Watching how people interact with an interface tells you a lot about what works and what needs improvement. And while observing behavior is essential for understanding the user experience, it’s not enough. Just because a product does what it should, is priced right, and is reliable, doesn’t mean it provides a good user experience. Users
The wide range of UX methods is one of the things that makes UX such an interesting field. Some methods have been around for decades (like usability testing), others are more recent additions, while some seem to be just slight variations on other existing methods. We’ve been tracking and analyzing the methods UX professionals report
UX research efforts should be driven by business questions and a good hypothesis. Whether the research is a usability evaluation (unmoderated or moderated), survey, or an observational method like a contextual inquiry, decisions need to be made about question wording, response options, and tasks. But in the process of working through study details, often the
We conduct a lot of quantitative online research, both surveys and unmoderated UX studies. Much of the data we collect in these studies is from closed-ended questions or task-based questions with behavioral data (time, completion, and clicks). But just about any study we conduct also includes some open-ended response questions. Our research team then needs
Evaluate product designs and concepts early and often. Don’t wait till you’ve built the entire app, website, or product before having people actually use it. Build a prototype and test it. These principles are fundamental to user-centered-design, as well as other popular concepts such as the lean startup and minimum viable products featured in the
A better user experience can lead to increased satisfaction, more loyal customers, and ultimately more revenue. But what does it take to deliver a better user experience? Will applying one of the many methods, or hiring the right UX designer or researcher suffice? There is a general sense in the UX community that a mature
The range of methods available to the researcher is one of the things that makes UX research such an interesting and effective field. The recently completed UXPA salary survey provides one of the more comprehensive pictures of the methods practitioners use. It contains data from over 1200 respondents from 37 countries collected in 2016. Similar
There’s a continued need to measure and improve the user experience. In principle, it’s easy to see the benefits of having qualified participants use an interface and measuring the experience to produce reliable metrics that can be benchmarked against. But in practice, a number of obstacles make it difficult: time, cost, finding qualified participants, and
Most UX designers I know didn’t get into the field because they have a passion for measuring. But even when numbers aren’t your motivation, at some point in your career you’ll likely need to provide evidence that a new design is actually better that a previous one. And an interface is only “better” if it’s
There’s been a lot of buzz about design thinking. What it means, how to apply its principles, and even if it’s a new concept. While design thinking is usually applied to more scientific endeavors, scientific thinking can also benefit design. While it may be a less-trendy topic, a scientific approach to design is certainly effective.
