
user research

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User Research MasterClass October 23rd 2020 (6AM PDT; 9AM EDT; 2pm UTC); 3 hours
To access the Masterclass, join Frank's www.uxinnercircle.com
Video transcript: Frank Spillers, CXO at Experience Dynamics explains the importance of User Research
User Research triggers learning by challenging assumptions
User Research, possibly one of the most important types of activities your organization carries that your organization carries out. Why? Because user research is where we gain the technique that brings us the insight that challenges assumptions. And anything that challenges our internal assumptions with our design, with our organization, with the product or service itself-- anything that challenges assumptions-- is an opportunity to be enlightened, and to be inspired and to gain confidence in your decision making.
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Summary: Getting personas right can save you a lot of time and avoid common approaches to generating persona nonsense. Personas should point to behaviors, not individuals. Using 'Associating Adjectives' can help ground you and reinforce observed behavioral patterns and roles. More importantly, grounding your team will help them navigate this often not-quite-understood qualitative research deliverable.
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Summary: 'User research' has become a catch-all phrase to mean user testing in many organizations. User research has two main activities: usability testing and field studies. Defining your design research with only a validation exercise (testing) misses the essential discovery of user needs, pain points and desires that Ethnographic Field Studies provide. User research should always mean more than just user testing!
How are you defining user research?
Many organizations we work with and UX designers we provide training for, tell us they do 'user research'. Once we dig deeper, we find they are defining user research as user testing. This means only half of UX insights are actually making it to your team.
The two main types of user research your team needs access to: