Planning and executing effective user research is sometimes a challenge. The value of research is obviously to UX people, but less so to those decisionmakers and stakeholders – who usually control the budget for such things.
I’ve had to build several research plans in the past, and some of the lessons I learned over time has made this process smoother – though a monkey wrench inevitably gets thrown in even the best-laid plans. Here’s some tips on how to build an effective research plan.
Clearly define the “Why”
Many years ago I went to a design conference and the UX speaker – a passionate advocate for research – said something I will never forget. She said, “If I had my way, we’d never stop doing research. We’d keep doing research forever.”
That’s great – we all want to enjoy what we do. But as she continued I realized the speaker was enthralled by research as a thing onto itself – not research to make better products or services, but simply as an activity. Which reminds me of a line from the movie Ghostbusters: “I’ve worked in the private sector — they expect results!”
Defining “why” any research is needed helps ensure both the stakeholders and the research team know what the point of the research efforts are. It helps focus the attention of the team and informs the approach and level of effort required. Look at it as an “Elevator Speech.”
Examples:
- Identify how middle-class millennials in the Southeast manage their money and plan for retirement.
- Research how family-owned and operated small businesses in the Midwest track their cash flow and pay their expenses.
- Discover how lower-class Gen X people in California manage their budgets and expenses.
- Research how often Florida retirees use their mobile phones to send multimedia messages.
Define a specific group (to research)
Note “group”, not “groups”. If you make the research focus to broad you will have to do way to many interviews/research sessions which will result in an avalanche of data to pore over. The more specific you make your research subject group, the quicker you can conclude the “field work” phase and start generating insights from the data you accumulate. Note the examples above – Not “small business”, but “family-owned and operated small business in the Midwest.”
Obviously this specificity will inform the participant screener that will be used by recruiters to identify people to take part in the research. So the more targeted you are when it comes to this group, the better.
Define how much research is required/”enough”
There’s a lot of debate among researchers around how much research is “enough.” This is eventually in the eye of the beholder, but I recommend for each focused group at least six different sets of interviews and/or ethnography – Preferably ten. Remember, perfect is the enemy of good – if research efforts are focused and your interview/research protocol is well-formed, you will get a lot of data to analyze just from three participants.
Define the outputs/outcomes
Once you have defined “Why” of the research, you need to set the “What” – What will come out of the research effort? Saying “insights on user behavior” will probably not be enough for the stakeholders (who, again, may be footing the bill for all this). Instead, define a set of outputs and outcomes that will add value to not just the design team, but the business as well. A good example I’ve used before is the following:
The results of this research effort will produce actionable insights around user behavior regarding (domain being looked into), that will help the UX team in design efforts, inform the product roadmap and create candidate items to be added to the product backlog.
The clear “benefit case” is laid out for everyone – the business stakeholders get insights that will inform product features, the design team will get
Leverage existing customer panels (if possible)
Product management may have already identified customers that can be leveraged for research activities – if so, this is a great cost and time savings for any research. Have a chat with these stakeholders to see if there are any customers that can be brought in to assist.
Define the Research Protocol and “Rules of Engagement”
This is the “How” – How will the field study work occur, and what will this entail. How many researchers are needed? How much travel is required? How much time is available from the participants? How much will the research subjects be compensated? This is important to get right, especially when defining the “rules of engagement” that the researchers need to follow. A core tenet of these engagement rules should always be: No judgement, leave your bias at home, be open, and be kind.
Identify recruiter(s)
You will need to find a good recruiting company to partner with, to find participants for your research. Look for market research companies who will charge either a fixed rate for a set of participants or a discounted rate if your recruit above a certain number. There are also online sources for such recruiting, such as Ethn.io and Respondent.io. Once you do identify a recruiter you are comfortable with, reuse them for future research efforts.
Set your research schedule (and regular checkpoints)
Plan out your team’s schedule. Make sure you coordinate and support any travel requirements (and also know the hard and soft costs of such travel to ensure you ask for sufficient budget). If you have more than one research team in the field, build in regular checkpoints – this way you (as Research Lead) will be able to get a temperature check of how things are going – and course-correct as needed. It also allows researchers share their reactions and helps prevent “compassion fatigue.”
Build in sufficient analysis time
Get the whole research team together at the end to analyze the data to build the outputs that have been defined. I tend to make this at least 50% as much time as took place to do the research (so if there were two weeks of field study, one week is spent in analysis) Optimally, you will also get some of the business stakeholders in the room to participate in this activity as well.
Pitch the research to stakeholders
Once you have locked in the “Who”, the “Why”, the “How” and the “What” with some level of confidence, then you are ready to pitch the research to the decision-makers and key stakeholders. Be ready for questions, and also be ready to compromise. Depending on the culture of the team and the company your “pitch” may be easy or hard, and being able to compromise to get the research you want to do is more important than being dogmatic about what you “have to do” and walking away with nothing.
Do it!
Go out and do your research, and bring valuable insights and outcomes to your team and your “customers.” And try and have a little bit of fun along the way.