Skip to content
  • What we do

      Technology

      Application development
      Cloud and infrastructure
      Data migration
      Data science and analytics
      IoT enablement
      Modern data estate
      Modern workplace
      Video analytics

      Services

      Support engineering
      Localization

      Products

      Lightweight data virtualization tool

      Advanced video analytics solution

      Strategy

      Data Science
      Maturity Assessment

      Assess your data science maturity (or readiness) to receive a custom report with industry best practices

      Take the assessment
  • Our approach
  • Our work
  • Insights
  • Careers
Connect
Back to insights

UX research with a lowercase “r” will save your UI project

By Florin Mehedinti

It's simple math. Would you rather spend $40,000 to $160,000 to address a potentially critical issue in a solution you're developing?

Including user research in a project early will not only ensure your project succeeds, but it will also succeed at a much lower cost.

The cost of rework

Research, however, is a loaded word. Many companies believe they don’t have the budget or resources to implement a research phase into their projects because they are envisioning the traditional concept of “Research.” That type of thinking is an anti-pattern that hinders project alignment and adds risk to the already risky process of change.

If a product or service is going to be used by people, you need to understand the context in which people will use it, the motivations they have for using it and the pain points experienced when using it. This is the heart of human-centered design, or user experience as it is often called. Only through research can problems be understood and UX-based solutions identified.

Research and development is crucial in UX design

Research and development (R&D) is an important step to good solution development, but is normally done at the beginning of a project and does not carry through the full lifecycle of an existing project or initiative.

Research: This type of research is often conducted by a research division, consisting of multiple teams and R&D labs. It is common to have a user researcher position, a user research manager and a director of research. This type of research is often its own department dedicated to all types of research, but they tend not to be integrated into the lifecycle of an existing project or initiative.

research: This type of research – often called discovery, so it is not confused with Research – is conducted by a single person or team that is embedded with the team developing the product or service. This allows the researcher – whether formally titled or not – to be intimately aware of what is being produced and the research to be immediately implemented in the project. This type of research is a critical piece of human-centered design.

Research with a lowercase “r” doesn’t have to break the bank because there are time-tested lean methods that help identify key pain points and test/validate assumptions and hypotheses quickly and accurately – and they are cost effective. These methods are employed by even the largest companies because they also have the benefit of being fun, fast, collaborative and effective.

You can conduct user interviews with the goal of seeing problems through the eyes of the users, and you can also observe users firsthand and conduct surveys with closed and open questions. These efforts allow you to understand what the users do, say, think and feel about a current process or program. You can also conduct usability testing, which allows you to test designs you have created with your target audience and then turn observed insights into actions. In fact, testing with just 5 users can yield up to 85% of usability problems that can then be addressed quickly in redesign. There is no need to spend the time and money on more than 5 because, at that point, you start to see the law of diminishing returns come into effect.

This research doesn’t slow you down, but rather can accelerate the process. By acquiring defined user requirements and user stories, your engineering team can move forward with laser-guided accuracy. At the beginning of a project, there are so many possible design options. You can design something in any number of ways, but what the designer may perceive as the optimal solution, may not be. Through this early research and understanding, you’ll exhaust design options early, landing on the optimal solution and avoiding the need for expensive rework deep in development.

Possibilities vs cost over time

Before hiring a dedicated “researcher,” though, organizations should look at their existing teams. They likely already have qualified people that can undertake research for a project, but they just don’t know it yet – the individual might not know it yet either for that matter. These people are the Product Managers, Product Designers, UX Designers and others, that often already have the necessary skills to conduct simple and effective studies.

UX design in progress

Collaboration, a deep understanding of the audience and solving directly for a problem/need drive effective and affordable products and solutions.

There are tools available that help supercharge your product teams to conduct research in a lean and effective way. The first step is assessing the capabilities (and appetite) your existing team has to build research into the process. Start there, and expand out as needed, but don’t leave it out.

If you’re setting out on a project and are worried it will fail before it even begins, let’s have a conversation about how human-centered design can help ensure you’re building the right thing, and how we can help research work for you to find the best solutions to your tech problems.

Let's build your future.

Contact us

Share with your network

You may also enjoy

Article

Connecting your Point-of-Sale data to enhance your customer loyalty program

From stranger to super-fan: 5 ways to give customers what they want, when they want it

Traditionally, customer loyalty programs focus strictly on signups and discounts. That’s not enough anymore. The solution lies in connecting your data to your customer experience.

Article

Customer personalization is a must in the dining industry

 What the top QSR chains are doing that others aren’t 

Since the peak in sales during the Covid-19 shutdown, fast food traffic has continued to see its post-pandemic decline. Consumers still want fast food, but they don’t want to go back to pre-pandemic times. They have new demands.

What we do

  • Cloud and infrastructure
  • Data migration
  • Modern data estate
  • Modern workplace
  • Data science and analytics
  • Application development
  • IoT enablement
  • Video analytics
  • Support engineering
  • Localization
Menu
  • Cloud and infrastructure
  • Data migration
  • Modern data estate
  • Modern workplace
  • Data science and analytics
  • Application development
  • IoT enablement
  • Video analytics
  • Support engineering
  • Localization

Our approach

  • Business strategy
  • Facilitated innovation
  • Project Definition Workshop
  • Course of Action Assessment
  • Proof of Concept
  • Product development
  • Solution development
  • Managed services
Menu
  • Business strategy
  • Facilitated innovation
  • Project Definition Workshop
  • Course of Action Assessment
  • Proof of Concept
  • Product development
  • Solution development
  • Managed services

Our work

Insights

Careers

Contact us

Nash Video Analytics
Linkedin Youtube Twitter Facebook Instagram
© 2022 Blueprint Technologies, LLC. 2600 116th Avenue Northeast, First Floor
Bellevue, WA 98004

All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy

  • What we do
  • Our approach
  • Our work
  • Insights
  • Careers
  • Connect
Menu
  • What we do
  • Our approach
  • Our work
  • Insights
  • Careers
  • Connect
Follow
  • LinkedIn
  • Youtube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
Menu
  • LinkedIn
  • Youtube
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram