As the lines between market research and UX research continue to blur, there is a growing need for professionals to leverage insights and metrics from both fields to design better products and improve user experiences. This 60-minute webinar will explore the evolving relationship between market research and UX research and introduce two new powerful tools: ULX SWOT Analysis and UX Metrics & KPIs.
What You Will Learn:
- The Evolution of Market and UX Research: Understand how both fields have developed over the last decade, and discover the trends and tools shaping their future.
- Overcoming Challenges at the Intersection: Explore the common hurdles when integrating market research into UX, and learn about the opportunities created when these disciplines converge.
- Introducing SWOT Analysis and UX Metrics: See how conducting a SWOT analysis from a UX perspective and identifying key UX metrics can help inform strategic decisions and measure the success of your initiatives.
Who Should Attend?
This webinar is designed for professionals involved in both UX and market research, including:
- UX Researchers
- Market Researchers
- Product Managers
- Marketing Professionals
- Business Analysts
- Anyone interested in the intersection of market research and UX
Key Discussion Points:
- Convergence of Disciplines: The growing overlap between market research and UX research, and how businesses are using insights from both fields to better understand their customers.
- Data-Driven Decision Making: The increasing importance of quantitative data in shaping UX decisions and product development.
- User-Centered Design & Business Outcomes: Discover how aligning UX efforts with business goals and market research data can lead to a stronger product-market fit.
Transcript:
Tiago Moresco:
So welcome, everybody. My name is Tiago. I am also here with Georgie. We’ll go through introductions in a bit. But we’re here for this webinar where we’ll discuss the intersection of market research and UX research.
So we’re going to talk about– you know, we’ll walk you through some recent events and recent trends in both industries. We also discussed where both industries are heading to, and we’ll show some practical examples of what happens at this intersection. So moving on.
So my name is Tiago, I am a senior researcher here at Userlytics. I’m part of a team that is called UXC, which stands for UXCollsultans. See, so we work with different clients and we help them to shape their research plans and also to execute their research projects all the way from the brief to the final report.
And my background is actually in market research. So in the past, I used to be a qualitative market researcher and then I transitioned to UX research during the pandemic. So that’s ensured my story. And yeah, I’m also here with Georgi Mandichev. So Georgi, feel free to introduce yourself and then we can officially pick off with the contents. We do have a lot of slides actually. So we’ll do our best to make the most of our time here.
Georgi Mandichev:
Thank you. Thank you, Tiago. Hello everyone. My name is Georgi Mandichev and I’m part of the Global Insights team in Cargio. My background is also part of the market research and being part of different consultancies and market research agencies for the last 12 years. So two years ago, I moved to the other side to a big global food manufacturer. And recently I had the pleasure to work with the guys from Userlytics and this gives us a floor to share some of the examples and some of the intersections we found with market research and the UX research. So happy to be here with you and looking forward for our discussion today.
Great, thank you so much Georgi. So yeah, before we get into the weeds with the content and everything, we just wanted to like have your perspective on this question here. We know that this webinar is like about as I mentioned before the intersection between market research and UX research, but I really want to know your opinion. You know, like if it still makes sense to talk about market research and UX research in an isolated way.
So to get to know your opinion, just let me know ,you’re going to see a poll that I still need to launch here. And then feel free to answer whenever you can. So doing the number one and then yeah.
So please feel free to answer if you agree or if you disagree with this statement. And then we can have a little conversation about this and we’ll tackle this actually and in our slides that we’ll start presenting in a few minutes.
So I’m checking the results here, very interesting results. Are you seeing those as well, Georgi?
Yep.
I can see those. It looks like.
There’s two people answering. You can see almost half of the attendees have answered so far. Okay. Anyone else that would like to share their opinions?
Okay. Still numbers are still rolling.
Okay. So we actually had, let’s say, 60% of people saying that it doesn’t really make sense to discriminate this to areas. and we had actually 40 saying that. So it’s a 60/40 split, a very interesting perspective. Thank you everybody for answering that. That will help us to, of course, to shake the conversation as well.
