User-Experience research is the study of a target audience or users to help with the design process of an application. This can help make the design of your app more fluid and user-friendly, as well as help you work through the kinks of any problems you may have to solve down the road. Not only are you going to be able to present solutions for yourself and your team, you’ll also be providing solutions for your users based off of their wants and needs.
There are two common types of UX research: Qualitative and Quantitative.
Qualitative research consists of interviews, field studies, focus groups, etc. to help you better understand why your users do what they do and how to fix any problems that they have. Qualitative research also helps with usability testing, which in the long run, is how you fix the problems I mentioned previously. Doing this throughout the process of development can help you find out what part of your app is working the best, what is easiest to navigate through, and what is most difficult to do while interacting with the app design. Because qualitative research doesn’t involve numerical or mathematical data and uses things like opinions, wants, and motivations, there is a risk of you injecting your own personal opinions and beliefs into the research and could influence said research.
Quantitative research, on the other hand, consists of measurable data that you get from surveys, analytics, etc. You are gaining data about what the users do, opposed to why. With the measurable data you collect, you can test assumptions and hypotheses that you got from qualitative research. This is how you discover patterns across your userbase, and the bigger that userbase is, the more accurate the findings will be. Unlike qualitative research, quantitative research doesn’t run the risk of being biased towards the developers own ideas or opinions, but it also can’t tell you the more personal information that qualitative research can.
There are two approaches when it comes to UX research: Attitudinal and Behavioral.
The attitudinal approach has you listen to what your users say in interviews, focus groups, etc. This is most often used in marketing because it measures people’s beliefs and needs.
the behavioral approach has you observe your users and study what they do. A few methods of the behavioral approach are A/B testing and eyetracking. This measures their actions and understanding of your product and its design.
Taylor Ethridge 