How to Avoid Feeling Overwhelm During User Research

As someone with mid level research experience I know all too well the feeling of overwhelm and anxiety triggered from starting a new research project. Here are some tips to help keep calm and move on during the beginning of the research phases.

Do Preliminary Research

Get a sense of the overall space before diving into the “heavy” research. I typically spend 2 hours or so with few constraints set. If the client has an existing product, I search software reviews and forums for existing customer opinions, tools, and environment. This is a way for me to get familiar and comfortable so that my mind feels less overwhelmed in the kickoff meetings where we set the research focus.

Set a focus even if the client does not

It’s the first day of the engagement and the first thing out of the clients mouth is: We’re eager to learn about our product’s users! Or we’re just looking to improve the experience. There’s no way a company would hire you without knowing exactly what they want, right? User experience is an umbrella term encompassing disciplines from research, testing, design, accessibility and more. Not all clients think about user experience or user research in the same way. Our job is to set the stage so that we find insights and present actionable recommendations that benefit the business and users. You can avoid aimless research by asking product teams and stakeholders to expand on exactly what they’re eager to learn about their products users. A product owner may say “We want to know if the app is confusing or if it’s easy to use?” And the CFO may say, “I want to know if the users care because if they don’t, why spend the money?” Might not seem like much but it’s a starting point to knowing what to ask, what to test and how to measure the data.

Here are a few more questions to keep in mind in the beginning to help frame the focus

• Can you give me 3 tasks in particular you suspect to be confusing in order of priority and tell me why?
• Has there ever been user testing within the last 5 years?
• Are you currently collecting user analytics?
• Do you know if the app is ADA compliant?

Pick and stick to your tools

This is important because the right tools can make or break the workflow and there are a ton to choose from. I’m used to diving in and learning new tools for designing and prototyping but my research workflow is fixed. I use Evernote to keep all docs, interviews, questionnaires, product manuals and more in one notebook. Evernote allows you to store large PDF’s, add images in notes and create a tagging system for clearer organization. , I use Miro for journey maps, empathy maps and collecting insights from interviews. Miro is my favorite collaborative tool to brainstorm and organize thoughts and the ever expanding board is great for making sense of all of it. The board contains anything from hypothesis to details we want to test further. It helps us to prioritize and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.

Research with the final presentation in mind

Large companies often have multiple departments for conducting, creating and presenting the final research but I’ve yet to experience this phenomenon. Decks or presentations are a valuable asset when presenting research if you plan for a structured story so decide which images and resources to add and consult with your visual designers. As a researcher that often creates the deck, I recommend thinking about themes or calling out quotes you want to highlight as you uncover insights and add it as you go. Start a folder of stock images, graphics or the companies brand assets to add a personal touch.

Here is an example of a slide outline for a beginning research engagement.

• Title Slide
• Overview
• Intro Paragraph
• Action Bullets (What We’ve Done)
• Research method Results
• Chart/Graph w/ Data
• Highlight “interesting” data points
• Pictures or clips from session recordings
• What We’ve Learned
• Theme
• Supporting bullets to support theme
• Patterns, behaviors or results from analytics / testing
• A quote from user or stakeholder to support the current theme
• Summary / Recap slide
• Recap all themes
• Recommendations
• Next Steps

I hope this helps ease any concerns for other mid level researchers that may have felt overwhelmed by the process. Remember, you know you best so trust your gut and stay driven by the goal of uncovering useful human insights to improve the experience and I promise, you’ll be good.