I didn’t mention it before, I forgot to mention, but feel free to ask questions in the chat. We’ll have a 15 minute Q&A session at the end. So you can post your questions whenever you want, but we’ll address them at the end of the session. And also for everybody that is here, we will present at the end two different, two new products that we develop here at Userlytics, and then you’ll be granted a discount as well. We’ll grant a discount for all the attendees. I’m going to comment a little bit more about that at the end.
So moving forward, again, just recapping the results here, 60% said no and 40% said yes to this question. So let’s move on.
So the evolution of market research and UX research. So here we just wanted to glance through some trends and facts that happened in both industries recently and also to discuss where both areas are evolving or really where research is evolving if we’re just talking about research without discriminating.
So let’s start with market research. So the question here is, how has market research evolved in the past decade? And we cannot talk about the evolution of market research and also the evolution of UX research without mentioning COVID. I know this is not a pleasant topic to talk about, but the fact is that the pandemic really reshaped a lot of the ways that we, not only the ways that we research, We did research at that time and we keep doing research in a remote set nowadays, mostly because of what we learned and then the tools that we had access to during the pandemic, but also because during that time we found new ways to communicate, to work and also to entertain ourselves. And that really reshaped the way that we get our insights from people.
So no matter if we’re talking about qualitative or quantitative methodologists, the fact that the pandemic accelerated a lot of the transformation in the research scenario when it comes to tools and when it comes to this remote set.
That leads to one very important point here or one very important topic in the past decade, which is the complexity of the consumer context. We as consumers, we as human beings, we use multiple devices and we are on multiple platforms. We have multiple social media accounts and we buy in many different ways. We communicate with people in very different ways and everything that we do actually contributes to our behaviors. That needs to be taken into account.
Of course, in that process, there’s a lot of data sources and the amount of data that we have to deal with. So here the challenge is really about consuming all this information and all of this data and making sense of it and being able to synthesize and turn it into actionable insights.
So we’ll notice that in all the slides we tried to bring a practical example from the industry. So some of them are curiosities and those are excerpts from some of the articles that we consulted for this when building this presentation. So here we have one example from Spotify. So they leverage a lot of data analytics to make recommendations. So for example, they take into consideration how much time we are listening to Spotify, the playlist that we create, how we keep the phone and all of the, every action that we have on the app, no matter if it’s web or mobile counts towards the algorithm that will make personal recommendations for all the users. So this is again about how complex our context has become in the past decade.
And then, of course, we cannot talk about the evolution of market research and UX research without talking about AI and advanced analytics. In that sense, you know, like when you talk about research, of course we do have nowadays many tools that help us to process different sources of information, no matter if it’s qualitative or quantitative, and also identify patterns that will lead to actionable insights and business insights. So that is something that really reshaped the way that we analyze the information and it’s one remarkable evolution for the research industry.
Again, here we do have a practical example of Netflix. Similar to Spotify, they take a lot of behaviors and data points into account when making recommendations. So for example, the directors that we follow with how long we watch a show and what time of the day. So everything counts towards their ability to make recommendations. And of course, to keep people engaged with the product and bring in contributing to their KPIs. We’re gonna talk about KPIs at the end, by the way.
So the other thing is we are still in market research, but one thing that we’ve seen is a change in the size of the project, so to speak. So if, let’s say, 10 years ago, five years ago, really we used to see huge research projects that could take the whole quarter to be developed and then we would have access to the insights only at the end and that kind of thing. So, recently what we’ve seen is a change towards a more agile approach to research. So, rather than having those big chunks of projects that we would do like three, four times a year, we are now seeing projects that are shorter and that are way more specific and they’re way more containers in the sense that they have a cadence where we observe a behavior in time, for example, or a change of behavior in time.
And yeah, so that really speaks to the ability of companies to address new behaviors and take advantage of the context again. So for example, even like we’ve seen like brands taking advantage of memes and making fun of, you know, like, or taking a specific date into consideration and using that in their favor.
Here again, we just, we had another example. This is from Amazon and because they collect feedback continuously from their customers, they are able to refine and even present us with new services. Like for, and one classic example is the one click purchase and the real time and delivery tracking. So all of that is because there’s this shift towards a more agile approach to research, a lean approach to research where we are more in line in terms of understanding the insights and also understanding how we can apply them to our businesses.
And then another important part here is in the previous slide, I was talking about the size of the research projects, but we can also talk about the level of specificity of the research project. So if in the past we would simply, let’s say, research how people check out at certain websites, for example, or certain supermarket chains, now we have to take into account different touchpoints or more touchpoints in the customer journey.
So in my example, not only thinking about people check out at either e-commerce websites or physical supermarkets, but also understanding how other touchpoints also influence their behavior. So this example here that we have is about traveling. So in the past, let’s picture that example. So in the past, very recently, actually, we would see a research project, let’s say about how do people book flights for their vacation. So in order to look at the flight selection piece. But now we would expand, we would see like we have been seeing actually projects that span through multiple touchpoints. And in this case, we would not only research how people book flights, but also how people plan their vacations. So how they start that conversation, when in the year they start to plan that, you know, like what is their budget and how they prefer to book their travel packages if it’s through agencies or if they go online, that kind of thing. So really understanding the whole picture and not only focusing on very specific parts of the journey as we used to see.
So yeah, that was a discussion about UX research. Feel free, by the way, to post your questions here in the chat. As I said, we will address them at the end, but it’s nice that you don’t lose track of your questions. So this is just a reminder for you to put your questions in the chat.
So UX research, where is UX research heading to? Again, we cannot talk about the evolution of UX research without talking about continuous discovery. So I don’t know how familiar you are with this context. We’ll have a poll for that in the next slide or two. But the fact is that continuous discovery, and we have a book with the same name by the author Teresa Torres. And she discussed in the book how precisely the trend that I was talking about previously, which is the change in the feedback, in the way that we collect feedback from our customers.
So again, instead of going for very expensive and complex and long projects, migrating to something that is a weakly touch point with our customers, for example. So that really changed the game in terms of how fast companies can adapt and incorporate user feedback into their development cycles, no matter if you’re talking about product companies or it really doesn’t matter the industry because this approach really serves everybody that develops any products or services.
And here we have a very interesting practical example. This is from the CEO of Doodle. Doodle is a platform for scheduling meetings and one-on-ones and that kind of thing. So the CEO was saying that since they implemented the continuous discovery approach in their research practice, they saw an increase of 10% in experiment success. So again, this just speaks to companies ability to respond to the market trends, respond to what customers are looking for and asking for, and being able to test that very quickly and to iterate very quickly as well.
So let me just launch the second poll here. We just wanna know how familiar are you with Continuous Discovery. So let me just launch the poll. This is taking a while, you’re sorry.
Right now we have a question on the continuous discovery. So I’m hoping you are giving the answer as we speak.
Yeah, sorry, you mean in the chat, Georgi?
Yeah, exactly, in the Q&A section.
Yeah, for some reason the bar with the options is not popping up here for me, so I cannot access the chat. Can you read that out loud for me?
Yeah, so one of our attendees is asking how the concept of continuous discovery is enhancing the integration of market research insights into the UX research.
Yeah, I guess this comes down to the approach, you know, just taking that very quickly because as I said, we’ll address questions at the end, but I think the moment is good. So I think it comes down to the continuous discovery approach towards testing assumptions and assumptions should come in this case from the business.
So there’s an interesting approach when you talk about continuous discovery that, of course, the research that we do and the services that we launch and the products that we launch, they need to serve both the business and the customers as well. So I think that approach towards testing assumptions that involves like a team, a product team sitting down and listing down also what they know and their assumptions and defining what they want to test.
So I think here, and then, so that’s one part of the answer that comes down to the way that we test things, like so we test assumptions. So for example, we as a team, we think that X, Y, and Z. So let’s find a way to test that. And then we do have a combination of different techniques that can be used for that. So for example, in the book, the author talks about weekly interviews or weekly one-on-one interviews. But we can also add to that, you know, like surveys and unmoderated testing.
So I guess here, the intersection of market research and UX research is about, you know, Historically, market research has been more focused on the business side of things. And I’m making like a very general explanation here. And then UX research, on the other hand, being more focused on the user needs and all of that. But then here, when we talk about continuous discovery and the assumptions, the assumptions are actually coming from the business and you’re testing the assumptions with users. So I think that is actually the intersection that what we are testing is actually coming from the business. And it’s like an interesting flyway between the business and the users and not isolated things as we discussed at the very beginning.
