ideas worth stealingArguments against user research
User research is held up by many as the almighty method for uncovering user needs and the undeniable path to great user experiences.
This, of course, is a crock.
Here are a few of the justifications I’ve heard, and my responses.
1. It’s been argued that user research is not a cost—it’s an investment.
Let’s rephrase that.
Designing a high quality experience for a valuable product, regardless of how you achieve it, is an investment. User research by itself is a cost. If it’s a cost that contributes to the high quality user experience, then it might be worth doing, but it often doesn’t. In fact, it can have a negative affect on the user experience for people outside the researched audience (let’s call them “lost customers”), and even those within it.
2. It’s also been argued that user research leads directly to opportunities for differentiation within a market.
I agree with this, but there are other ways to achieve the same result. Focusing on the activity an application is meant to support (instead of a specific audience), for example, can lead to great insights about new ways to perform the activity, and these insights can provide plenty of market differentiation.
User research is one way to achieve market differentiation, not the only way.
3. It’s been argued that user research can expose features that users do not have an interest in, thereby weeding out the bad stuff and avoiding the fall of a market leader in the face of a clever start-up.
To this I ask: how is it that startups, who typically have no time or money for user research, are able to create products so great that they take over the lead market position in the first place?
4. Finally, it’s been argued that it’s “cheap and easy” to simply discard the past to move forward.
Of course, this argument also falls short.
“The past” is filled with far more examples of products, innovative thinking, and success stories based on activity-centered research, magic, genius, and just plain luck than User-Centered Design can claim even on its best day. UCD is only about 30 years old. “The past” is much, much older.
What’s cheap and easy is the idea that we can dissect a chef’s work and call it a recipe. That we can simply analyze genius and come out with a one-size-fits-all plan for success.
Truth is, you can’t reproduce genius. You can standardize methods in an attempt to help designers achieve good design more consistently, but standardization can mean blocking out the possibility of genius. Too many companies rely on process, on data, on facts and studies and research, and end up with a mistrust of any recommendation not backed up by these things. But a good designer can make a great guess without any of these things, based on experience, skill, knowledge, and talent. Rigid processes don’t account for this possibility.
There’s an old saying that it can be difficult for a man to understand something when his job depends on his not understanding it. It seems many people holding up user research as Divine Truth think their jobs depend on it.
What their jobs actually depend on is the ability to design successful solutions and strategies, no matter how they are achieved.
Perhaps looking for new ways to rise to the challenge is a better response than shutting out any possibility not in line with previous experience.
Posted by Robert on June 25th, 2008
4 comments
I agree 100%. Companies should focus on making the process the product conducts more usable and efficient. Focusing on demographics and “user base” is a waste of time and can lead companies on the wrong path.
My off the cuff response is…
My impression is that the actual design, functionality, and conception of the product should be somewhat free from any type of quantitative user research. I think some fundamental market research and perhaps some qualitative user research are effective in conceiving a great product but this sort of research is focused on the problem. Not the experience. Often innovation comes from a strong combination of creativity with a thorough understanding of a problem.
That being said I do think user research is extremely important later on down the road. Version 1.0 may not need much research - a good concept can take off even if the interface isn’t very functional - but latter iterations are more focused on optimization and selective improvement. The stage of conception seems to happen separate from this process.
The quality of user research varies - poorly-done research can be worse than no research at all.
On great startups, the successful ones are often designing for an audience that they already understand, which is really the purpose of user research - to understand the user. Also, there are many startups out there that have failed, because they don’t understand their user, and because did not do user research. We only hear of the successful ones.
User research can sometimes be replaced with empathy. But when you’re dealing with a target user group that is quite different from you, user research will reduce the risks in your design.
@Coleman —
You said: “[...] when you’re dealing with a target user group that is quite different from you, user research will reduce the risks in your design.”
By saying that user research helps when “you’re dealing with a target user group that is different from you”, you put the focus on the audience, which is what makes the user research necessary in the first place. If the focus is on the activity, you can often do all your research without ever talking to people in the potential user base. With this mindset, the activity is what is researched.
In other words, I focus on activities rather than audiences. While this can certainly mean talking to users about the activity, it puts the focus in a very different place. Instead of exploring their goals, I explore their needs as they relate to the activity. The distinction is important.