How to choose the right UX Research methods

UX research was once an afterthought in product development. Today, understanding users is essential for success in our competitive digital landscape. 

This shift, however, presents a new challenge: selecting the right research method from a vast toolkit. Should you interview or run usability tests? Is survey the best option, or will analytics yield more?

Misaligned choices waste resources, collect irrelevant data, and lead to poor product decisions. 

In this article, we’ll guide you through choosing the most effective methods and key considerations.

Understanding your UX research choices

Considering these critical dimensions makes finding the best UX research methods easier. 

This section will explore the fundamental ways to identify objectives, data types, and approaches.

Research Objectives: Exploratory, Generative, Evaluative, Validation

First, we must establish objectives that will guide us in understanding the study’s purpose and selecting appropriate methods. This will allow us to answer specific research questions.

Let’s delve deeper into the four dimensions of research:

Data Types: Qualitative vs Quantitative research

These 2 fundamental data types underpin many UX research methods. These data offer complementary perspectives on understanding users.

Some researchers prefer combining both to gain more comprehensive insights about users.

Moderated vs unmoderated

Moderated vs. unmoderated indicates researcher involvement in research sessions, particularly usability testing and interviews. Let’s explore when and how to use this approach.

With a solid grasp of these research dimensions, let’s delve into the specifics of each UX research method.

The best way to choose research methods

Here are three critical areas from the overall research objectives, questions, and stages to assist you in selecting the appropriate methods to optimize your insights.

1. Defining clear research objectives and questions

Effective research starts with clear, specific questions. Vague objectives, such as “understand our users better”, will not effectively guide method selection. 

Let’s see examples of creating targeted questions to address the knowledge gaps:

Instead of: “Is our website user-friendly?”
Ask: “What obstacles prevent new users from successfully creating an account?”

Instead of: “Do users like our new feature?”
Ask: “How does our new collaborative editing feature affect team workflow efficiency?”

Well-formed research questions should:

• Focus on specific user behaviors or needs.
• Connect to business or design decisions.
• Be concise in conveying information.
• Be answerable through research.
• Avoid presupposing solutions.

2. Mapping questions to appropriate method categories

Each research method is designed to uncover specific insights. Understanding your research questions is essential for choosing the most effective approach (refer to the previous point).

Let’s explore these types of questions:

• “What is happening?” This question delves into understanding the current situation and observing user behavior. Observational methods like field studies, contextual inquiry, and analytic review are typically used.
• “Why is it happening?” This question aims to understand the drivers behind user actions and feelings. The best exploration methods are interviews, contextual inquiry, and focus groups.
• “How many/how much?” This question is to obtain statistical insights and measurable results. Quantitative methods like surveys, analytics, and A/B testing are crucial for analysing numerical data.
• “How do users organize/think about…?” This question focuses on uncovering the user’s mental model for grouping information. The best methods are card sorting, tree testing, and concept mapping.
• “Does our solution work?” This question aims to determine the effectiveness and user-friendliness of our solutions. The most effective methods include usability testing to observe user interactions and A/B testing to compare different versions.

3. Accounting for your product’s lifecycle stage

Your product’s development stage significantly influences which research methods will provide the most value:

• Discovery phase: Prioritize exploratory methods like contextual inquiry, user interviews, and field studies to fully understand the problem space through in-depth user exploration.
• Definition phase: Focus on generative methods like journey mapping, card sorting, and participatory design workshops to inform solution development by co-creating and structuring ideas.
• Design and development phase: Emphasize evaluative methods like usability testing, prototype testing, and concept validation to refine solutions by gathering direct user feedback on functionality and usability.
• Delivery phase: Implement validation methods like A/B testing, analytics review, and benchmarking to measure performance and identify optimization opportunities based on real-world usage data.
• Post-launch phase: Use continuous improvement methods like support ticket analysis, analytics review, and satisfaction tracking (e.g., CSAT, NPS, CES) to identify emerging issues and opportunities by constantly monitoring user sentiment and behavior.

Key considerations shaping a realistic research strategy

Every project has its limitations. When exploring user needs, we cannot simply choose any method. We must be pragmatic.

Thus, your UX research strategy should be based on the practical realities of time, budget, and user availability.

Keep reading for more details:

Timeline constraints: Methods for rapid insights vs. in-depth understanding

Time constraints significantly impact the feasibility of an approach. Here are 3 timeframes you’re more likely to encounter:

• Need it now? (1-2 days) Methods that provide fast signals but not deep dives, such as analytics reviews, guerrilla usability testing, expect heuristic evaluation and customer tickets or user feedback analysis.
• A week or 2 to learn? (1-2 weeks) Methods that balance depth and speed include usability tests, user interviews, card sorting, and online surveys.
• Time for deep understanding? (3+ Weeks) Methods that offer rich and nuanced data include dairy studies, large-scale surveys, competitive and benchmarking analysis, and in-depth interviews.

Key takeaway: Respect your time, select methods that align with your timeline, and do not hesitate to adjust the scope for timely and valuable insights.