Okay. Can we move forward? I’m not sure I’ll be able to launch this poll here. I don’t know what happened with my Zoom controls. Sorry about that. But if I’m able to recover the control, we can launch the poll later on so we don’t lose time.
Cool. So yeah, also in terms of where you have to start just heading through, I think I cover a little bit of that while answering that question, which is the research methods that are used to answer research questions or to test assumptions in this company discovery example.
So we have been seeing, you know, like the growth of unmoderated testing because that is a fast way to get our feedback from users. We can almost, you know, we can literally actually have responses overnight. The same applies to short surveys. And we can also have a cadence of moderated interviews with users on a weekly basis, for example.
So again, this is another example from the same product or the CEO of Doodle. So she’s saying that they can actually validate their assumptions using various tools. So here’s the beauty of doing research more continuously, right? So we can use a set of tools and we can use a set of research methods as well. So it could be like prototyping, check our tests and internal interviews actually. So there’s a lot more freedom. And because we are doing research on a continuous basis, we don’t need to worry that much about getting all of our goals down, our research questions down, that we would work towards the quarter. So to speak, we can have a more open and iterative approach to research in that phase.
And then again, there’s been a lot of discussions in the industry about, oh, if AI will take over our job as a researcher, no matter if we are new UX researchers or market researchers or data analysts. So the fact is that, and this is the discussion that we had internally, the fact is that we are as researchers bridging the gap between what Nolka-Watt said and how does that speaks to the business.
So we are in this very strategic position of translating human ideas and human interactions into actionable insights for our clients. So that is actually, but to be able to do that, there’s one key element that needs to be in place, which is empathy for the ability to empathize. And that, I would say it’s very hard to be replaced by machine. So in that case, that’s why we wanted to talk about, yes, data-driven research, but yes, human-centered. So we are not forgetting to put the user and the business in the center of our research projects, because again, we need to be able to empathize with the people that we are speaking to, just so we will be able to translate that into meaningful insight for our clients.
So I don’t know if you all agree, but we’ve seen so far more similarities than differences between market research and UX research. Right? So that’s something that ‘s very noticeable, I would say.
So before, Georgi will provide us with very interesting practical examples of the intersection. I just wanted to wrap up here this part of, so we discussed about market research, discussed about where UX research is heading to. And then now we just wanted to cover a little bit of how we can benefit from integrating from an integrated approach to, or a holistic approach to research, if you like. And then Georgi will provide us with very interesting practical examples.
So one obvious thing I think is the improved product market feed. And I would also say to improve time to market as well, because if we are leveraging research to understand the context, I mean, to understand the complex context and also to understand user interaction, we are actually in a better position to launch products and services that will feed our consumer needs.
So in this case, we have an example here from HotStar. I don’t know if you know HotStar is a tool for monitoring user interaction in various different ways. So you can begin understanding consumer needs by learning from your customers. So it’s really– there’s a lot of research methods here. So one-on-one interviews, product research, on-site surveys, and behavior analytics. So all of that helps us to make better product strategy decisions.
Consistent brand experiences, I think that’s one super important. We as customers, I’m pretty sure that we all want to have stimulus and connected or consistent experiences with brands that we use on a databases. So in this case, I think Starbucks is a classic example in terms of focusing a lot on digital transformation and allowing, I think they were one of the first ones to allow for people to order through the app and collect on the store with a very nice and connected experience.
So this is one example that talks about, you know, like if we go back to the very beginning of the presentation, we talked about the complex context, but also about the multiple touch points in the journey. So looking at multiple third points. And in this case, it doesn’t really matter if, you know, like I can start my experience with Starbucks on my phone, but I’m actually going to pick up my coffee at a physical store. So that experience needs to be very connected. And if we leverage insights from the market, if you keep an eye on the market and also keep an eye on our users, that’s more likely that we’ll be able to deliver those consistent experiences.
And last but not least, metrics and KPIs. So it’s, as we know that the context is becoming more and more complex for customers, for users. We need to have very clear the metrics and the KPIs that we wanna track because there’s a lot of, there’s tons of metrics that we can track. You know, like I’m pretty sure you are using different analytics tools that provide you with different numbers and different charts and everything. But really, it doesn’t really serve us if we don’t know what we are looking for.
So it seems trivial, but it’s really important to have those, to define those metrics very clearly and pay attention to them. No matter if it’s just like two, three, four, five key metrics that we’ll, every morning, for example, we’ll log into our four computers and check those metrics. So I believe, I personally believe this is super important. And those metrics of course need to be aligned with where the business wants to go. So yes, UX metrics, but also yes, marketing metrics, sales metrics and everything. Because again, we are working for the business and for the customer.
But not everything are flowers. So, Georgi, I think that’s one of the things that you’re going to cover. Right? So the challenges and the opportunities that happen or that arise at the intersection of market research and UX research. So yeah, the state is yours. Thank you.
Thank you, thank you, Tiago. So I’ll talk a little bit about the challenges and opportunities that are at the intersection of market research and the UX research. And basically the experience that we get and gives us the opportunity to see what are the challenges and how we can benefit from them. I’m not sure if I can move the slide. Okay, yeah.
It’s gonna move for you, yeah. No problem.
Thanks, thanks. So, well, I’ll talk about a couple of examples and before that we will give background for each of the projects that we will be talking about. The first one is one traditional concept test that was executed by Cargio two years ago. The whole idea of the concept test here comes the background, is that right now to keep the global warming to 1.5 degrees, countries and different companies like Cargio, need to cut their carbon emissions by 45% compared to the base of 2010. So the reduction in 2025 is completed. So by 2030, different countries and companies need to put more effort and to work in this way. So the carbon emissions are cut with more than 30%. That’s why we have been executing a concept test on… There is a hand raised. So… I think we can continue.
Okay, okay. I’ll continue. Okay. Thank you. Thanks.
Okay, so we have been developing a product that was oriented towards farmers and different producers in order for them to start working in a more carbon efficient and carbon free way. We tested the likability, we tested the disinfection, we tested the overall level of understanding of the concept and we gathered very, very useful insights that help us to further fine and fine tune the concept and launch it on the market.
However, while working on this, there was a question about the long-term market research projects. So, here is an example when the business was eager to have more speed of execution, but we couldn’t manage it because they were not ready. This came with the market dynamics. This came with the fact that we couldn’t… The delays in the execution led to some outdated insights and increased costs. So, this is the first example of how the challenge of a long-term market research can be overcome with a more specified and more focused UX research.
Another challenge that we faced was how to balance better between qualitative and quantitative data and integrating both data types is to make sure we are having both sources complement each other and creating a better view.
Moving forward, and I’m stepping on my last sentence about balancing the quant and qual data, this was one of the key challenges in the second example that I would like to share. Again, a brief background on it, a sales team in the company came with a question, how we can be more successful, how we can sell more. So we started executing a segmentation study and we developed personas for their key clients. We identified different, each client was identified with different potential for growth and also we helped the business to define to check the steps in their clients decision-making process, also to understand their pain points and needs and which are their key differentiators.
Here, the challenges were not that different than the previous one. So here, the balance between the quall and quant data and the integration of various data points allowed us to make the profiles more accurate and actionable. But this came through a very long and extensive process of defining the personas, working with the data, working with the quant data, working with the qual data. And also, we had the chance to have access to previous research that was executed by different teams, which allowed us to have a better view and have a historical understanding of what the profiles are and how the different clients have developed and how their history with the company have developed.
Can I move on, Georgi? I’m trying to click for just a second. Yeah, I can do that for you if you like.
Can you please, yeah, move it? Yeah.
Okay.
The last example that I would like to share today is the project that we have worked with with Userlytics. This is a moment when one of our teams wanted to understand the path to purchase and to redefine their business strategy. And in order to do so, we tested different features and new prototypes of a website. So we used this research to further improve the user journey and to develop a division for a new customer-driven website.
What were the challenges? Here came the right intersection between the market research and the UX research. We had the chance to find the right respondents profile, and we had the chance to execute everything at a very fast pace. I can say that the business was not ready for such a strong and such a quick response to their needs. And also we had a chance to have a greater stakeholders involvement and support, which allowed us to move also quickly and to get the profiles and to get the right respondents, to get the needed support that we had during the whole project.
So another thing that I want to focus on here is the fact that the solution on integrating can leverage the strengths of both market and UX research and can create a more effective, more comprehensive approach to the respondents and to the insights. And also it can combine diverse and relevant respondents narrowing down the response engagement and maintaining also high levels of good insights and effectively to address the business needs.
And if I may wrap up with a couple of thoughts that I would like to place here before moving forward. So one of the possible intersections based on the experience we had is that from market research to UX, from market research to UX research, there are, this is the moment to go from the broader trends to more specific needs and pain points. From early stage of product development, like websites to getting the design improvements to ensure the product meets the user needs.
And also it can also help us fine-tuning the decisions on pricing, market positioning, different market entries. And in general, both methods can provide a holistic approach and give us a very detailed and very comprehensive picture on how to move with a certain product or with a certain business need or whenever there is a need for some exploration of business strategy.
And with that, I know you have to share more about the new ways to do it.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you for all of that, Georgi. It’s really interesting to see your perspective and your experience with practical projects involving the interesting and complex intersection outside. So yeah, we just as I mentioned at the very beginning, we have developed based on you know, thinking about this intersection and how that could translate into better services and products for customers we have developed to new services, to new products that are, we call the ULX SWAT analysis and the UX metrics.
So just covering really quickly the two of them. So the ULX spot analysis, what is it actually? So lots of acronyms here at ULX and SWAT. So as you may know, SWAT is a classic marketing technique. So we map the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a certain product or a certain service. But we boosted that with what we call our proprietary methodology, which is the ULX, that stands for user-related experience for. So that is a usability, not only a usability index, but also beyond evaluating usability.
We also go for a qualitative approach in the makes as well. So it’s not purely quant as most of the UX indexes are, but we actually have a qualitative piece on it. And we have validated statistically this, this ULX methodologies. So that I won’t go into a lot of technical details here, because I know it might be late for most of you. But anyway, we are measuring 18 user experience related attributes. And appeal appearance performance are just examples of them. So we run the SWAT analysis using the ULAC framework just so we can make, just move forward here, just so we can make very specific recommendations for our clients in terms of how they could enhance their user experience to, for example, leverage an opportunity or to move a weakness to a strength or to avoid certain that’s considering the market. And we do that by researching our client plus to other competitors that we always define in a conversation, in a kickoff call actually.
So, and the second product is the UX metrics and KPIs. As I mentioned before, it seems trivial, but it’s the reality is that we’ve seen that is that very difficult for, especially for product companies and tech companies to define their key metrics there’s a lot of data points and there’s a lot of things that are actually measured, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that everything is meaningful or a few things may or certain metrics can deviate our attention from what we should be paying attention to, considering the business goals and where we are heading to as a product organization, for example.
So we sit down with product teams and help them define and monitor and build a plan for them to leverage those key metrics that are again usually a combination of UX metrics with as I mentioned before marketing sales, customer success for example, that’s just a few examples of how things can be blended together.
So for everybody attending this webinar we are actually providing a 50% discount on both products. So for the SWOT analysis, is the ULX SWOT analysis, we are offering it for $975 and also the UX metrics is down to $1,275. So 50% discount on both products.
And yeah, so we are on time actually for our Q&A. I can see we already have some questions here in the Q&A. Georgi, I don’t know if you want to pick any of them and start. So I can just read one of them here and then we can decide who is going to take that. So what are some practical examples of continuous discovery in the business? Is this only applicable for a job workflow? Do you want to take this one or do you want me to take it?
Well, I can share what I think. To me, this is not only limited to the job workflow. We have been seeing some cases when, depending on the product, it creates much more engagement across the business when we are using the continuous discovery. So my colleagues, my teams are much more engaged and are very curious to learn what’s happening. So I would say that is valid for everything, for every type of project.
Great, and I think it’s about being curious, right? So we are all curious about the things that we put in the market.
Right.
And I think that taking a continuous approach to research helps us keep everybody curious. So we are constantly chatting with our customers and hearing from them and taking feedback. So that keeps us eager for more information and for improving whatever we are doing, wherever you’re putting it in the market. So yeah, thank you for that, Georgi.
So let me just take another one here. How can companies balance insights from market research on customer demand. You wanna go with this one, Georgi?
