Research: Analysis

In this first installment of my series “Rows and Columns,” I’ll describe how to use some very powerful tools of spreadsheets that can make analyzing your UX research data much easier. For those who have been reluctant to use spreadsheets during analysis, this series is for you, and you’ll hopefully find this information useful. For those of you who have expertise in using spreadsheets, some of this information might be review.

The central part of any UX research project is the analysis of data. This task can be both satisfying and cumbersome at the same time. As you go through your data, you might become excited as you recognize emerging patterns or see great variations across participants. However, getting to the point at which you can easily see such trends can be quite difficult. Your data must be in a format that affords easy filtering, so you can decipher the various rows and columns across participants.

Part 1 of this series covers the following features of spreadsheets, which can facilitate your understanding of the data you’ve gathered:

• filters
• form elements such as checkboxes and drop-down lists Read More

Even for a project for which a startup claims the concept behind its product or service is unique and one of a kind, the chances are that there are already similar products that do similar things. By conducting a competitive analysis, you can understand the products your competitors have created and how they created them; compare the functions, strengths, and weaknesses of your product against theirs; and understand how your competitors are solving the problems of their target audience.

Competitive analysis is a way of collecting data about other platforms that have fully or partially solved similar problems for the same target audience as yours—perhaps using different methods. Marketing research and your analysis of the features, strengths, and weaknesses of your competitors can all provide useful metrics. Read More

As UX researchers, we provide two main types of information: findings and recommendations. The findings describe both the existing state of problems and opportunities a researcher has identified. Recommendations describe how to solve those problems and take advantage of those opportunities. While it’s very important for your audience of stakeholders to understand the findings, it’s even more important for them to know what actions to take based on that understanding. In this column, I’ll discuss how to provide effective UX recommendations that get implemented correctly.

What to Consider

Some considerations that can affect the types of recommendations you provide are the audience, the research method you’ve used, whether you’ll remain on the project after delivering your recommendations, and whether you or someone else is the UX designer. Read More