UX Research Strategy & Methodology

Strategy is the approach you take to achieve a goal. UX research strategy is a plan to incorporate various research methods into your design process.

Many product teams don't do any UX research and rely on their "gut feeling," citing budget and time constraints. Others do surveys and interviews of their co-workers, friends, and family, introducing bias to their findings. Such approaches often result in time and money wasted or a project that doesn't satisfy users.

Having a UX research strategy allows you to create a product that users need and save your team's efforts along the way. UX research strategy helps you:

• Reinforce the importance of research and get stakeholders on board
• Set research goals (are you making a new product or trying to improve an existing one?)
• Account for time and budget for UX research during project planning
• Integrate UX research into your design process
• Decide which research methods should be used at each stage
• Successfully implement your research findings

Building a successful UX research strategy starts with understanding your research stakeholders. These are the people your research will impact and whom you need to work with to complete the project. Understanding who they are helps you communicate findings effectively and ensure research gets used.

Stakeholders can be categorized by their relationship to research:

• Business stakeholders include upper management, product managers, marketing, and sales. They ensure research aligns with business goals and control resources. A VP of Product might validate strategic direction, while marketing directors need user preferences for campaigns.
• Engineering stakeholders are developers, QA teams, and technical support. They provide information about technical limitations. A senior engineer might test prototype feasibility, while QA needs user workflows for test cases.
• UX stakeholders are designers, researchers, and technical writers who need research results for design decisions. A product designer might validate interaction patterns, while content strategists need insights for messaging.

Understanding these categories helps tailor communication so each stakeholder gets the information needed for informed decisions.^[2]

Your research subject depends on your goals. Research goals guide which methods to use and what questions to ask. Different goals require different approaches because each reveals distinct insights.

Common research goals include:

• Understanding user behavior. Field studies reveal how users accomplish tasks in real environments. A researcher might shadow shoppers to understand purchasing decisions or observe employees using software in their workspace.
• Evaluating usability. Usability testing measures how easily users complete tasks. A team might watch users navigate checkout to identify where they struggle or abandon the process.
• Testing concepts. Concept testing evaluates whether users understand and want a proposed solution before building it. Teams show prototypes to gauge interest and collect feedback.
• Improving workflows. Process evaluation examines how systems work and where they break down. This might involve analyzing support tickets or observing team collaboration.

For research to succeed, stakeholders must trust researchers, budget for studies, and use findings. Conduct stakeholder interviews to understand their needs and determine what to research next.^[3]

UX strategy follows your product development cycle timeline. A good rule is to always do research early and often. The cost of fixing a problem post-development can be up to 100x that of fixing it beforehand.^[4]

The tests you need to run will differ depending on the stage:

• Discovery: At this stage, you need to learn about the market for your product and its potential users. Consider using methods like generative interviews, diary studies, ethnography, field studies, and focus groups.
• Validation and testing: At this point, you typically have a prototype to test. The goal now is to understand if your design works for users. Key methods to test this include qualitative usability testing, tree testing, first click testing, task analysis, A/B testing, and accessibility testing.
• Post-launch: Once you've launched your product, it's important to keep the research going to ensure that your solution is still working. You can track it with surveys like NPS or your product's analytics.

A UX research plan is a document that outlines your research goals, methods, and logistics. It serves as a reference point for your team and keeps stakeholders informed about the purpose, scope, and timeline of the research. A research plan typically includes:

• Research goals and questions. What do you want to learn? These should be specific and answerable through research.
• Research method. Which methods will answer your questions? Usability testing for evaluating task completion, interviews for understanding motivations, or surveys for measuring satisfaction.
• Participant criteria. Who will you recruit and how many? Define characteristics that match your target users and justify the sample size for your chosen method.
• Timeline. When will research activities occur and when can stakeholders expect results? This helps manage expectations and ensures adequate resources.
• Analysis approach and deliverables. How will you analyze findings and what format will the results take? This might include reports, presentations, or recorded sessions.

