User Research Resources

Here are user research resources for understanding your audience, users and customers.

Early Audience Interview Template

Use this template for speaking with an audience in the early stages of your product development.

Can you describe the problem(s) in your own words?
What are your biggest pain points?
What are your biggest worries?
What happens if you don't solve these problems?
If you could push a magic button, how would it solve your problems?
How do other people deal with the same problems?
Why do you need to solve these problems?
Can you list the steps before and after this problem occurs?

Detailed Audience Interview Template

Use this template for speaking with an audience to learn about their problems in detail.

These are some of the key answers you need to uncover in your interviews. I've given examples of a parent requiring childcare:

What's the original common cause of the problem? Kids can't look after themselves
What triggers the problem to occur? Parent needs to leave the house
What objective are they trying to achieve? Parent needs to run an errand
What problem do they encounter doing so? Parent can't find anyone to look after their kids
What reasons do they give for this? Parents don't know anyone who can help
What emotions do they experience if they can't solve this problem? Frustrated, scared, helpless
What is the impact of not solving this problem? Parent cannot leave the house to complete vital tasks

Consider incentivising these interviews (cash, vouchers, lunch) as they're likely to last over 30 minutes.

Intro

How the session is structured
Why you're doing it
Invite (brutally) honest answers only
Sign any paperwork, like permission to record their data, NDAs (I wouldn't recommend using NDAs at this stage - you're fact finding), or if you're incentivising the session with money / vouchers etc.

Open discussion about the problem

Encourage the user to talk at length about the problem
When does the problem happen? And how often?
What happens immediately before and after the problem occurs?
Why does the problem occur in the first place?
What triggers the problem to occur?
What were they trying to do when the problem occured?
Ask them to walk step-by-step through what they're doing when the problem occurs (you want a start, middle and end).
Why can't they solve the problem?
Can they currently solve the problem in any way?
Do they know other people who experience the problem? Can they introduce you?
How do others solve the problem?
What happens if the problem isn't solved? What's the cost?
How do you feel if the problem isn't solved?
What's the worst part about the problem?
What's the best and worst part about the current solution?
Describe your ideal solution
What are their motives around these problems? What makes them happy, angry, sad?

Washup

In one to two sentences, repeat their problem back to them and what the cost of not solving it is
Ask if they want to be kept in the loop as you develop the solution, and if they'd like to try it early

Basic Persona Template

Use personas to help you inhabit the mind of a particular type of user, so that you can design your product from their perspective.

When you're in the early stages of user research (normally before you've built a product), base the persona on the majority of the people you've spoken to. If almost all your audience is between 36yrs - 45yrs use this as your age. If their age ranges are very varied, write a wider age range; you can always create additional, more specific personas in future as you learn more about your audience.

There are some basic elements we should consider when making a good persona. Eventually we'd like these to be very detailed, so much so they feel like they're describing a real person. Invision have a great guide on this.

Here's our basic persona:

Age range
Sex
Family structure (e.g. single, married)
Employment type
Location

These are examples of more detailed attributes you might capture as you learn more about your users:

Habits
Morning routine
Buying preferences (e.g. online, direct, in-store)
Education
Personality type
Diet
Travel preferences
Content preferences (streaming, live, UGC)
. . .

Sometimes capturing information which seems unrelated to your product can provide surprising and informative insights into your users, so don't be afraid to explore.

Problem Diagram Template: Spider

Use spider diagrams to help you understand how a problem is related to other problems, and uncover issues you may not have considered.

Get some Post-it notes and a pen, or you can use something like Google Presentation, Apple Keynote or Microsoft PowerPoint.
Begin by writing out the core problem and placing it in the middle.
Using related child problems you've captured from user interviews, write each out on their own note, and form a ring around the middle core problem. _{You may spot related problems which were not suggested by your audience. Write and lay those down too, but make a note that you created them, so you can check they're correct with your audience.}
Continue creating rings of related child problems until you're out of problems.
Commit your Post-its (if you used them) into a digital format, by using something like Presentation, Keynote or PowerPoint, so you have the diagram stored.

The core problem in the middle is the ancestor of all other problems in the diagram. All other problems are its descendants.

From the example below, I wouldn't care about someone's childminding qualifications unless they were going to care for my children. As you work outwards through rings of problems, each ring of problems are in effect the children of the next ring closer to the centre.

Child problems are smaller and more specific the more rings between them and the core problem. Imagine 'I don't know how to verify a qualification' as a problem; it's much smaller and more specific than 'I don't know what qualifications are relevant to look after children', and that is smaller than the core problem 'I need someone to look after my kids when I'm not able to'.

Problem Diagram Template: 360

Use this diagram to help you identify the elements that lead to, and result from, the problem you're trying to solve.

Get some Post-it notes and a pen, or you can use something like Google Presentation, Apple Keynote or Microsoft PowerPoint.
Begin by writing the audience the problem relates to in a bubble, and place it under the Audience heading.
Then column by column, left to right, write out the different elements related to each header.
If you have multiple elements under a heading, list them as separate bubbles in the same column.
If you'd like to show relationships between different elements, join them with a line.

Problem Statement Template

Defining your audience's problem in a sentence helps you prove to you understand it holistically and comprehensively. It's slightly awkward at first, but it may well be one of the most powerful sentences you'll ever write.

Make sure to repeat for each audience, choosing the persona which represents the majority of the people you've spoken to.

Here's what will go into your sentence:

Persona
A type of user we described earlier in this section.

Cause
The circumstances that lead to a problem being caused.

Trigger
What happens directly before the problem occurs, which starts the problem.

Objective
What the user is trying to do.

Problem
The problem they encounter doing so.

Reason
Why the problem is problematic to them.

Emotion
How they feel when the problem arises.

Try this format:

As a {persona}, because {cause}, when {trigger}, I want to {objective}, but {problem} because {reason}, which makes me feel {emotion}.

Example: As a parent between 20 and 35, because my young children can't look after themselves, when I need to run an errand, I want to leave the house, but it's hard finding someone to look after my kids because people I know aren't always free, and I don't know which childminders to trust, which makes me feel fearful.

Additional Resources

Here are some great resources you can find elsewhere:

UK Digital Government Service's Service Manual. Check out their user research resources.