[Music] as we get started it's important to keep in mind that the role of a ux designer can look very different at different companies at a larger company like google with thousands of employees ux designers often have a dedicated user experience research partner so designers don't have to do much research themselves but at a smaller company one ux designer might be responsible for both the ux research and the ux design that's why it's so critical for you to learn how to do both parts of the job plus having some research skills can be really enticing to companies that are eager to hire new ux designers let's start with the basics ux research focuses on understanding user behaviors needs and motivation through observation and feedback the goal of user experience research is to prioritize the user we also want to make sure business needs are met ux research can help bridge the gap between what a business thinks the user needs and what the user actually needs before an expensive and time-consuming product is made so how does ux research fit into the development of a product to answer this question we need to zoom out and revisit the product development life cycle you may remember that the product development life cycle is the process used to take a product from an idea to reality user research is a continuous part of the product development life cycle and takes place before during and after phase three design research that takes place before anything is designed is usually called foundational research some ux teams might also call it strategic or generative research all three terms mean the same thing but in this course we'll stick with foundational research foundational research answers the question what should we build additional questions you might ask during this research phase are what are the user problems how can we solve them the goal of foundational research is to help define the problem you would like to design a solution for this research includes talking with users and identifying their pain points when using a product and guess what sometimes foundational research reveals opportunities no one on the design team would have come up with research that takes place during the design phase phase three of the product development life cycle is called design research some teams call it tactical research but both terms refer to the same thing design research answers the question how should we build it here's a list of things you might want to ask users about during this phase of research how was your experience using the prototype today how easy or difficult was it to use why did you encounter any challenges the goal of design research is to inform how the product should be built design research gives designers a chance to reduce the problems that occur as users interact with your prototype you can conduct design research very early in the design process when you have paper sketches or you can wait until you have a prototype to test with users it just depends on what your key research goals are the third type of user research is called post launch research you might guess that post launch research only happens at the end of the product development life cycle post-launch research can be used to evaluate how well a launch feature is meeting the needs of users post-launch research answers the question did we succeed the goal of post-launch research is to understand how users experienced the product and whether it was a good or poor user experience you might also want to check your product's performance against the competition next let's discuss some of the key qualities that ux researchers usually possess qualities of a good ux researcher include empathy pragmatism and collaboration we've already discussed empathy which means the ability to understand someone else's feelings or thoughts in a situation pragmatism is a practical approach to problem solving pragmatic people are focused on reaching goals collaboration is the ability to work with a range of people personalities and work styles you already have all of these qualities all you need to do is learn how to apply them in your work the more you develop these qualities the more capable a researcher you can become over time so keep at it let's talk about user research methods the term methods refers to how you get the research done there are many different ways to get the answers we need from users and you'll decide which research method to use based on the questions you need answered each method has positives and negatives which we'll cover in another video before we jump into each research method let's cover the basics there are two ways we categorize research methods the first way is based on who conducts the research the second way is based on the type of data collected so first let's think about who conducts the research primary research is research you conduct yourself for example you might interview users survey users or conduct a usability study to hear from users directly secondary research is research that uses information someone else has put together secondary research can be information from books articles or journals you've probably done secondary research before and not even realized it did you know looking at the statistics of a sports team counts as secondary research most of the time secondary research is done at the very beginning of the product development life cycle before any ideation happens secondary research is often done by product leads not ux designers but the insights they share can help you make a stronger case for your design choices and gain more empathy for your users another way to categorize research methods is to think about the type of data collected data can be collected through qualitative or quantitative research quantitative research focuses on data that can be gathered by counting or measuring quantitative research is often based on surveys of large groups of people using numerical answers this type of research often answers questions like how many and how much if you want to know how the majority of users are experiencing a product you should use quantitative research on the other hand qualitative research focuses on observations qualitative research is often based on interviews where we focus on a smaller number of users and understand their needs in greater detail this type of research answers questions like why or how did this happen if you want to know why users are having a bad experience with your product and how to improve it you should use qualitative research here's a quick way to remember the difference quantitative research gives you the what and qualitative research gives you the why so now that you know the basics of how we categorize research it's time to dive into some common research methods let's start with interviews interviews are a research method used to collect in-depth information on people's opinions thoughts experiences and feelings interviews are usually conducted in person and include a series of open-ended questions where the researcher asks the user about their experience use interviews when your questions require a detailed response for example can you spot the difference between these two questions how would you rate your experience using the app on a scale of one to ten versus how was your experience using the app the second question is open-ended and allows the user to share more about their experience next up surveys surveys are an activity where many people are asked the same questions in order to understand what most people think about a product surveys allow us to hear from a larger number of users than we can during interviews surveys include a mix of quantitative and qualitative questions surveys are most useful after you have some initial understanding of the user's pain points and want to solidify that by surveying a larger number of people finally let's talk about usability studies usability studies are a technique that help us evaluate a product by testing it on users the goal of a usability study is to identify pain points that the user experiences with different prototypes so the issues can be fixed before the final product launches during a usability study you get a chance to see how your end users interact with your new product or feature and afterwards you can interview the users to learn more about their experience the usability study data is then used to improve the ux of the design if the product has already launched a post-launch usability study might include data like success metrics and key performance indicators which are commonly known as kpis key performance indicators are critical measures of progress toward an end goal the kpis for an app or new product launch might include things like how much time the user spent on a task or the number of clicks they use to make a purchase you'll learn how to conduct your own usability study soon remember what we mentioned earlier the research method we choose depends on the question we're trying to answer if we're just getting started with a project we might use secondary research to know the stats facts and figures that already exist about our users for example imagine you are designing a budgeting app you might want to review historical spending trends of folks in their 20s or you may want to learn what these young adults actually spend their money on chances are a credible study on this already exists finding one can save your team time and money plus why redo work that's already been done another cool thing about secondary research is that it's immediately accessible usually all you need is a good internet connection last secondary research can be used to back up your own primary research if users mention something during interviews you might want to find secondary research to back it up but there are also drawbacks to secondary research secondary research doesn't allow you to observe users interacting with your budgeting app so you will not have feedback on how users feel about your product next let's talk about interviews interviews allow you to understand what users think and why during interviews there is also an opportunity to ask follow-up questions and really understand the user's experience the main drawback is that interviews take a lot of time and money this means you'll end up with a small sample size which can be risky when launching a brand new product a compromise is surveys as we learned earlier surveys allow us to get feedback from a larger sample size of users other benefits of surveys are they are fast and inexpensive you can hear perspectives from a lot of users very quickly one big drawback to using surveys is that feedback from users is limited survey questions don't allow for in-depth feedback last but not least let's think about usability studies usability studies allow us to observe first-hand user interaction with our product our designs make sense to us because we are the ones who created them but that doesn't guarantee they'll make sense to every user usability studies keep our assumptions from getting in the way of acknowledging the user's actual experience in addition usability studies let the user give in-depth feedback the drawback to usability studies is that they only measure one thing how easy the product is to use another drawback to usability studies is that they are expensive because you have to bring users into a lab and reimburse them for their time finally how a user interacts with your product in a lab environment is different than how they will actually use it in real life alright now you've got a basic understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of four common user research methods next we'll shift gears and identify biases in ux research now that you know the basics of user research let's explore how bias can get in the way in this video we're going to discuss how bias specifically affects design work we'll examine six kinds of biases confirmation bias false consensus bias primacy bias recency bias implicit bias in the sunk cost fallacy to begin let's define the word bias in short a bias is favoring or having prejudice against something based on limited information it's like making up your mind about someone before you've really gotten to know them we all have biases and they're often unconscious while we can't completely get rid of biases we can be more aware of them and work to overcome them in ux design this is critical to product success and to your professional development everything we've learned so far has shown us that we aren't the user we've also learned how important it is to put ourselves in our users shoes when making design decisions biases can really get in the way of doing this later we'll get into the details of how this all applies to your work the first kind of bias to be aware of is confirmation bias this bias occurs when you start looking for evidence to prove a hypothesis you have because you think