What user research doesn’t do

While incredibly useful, UX research is not of any use by itself without proper analysis. What any UX research study can give you is data; it is up to you and your team members to interpret this data and come up with decisions and solutions that make sense for your product. For example, you may find through a study that most of your users do not use the “Share” feature in your product. You can infer from more data whether users do not need this feature or just don’t know where to find it.

Conversely, you may first create assumptions about your product and then use UX research data to prove or disprove it. For example, you may assume that the first thing that your users notice on your Home page is your website banner. You can measure if your assumption is valid by carrying out a simple eye-tracking test.