In the last two years, the UX industry has changed and consolidated. We are looking at better software and analytics, multiple educational degrees, and prototyping. The multiple industries that are looking for great UX have grown as well, VUX, automotive, hospitality, banking, etc.
Nearly all projects could benefit from multiple research methods and combining analytics insights. It’s not realistic that you can or would use them all. So instead of 6 or more areas or UX assessment tools, let’s break it into two, Qualitative and Quantitative, with multiple research tools in each bucket.
Qual and Quant are not new, how we approach it for the C-level to understand is extremely valuable.
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There are two main types of user research: quantitative (statistics: can be calculated and computed; focuses on numbers and mathematical calculations) and qualitative (insights: concerned with descriptions, which can be observed but cannot be computed).
- Quantitative data from analytics platforms should ideally be balanced with qualitative insights gathered from other UX testing methods, such as focus groups or usability testing. The analytical data will show patterns that may be useful for deciding what assumptions to test further.
- Qualitative user research is a direct assessment of behavior based on observation. It’s about understanding people’s beliefs and practices on their terms. It can involve several different methods including contextual observation, ethnographic studies, interviews, field studies, and moderated usability tests.
These items and more would then be put into your arsenal to choose from:
Card Sorting: Allows users to group and sort a site’s information into a logical structure that will typically drive navigation and the site’s information architecture. This helps ensure that the site structure matches the way users think.
Contextual Interviews: Enables the observation of users in their natural environment, giving you a better understanding of the way users work.
First Click Testing: A testing method focused on navigation, which can be performed on a functioning website, a prototype, or a wireframe.
Focus Groups: Moderated discussion with a group of users, allowing insight into user attitudes, ideas, and desires.
Heuristic Evaluation/Expert Review: A group of usability experts evaluating a website against a list of established guidelines.
Interviews: One-on-one discussions with users show how a particular user works. They enable you to get detailed information about a user’s attitudes, desires, and experiences.
Parallel Design: A design methodology that involves several designers pursuing the same effort simultaneously but independently, with the intention to combine the best aspects of each for the ultimate solution.
Personas: The creation of a representative user based on available data and user interviews. Though the personal details of the persona may be fictional, the information used to create the user type is not.
Prototyping: This allows the design team to explore ideas before implementing them by creating a mock-up of the site. A prototype can range from a paper mock-up to interactive HTML pages.
Surveys: A series of questions asked to multiple users of your website that help you learn about the people who visit your site.
System Usability Scale (SUS): SUS is a technology-independent ten-item scale for subjective evaluation of usability.
Task Analysis: Involves learning about user goals, including what users want to do on your website, and helps you understand the tasks that users will perform on your site.
Usability Testing: Identifies user frustrations and problems with a site through one-on-one sessions where a “real-life” user performs tasks on the site being studied.
Use Cases: Provide a description of how users use a particular feature of your website. They provide a detailed look at how users interact with the site, including the steps users take to accomplish each task.
Just something I have been thinking about and how I see the industry going, simpler with more tools to choose from, easier to sell to clients,s and easier for companies to understand.