What is User Research?

User research is a form of primary research that aims at understanding a target audience, validating that their needs will be satisfied and that you will earn a return on investment.

Oscar de la Hera Gomez
Written by Oscar de la Hera Gomez
First published on 01/09/2024 at 15:20
Last Updated on 02/23/2024 at 11:18
<p>A flower that represents Strategy with the text "User Research" beneath it.</p>

User research is a form of primary research that aims at understanding a target audience, validating that their needs will be satisfied and that you will earn a return on investment.

SubscribeWhat is Primary Research?What is a Target Audience?

User Research can be carried out through qualitative or quantitative research and is fundamental to the creation of a new product, service or experience as it allows an individual or company to get a better understanding of their target audience.

How to define a Target AudienceWhat is Qualitative Research?What is Quantitative Research?

For example, user research can help a company or individual intimately understand:

  • Who the audience is.
  • What the needs of the audience are.
  • How the needs of the audience are currently being satisfied.
  • Who is servicing the audience's needs.
  • Where the needs of the audience are not being met.
  • What the audience is willing to pay for.
  • What the audience expects to get for free.

This information is often consolidated into personas in order to have a permanent reference point of who you are creating for.

What is a User Persona?How to create a User Persona

"User research is an essential part of UX design. Unless we understand who we are designing for and why, how can we even know what to create or where to begin? Depending on your project, requirements and constraints, you can choose different types of research methods, from surveys and tests to interviews and the most common method — usability testing. Here, we’ll look at what user research is, and the three most common reasons for doing user research — namely, to create designs that are truly relevant, to create designs that are easy and pleasurable to use, and to understand the return on investment of your user experience (UX) design."

Interaction Design Foundation: User Research: What it is and Why You should do it

To learn more about our approach to user research or our process, please consult the links below.

Learn more about our processHow to carry out User Research?

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