The manifesto of user research
The UX field has evolved over the years, but some fundamental lessons and principles have remained the same.
Over the past decade, the UX field has significantly matured to the point that many companies consider user research as the key driver for their strategy and direction. Qualitative research with users has always been at the heart of any solid UX process, it’s how we learn why people behave in a certain way or have a specific need. It’s also how we generate hypotheses that will get tested later using quantitative research methods.
However, now that teams can research at a regular pace and have access to users almost weekly, a new issue emerges — the quality of research.
What happens when we are not scientific or focused enough in conducting research? What if we ran weak or unguided research studies? The answer is simple; we’ll have bad data and confused unfounded findings. Those subpar research findings will guide a strategy or a product direction that can take months and hundreds of person-hours to implement — only to fail or simply not achieve its intended outcomes. Yet, the only thing that rarely gets blamed is poor research and the bad data coming out of it.
That’s why, as UX field practitioners, it’s time to have a manifesto of some sort — a list of key principles that should keep us from conducting poor or unnecessary research. These principles are by no means complete, but they are a starting point for teams to reflect on their research process and judge their research backlog and previous studies with the sole purpose of filtering bad data out of their decision-making loop.
1. No research is better than bad research.
When we base decisions on half-baked or misleading research outcomes, we will end up twice as far from where we needed to be and it will take us twice as long to reach there.
2. We will not waste our participants’ time in the name of research.
Finding, screening, recruiting, and researching with participants take considerable time. We will always make the most out of their time and ours. We will only research with them when we actually have something to research.
3. We will not seek to prove that the sky is blue.
We will start from where others have ended, we will build on what has already been proven and expand it, not redo it.
4. We will not ask if people prefer rounded or square corners.
Visual design decisions are ours to make. We will test the significant decisions to know if they work, and for anything insignificant, we will put our best foot forward.
5. The unit of qualitative research is a learning goal.
We first define what we want to learn then define how we want to learn it. And then, we won’t settle until we learn exactly that.
6. The unit to quantitative research is a hypothesis.
Every design is a hypothesis. Every design is a solution to some problem. Only data will prove whether that design is doing what it’s supposed to do or not. But unless we have defined hypotheses to prove, data is pointless.
7. The unit of any research is curiosity.
We research because we seek new knowledge, not because we want to confirm or validate what we already know.
8. The outcome of any research is facts. Actionable facts.
We will keep researching until we reach conclusive results; until we reach irrefutable facts. Facts that we can base our next actions and decisions on.
