in a ux context a research study is a step-by-step examination of a group of users and their needs which adds realistic context to the design process ux researchers adopt various methods to uncover problems and design opportunities in doing so they reveal valuable information which can be fed into the design process the term research study is often shortened to study there are four steps in a ux research study we'll cover each step in more depth throughout the course in this video we'll simply set up the steps to get started step one is plan the study step 2 conduct the research step 3 analyze and synthesize the results and step 4 share and promote the insights for now here's a little introduction to each the first step is to plan the study to plan a study start by outlining the background for the project next set goals for your research and write down the questions you want to answer then establish the steps you'll take to conduct the study and select the people who will participate in the study the work you do while planning the research study is incredibly important since it impacts every other part of your research you need a proper plan to get successful research results the second step is to conduct the research during this step you'll gather data there are several techniques you can use but the one we'll focus on in this course is called a usability study a usability study is a research method that assesses how easy it is for users to complete core tasks in a design the goal of usability study is to identify pain points that the user experiences with your designs so the issues can be fixed before the final product launches during a usability study you get a chance to see how users interact with your new product or feature you can also interview users to learn more about their experience the third step is to analyze and synthesize your results this involves trying to find the actual meaning in the data you want to figure out why the data is the way it is look for patterns in the quantitative data and explore trends in the qualitative data from participants answers to interview questions the last step is to share and promote your insights with the project's stakeholders project stakeholders are people who are involved in the project or who will be impacted by its results project stakeholders need the results of your research and need to agree with the direction of the project for example your project stakeholders might include other designers the head of your department or the engineers who will help bring your design to life to share and promote your insights you need to create a presentation your presentation should include the method you use to conduct your research the data you collected the conclusions you reached based on that data and your recommendations for acting on those conclusions the stronger the connection between your research conclusions and your recommendations the more likely it is that your stakeholders will take the actions you've proposed so why is conducting a ux research study important remember the goal of user experience research is to prioritize the user a ux research study helps us gain an understanding of users problems in order to solve them it can also 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 okay we've now defined the four steps in ux research study plan the study conduct the research analyze and synthesize the results and share and promote the insights in the next video we'll begin our journey through the steps of the ux research study we'll start by discussing the elements of a research plan see you there let's explore the first step planning the study like any good explorer you need to have a plan for where you're headed there are seven elements that your plan should include the project background the research goals the detailed research questions the key performance indicators or kpis the methodology the participants and the script or questions you'll ask participants let's break them down the first element of your plan is the project background the project background answers the question what led you to conduct this research you don't have to provide a long drawn out history just a few lines is good you might explain the project background like this we're creating a new app to help people find and schedule dog walkers we need to find out if the main user experience finding and scheduling a dog walker is easy for users to complete next your plan should include research goals ask yourself questions like what design problems are you trying to solve and how will the results of the research impact our design decisions use your answers to create goals for your research project in our example one research goal might be determine if the dog walker app is difficult to use we need to consider the ease of use in order to understand why customers join our app and leave or stay after you determine research goals you need to develop detailed research questions for your plan what are the questions your research is trying to answer for example our research questions might be how long does it take a user to find and book a dog walker in the app and what can we learn from the user flow or the steps that users take to book a dog walker another important element of your plan is the key performance indicators or kpis as a reminder key performance indicators are critical measures of progress towards an end goal you might ask how can you measure your progress towards the research goal for our app one thing we should track is how many users in the research study complete their search for a dog walker so the kpi would be the percentage of users who book a dog walker the next element of your plan is the methodology this is where you document the steps you'll take to conduct your research how will you collect data and how will you analyze the data once you get it to find out if users are able to find and schedule a dog walker in our new app we might want to conduct a survey of prospective users to analyze the survey results we will use a spreadsheet and identify trends in addition your research plan lists the research participants who will you survey what characteristics do the participants have for example you might want to recruit participants who are dog owners with full-time jobs and who go out for activities more than once a week the types of participants you select should be based on your research goals also make sure the participants you select do not bias your results to show you what i mean let me tell you a true story in the 1936 united states presidential election republican alf landon challenged the democratic incumbent franklin d roosevelt the literary digest one of the most respected magazines of the era conducted a poll of 2.4 million people to predict who would win the election with that large of a sample size you'd think their results would be pretty reliable right you'd be wrong the literary digest predicted landon would beat roosevelt with landon taking 57 percent of the vote and roosevelt taking 43 percent but on election day roosevelt scored a decisive win landon gathered only 38 percent of the vote and roosevelt took 62 percent so why was the literary digest prediction so inaccurate the problem was something called sample bias the literary digest selected its participants from contact info they found in car registrations and telephone directories can you spot the problem let's break it down the majority of people who owned cars and telephones in 1936 were wealthy and at that time many wealthy people tended to vote republican that means that the sampling was biased in favor of republicans so the prediction that republican alf landon would win reflected that sample bias so what does this teach us when conducting research we need to choose study participants who are representative of all our users not just a select group you'll learn more about different types of biases later on the final step in your research plan is to script the questions you ask study participants as they test your product the script is also known as the discussion guide make sure these questions are specific and speak to the kpis you're trying to measure for instance you could ask did you face any challenges when trying to book a dog walker in the app now you know the seven elements of a research plan we now know the seven elements of a research plan let's discuss a few of them in more detail the project background research goals and research questions these elements shape the rest of your research study so developing them is really important let's start by examining the project background of a research plan this element summarizes the situation leading to the needs for this research it's a brief explanation you can give to anyone who asks why you're doing this research why is the project background an important part of your research plan establishing a project background gets the team on the same page at the beginning of the study everyone on the team needs to have a common grasp of the history leading up to the current situation think of it this way your team needs to agree on why you're doing the research before you start the study a clear project background also shows you understand why you're doing this research and promotes confidence in the overall quality of your analysis and insights the value of this might not be apparent when you're planning your study but it will be when you present your research to people who have the power to act on your recommendations now that you know why the project background is an important part of a research plan you're ready to create your own keep these three things in mind as you write the project background identify the signals that indicated research was necessary ask yourself why you're doing this research and if there's a problem you're trying to solve describe any previous research that has been conducted or solutions that have been tried how have previous attempts brought us closer to solving the problem lastly list insights the research will generate an insight is an observation about people that helps you understand the user or their needs from a new perspective a great insight inspires clear action and uses simple language in the project background include how the insights will be used and what decisions will be made based on those insights there might be a lot of information but keep the project background concise so that everyone on your team will read it now let's move on to the second element of a research plan research goals this element might also be called research objectives research goals state the specific ideas that you want to learn from the research or what you would like the outcomes of the research to be research goals help you understand what is the bigger picture of doing this research and that's why identifying your research goals is so important essentially they drive the entire study so how do you develop research goals let's break it down the goals of your research will differ from project to project it will fit into one of three categories depending on when during the product life cycle you run your research if you run research before you start the design process your research goal should help you understand why or if you should build the product as a reminder research at this time is called foundational research and the goals of the research are to better understand the user problem you're trying to solve you want to make sure that there is a real need for the product for our dog walking app the goal of foundational research would be to understand if there is a need for a dog walking app if you run research during the design phase your goal should help you understand how to build a product research at this time is called design research and it will give you the answers you need to move forward through the design process with confidence in our example the goal of design research would be to learn how you should build the dog walking app and what features it will need in order to solve the user's problem finally if you run research on a product after it has been launched your research goals help you understand if the product worked as expected this type of research is called post launch research and the goals reflect whether you have successfully completed what you set out to do the post launch research goal for our dog walking app could be to understand if the app we designed attracts and retains regular users okay so now you've got the hang of the project background and research goals next let's think about the third element of a research plan research questions to put it simply research questions are the handful of questions you plan to answer during the study these should not be the literal questions you plan to ask study participants we'll go over these later when we start creating our interview script instead the research questions should be the questions you want your research to answer and should align with the goals of your research so why are research questions important they guide your research research questions provide focus and structure for your research study in addition research questions will be the main topics you cover in your presentation a few quick tips for writing research questions a good research question should be actionable you should be able to identify a clear way to attempt to answer the question and you should know when you've found the answer you're looking for make sure your research questions are specific and not too broad you want to answer specific questions and produce meaningful data and make sure your research questions aren't leading questions should be neutrally phrased so that they don't sound like you're assuming a particular answer to your question for example let's say your research goal is to make your dog walking app easier to use in order to keep customers you might ask research questions like on average how many times a week does a user hire a dog walker through the app or what frustrated users most about finding a dog walker through the app one last thing to keep in mind about research questions the way you write research questions will determine whether your research method should be quantitative or qualitative you might remember that we talked about quantitative and qualitative research in an earlier video quantitative research focuses on data that can be gathered by counting or measuring think numbers qualitative research focuses on observations about why and how things happen think written descriptions let's revisit the example from our dog walking app the first research question on average how many times a week does a user hire a dog walker through the app we'll give you quantitative numerical data the second research question what frustrated users most about finding a dog walker through the app will give you qualitative information both of these questions are important to consider for your design and they focus on different parts of the user experience alright do you feel you can write a project background research goals and research questions you can do it for our next adventure we'll describe how to measure the success of your journey ready to explore the world of key performance indicators welcome to the world of key performance indicators the fourth element in a research plan when conducting research you'll want to have a way to measure the effectiveness of your product or prototype for this we use key performance indicators or kpis these are critical measures of progress toward an end goal in this video we'll check out six kpis that can be useful in ux research studies time on task use of navigation versus search user error rates drop off rates conversion rates and system usability scale or sus you ready let's dig in first up time on task this measures how long it takes for a user to complete a task a task could include filling out forms making a purchase or any other user activities it's generally safe to assume that the less time it takes for users to perform a task the more effective your ux design is next we have use of navigation versus search this kpi indicates the number of people who use a website or apps navigation compared to the number of people who use the search functionality think about when you visit a website do you use the navigation bar to get around the site or do you go straight to the search bar and type in what you're looking for there's no right answer everyone has their preference for how they get to where they want to go ideally you want to make it as easy as possible for people to navigate the site but if this kpi indicates that people use one navigation method way more than they use the other you might want to adjust your design as a result the third kpi user error rates indicate the parts of a design that cause users to make errors an example might be that they click on the wrong icon when trying to check out their cart the user error rates help point to areas where you need to make improvements to the ux keep in mind though that just because a design element has a low error rate doesn't necessarily mean it's a strong design study participants could use the product correctly but still not understand what they're doing this can cause as much frustration as not being able to complete an action the fourth kpi to keep in mind is drop-off rates which show how many users abandon the experience in other words this shows how many users quit before reaching the end of a purchase or some other endpoint you're trying to lead them to maybe they got bored or maybe they got frustrated because they couldn't do what they wanted either way you want to decrease drop-off rates with each design iteration on the other hand a conversion rate is a number you want to see increase it measures the percentage of users who complete a desired action let's say you want users to take multiple steps and make a purchase the conversion rate tells you the percentage of users that actually made a purchase finally if you want to answer the question how easy is my app to use and you need quantifiable answers a system usability scale can help a system usability scale or sus is a questionnaire to measure the usability of your designs with an sus users are asked to agree or disagree with 10 statements about the usability of a design statements like i found the design unnecessarily complex i thought the app was easy to use and i felt very confident about using the app the users are asked to respond to each statement on a strongly disagree to strongly agree scale it's a quick and reliable way to know if a design is working when conducting a study you typically wouldn't use all six of these kpis instead you choose a couple that map most closely to your research goals for example if you want to determine the checkout process for your dog walker app you might choose kpis like time on task and conversion rate time on task measures how long it takes a user to complete a task so how long it takes to find and book a dog walker conversion rate measures the percentage of users who successfully booked a dog walker so you've now explored the world of key performance indicators the fourth element in a research plan next step we'll discuss the final elements of a research plan methodology participants and script see you there by now your research plan is taking shape quite nicely it's time to progress from the background and goals of your study to your plans for actually carrying it out in this video we'll discuss these logistical details which are known as the methodology methodology is the fifth element of your ux research plan the methodology is the steps you take to conduct your research your methodology will list the procedures you'll use while collecting the information you need to answer your research questions this should include the time and place of the product tests and interviews as well as who will conduct them and how there are a few reasons why you want to include methodology in your research plan first the methodology informs your stakeholders of what will happen during the study how long the study is and where it will take place second detailing your methodology will give stakeholders more confidence in your study's results because they can see all of the steps this makes it more likely they'll act on your suggestions finally the methodology provides the details that other researchers need to repeat the exact same study in the future in order for your research to be reliable you need to document it in a way that another researcher could repeat it and find similar results so for our dog walking app we will conduct a usability study on march 12 and march 13th during normal business hours on march 12th and another after hours on march 13th we will interview five participants individually and that's it you've nailed the fifth element of your ux research plan the methodology on to the next element participants as you know the field of ux is all about the user we're moving into an exciting element of the ux research plan where we focus on the very important people who you will study your participants the participants you select represent the voice of real users so this is an important part of your research plan keep in mind that how and where you find study participants will depend on where you work regardless there are a few things you should include in this part of your research plan to get started your research plan should include a list of the primary characteristics of the people you will recruit to participate in the study have a good reason for each and every characteristic the types of participants you select should be based on your research goals for example for a usability study for a dog walking app you might want to recruit participants who are dog owners with full-time jobs and who go out for activities more than once a week detailing these characteristics is important because you want participants in the study to have things in common with your ultimate end user in addition listing characteristics of participants helps you avoid sample bias you may remember that sample bias happens when you unintentionally choose study participants from a select group while you want participants to have things in common with your end users you still need to make sure that participants are representative of all users to make sure your results aren't skewed you'll also want to create and include a link to a form called a screener survey which you'll use to ask potential participants a series of questions to see if they meet your desired characteristics in addition you need to think through how to get participants to be part of your study known as the incentive the incentive also provides a way to thank participants for their time and feedback for example you could compensate them with cash or a gift card or enter them into a raffle for a prize one more thing it's important to engage participants with diverse perspectives and abilities for every product you design for example if you're designing an app to help people hire dog walkers you might assume that your target user is someone who currently walks their dog twice per day and is tight on time one characteristic then would be someone who walks their dog regularly but what about users with visual impairments they might also be interested in your dog walking app so you need to make sure your app is compatible with screen readers when recruiting participants for your usability study you want to have a representative sample the small group of participants in your usability study should represent your key user group as well as user groups that are often marginalized the goal of the usability study is to collect honest feedback from users so you want to gather feedback from people with really diverse perspectives in addition you should also engage participants with diverse abilities during your usability studies understanding how people with disabilities use your product is a crucial part of the ux research and design process if your product isn't already compatible with assistive technology then you need to investigate how people with disabilities interact with your product don't assume you already know the workarounds that someone uses to navigate a product that wasn't designed with their specific needs in mind participants in a usability study can provide this feedback first hand there are many different ways to recruit potential users for your study that would include people with disabilities to learn more check out the reading that follows this video with all of this in mind you should be able to complete the sixth element of your ux research plan participants without people to participate in your study the study won't happen at all so it's important to really get this part right there's only one element to go in the next video we'll discuss the script which is also known as the discussion guide let's get to it finally we've made it to the last element of your research plan the script keep in mind that the script is sometimes also referred to as the discussion guide interviewing users isn't just chatting with people it's about getting to the core of what a user is trying to do how they think and feel and what their problems are your interview questions should be well thought out consistent between the participants and purposeful to get the data you need for useful insights even though it might feel a little robotic to read from a script during a usability study there are a couple good reasons to do it two of the main reasons we use scripts is that we don't forget any instructions and so we keep language consistent for each participant have you ever gone to the doctors intending to ask a bunch of questions only to realize when you get home that you forgot to ask the most important one me too that's frustrating in our personal lives but it can create errors in a usability study prepare ahead of time to avoid having to redo the study with this in mind here are some tips for writing interview questions first and foremost use the same set of questions for each interview usually usability studies focus on one person at a time and you want your conversations with each person to be about the same product features for your user interviews to be consistent you need to use the same base set of questions every time don't improvise or ask random questions to different participants second ask open-ended questions open-ended questions like how did you feel about and what bothered you about are key to finding out what people are trying to do and what their problems are avoid yes or no questions because they can shut down detailed answers third encourage elaboration sometimes in an interview users answer a question briefly for example i didn't like that search page if the user stopped there you wouldn't know what part of the search page they didn't like or why they didn't like it a good interviewer will then say oh tell me more about that to encourage elaboration this is when you get the best information from your participant fourth ask the same question from different angles interviewees often need a little time to get comfortable and used to the interview format so it may take a while before you get to the core of what they really think with that in mind consider asking the same general question from multiple angles over the course of the interview for example you might ask how often do you walk your dog at the start of the interview then how many times a week does your dog need a walk in the middle of the interview you'll probably get more detailed useful data this way next don't mention other users mentioning other users sets up possible privacy violations and discussing how other users felt about the product being tested could bias the answers from your current participant finally don't ask leading questions leading questions are questions designed to elicit a specific response if you're a fan of courtroom dramas you may have heard this sentence coming out of a lawyer's mouth objection leading the witness you may not actively be trying to trick a study participant into giving a certain answer but if you provide a possible response like was it easy to find the checkout cart you're leading the person answering the question toward an answer that will provide bad data so how do you actually write a script for a usability study in the real world there are a few different parts of the script which we'll go through in order to get started welcome participants to the study and thank them for their time all usability studies should be recorded so that your team can re-watch them later you need to let the participant know that you will record the study and you need to ask the participant for consent to record then learn the participants basic information like name age and occupation it's most common to do this by asking simple questions like what is your name in addition it's important to remind participants before the study begins that they are not being tested the goal is to provide honest feedback about the prototype or product they are testing there are no right or wrong answers and before you jump into the study itself give participants the opportunity to ask questions now that you have the introduction out of the way you're ready to provide usability tasks these are the assignments given to participants that allow you to observe what they do one way to make them sound less intimidating to participants is to call them activities during the usability study so how do you come up with the tasks usability tasks should be based on the research goals written in your research plan tasks should also be specific make participants take action and avoid providing any clues on how to complete the task let's try to write a task together for the study we're conducting on the dog walking app our research goal was to determine if the app we designed is easy or difficult to use based on this goal one task we could ask participants to do is book a dog walker on friday at 2 pm lastly after the participant completes the usability tasks you're ready to wrap things up ask any clarifying questions you might have end the video recording and then thank them for participating that's it you now know the seven elements of a ux research plan the project background research goals research questions key performance indicators methodology participants and script you're ready to create your own plan and you've completed the first of the four steps in a ux research study plan the study congratulations next we'll discuss respecting privacy and user data when conducting research these are important considerations to keep in mind as you develop your plan and conduct the study we've covered a lot of ground on research plans and walk through each of the seven elements in this video we'll switch gears and discuss how to respect user privacy and data we'll get into why privacy is important and the type of data you need to protect we'll also think about what you can do as a designer to ensure user privacy this part of research is really important so let's get to it why is it important that you keep user data private it's just the right thing to do for ethical reasons when conducting research we should always act with integrity and that includes protecting users privacy there are also several other reasons that privacy is so critical one reason is privacy laws and ethics if you don't maintain your users privacy you could be violating the law in the united states there are several regulations on information privacy and in other parts of the world privacy is more thoroughly legislated another reason why privacy is so important is the risk of hacking you need to secure sensitive data to avoid getting hacked and risk hackers sharing users data without their consent this has happened in a lot of recent high profile cases and is definitely something you want to avoid a final reason privacy and data security is important is for protecting your company's brand in other words this is about ensuring that your users perceive your brand positively based on