Not pretty sure what is the customer demand.
I can read it again, yeah. So how can companies balance insights from market research on customer demand? I would say as far as understanding customer demand would be something more towards the continuous discovery if I understood correctly, or whoever wrote that question, if you want to write that again, we can take that.
So in the meantime, we can take another one. What are your sample sizes for both usability testing and interviews qualitative? If it’s small sample sizes for speed, do you find you’re getting the same level of instincts? So I guess here we have two answers in terms of the numbers. Here at user– sorry, Georgi, do you want to go?
Can go. Well yeah, I can at towards. Yeah. Generally I was just gonna say that to answer to the same question. So here at us, we do have a minimum of 10 usability tests and also 10 qualitative moderated interviews. So that’s one thing for projects again, but we do have if we’re talking about a continuous discovery approach, then it would have like two, three interviews every week on an ongoing basis. So we wouldn’t have, we wouldn’t put a cap in terms of the sample size.
And in that sense, it’s not about, so the second part of the question is, if it’s small sample sizes for feed, do you find you’re getting the same level of insects? I guess the answer is yes and no, because if we are doing research on a weekly basis, for example, rather than having one big project every quarter, we are constantly coming up with different questions or with different assumptions that we want to test with our users. So I wouldn’t say those are the same level of insight. They are just more timely insights and less complex interactions as well.
So instead of having to prepare for an hour interview, for example, I can just sit down on a weekly basis with a customer for, or let’s say 30 minutes, and have a couple of questions or a couple of assumptions to test. So it’s really a different approach here. And I would say, if your question is about saturation, then yes, we can decide if you want to keep the same questions for a while and ask them weekly to our users, or if you want to rotate the question that different things may have. So it’s really a different approach really towards research. And I’m not saying that we’ll serve everybody is just another way to do research that is more in line with what we’re seeing in the market right now.
Cool. Yeah, if I may add to this one, well, they’re all there also the, the, the diaries type of studies where we are looking for respondents on a regular basis and. We are, we are following their behavior in a certain amount of time. In my experience, my usability tests were between 40 and 50 sample size. And while for interviews, they might be a lower sample. Yeah.
Yeah. I think it also depends on the cohort that we are looking for.
Exactly. Exactly.
Our project will have multiple cohorts. We need to keep the same number for each one of them just so otherwise we wouldn’t be able to compare and to draw similarities and differences across those cohorts. And it also depends on how complex is our problem, I would say. So the more complex a problem is, we may need to tap or train track with more people to get different perspectives and come down to actionable conclusions.
Let me just go here to check more. How do KPIs help companies identify the alignment between user experience and market positioning? You want to do that one, or should I start? Sorry, I think you’re on mute.
Sorry, I’m sorry. Well, I can share what I think. Well, so companies usually have a regular track of different KPIs. And so they need to ensure that these KPIs help them to make the data-driven decisions. However, trivial this sounds.
But this means that there are different types of KPIs that are helping the user experience and also the market positioning. So the user engagement is one of my favorite KPIs that is on time, gives the companies understanding how users are engaged with their products and how this product is resonating. Depending on the KPIs I would say.
So this is something that we should talk about each KPI in a different way. Also the another one that I like is the customer retention. So also giving us a view how the level of repeat visits, the level of repeat purchases or This can give us the insight on what is the value that the customers see in our product. So I would say, depending on the KPIs.
Yeah, and in terms of the alignment, if I may add between user experience and market positioning, I think it’s really a cross-team work. So it’s not only, you know, like if your company has an internal UX research team, then great. But if not, or if yes, really, there’s always the opportunity to involve multiple stakeholders. And this the KPI definition around this KPI discussion, because again, you know, like we may, in terms of market positioning, we want to be, you know, like the most used product on mobile, for example, because that’s part of our company goals. We would have investors, I don’t know.
But then we realized that the user experience is pointing people towards, I don’t know, dropping out or changing between different behaviors within our product. So that actually needs to, because that’s what it said. We need a multiple team alignment here. So one thing that I think it’s really, I don’t know if you agree, Georgi, that’s been, I think it’s super useful for each and every company. Doesn’t matter if you are a researcher is to talk with people that are in the frontline. So it could be like customer success.
