Catalog
method#Product#Delivery#Governance#Integration

User Research

Structured method to gather user insights through interviews, testing and observation to inform product decisions and design.

User research collects qualitative and quantitative insights about users’ needs, behaviours, and contexts to inform product decisions.
Established
Medium

Classification

  • Medium
  • Organizational
  • Organizational
  • Intermediate

Technical context

Product backlog (e.g. Jira)Analytics platforms (e.g. Google Analytics, Matomo)Prototyping tools (e.g. Figma)

Principles & goals

Test early and oftenHypothesis-driven approachContext before assumption
Discovery
Domain, Team

Use cases & scenarios

Compromises

  • Incorrect sampling biases findings
  • Stakeholder interpretations without methodological context
  • Ethics and privacy breaches from improper conduct
  • Small, fast iterations instead of rare large studies
  • Combine qualitative and quantitative methods
  • Prepare findings clearly for decision processes

I/O & resources

  • Research questions and hypotheses
  • Recruited participants and screening criteria
  • Prototypes or artefacts to test
  • Evidence-based recommendations
  • Personas and usage scenarios
  • Prioritised actions for roadmap/backlog

Description

User research collects qualitative and quantitative insights about users’ needs, behaviours, and contexts to inform product decisions. It combines interviews, surveys, observation and testing to validate assumptions and prioritise features. Results guide design, strategy and measurement across discovery and delivery phases.

✔

  • Reduces uncertainty in product decisions
  • Improves user-centred prioritisation
  • Early identification of risks and side effects

✖

  • Findings are often context-dependent and not always generalisable
  • Requires time and resources for recruitment and analysis
  • Qualitative insights must be translated into priorities

  • Actionable insight rate

    Share of research findings that lead to concrete product decisions.

  • Time to insight

    Time from research start to derivation of actionable recommendations.

  • Participant diversity

    Degree of representation of different user segments in studies.

E-commerce checkout optimisation

Moderated usability tests identified confusion points, led to simplified flows and reduced drop-off rates.

B2B portal user interviews

In-depth interviews revealed unnoticed work processes; the product team adapted features to real workflows.

Mobile app field observation

Contextual observations showed discrepancies between stated behaviour and actual usage, leading to design changes.

1

Define goals and research questions.

2

Design study, recruit participants and review ethics.

3

Conduct, analyse and derive actions.

⚠️ Technical debt & bottlenecks

  • Lack of central documentation of research findings
  • No standardised templates for studies
  • Outdated participant pools and lack of maintenance
Participant recruitmentAnalysis capacityStakeholder understanding
  • Using only friends and family as participants
  • Treating findings as definitive truths instead of indications
  • No follow-up after deriving insights
  • Confirmation bias in question formulation
  • Overinterpreting small samples
  • Unclear success criteria before starting studies
Moderation and interviewingQualitative data analysisBasic quantitative analysis
Stakeholder alignment for decisionsAccess to real user contextsAbility to iterate quickly
  • • Privacy and ethics regulations
  • • Limited time and budget
  • • Accessibility of realistic participants