used label for this subject, but feel free interchange it with "customer", "person", "human" etc. Personally, I prefer "audience". At the end of the day, the purpose of user research is to understand the needs of the users and how those needs might be satisfied. It's the second half of that last sentence that is quite pivotal; you can learn a lot about what makes the users tick, but for most practical applications we need to be able to then design something . Thus, the term "design research" is often used as a synonym for user research in fields such as interaction design and user experience (UX), which is the field I work in. Skills There are of course many user research methods for you to master (which is no small accomplishment by the way). However, there are other skills you need as a user researcher. I think the most important "skill" is to have an interest in discovering , learning, probing deeper. I'm not a strict methodologist, I rarely follow a rigid process for my work, but the curiosity and desire to discover the what, how and why has been an indispensable feather in my cap. You have to want to dig beneath the surface and find out about the people you're researching. They're not a faceless, anonymous, uniform mass of "users". They don't think like you, they don't think like your organisation (or client) wishes they would, they don't act the way that would be convenient for the