you already have the answer you're drawn to information that confirms your beliefs and preconceptions let's say you have the preconception that left-handed people are more creative than right-handed people as you research you'll tend to gravitate towards evidence that supports this belief and you'll use it to build your case even though it's not necessarily true one of the most effective methods for overcoming confirmation bias during research is to ask open-ended questions when conducting interviews an open-ended question lets the person being interviewed answer freely instead of with a yes or no you also want to get into the habit of actively listening without adding your own opinions that means you aren't leading your interviewees towards the answer that you want them to give another way to avoid confirmation bias is to include a large sample of users make sure you're not just looking for a small group of people who fit your preconceived ideas you want to have a big sample of users with diverse perspectives next up let's look at the false consensus bias which is the assumption that others will think the same way as you do in ux research the false consensus bias happens when we overestimate the number of people who will agree with our idea or design which creates a false consensus it's possible for the false consensus to go so far as to assume anyone who doesn't agree with you is abnormal you can avoid false consensus bias by identifying and articulating your assumptions for example you might live in a community that often identifies with certain political beliefs when you meet a new person you might assume they share your political beliefs because you both live in the same town but that isn't necessarily true finding a few people who do align with your beliefs and assuming they represent the entire community is a false consensus that's another reason to survey large groups of people another kind of bias that affects designers is the recency bias that's when it's easiest to remember the last thing you heard in an interview conversation or similar setting because it's the most recent when talking to someone you're more likely to remember things they shared at the end of the conversation to overcome the recency bias you can take detailed notes or recordings for each interview or conversation you have this way you can review what people said at the start of the conversation in case you don't remember ux designers might also struggle with primacy bias where you remember the first participant most strongly sometimes the first person you meet makes the strongest impression because you're in a new situation or having a new experience the primacy bias like the recency bias is another reason to take detailed notes or recordings so you can review everything that happened not just the memorable first impressions recency and primacy biases also demonstrate why you should interview each participant in the same way consistency makes it easier to compare and contrast over time and consistency makes it more likely that you'll remember the unusual and important moments that happen throughout your research the next form of bias we'll cover is implicit bias which is also known as unconscious bias implicit bias is a collection of attitudes and stereotypes we associate to people without our conscious knowledge one of the most common forms of implicit bias in ux is when we only interview people within a limited set of identity profiles such as race age gender socioeconomic status and ability these profiles are generally based on assumptions we have about certain types of people for example implicit bias might cause you to feel uncomfortable interviewing people whose life experiences are different from your own on the other hand we might choose to interview people from typically excluded groups but then ask potentially offensive questions because of our internalized stereotypes both of these scenarios are problematic and lead to a lack of representation in our research and design process the most important thing to note about implicit biases is that everybody has them to overcome our biases we can reflect on our behaviors and we can ask others to point out our implicit biases that's one of the best ways we can become aware of our biases the last form of bias we'll cover is the sunk cost fallacy this is the idea that the deeper we get into a project we've invested in the harder it is to change course without feeling like we've failed or wasted time the phrase sunk cost refers to the time we've already spent or sunk into a project or activity for example you might think to yourself i might as well keep watching this terrible movie because i've watched an hour of it already for ux designers the sunk cost fallacy comes into play when working on a design you might have invested hours into designing a new feature but then learned that the feature doesn't really address a user problem it's easy to keep working on a design that you've invested time into but ultimately you need to focus on work that positively impacts users to avoid the sunk cost fallacy break down your project into smaller phases and then outline designated points where you can decide whether to continue or stop this allows you to go back based on new insights before the project gets too far along you're now familiar with the most common forms of bias in user research it's important to know that there are other biases we haven't covered here bias is a limitation that extends well beyond the fields of ux design in user research they can creep into the ways we make friends manage projects at work and communicate with family members now that you know about these biases you might even start noticing them in your daily life the more that identifying bias becomes a habit the better you'll get at avoiding bias in your design process as ux designers we want to prevent biases from getting in the way of accurate research you can always refer back to the glossary if you need a refresher about these biases and their definitions keep these tips in mind for overcoming biases and you'll be on your way congratulations on finishing this course from the google ux design certificate you can access the full experience including job search help and start to earn your certificate by clicking on the icon or the link in the description below watch the next video in the course by clicking here and subscribe to our channel for more from upcoming google career certificates