In web application/website designing, UX research often gets overshadowed by other aspects of the design cycle. But it is understandable as the majority of this apathy stems from ignorance. This ignorance about UX research and its role in web design is fundamental to understand.
Therefore to empower businesses to make better product design and development decisions, We disclose the top 5 steps for great UX research.
What is UX research in website designing?
UX research is an essential step in the process of website designing and development. For the uninitiated, UX stands for User Experience. What this means is that when a user has while interacting with a product/service the result is UX.
This user ‘interaction’ creates tons of valuable data that can be analyzed to better optimize the product. Therefore the research and analysis process of this data gathered is called UX research.
Website and web application developers use UX research to get a better understanding of the product before launch. By learning how and why people use your product/service helps you in deducing what to do and what not to do.
Why & How Should You Conduct UX Reseach?
As we said earlier, UX research plays a key role in the website designing process. The prime reason for conducting UX research is the insight that it offers into the mind of the user. When you want to create a robust product, you must test multiple aspects of its basic-build.
Any good website and web application design company would choose data-based strategic insight over guesswork.
Therefore here are the 5 steps for conducting the best UX research:
#1 Define Value
To gather credible datasets to conduct accurate UX research, you must first define its value. What this means is that, while developing products you should define the value they provide.
A good web application or website designing process includes creating functional products. These products must-have features and design elements that the user anticipates.
#2 Ease Of Use Index
Another key aspect of UX research is understanding how high your product ranks on the Ease of Use Index. The ease of use index isn’t an established mathematical grading system to rank products.
It is an abstract idea that guides in creating products that are easy to use. Web application developers can generate tons of useful data from UX research regarding the ease of use index.
#3 Product Functionality Monitoring
For enhanced UX research website/web application developers can deploy tools that aid in direct monitoring.
Knowing how your users operate your product’s functionality in the real world gives you great insight into the website designing process. Thus helping you create better products by using this valuable data.
#4 Active User Testing
UX research is all about passively learning about your product’s strengths and weaknesses. The only flaw in passive learning is that the process is tedious and slow. Businesses looking for speed can adopt more ‘active methods’ of learning.
Active methods of user testing can also be used to speed up the process of web app and website designing i.e by using targeted questionnaires to ask users specific experience-driven questions.
#5 Learn From Competition
It might not be possible or ethical to directly gather and analyze data from your competition. But this shouldn’t stop you from trying to learn from them by more ethical means.
You can let control groups of user testers conduct an operations test on your competition product. By gathering data on user behavior and interaction with the competing product, you will be able to better optimize your own.
In Conclusion
Conducting good UX research enables businesses to create products that propel them to higher levels of success. The data gathered from such UX research activities can be used by good web application developers to better streamline their development process.
Businesses looking to leverage good UX research must partner with experienced website design and development companies that are totally vertically integrated.
