Observing the User Experience, 2nd Edition

Chapter 4

Research Planning

Never research in a vacuum. Every piece of user research is part of the ongoing project of understanding your users, whether they are longtime customers or mysterious strangers who have never heard of your product. Making a research plan supports that project in several ways: It spells out the goals, sets up a schedule that helps you deliver results when they’re needed most, and lets you avoid unnecessary, redundant, or hurried research. It can help you communicate about the research and make it easier for colleagues to participate and to act on the results. It also helps defeat the most frequent objection to doing user research: “We just don’t have the time or budget.” But even if you don’t show your plan to anyone, ...