In all key, you may have access, ask for access to their, I don’t know, then that’s whatever the tool they’re using to intake those customer feedback and just have a look at that on a daily basis or on some cadents and to understand to have this pulse from the people actually that are in the front line. Because again, this is cross-team work. It’s not only isolated research.
Let’s check here. We talk about sample sizes. Attributes. So as a UX researcher, what elements of market research should I think about to start considering? What is most effective to start with?
So as a UX researcher, you’re talking about what elements of market research should I think about to start considering? I will be very bold with that one. Don’t get me wrong, but I think it may sound silly, but I think it’s really important for researchers to understand about business and understand how the business makes money, understand the business model, dive in to be interested in understanding how your clients or company you work for is generating revenue. I think that’s really key and also understanding the company’s strategy.
You can understand how you can or how the research organization in this case can contribute towards that. So I think researchers that have good business planning are very, you know, like a set for success, I would say. But George, I don’t know if you agree with me or not.
Yeah, completely. Well, completely agree with you. This is something that comes with a lot of experience. But once you have a great understanding of the business that you’re working in, it’s becoming easier to know what questions to ask, what is your target, where to look for them, etc. So, right, once you focus on the business, on the core of your business, then the rest will be easier. And also, this is also valid for the UX decisions. It will help you do the right UX decisions.
Yeah, and I think, you know, that person is asking, what is the most effective way to start with? I think, of course, we are talking here a lot of mostly about primary research, right? So doing actually generating primary data. But I think there’s also one thing that is important, which is to your question, which is pay attention also to secondary information. You know, like there’s a lot of reports available about your industry, about your, you know, like your, your, your sector that are studies out there that you can consult, they’re free, you know, like you can pay attention to them. We can read through those reports.
They’re great services out there. So I would say that it’s starting with this understanding the market. So you as a UX researcher understanding first how your company makes money and what’s important for them in terms of strategy and also how the company’s position in the market. So there’s one top of my head that I think is really nice, which is the Gardner Magic Quadrant that they release every year and they show how different companies within the same sector are positioned and the whys behind that. So it’s just an example, you know, like of things that are that are freely available and they are, although they are not primary, they are not coming from primary research, they still hold value because again those were studies conducted that resulted in those reports.
Okay, so there’s someone asking if the replay will be available. So yeah, you should be receiving the recording after the in the next few days with also with the discounts that I mentioned about for the ULX spot analysis and also the UX and KPIs consultancy.
I think yeah those were all the questions we had so thank you so much for attending. We are on time, but yeah, you know, Georgi, if you want to, if you have like any final comments, for me, I just wanted to thank everybody for, especially for this very nice Q&A session. It’s always nice to see, you know, like everybody’s perspective and the questions that they have in mind. So yeah, that’s great. And thank you. Thank you for that.
Yeah, thank you on my end too. It was great talking to you and I think we will be witnessing more and more intersections between the methodologies and especially with the AI, with how the industry is developing. So, exciting time, I would say. And thanks everyone for…
Absolutely. Exciting times to work with insights and research. Yeah, that’s absolutely right. So thank you, everybody, for your attendance and hope you had some fun and hope you also– we helped you to provide at least some food for thought for your future research projects. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye bye. Thank you.
Meet Our Experts:
We are excited to have two distinguished speakers joining us to share their expertise:
Tiago Moresco
Userlytics, Multi-cultural Sr. UX Researcher. Tiago Moresco is a seasoned Senior UX Researcher with nine years of experience across market research agencies, UX agencies, and enterprise environments. Known for blending qualitative insights with data-driven strategies, he skillfully navigates multicultural research landscapes to deliver actionable insights. Tiago connects with diverse user groups to uncover patterns that improve product impact and usability.
Georgi Mandichev
Cargill, Global Customer & Consumer Insight Specialist. Georgi Mandichev is a seasoned consumer insight professional with over 12 years of experience. Before joining Cargill as the Global Customer & Consumer Insights, he honed his skills at various market research and consultancy agencies. Georgi has a deep understanding of both qualitative and quantitative data, focusing on customer and consumer behavior. Georgi specializes in large multinational projects, with a particular interest in B2B segmentations and UX studies.
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