User research, or UX research, is one of the pillars of UX design and a fundamental step in creating or redesigning a web project. It makes it possible to identify and meet users’ needs. Here’s a demonstration using a training website and an urban public transport site.
“Success comes when you put yourself in your users’ shoes, think like them, and give them what they want, not what you think they want.” - Jacob Nielsen
Used during the creation or redesign of a website, user research consists of gathering information about how users use and what they need from a website. The goal is to generate quantitative and qualitative insights about the strengths and weaknesses of the site to maximize its usefulness and make the user experience more enjoyable and efficient. As such, user research is an integral part of the UX design methodology, to which we have already dedicated an article.
More broadly, this is a working phase that structures the next steps (UI design and development).
Some practical benefits of user research:
- Identifying real needs: pinpointing the features that really interest your users;
- Improving navigation: identifying links that do not work or pages that are hard to find;
- Optimizing content: creating more targeted and engaging content by determining what types and formats of content (videos, text, etc.) users like most;
- Improving the design: identifying key elements to highlight and those that can be deprioritized (establishing hierarchy).
UX research: tools and methods
User research breaks down into several stages. Moreover, it relies on different methodologies depending on the research objectives and target users:
- Conducting an audit;
- Conducting interviews, focus groups, and surveys;
- Creating personas;
- Defining the user journey;
- User testing.
If theory interests you, we recommend the book by the high priestess of UX, Carine Lallemand, titled “La méthode de design UX” co-authored with Guillaume Gronier. In the meantime, here are some concrete examples of how we apply UX research in our current projects.
Interviews: THE method for creating a training website tailored to high school students
We were recently approached to redesign the polyvia-formation.fr website in Drupal, a training organization for plastic industry professions. The problem: the current site is getting very few visits. So our task is to understand the real needs of users in order to improve the site’s usefulness and, by extension, its traffic.
It was in Chambéry, at a student fair for high schoolers, that we found the answers to our questions. Our project manager and UX designer went there last March to interview high school students and understand their career guidance needs (profiles, interests, research methods, concerns, etc.).
These interviews made it possible to identify the key factors influencing high school students’ choices: the location, facilities, length of studies, extracurricular activities, opportunities after graduation, and course content. These are all valuable pieces of information that will help us better organize the site’s content.
User testing: types and example
While most of the above steps usually take place early in a project, user testing usually takes place once the wireframing and prototyping (UI design) phase is complete.
The goal is to:
- Check the relevance of the interface designed based on the UX design research;
- Fix issues before the development stage (saving time and energy).
We use two types of user tests: moderated tests—conducted live via videoconference; and unmoderated tests—where users participate independently whenever they want, using Useberry, a tool to pre-program the test. In both cases, these tests rely on a user testing protocol that lists the actions users are asked to perform, identifies the expected correct answers, and prepares questions to ask at each stage.
User testing to validate the design of a public transportation website
As an example, we are currently working on the redesign of a public transportation website.
For this project, we conducted user testing before the development phase to evaluate users’ ability to perform various actions on the interface. For instance: looking up real-time traffic information for their regular line, or buying a ticket.
In summary, user research is the starting point for designing a website by helping you understand user needs. From there, personas, user journeys, wireframes, and then visual mockups are created. Moreover, UX research is an iterative process, as it allows for continuous evaluation and improvement of sites.
If you think you need to get to know your users and their needs better, or if you have identified friction points on your site (low traffic, usability issues, unpleasant interface, etc.), don’t hesitate to contact us. We’d be happy to discuss it!
