From Assumptions to Answers with User Research
Tags: product, design, management, beginners
Published: 2024-03-01 13:11:21

As human beings, we tend to make assumptions to solve a problem which can either make or break success. However, assumptions won’t help us achieve the goal, reality will. 

To gap this bridge between the assumptions and reality, and to offer the right solution, we will perform, _**User Research**_.

Now it might seem intimidating at first glance but, it's actually quite accessible!

Yes, rather than a complex puzzle to solve, **_it is a valuable discipline to master._**
It is a powerful tool that helps us uncover the **_"why"_** behind user behavior, turning uncertainty into actionable insights.

Through user research, we can gain crucial insights into our target audience, including their goals, needs, motivations, and much more.

Let us now get started with how we can perform the User research and ask effective questions to the users.

The first step is to define our **_research goals_** and **_objectives_**:

When we have the problem statement with us, we make assumptions about it and ask questions to our customers accordingly.
While assumptions can be a starting point, they are not sufficient for defining research goals. To achieve this, we need to develop hypotheses that can be tested.

_**Hypotheses are nothing but, assumptions in testable forms.**_
 
Let us look at the _Seeds of Research, i.e. **Assumptions and Hypotheses**_ with respect to the below example.

_**Imagine a scenario** – You're building a side hustle app which targets to fix a problem where users find it difficult have a side project which they can use to make their career transition._ 

**_Assumption 1_**: Some people may struggle to come up with side project ideas or have too many ideas to choose from.

> **Hypothesis 1**: “I believe that people who want to acquire new skills struggle to choose a project idea because mostly they don’t have enough ideas or may have too many ideas to choose from.”

**_Assumption 2_**: Some people may even struggle to start their side project, because they have issues to allocate enough time to it, since they think of it as a non-priority task.

> **Hypothesis 2**: “I believe that people who want to acquire new skills experience issues of allocating time to work on their side project, because mostly they perceive it as a non-priority task.”

Now that we have developed the respective hypotheses, let’s move towards defining the research goals and objectives.

•	**_Goal_**: This is the _central question_ among all the assumptions or hypotheses we made that our research aims to answer.
•	**_Objectives_**: Specific, measurable statements outlining what we want to achieve.

Let’s understand how we can specify our objectives.
_Action verbs_ become your allies in formulating impactful research objectives. Let us again look into the example with respect to our Side Hustle App:

> •	**Identify**: "Identify ways people plan their side hustles and the tools they use."
> •	**Understand**: "Understand what makes it easy for people to plan their side projects and what makes it difficult."
> •	**Define**: "Define the key pain points users encounter when finding the tools to execute their project"


After we have defined our goals and objectives, now its time to select the research methods which we can use to structure _the why_ and _how much_ of our product accordingly.

Let us understand this using the below table, how to choose the right user research method based on our research goals and objectives. 
However, it is not limited to choose only one method and get going; it is totally based on the requirements.

![Tabular view of Research Methods](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/dzz6vo1togyxggzteo22.png)

In our case, we will go with _**in-depth interviews**_, i.e. the _Qualitative research method_ as our primary discovery method.

_Why have we chosen this method?_

1. The reason being in our case, we need to look into the customer pain points and identify how much relevant is the problem to our customers. 
2. These interviews are relatively easier and will be more effective for user research, in our case.

By this, we have learned more about user research which can eventually help us answer all of our assumptions. But we have to remember that, user research isn't a one-time expedition; it's an ongoing journey. Keeping our ears to the ground and listening to the customer feedback can craft the solution to our problem even better!

Let’s embrace user-centric approach and continuous learning!