21 UX Research Methods

21 UX Research Methods
An introductory guide to various types of
UX research methods

Table of
Contents
Chapter 1 – What is UX Research?
Chapter 2 – Types of UX Research
Chapter 3 – Benefits of UX Research
Chapter 4 – When to do UX Research
Chapter 5 – UX research methods
Chapter 6 – Biometrics for UX Research
Chapter 7 – Neuroscience and AI for UX Research
Chapter 8 – What Results Can I Expect from UX Research?
Chapter 9 – Conclusion

CHAPTER ONE
What is UX research?
1

UX Research
User experience (UX) design is the process of designing products
that are useful, easy to use, and a pleasure to engage. User
research, sometimes referred to as UX research, refers to the
various scientific methods that you can use to understand the
thoughts, feelings and behaviours of the people who use your
product or service.
It’s about enhancing the entire experience people have while
interacting with a product and making sure they find value,
satisfaction, and delight. This understanding can be reached by
observing what they do or by directly asking for feedback about
their experience. Every product, service, or user
interface designers create in the safety and comfort of their
workplaces has to survive and prosper in the real world.
User Experience (UX)
“
Empathy is at the heart of design. Without
the understanding of what others see, feel,
and experience, design is a pointless task.
Tim Brown,
CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO
“

This user research can help you understand who your
customers are, what is important to them, how they actually
use your products, what their biggest impediments are and
how to fix them. And the most useful UX research is well-
planned and organized, which should give you the confidence
that the insights are derived fairly and accurately.
In order to do UX research effectively to get a clear picture of
what users think and why they do what they do. It is essential
that user experience designers and product teams
conduct user research often and regularly. Contingent upon
time, resources, and budget, the deeper they can dive the
better.

CHAPTER TWO
Types of UX research
2

On a broader level based on the type of research output you
get, UX research is of two types quantitative and qualitative.
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).
Types of UX Research

A. Quantitative research
A. Quantitative research -
• Quantitative data helps us understand questions like: how
much, how many and how often? Quantitative data measures
specific counts collected, like how many times a link was
clicked or what percentage of people completed a step.
• Quantitative data is unambiguous in that you can’t argue what
is measured. However, you need to understand the context to
interpret the results
• It is primarily exploratory research and is used to quantify the
problem by way of generating numerical data or data that can
be transformed into usable statistics.
Some common data collection methods include
various forms of surveys – online surveys, paper
surveys, mobile surveys and kiosk surveys, a/b or
multivariate tests, click tests, eye tracking studies,
and card sorts, longitudinal studies, website
interceptors, online polls. This form of user research
may also include analytics, such as Google Analytics.

B. Qualitative research
B. Qualitative research -
• Qualitative user research is a direct assessment of behavior
based on observation. It’s about understanding people’s beliefs
and practices on their terms.
• Some methods can produce multiple types of data. For
instance, in a usability study, you might measure things like
how long it took someone to complete a task, which is
quantitative data, but also make observations about what
frustrated them, which is qualitative data.
• In general, quantitative data will help you understand what is
going on, and qualitative data will give you more context about
why things are happening and how to move forward or serve
better.
Some common data collection methods include
contextual observation, ethnographic studies,
interviews, field studies, and moderated usability
tests. Common UX research methods that can provide
qualitative data are usability tests, interviews, diary
studies, focus groups, and participatory design
sessions.

“Not everything that can be counted counts,
and not everything that counts can be
counted
William Bruce Cameron
“

CHAPTER THREE
Benefits of UX research
3

1. Build User-focused company – To build an
empathetic, user-focused company that aligns the
product and business strategy with the core needs and
goals of users.
2. Effective UX –To understand how people perform tasks
and achieve their goals in order to design an effective and
pleasurable UX.
3. Shorter development cycle – To create a shorter
development time upfront, with a clear vision of what
you are trying to build. Iterative development
methodologies help UX teams uncover the changing
needs of customers, so they can pivot if needed, reducing
the possibility of wasted development time or rework.
4. Save Time and Money – To avoid costly fixes of
development problems later down the road, after time
and money have been invested in the “less than ideal”
solution. There are reported that indicate the cost to fix
an error found after product release was four to five
times as much as one uncovered during design, and up
to 100 times more than one identified in the maintenance
phase.
Benefits of UX Research

