In physics, the observer effect indicates that the act of observation has an effect on the physical phenomenon observed. Observing users can have a similar effect. Although there is no perfect method to learn everything from your users, user researchers have developed many different methods to learn from different angles in order to reduce the noise as much as possible. These research methods can be organized in two big families--generative and evaluative research.
- Generative research: This is aimed at learning about the user needs and turning these observations into ideas on how to solve their problems. In previous chapters, we described some of the methods used in generative research, such as contextual inquiry, ...