Budget considerations: Getting maximum value at every price point

Budget, alongside time, significantly impacts method viability. We believe valuable insights can be gained at every budget level. Let’s explore budget-conscious options:

• Lean budget (Under $1,000): Utilize existing data, including support ticket analysis, analytics review, internal heuristic evaluations, and guerrilla testing.
• Mid-range ($1,000 to $10,000): Explore remote user interviews, unmoderated usability testing, online card sorting, and targeted surveys.
• High-investment (> $10k): Consider in-depth interviews, field studies, diary studies, large-scale surveys and multi-location comparative studies.

Key takeaways: Spend wisely. Prioritize methods that effectively answer your research questions, even with a limited budget. At times, focused small studies yield the best results.

User accessibility: Reaching your users effectively

Have you heard the myth that recruiting users is a difficult task? We agree, but we can adjust our research methods to enhance user accessibility for gathering insights.

• Easily access your users: Leverage methods to maximise value, and facilitate interactions such as moderated usability testing, collaborative workshops, and extended contextual inquiry.
• Hard-to-reach users: use asynchronous methods to enhance limited direct access with insightful indirect approaches, such as remote unmoderated testing or diary studies, and analysis of existing artefacts, such as forum discussions or specialized publications.

Key takeaways: Understand your users’ accessibility needs. Employ methods to engage them effectively, improving targeted learning despite the challenging situation.

Combining methods for deeper understanding

A single research method offers only a partial view. Mixed methods and triangulation are essential to gaining a truly comprehensive understanding.

As Nielsen Norman Group advocates, “The most effective research strategies employ multiple methods to overcome the weaknesses inherent in any single approach.”

Key benefits:

• Gain holistic views: Combining “what” (quant) with “why” (qual) to fill in the knowledge gaps.
• Minimise bias and enhance credibility: Confirming findings collected through various data sources.
• Stakeholder buy-in: Customizing reports for various stakeholders using data and user stories.
• Balances depth with breadth: Some methods offer deep insights from a few users, while others collect broader but shallower data from many users.
• Actionable recommendations: Lead to more precise and impactful design solutions.

Let’s explore these practical examples:

“Voice + Behavior” (Interviews + Analytics)

This pairing combines what users say with what they do. This combination enables us to address the fundamental “say-do gap” in human behavior.

How it works:

• Analytics first: Evaluate what’s happening in your data (patterns, drop-offs). Then, use interviews to understand why these behaviors occur.
• Interviews first: Uncover why issues might exist through user conversations. Then, use analytics to see how widespread those behaviors are.

“Say + Do” (Surveys + Usability Tests)

This combination directly links what users say with what they actually do. This pairing reveals crucial gaps between stated attitudes and real behavior.

How it works: Use a survey to gather what users claim they do, prefer, or need on a broad scale. Then, observe what users do during usability tests when interacting with your product. Lastly, analyze the differences and similarities to uncover insights.

From methods to impact: Making research count

Choosing the right research methods to collect quality data. However, the impact of your research depends on how you convey findings to stakeholders, which influences its reception and visibility.

Erika Hall states, “The goal isn’t to do research. The goal is to make good decisions based on research.”

Here’s how to turn your research into something people use:

Presenting qualitative and quantitative insights as stories

Imagine you’re running a usability study and A/B test on two versions of a checkout page. Here’s how you can visualize the data to tell a compelling story:

Heatmap (Where are users getting stuck?)

Analyze Versions A and B to see user interaction with the “Promo Code” field. Version A experiences more abandonment, while Version B shows smoother navigation toward the field.

Click-through rate graph (Which design performs better?)

A bar chart shows Version B’s checkout completion rate is 12% higher than Version A’s.

Drop-Off Funnel (Where do users leave?)

A funnel chart map shows where users drop off: Version A shows a 30% drop in users at the payment method selection, while Version B only has a 12% drop. This shows the impact of the redesign.

Verbatim = Interpretation

Video clips evoke emotions by illustrating real users’ challenges, with a brief quote: “Version B has less visual clutter, making it easy to enter the promo code.”

Documentation Approaches for Different Stakeholders

People have varying priorities — and that’s perfectly fine. Tailor your research findings to align with what each team requires to act on your findings.

• For executives: One-page summaries with key takeaways. Highlight strategic insights, business risks, and opportunities. Save the methodology for the appendix.
• For product and design teams: Action-ready insight hubs organized by feature or user journey stage. Link each insight to specific recommendations and prioritize them.
• For designers: Design principles drawn from research patterns. Use specific dos and don’ts, with real-world examples, to guide design choices.
• For engineers: Clear, reproducible issue reports with technical context. Flag severity, suggest solutions, and include steps to reproduce — the more actionable, the better.

Get valuable insights with UXArmy

Be creative and cultivate an adaptive mindset — UX research isn’t about following rigid rules, but about selecting the right methods for your goals, within the realities of budget, time, and user access.

Key takeaways:

• Be methodologically adaptable, rather than loyal to specific tools.
• Choose methods based on project goals, constraints, and evolving user insights.
• Start small with accessible methods, then build your toolkit over time.
• Learn continuously from each study and adapt your approach as needed.
• Don’t aim for perfection; aim for impact.

As Christian Rohrer says, “The best researchers are methodologically agnostic but strategically precise.” Do what works — and keep learning.UXArmy is a leading research platform that provides a comprehensive suite of user research methods, such as unmoderated usability testing, to uncover valuable insights for any business rapidly.

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