Research techniques are conducted with potential or existing customers that are associated with your product or service. It helps to inform the product teams of the current set of challenges that are faced by customers and how these can be solved going forward. The primary objective is to arrive at a solution that meets the dynamic needs of the greatest set of users of your product or service in the most intuitive manner. It is all about working closely with your customers so that you can deliver best-in-class solutions based on their iterative feedback and suggestions.

Different UX Phases

The UX research technique can be applied to the following UX phases:

• Discovery: This is the phase where key insights are gathered, and new ideas are brainstormed. This can be done for a new product or by deciding on the priority of what features need to be built for each iteration.
• Definition: This is the stage where all the key insights, ideas, and data trends are transformed into a concrete plan for your product, feature, or enhancement.
• Build: It is the process of developing, testing, and refining the product, feature, or enhancement.
• Launch: This is the stage where you release your product with all the required features and enhancements to your end-users. This allows the end-users to provide valuable feedback on the product changes that are implemented. Let us try and understand the commonly used UX research techniques that can be implemented with some of the great product teams:
   

• Card Sorting

This technique is based on a simplistic concept of writing your words or phrases on cards and then asking the user to categorize them. The categories can be labeled for better understanding. This is a great way to determine if your Information Architecture is heading just the right way or not. This technique can be performed face-to-face with potential users or using online tools if the users are in remote locations. This is a very easy technique to get quick user feedback for the ideas early on in a UX project.

• Eye Movement Tracking

This technique works on tracking the eye movements of your potential users that are using the system. This enables you to see what is naturally capturing the attention of the users, and to correct the results if that was not the desired outcome. It helps to gauge the quality of UI design and helps to gauge how to categorize certain kinds of content. This is a cost-effective method adopted by our UX team lately and has paid rich dividends in the long run.

Usability Testing

This technique has been my all-time favorite for many years now. Usability testing is all about observing the behavior of users trying to perform tasks within a product. The users can focus on a single process or can explore multiple processes. It is important to pick the right users for this activity otherwise you cannot attain the desired results. You can also bring your clients into usability testing as observers. This increases their enthusiasm for such testing and shows them clearly why testing is an integral component of a product setup.

• User Interviews

This is a traditional yet valuable way to understand the attitudes, behaviors, and context of your users. You can utilize this technique when you want to cover key user needs, goals, motivations, and pain points. User interviews are conducted in a one- to-one fashion where open-ended questions are asked to gauge the overall mindset. This approach helps to create a customer-led product team that addresses the customer needs right from the beginning. It is very important at this stage not to lead the user in any particular direction, but just to be an impartial listener to their perspecives.

Conclusion

The blog discusses the different UX research techniques that are implemented by world-class product teams to deliver customer-driven solutions. It is all about understanding the customer behavior and pain points so that you can come up with solutions that add great value in the long run. So, if you are looking for key insights from your customers, you can try any of the above-mentioned techniques and see exceptional results in the long run.

At Axeno, we follow the UX process to gain a deep understanding of the problem and build innovative solutions. We go above and beyond to learn everything that will help us develop a better customer experience. Looking for UX consulting and technology solutions, connect with us at [email protected].