5. Reduce conflicts – To solve differences in opinion of
“what should we do now?” by replacing it with the
phrases: “lets test it” or “lets see what the research
showed us”.
6. Track ROI – By constantly employing user research, we
can track the ROI of UX to see where our ideas and
iterations are working, and where we need to improve.
7. Increasing customer happiness and loyalty –
Providing a baseline good experience is no longer a
differentiator, but rather the expected minimum.
Ensuring ease of use means it’s less likely that customers
will go to a competitor for the same service.
8. Uncovering opportunities for improvements or
new features — teams may notice users using
workarounds difficult tasks, or notice that they use other
tools to fill a need that current products or services do
not serve. Such information can help teams plan future
fixes or features and solutions that they had previously
not considered.
Benefits of UX Research

CHAPTER FOUR
When to do UX research?
4

The first thing to know is that there is never a bad time to
do research. While there are many models and complicated
diagrams to describe how products get built, essentially,
you’re always in one of three core phases: conceptualising
something brand new, in the middle of designing and/or
building something, or assessing something that’s already
been built.
When to Do UX Research?

• If you’re just starting out, you need to focus on
understanding your potential users and their context and
needs so that you can understand your best opportunities
to serve them. In other words, you’re trying to figure out
what problems to solve and for whom.
• Once you’re actively building something, you’ll shift your
focus to analysing the solutions that you’re coming up
with, and making sure that they address the needs of
your users. You’ll want to assess both conceptual fit and
specific interactions quality.
• When you have a live product or service, you’ll want to
continue to assess how well you’re serving people’s needs,
but you’ll also want to use research to discover how
people change and how you can continue to provide
value. At this point, you’ll be doing a mix of work that is
generally in the conceptual phase and evaluative work.
• Research can add value at any stage, whether that’s
conceptualising, designing or refining. There is no cut-
and-dried guide of exactly what methods to employ
when, but there should never be a time that you can’t
find an open question to investigate.
When to Do UX Research?

CHAPTER FIVE
UX Research Methods
5

(Quantitative)
A/B testing requires you to use a third-party piece of
software that helps you set up two different web pages, where
one page has an element that’s slightly altered from the
other. For instance, if you can’t decide on the text for a ‘buy’
button, you could use an A/B test to present one version of
the button that says ‘add to cart’ to half your traffic, and the
other version that says ’buy now’ to the other half of your
traffic. Then you can then see whether or not changing the
text of this button has made any difference to the number of
people clicking on it.
1) A/B Testing

(Quantitative)
In a card sort, participants are presented with a list of items
(for example, all the products featured in an online
supermarket) and asked to group them in a way that makes
the most logical sense to them. Depending on the type of card
sort, participants can also choose names for the groups
they’ve put together, forming the potential categories and
subcategories of a website.
• There are three types of card sort:
1) Open card sort:,
2) Closed card sort:
3) Hybrid card sort:
2) Card Sorting

(Quantitative)
Clickstreams are a record of the aggregated paths (URLs)
followed by participants during their navigation.
Clickstreams allow you to view and analyze the paths
participants took while performing their tasks, which
percentages followed that path, and their final status
(complete, error, abandon or timeout). Certain software even
allows you to analyze the heatmaps (the aggregated areas
where users clicked on the page) on each page for further
behavioral analysis.
3) Click Stream Analysis

(Quantitative or Qualitative)
Screenshot click tests are a quick and simple way to test
static images to see where users would click. This can be used
to validate site design, as well as test wireframe prototypes,
by asking participants questions such as, “Where would you
click to access specific content.” This can be done for
everything from high-res images to scanned doodles on a bar
napkin.
4) Click Testing

Concepts or prototypes are inexpensive versions of a design
for engineers to test how the real thing will function. For
product team members, prototypes facilitate discussion and
understanding. UXers can test prototypes with users to get
early feedback before sinking resources into a bad design. In
the long run, it will save you time, money, and headaches
rather than doing all of your UX testing when a product is
nearly complete. Or, worse, doing no UX testing at all.
5) Concept Testing
(Prototyping)

