UX Research for listening
This post is part of the series on the phases of UX Research. If you haven’t read them already, we recommend you read the posts in the series first:
Assessment and listening phase
On this occasion, the researcher takes a more passive position towards the user. For example, he/she listens and checks the results that have been obtained during the previous phases.
Despite placing this phase at the end of the process, in reference to its evaluative nature, listening should be done throughout the design and research cycle to try to understand existing user problems, as well as to find potential hidden problems.
Let’s see which UX Research techniques are the most suitable for this phase.
Research techniques for listening
Surveys
A survey is a technique for collecting data by applying a questionnaire to a sample of individuals. It is used to extract quantitative information on a given topic.
This can also be used in the discovery phase, as it is part of the user research and will allow us to learn about their opinions, vision, needs, etc.
To implement a survey, we must first carefully choose the type of survey to use, as it will vary according to the research objectives. Among the most common types of surveys are:
- NPS surveys: Measures the disposition of customers/users towards a certain product/service/company.
- Satisfaction Surveys: Quickly and effectively measures the usability of a website, where interpretable data is obtained following standardised methodological criteria of the discipline.
- Intention or purpose surveys: Common surveys within a website, which generally ask: what have you come here to do, do you find it easy, what would you improve about the site, etc. With this type of questions (and other similar ones), the aim is to collect feedback from users in a qualitative way. Although it is more difficult to quantify user feedback in this type of survey, it is the one that can help us the most in a process of continuous improvement of a given digital product.
Once the type of survey to be used has been chosen, specific questions are designed to obtain valuable information.
After collecting an adequate number of responses, these are analysed and conclusions are drawn from them.
Tools: Optimal Workshop, Google Forms o Surveymonkey, among others.
Analytical Review
The main objective of the digital analytics review is to draw conclusions that help to make decisions about the online strategy implemented. This technique is also used in the discovery phase, to find out how a certain product is working.
For implementation in this observation phase, we will take into account the KPIs defined for the business objectives and then analyse them visually with the help of dashboards that allow them to be clearly visualised and interpreted.
Tools: Analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Matomo or Chartbeat.
Review of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
It is a list of the most common questions asked by each user with their respective answers.
Their purpose is to obtain information about possible pain points affecting users and they are used when you want to obtain information about users’ interactions with the product.
By creating a section on our website with these questions and their answers near the decision points, we can improve the user experience and support business objectives.
Tools: Web registration or support tools such as Help Scout.
If you want to learn about UX Research with a specialised training, we invite you to see our Advanced Research Specialisation Programme (this training is in spanish):
This article is a translation of one published in our corporate website:
