User Research Introduction

User research basics for beginners

brad dalrymple
User Research
Published in
2 min readJan 24, 2018

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Research can be intimidating, especially if you’re new to it. Here are a few things to help you understand the basics!

Overviews

  1. A User Experience Designer Might Not Be What You Think
    Paul Boag
    Not explicitly about user research but this is a great read for folks new ux and user research to think about when considering career opportunities.
  2. Complete Beginner’s Guide to UX Research
    UX Booth
  3. UX Research Cheat Sheet
    Susan Farrell
  4. The 7 Deadly Sins of User Research
    David Travis
  5. UX Tools for User Research and User Testing
    Fabricio Teixeira & Caio Braga
    Lists of tools are ALWAYS helpful — here are 35 tools ranging from recording to recruiting!
  6. Consider these variables before you choose a UX research method
    Hannah Alvarez
    Here’s a high-level overview of research types and the product life cycle — a great intro for those just beginning with research and product design.

Interesting Studies and Reads

  1. Transformation
    Jan Chipchase
  2. [Video] Choice, Happiness and spaghetti sauce
    Malcolm Gladwell
  3. Design Research at Dropbox: How to win friends and influence product
    Cristen Torrey
  4. How a roadside rest stop inspired an entirely different approach to FAQs
    Jason Fried
    Just a quick article that shows how answers to problems can be found in lots of places

Understanding the Field

  1. Lean Customer Development: Building Products Your Customers Will Buy
    Cindy Alvarez
  2. Just Enough Research
    Erika Hall
  3. UX Strategy: How to Devise Innovative Digital Products that People Want
    Jaime Levy
  4. How to apply a design thinking, HCD, UX or any creative process from scratch
    Dan Nessler

Find more articles on research methods in User Research Resources.

Join us! Be a writer for User Research and write about the methods and tools you use, artifacts you create, and issues you face in UX.

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