(Quantitative or qualitative)
A Customer Feedback or VoC study is aimed at collecting
‘true’ data on participants who visit a site. In general, Voice
of the Customer studies are really just another way to round
out the research you are already conducting by being ‘always
on’ and gathering ongoing feedback for you in the
background. This data can be used to segment visitors and
create/flush out your user personas.
6) Customer Feedback
(Voice of customer study)

Desirability studies help you identify and define some quality
of your product or brand. You will show your participants
your product (whether it’s a prototype, live website or even
some marketing copy or images), you then ask them to
describe what they see using a list of pre-selected words.
With this data you can see what percentage of your
respondents consider your product to be “awesome” or your
tone of voice to be “weird.”
7) Desirability Study

(Qualitative)
Diary studies gather information about a user experience
over an extended period of time. Participants write about
their experiences with a particular product or service in a
diary. They may also take photos or perform other activities
to record their experiences. Once the study period is over, the
researcher analyses the findings.
Diary studies remove the influence of both the researcher
and the unnatural out-of-home setting, but they’re also
useful for understanding long-term behaviour.
8) Diary or Camera Study

(Qualitative)
Ethnographic studies involve talking with people and
observing them perform their tasks in their own natural
context. Its aim is not just to gather information on how
people behave and interact, but also how their location,
environment and other contexts affects their day-to-day
lives. UX designers take this ethnographic research and use it
to solve a problem through a product or technology.
9) Ethnographic Field Study

(Qualitative)
A group of participants from your target market are gathered
together in one room with a moderator, where they discuss
topics around your potential product or service. These
thoughts and feelings are collated and used to inform the
direction of your product.
10) Focus Groups

Information Architecture (IA) refers to the way content is
presented and accessed from any given page on your website
– whether through menus, breadcrumbs, categories, links –
whatever takes you from one page to another.
Information architecture testing can help you define
navigation, improve information taxonomy and maximize
findability across your website. This is usually done through
both card sorting and tree testing.
11) Information
Architecture Testing

By adding a few lines of JavaScript code to your website or
integrating your mobile app with an SDK, you are able to
intercept site visitors on your site or app, with an
automatically triggered survey. You can find out what your
visitors are planning to do on your site, if they are able to
achieve what they came for, where they are thinking of going
after their visit, who they are in general and if they are
satisfied by the experience you provide.
12) Intercept Surveys

(Qualitative)
Participants meet with a researcher one-on-one to discuss
topics around your potential product or service. These
thoughts and feelings are collated and used to inform the
direction of your product.
13) Interviews

In a traditional lab-based study, between 6-10 (varying
according to needs and perspective) are brought into a ‘lab’
environment to run through a series of tasks. Participants
work on a pre-configured computer or mobile device while
being observed in a separate room either via monitor or
through a one-way mirror. During the study, participants are
given tasks and asked to perform them with a researcher
sitting next to them or in the other room.
If using a think aloud protocol participants are asked to
express their thoughts out loud and the researcher can feel
free to probe or ask further questions while the participant is
walking through their task and after.
14) Lab Study

(Qualitative)
As UX mag states, Participatory design brings customers into
the heart of the design process. Also known as “co-creation”,
“co-design”, or “cooperative design”, the end-users of a
product, service, or experience take an active role in co-
designing solutions for themselves.
15) Participatory Design

When carrying out remote moderated usability testing, also
referred to as online moderated research, you are live online
with participants but from your own location, connected to
them with screen share technology and an audio bridge.
Other than that it’s the same premise as in-person or in-lab
testing. The moderator is there to ask participants questions,
respond to their questions and feedback, and guide them
through the tasks.
The testing software will collect the quantitative and/or
qualitative data as participants go through your test. It will
also allow you to collect and triangulate different kinds of
data and allows for the combination of different kinds of
methodologies within a single study.
16) Remote Usability Testing

CHAPTER SIX
Biometrics for
UX Research
6

It detects cognitive processes to understand more about how
consumers think and behave. The electroencephalogram (EEG)
is portable and relatively economical, provides valuable
information on brain activity. Using this technique, the
electrical activity of the brain is analyzed and recorded by an
EEG headset or headband with small sensors placed on the
scalp. This method identifies changes in the electrical currents
of brain waves.
EEG measures electrical changes on the surface of the brain —
not deep within particular brain structures. This means that
EEG can’t tell you that a particular part of the brain is active. It
can only tell you when there is more or less brain activity.
EEG measures whether a person is engaged and paying
attention. EEG measurements are particularly good at showing
you activity by seconds or even parts of a second.
17) EEG
(Electroencephalography)

Facial expression analysis is an indirect measurement
technology. It measures and records voluntary and
involuntary movements of facial muscles, but does not use
sensors. The facial expression analysis allows you to test the
impact of any content, product or service that is intended to
produce emotional and facial reactions.
The key difference is that there is no need to mount sensors
on the participants ' face because a web camera is responsible
for capturing facial micro expressions (voluntary and
involuntary) related to specific cognitive and emotional states
when participants are exposed to usability studies. Such
performance measures have values of probability to reflect
the likelihood of expressing the desired emotion. It also offers
summary scores of engagement and valence, giving you an
overview of the overall response expressed
18) Facial Coding
(Facial Expression Analysis)

It tracks the position of the eyes and the movement for visual
attention. You get an understanding of what draws
immediate attention with eye tracking, which elements are
overlooked by user, in which order elements are observed,
and how elements compare with one another.
Eye tracking (ET) is a technique which monitors and records
eye movements by using infrared light (which is completely
harmless) or integrated web camera to determine the pupil's
position and gaze on the scree.
The eye movements are observed and the participants ' gaze
patterns are registered. Eye trackers detect and record visual
patterns to clarify the visual path as a response to a
particular stimulus and thus obtain visual attention data.
19) Eye Tracking

GSR is also called “electro dermal activity” or EDA. A typical
GSR measurement device is a relatively small, unobtrusive
sensor that is connected to the skin of your finger or hand.
Sweat glands on the hands are very sensitive to changes in
your emotional state. If you become emotionally aroused —
either positively or negatively — then you will release more
sweat in your hands. Sometimes, these are very small
changes that you may not notice. This is what a GSR monitor
is measuring.
The GSR monitor can’t tell if you are happy, sad, scared, and
so on, but it can tell if you are becoming more or less
emotional.
20) GSR
(Galvanic Skin Response)

CHAPTER SEVEN
Neuroscience and AI
for
UX research
7

All of us are familiar with different types of heat map but
there are lot of them and it’s no wonder people get confused
with all. Attention heat map by Dhiti shows which content of
your design is most likely to catch users' eyes when they first
arrive on the webpage.
As compared to traditional heat maps generated with actual
eye tracking studies with live participants, Dhiti AI’s heat
map is equivalent of a 5 seconds eye tracking session of 50
participants. It shows the most and least eye catching content
for users when they first see. The results from Dhiti are 90%
as accurate as lab-based eye tracking. The Heat map displays
the most attractive elements of the image for viewers in the
form of "hot" and "cold" spots creating so called heat map.
Heat map utilizes thousands of data points and convert them
into visual representation over top of your design. Designers
use it as a feedback tool to design easy-to-use webpages.
21) Predictive Eye Tracking

CHAPTER EIGHT
What Results Can
You Expect from
UX research?
8

Some of the results generated through UX research confirm
that improving the usability of a site or app will:
• Increase conversion rates
• Increase sign-ups
• Increase NPS (net promoter score)
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Increase purchase rates
• Boost loyalty to the brand
• Reduce customer service calls
Additionally, and aside from benefiting the overall user
experience, the integration of UX research into the
development process can:
• Minimize development time
• Reduce production costs
• Uncover valuable insights about your audience
• Give an in-depth view into users’ mental models, pain
points, and goals
What Can You Expect?

User research is at the core of every exceptional user
experience. As the name suggests, UX is subjective—the
experience that a person goes through while using a product.
Therefore, it is necessary to understand the needs and goals
of potential users, the context, and their tasks which are
unique for each product. By selecting appropriate UX
research methods and applying them rigorously, designers
can shape a product’s design and can come up with products
that serve both customers and businesses more effectively.
Conclusion

Dhiti AI simulates human vision and predict what
people will automatically see or miss in first 5 seconds.
It predicts where users will focus their attention on
your design.
LEARN MORE
About Dhiti

21 UX Research Methods

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