their experience with you by emphasizing data protection you gain their trust and even though your research participants aren't necessarily customers their perceptions about you and your company matter now let's discuss what user data needs protecting there are two main types of data you need to protect the first is personally identifiable information or pii this is made up of specific details that could be used to identify a user this includes names home addresses email addresses and phone numbers the other type of data is sensitive personally identifiable information or spii and it's even more critical spii is data that if lost compromised or stolen could cause your users financial harm or embarrassment or potentially lead to their being discriminated against this includes social security numbers driver's license numbers passport numbers financial account numbers date of birth race disability status gender sexuality criminal history and medical information i bet you can imagine how these pieces of data could cause someone harm if they got into the wrong hands and especially if these pieces of data are used together the good news is that you can protect your users data by making privacy and security a part of your ux design and research practices okay so how do you do this first off be transparent about data collection let your users know what data is being collected next only collect user data that's absolutely essential for your study for example if you don't need to know a participant's date of birth don't ask for it also get active consent from your users to have their data collected and used active means that participants have chosen to take part in a study usually participants receive a consent form which they are asked to sign and return to the researcher provide detail about how you'll use participants information and protect their privacy for example you might let them know that you'll share their feedback with your team but you'll anonymize their quotes by using person 1 person 2 and so on alternatively you could present a group of quotes without identifying any participants next allow users to withdraw at any time this right to withdraw should be explicitly stated when obtaining consent also make withdrawing easy to do for example you could allow participants to withdraw in writing verbally or simply by not showing up also inform users of who will have access to their data you might say i'll share your feedback with my immediate team but it won't be shared beyond that and finally clearly explain how you plan to store and delete users data once it's been used you might let them know you'll keep their videos on a secure cloud storage site until you've completed the study and then it will be deleted remember it's your responsibility to take care of user data security and privacy and it's the right thing to do ready to continue our discussion of privacy concerns let's get started remember in the last video when we discussed how important it is to get users consent to collect data while there are certain groups of people who have limited ability to provide their consent or have special privacy concerns these groups are called vulnerable populations there is not an established list of vulnerable populations and people might have vulnerabilities that you're not aware of different populations can be vulnerable depending on the research you're doing some populations that might be considered vulnerable include minors people with disabilities people who are elderly and prisoners if you're planning to do research with vulnerable participants ask a research expert what additional steps you need to take to remain ethical and compliant with privacy laws and guidelines in addition to considering vulnerable populations we also need to consider the safety of research data this includes three main concerns the first concern is data recording it's important to document your study and results in a way that's consistent with ux research standards consistent documentation makes it easier to compare the results of any future studies and helps protect you and your company in case of an audit an audit is a review from an outside party to inspect and verify that research involving people is ethical and follows the study protocol the second concern is data storage this is about making sure that your data is held in a way that's safe from hacking and safe from physical damage the third concern is data retention in this case retention means how long you and your company hold on to research data some companies limit the amount of time records are kept in other cases you might have to comply with regulations on keeping records for a certain amount of time finally you should have an agreement in place with the company you work for that lays out who keeps the research data if you leave the company okay now that we've touched on a few special privacy concerns let's check out a couple of tools you can use to maintain privacy the first of these is de-identification de-identification is removing any identifying information from a user's data that you collect during a study for example when sharing insights with the team rather than attributing a quote to a participant by name you might say participant one and change all pronouns to they this can help reduce the amount of identifiable information about the participant that's shared with other people another option is to allow participants to choose their own fictitious name this helps keep the human element instead of numbering participants like participant one the second tool helps protect your own data and your company's data this is called a non-disclosure agreement or an nda a non-disclosure agreement is a contract that gives one party legal protection against another party stealing their ideas when you have your research participants test out a new product or new feature you're letting them experience something before it's public this puts you at risk of having your idea stolen but if you get your participants to sign non-disclosure agreements before your study begins you then have legal protection against that risk an nda is a contract and if someone breaks that contract they might have to compensate you for the loss of your idea and any profit you may have lost out on because the idea was stolen well that wraps up our discussion on privacy and ux research 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