or product is launched as user habits can change and the user experience should evolve with it.
Our user research services
We tailor the research to the needs of the project and have a range of tools at our disposal:
Stakeholder interviews
UX research isn’t entirely focussed on the user – it needs a full understanding of your business and product too. What are you trying to achieve and what problems does your product aim to solve? We can compare that with what we discover with the rest of the user research process to work out how best to marry business and user needs EmailOctopus photo
Stakeholder research with EmailOctopus
Outputs: written summary capturing key themes, business goals, user needs, pain points, project risks, and success criteria.
Customer experience (CX) mapping
This is can be a highly rewarding research technique where we put ourselves in the shoes of the buyer and go through the full customer journey from researching the solution through search or social channels, browsing the marketing website, booking a demo or signing up for a free trial, buying the product and the onboarding and customer service that follows. Looking at where the pain points might be and where there are opportunities to improve.
Customer experience (CX) mapping for Bluecrest
Outputs: CX map (see above) documenting the journey steps, key actions for customer, needs and pain points, what the customer feels and whether the interaction met expectations on a scale.
Market research
Competitors cannot be ignored and finding your place in the market through differentiation can be key to gaining traction. Understanding who the main competitors are, the features of their product, how they present themselves and what they say through their messaging is essential when finding gaps in the market where your product can fit.
Outputs: Competitor Analysis: Matrix benchmarking competitors on market share, feature sets, pricing, and positioning. SWOT: Analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats based on findings.
Analytics analysis
Data can play a big part in the user research phase particularly for products that exist already – looking at exactly how your users are using your product, which screens and features they are spending their time on and where potential problems are can help us make critical UX design decisions.
Outputs: Dashboard capturing key analytics and what they mean. Report showing where analytics are showing potential user experience issues as well as opportunities for upgraded or new features.
UX audit
We can perform a full product or website deep dive and record where user experience issues are and how to fix them. The report can be a stand alone piece that we handover to you and your team to implement or the basis for further work we undertake either to resolve any problems or part of a bigger design initiative e.g. a feature upgrade or even a full product redesign.
Outputs: Report documenting user experiencing issues and recommendations for how to address them.
User testing
Where we find the most value of all is when testing digital products or websites with real users. Experiencing what they see and how they interact can impact every aspect of the experience including messaging, visual identity design, interface design and feature UX. Live testing can uncover insights that can become hidden when you’re immersed in a design process and ideally should be performed more than once during a project.
Outputs: Highlights video and slide deck capturing key insights and spreadsheet with full analysis.
Why choose us for you user research project
We believe a level of user research is essential to every project and have undertaken short phases to extensive multi-month research projects. Choose us because:
- Client work for a range of user research challenges
- From 3 month marketing website design and builds to 3 year digital transformation programmes we adapt to delivery timescales large and small
- Verified Clutch 5* rating from our lovely clients
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User research
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