5 Common Mistakes Product Designers Make in User Research: Avoid These Pitfalls
As a product designer, you must understand the importance of conducting user research before beginning the design process. Despite having familiarity with research methodologies and theories, mistakes during the research phase are still common. In this blog, we will confidently explore the most common pitfalls that product designers encounter during user research and provide effective solutions to avoid them.
1: Not having a concrete goal (s)
Ask — Does this research reveal something you don’t know today, and why is it important to know?
Your research cannot be effective if your goal is written as “understand your user’s pain points”. This broad and unfocused research can lead to exploratory results rather than concrete measures. Instead, your research should have a specific goal, such as answering a question, proving a hypothesis, uncovering the latent needs, or discovering a problem. By remaining focused and targeting a particular objective, you can confidently and effectively gather the data you need to inform your design decisions.
2: Not separating Problem space and Solution space
User Research should be about uncovering the problems rather than discovering a solution.
It’s about asking questions rather than looking for answers. It’s about learning about people and their experiences with your product so that you can create something that delivers on their needs. It’s not about discovering what people want — it’s about learning what people need and ensuring your product does that for them.
3: Taking feedback at face value
a: What we say and do is very different from what we actually do. The most common answer to a general interview question — “Would you buy this product” — Yes, Sure! (and not so surprising). More often than not, the reason differs from the intent to buy. It’s could simply be a direct outcome of being polite. Instead, ask questions to understand their problem, how they currently solve it, and how much time and money they spend on it. Triangulate the information and get to the bottom of the problem.
b: Users often articulate their frustrations through feature ideas during user research. “I wish I had an advanced filter to see a combination of X, Y, and Z under certain constraints.” Don’t take all feedback at face value. Instead, dig deeper to uncover the issues that led to this proposal. Why is filtering required here? Would your product ever generate enough data for it to be filtered? What is the underlying problem? Is there a more elegant solution?
4: Not having enough understanding of the business or the domain
This leads to point: 3, as mentioned above.
The users are adept at identifying fundamental problems. Despite this, they may need to be better versed in finding the most viable solutions. The designer’s expertise comes into play here. To conduct proper user research, you must either understand the business side of things (yourself) or work with someone who does. Alternatively, you can bring in a subject matter expertise to the research process.
Once you understand your users’ problems, you can incorporate them into your design process and work with stakeholders to develop solutions that address more fundamental issues than your original proposals.
5: Confusing Scrappy research with crappy research
Several times, UX designers confuse crappy research with Scrappy Research. And more often than not, the reason cited is “lack of time.” Scrappy mean quick, within constraints yet effective. Crappy means Crappy. Lack of time or resources shouldn’t be a reason (excuse) for doing crappy research.
You can
a: Have a very focused goal. Example: If your product needs to be researched for both, mobile and web design, figure out what benefits your product the most and pick one.
b: Use already existing research data. Do literature review, competitive analysis, or any form of desk research.
c: Streamline your product/business priorities. Figure out the definition of “value” for your product/service.
c: Find an opportunity to insert your research (piggyback) into an ongoing research, probably by other teams.
Bonus Points
1: Research insights are valuable only if utilized. Everything else is simply performative.
2: Not all research insights will lead to user interface changes. Insights can sometimes be more effective if transferred to other product verticals, such as content strategy, branding, and market adaptation. Don’t limit your influence to just the user interface.
3: Re(Design) opportunities don’t always look and sound obvious. Read between the lines to decipher the behavior and context.
4: Establish clear connection between research insights and solution.
5: Organize, share and iterate.
Conclusions
Avoiding these common mistakes when conducting user research is essential for any product designer to succeed. Remember, it’s always better to ask too many questions than too few! We hope this article has given you some insight into the most common pitfalls of user research — and how you can avoid them.
