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They utilize a mixture of self-reported and behavioral data and can move toward either end of this dimension, though leaning toward the behavioral side is generally recommended. On the other end of this dimension, methods that focus mostly on behavior seek to understand 'what people do' with the product or service in question. For example A/B testing presents changes to a site's design to random samples of site visitors but attempts to hold all else constant, in order to see the effect of different site-design choices on behavior, while eyetracking seeks to understand how users visually interact with a design or visual stimulus.īetween these two extremes lie the two most popular methods we use: usability studies and field studies.

Focus groups tend to be less useful for usability purposes, for a variety of reasons, but can provide a top-of-mind view of what people think about a brand or product concept in a group setting. Surveys measure and categorize attitudes or collect self-reported data that can help track or discover important issues to address. For example, card sorting provides insights about users' mental model of an information space and can help determine the best information architecture for your product, application, or website. While most usability studies should rely on behavior, methods that use self-reported information can still be quite useful to designers. The purpose of attitudinal research is usually to understand or measure people's stated beliefs, but it is limited by what people are aware of and willing to report. This distinction can be summed up by contrasting 'what people say' versus 'what people do' (very often the two are quite different). The methods placed in the middle of the quantitative–qualitative axis can be used to gather both qualitative and quantitative data. The following chart illustrates where 20 popular methods appear along these dimensions: Each dimension provides a way to distinguish among studies in terms of the questions they answer and the purposes they are most suited for. To better understand when to use which method, it is helpful to view them along a 3-dimensional framework with the following axes: Unfortunately, many design teams only use one or two methods that they are most familiar with. The key question is what to use when.

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While it's not realistic to use the full set of methods on a given project, nearly all projects would benefit from multiple research methods and from combining insights. The field of user experience has a wide range of research methods available, ranging from tried-and-true methods such as lab-based usability testing to those that have been more recently developed, such as unmoderated UX assessments.

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