How do you implement user research within your organization?

User research or UX research is translated into French as user research or UX research. User research is a user-centered approach that allows you to understand your users and their journeys on your interface (site and/or mobile application) and to find solutions to their frustrations.

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Today we will cover different topics:

1. Why implement User Research in your organization? 
2. What is the difference between User research and CRO? 
3. The User Research Guide

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Why implement User Research in your organization? 

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  User research meets several objectives: 

• Fix friction and/or bugs quickly
• Understanding your users and exploiting cognitive biases
• Build user loyalty by involving them in your optimization process (with user tests for example)
• Anticipating future user behaviors 

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UX research is closely linked to UX design. Indeed, it allows us to understand behaviors (user or UX research) in order to then model (UX design) user-centered interfaces. In order to create sites that are ever easier to use and meet user expectations, the UX research stage is essential. These two roles, UX research and UX design, are therefore necessary as part of the user-centered design process.

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User research will include different methods such as: 

• Seeking insights through qualitative data :

• user tests
• interviews
• customer feedback etc.

• The benchmark

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User research allows you to optimize your site based not on your judgments but on the needs of your users and the problems they currently encounter on your site. This allows you to: 

• create useful interfaces that are actually used by your users
• be innovative
• Understanding your users' problems on your interface : their ins and outs

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When we do user research we improve the usability and ergonomics of the interface in a user-centered approach. The goal is to have an excellent UX for our users that will exceed their expectations and needs and will be free of friction. 

User research is also often assimilated to design thinking .

Indeed, design thinking is the application of user research to a specific project . User research is at the company level while design thinking is at the project level.

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The double diamond diagram below illustrates design thinking: 

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What is the difference between User research and CRO? 

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User research and CRO (= Conversion Rate Optimization) aim to improve the user experience and have several common analysis approaches such as the analysis of customer verbatims and user interviews. However, CRO in spirit seeks to quickly optimize the conversion rate via data and best practices in order to boost KPI performance via A/B testing, while UX research is more long-term and user-centric , seeking first and foremost to understand user problems before moving on to implementing the solution. Although the methods are different, the two practices are complementary and can be used together for a single purpose: to offer the best possible experience to your users. 

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CRO allows user research to: 

• better understand how users think using AB Test results
• detect features to improve 
• validate elements that degrade or improve the user experience

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On the other hand, user research is useful to the CRO because it makes the experiences more fair and in line with the needs of the users detected by the UX research. The two teams must therefore help each other and share their knowledge because they are linked.

User Research: The Guide

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So, implementing user research in your organization is essential if you want to go further. Below are some essential methods to apply user research and improve the quality of the user experience .

Customer feedback

The feedback your customers leave on your interface can help you understand their frictions and needs. Several scores can be set up to collect your customers' opinions:

• CSAT
• NPS
• THESE

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The CSAT (customer satisfaction score) is a measure of the level of customer satisfaction with your brand. It is an overall score that will not allow you to go into more depth. However, it is easy to use.

For example, it would translate like this for an e-commerce site: 

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how satisfied are you with our site?”

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The NPS (net promoter score) allows you to take into account your users' commitment to your site and whether or not they would recommend it. It is an easy score to set up following an online purchase for example. It could be translated as follows: 

“On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our site to a friend?”

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The CES (customer effort score) allows you to understand the effectiveness and ease of use of your site for your users. It is simple to understand and can be relevant at certain key stages of your journey. It would be translated in this way on a product sheet for example:

“How much effort did you have to put into choosing your product?”

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To all these scores you can add a free field “comment” which will allow you to collect interesting verbatims which can feed your reflection concerning your UX. You can also decide to ask certain questions at specific moments of the journey. For example, if a user is about to leave your site you can ask them about the reason for this departure. 

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The benchmark

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The benchmark will allow you to discover the solutions offered by your competitors. It involves carrying out a comparative study on a panel of competing sites or applications . By analyzing your competitors, you will be able to find certain key features of your industry to implement on your site or to improve if they are already present. For example, on a B2B e-commerce site, the creation of online quotes is an important feature and can be decisive in the user journey. 

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Benchmarks can be carried out on a specific page template or on a daily basis in order to monitor and help you in your user research process. Benchmarks can also help you match the UX of your site to your marketing positioning by understanding what pattern you find in your direct competitors: inspirational block, CTA, search bar, etc. 

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The user test

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User testing is a well-known practice in UX research. It allows you to have your prototype tested by customers in order to see their usage, their feelings and the feedback they might have on the interface, its usability and its functionalities . Several steps are necessary to carry out user tests: 

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• Determine the purpose of the test
• Build the scenarios that will be the basis of the test
• Conduct tests with core target users
• Return the results 

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Thanks to user testing, you will be able to iterate your models based on customer feedback.

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In short, UX research

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In summary, UX research allows you to: 

• Understanding how users use your product 
• Determine the frictions and problems encountered 
• Discover the solutions offered by the competition

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It allows to design digital interfaces that meet user expectations in an agile way. It is linked to UX design so the UX researcher and the UX designer must work together within the framework of a user-centered design.

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There are several ways you can do user research: 

• Verbatim collection
• Benchmark
• User testing

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UX audit: a complementary practice to user research

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Quantitative data analysis will also allow you to understand your users' behavior on your product easily and quickly determine the friction encountered . With certain KPIs you will be able to understand which problem to dig into: what type of page works the least well, at what stage of the journey your users leave the site or why they leave the checkout.  

With Contentsquare, you will be able to carry out complete UX audits that will feed your work.

Several bricks are available on Contentsquare by default: 

• Journey analysis
• Comparator page
• Zoning analysis
• Session replay

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These analysis steps allow you to understand what use is made of your interface, the frustrations and needs of the users.

Other tools are available to help you in your UX research process such as Hotjar, Clarity or Air 360 for example. 

This methodology is complementary to user research. You can learn more about audit methods in our article on CRO auditing.

If you want to discover Product discovery, watch the webinar on what is the role of product discovery at Sephora with the intervention of Amaury Ortolland, co-founder of Welyft.