After creating the plan, share it with stakeholders before beginning research. This ensures they understand the approach, keeps them invested, and provides an opportunity for feedback that might improve the study.

Lean UX is a collaborative approach to designing products in agile environments. It prioritizes rapid experimentation and user feedback over documentation. Teams build minimum viable products quickly, test with users, and iterate based on findings.

Lean UX research adapts traditional methods for speed. Research happens in short cycles aligned with agile sprints. Teams start with hypotheses about user needs. A hypothesis might be "users complete checkout faster with saved payment methods." Teams create prototypes to test assumptions.

Common lean research methods include:

• Guerrilla testing involves approaching people in public spaces for quick feedback. Sessions last 5-10 minutes and reveal usability issues without formal recruitment.
• Remote unmoderated testing allows users to complete tasks independently using recording tools. This scales research across regions without travel costs.
• Rapid surveys collect feedback from many users quickly. Short questionnaires validate hypotheses or measure satisfaction without lengthy interviews.

The lean approach trades comprehensive data for speed. Results guide the next iteration rather than large design efforts upfront.^[5]

One of the main differences between lean UX research and other research methods is making assumptions. In traditional research, we avoid assuming anything about users. Instead, we study them and present our findings as detailed deliverables. This information determines how the design process will be conducted.

Lean UX is slightly different because the focus is to improve the product here and now. For example, you've noticed that users of an e-commerce site switch back and forth between the product details page and the basket page to edit their selected size, and many leave the website without purchasing.

Start with a problem statement that follows the pattern: "[A user] needs [need] to accomplish [goal]." For example, "A user needs to understand our shoe size system to buy shoes of the right size."

The next step is to get the team together to brainstorm possible solutions and make assumptions. For example, an assumption might be: "Adding a link to the sizing guide to the product details page will solve sizing uncertainty."

To test this assumption, create a hypothesis. "Adding a link to the sizing guide will increase customers' progress from the basket to checkout." Determine what evidence you need to collect to prove your belief is true and start testing.

Research strategies differ based on whether you're building a new product or improving an existing one. For new products, research focuses on validating that the product addresses real problems before development begins. For existing products, research examines how well current features serve users and where improvements are needed.

New product research typically focuses on:

• Understanding user problems. Before building features, teams research what problems users face and how they solve them today. Competitive analysis reveals what users expect and where gaps exist. Interviews uncover needs that current solutions don't address.
• Testing concepts before development. Concept testing evaluates whether users understand and want the proposed solution. Teams show prototypes to assess interest before full development. This reveals whether the value proposition resonates.
• Validating onboarding approaches. User onboarding, the process of guiding users to find value in your product, can make or break adoption. Research tests how users discover core functionality and whether the initial experience helps them succeed.
• Identifying adoption barriers. Usability testing on prototypes reveals friction before launch. Testing with five users identifies 85% of major usability issues, saving development costs.^[6]

Research for existing products focuses on retaining current users while attracting new ones. Understanding where users struggle helps reduce churn, while identifying improvement opportunities drives growth.

Existing product research typically focuses on:

• Reducing churn and improving retention. Analytics reveal where users drop off or decrease usage over time. Combining behavioral data with interviews uncovers why users leave for competitors. Teams identify friction points in critical workflows and address pain points before users abandon the product.
• Optimizing existing features. Usability testing on current features reveals where users get stuck or confused. Session recordings and heatmaps show how users actually interact with the product versus how designers intended. These insights guide refinements that make features more discoverable and easier to use.
• Validating new features and improvements. A/B testing compares design variations to determine which changes improve key metrics like conversion or engagement. Prototype testing gauges user interest in proposed features before full development. This prevents investing resources in features users don't need or want.

Retention research often reveals that small UX improvements significantly impact whether users return. A 5% increase in retention can boost profits by 25% according to research, making it more cost-effective than constantly acquiring new users.^[7]