User Experience Research: Methods, Best Practices, and Career Potential

User experience research, or UX, is the study of what users experience when they interact with a product. To design a good product, UX is important because it ensures that every product development step meets the end user’s needs, goals, and pain points. 

The ultimate goal for a company designing a product is to make a profit, that’s possible when you design a user-friendly product that solves consumers’ problems. To succeed, you’ll need to understand who your customers are, their pain points, and how to design a product they can easily use. Read on to learn how UX research is used, research methods, career paths, and more. 

What is user experience research?

User experience research seeks to understand the following when users use a specific product: 

• Feelings

• Perceptions

• Thoughts

• Usage

• Emotions 

To obtain a smooth user experience you’ll need to think about the user's needs and expectations. User experience research is understanding human behavior and goals and then measuring how well a piece of technology meets those goals. 

Example of smooth user experience. If you open an app on your mobile phone to order a pizza, you may have some expectations. You’ll expect the app to work, a smooth and clear process to order, and the restaurant to make you a pizza. If all of your expectations are met, it’s a sign of a good user experience. 

Read more: What Is a UX Researcher? How to Get the Job

User experience research methods

While conducting user experience research, there are different types of data collection processes to consider. Each type of research, such as evaluative or generative, serves a different purpose and helps you understand data in different ways. Here are three types of UX research methods available. 

1. Primary vs. secondary research

Primary and secondary research methods refer to who is collecting the data. Primary UX research is when you’re directly gathering data from users, whether through surveys, polls, interviews, or other methods. Secondary research refers using existing research to guide your project. Secondary research methods are much faster, but primary research offers the chance to collect data that best fits your needs. 

2. Evaluative vs. generative research

Generative research involves thinking about what people want and need, what motivates them, and how they behave, whereas evaluative research tests solutions to determine how well they meet the user’s goals. 

Generative research, also called exploratory research, helps determine company users and how products will solve problems for them. Evaluative research helps understand the strengths and weaknesses of current product design to understand what to improve. 

3. Quantitative vs. qualitative research

In short, quantitative research asks “how many?” while qualitative research asks, “why?” Quantitative research measures performance based on metrics. If you were performing research on a website, quantitative research could help you understand how many people visit the website each day, how many minutes they are active on the site, and your conversion rates. Qualitative research helps you understand why people are visiting your website and how they feel while using it. 

What does user experience research accomplish?

User experience research is vital for creating products that customers love to use. UX research helps design teams understand the users they are creating products for and what they need. At different stages of the design process, UX guides teams to create a product that works well and accomplishes the customer’s goals. 

Developing a product or a piece of software is a resource-heavy investment, both in time and money. User experience research helps you understand how to make the best product possible from the start while conserving resources.

Read more: UX Researcher Salary: What You’ll Make and Why

Potential career paths in UX design 

Potential entry-level jobs for UX design include user experience researcher, UX designer, or UX manager. Depending on the size of your team, these job titles can all play similar roles. 

Read more: 4 UX Careers Beyond Design You’ll Want to Explore

User experience researcher 

As a user experience researcher, you'll be responsible for collecting and analyzing data related to UX, then making recommendations or updates to improve products. You’ll think through your users’ problems and design products or software to answer those problems.

Average annual salary (US): $96,752 [1]

Job outlook (projected growth from 2022 to 2032): 16 percent [2]

Senior user experience designer 

As a senior user experience designer, you’ll assume more responsibility and work with UX designers, product managers, and stakeholders. You might coach junior designers and lead the overall UX design. After working as a senior user experience designer, you may be qualified to move into a position as a creative director. 

Average annual salary (US): $118,040 [3]

Job outlook (projected growth from 2022 to 2032): 16 percent [2]

Get started on Coursera.

If you’re ready to take the next step and learn job-ready skills to become a UX designer, consider Google UX Design Professional Certificate on Coursera. You’ll learn about user experience, UX research, UX design, usability testing, and more. Upon completion, gain exclusive access to a hiring platform that connects you to 150 organizations that are hiring.