4 Reasons You Might Think You Don’t Need User Research (Spoiler: But You Do)
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All the startupers want to know why startups succeed, but few people want to know why startups fail. The way to success is not just following the successful, it is more about avoiding failure.
We all know famous statistics showing that 99% of startups fail. Basically, not failing is already a success: it means that you are in that top 1%. Luckily, there are already studies that explain the reasons behind such a dramatic result.
Forbes made massive research which showed that 9 out of the top 20 reasons why startups fail are related to user needs. People were just developing products that didn’t bring value to the users, didn’t meet their expectations, or didn’t address their problems.
At Eleken, we often do UI/UX design services for startups. The founders are typically in rush and want to get the product on the market or on the investors’ pitch as soon as possible. So at the initial stages of the product development cycle, when the budget is scarce, people try to cut costs.
One of the first things that gets cut is user research. We’ve heard from our clients many different reasons why they didn’t want to do the research. We’ll share the most common — and give some tips on how to deal with those issues.
1. We have no time
Time limits impact development decisions a lot. In the end, if we didn’t have deadlines, who knows how many products would make it to the final stage? That is to say, I totally understand people who opt to skip research to save some time. But there is one thing that they have to understand as well.
Developing a product without user research is like gambling. You have a chance to make something great and succeed, but you also have lots of chances to make something that people won’t buy because they don’t need that thing. And if you remember the statistics from the beginning of the article, you understand that the risk is big.
User research helps you find out what users need and what they think of your product — before it is even released. Saving is good, but going wise on saving is more important.
If you do a product without user research, you are gambling your resources, time, and money. The stake is bigger than the time spent on research.
So, how much time does the research take?
People who have never done research may imagine it as a serious science-like venture that involves people in white lab coats doing experiments in sterile rooms. Maybe some UX researchers would like it to be that way even. But what some people don’t know is that UX research process can be simplified and still bring results — with minimum time and money spent.
User interview is one of the easiest user research methods. At the same time, it is one of the most efficient. Studies show that as by conducting 3 to 5 interviews you already get most of the insights.
Five 30-minutes interviews would take no more than three hours of your working time. Add some more time to recruit the interviewees and analyze the results, and there you go — you can schedule and conduct interviews in less than two weeks and the actual working time is much less. UX research activities don’t have to take the majority of the design team’s time.
Michele Ronsen, UX instructor, says that you can say that there is no time for research only in “really extreme situations, like one or two-day turnarounds”. According to her, recruiting a person for user research takes no more than three hours. We believe that recruiting the minimum amount of interviewees can be done in 4 to 6 hours.
People who say that they have no time for research often just lack experience. Not every product owner knows how to do UX research and how to do it fast and efficiently.
2. We have no spare budget for user research
The story with lack of time can relate to this case, as well. Just count how much these 10 to 20 hours of time cost and you’ll see that this is a tiny dash of your development budget — but as important as a dash of salt in a soup.
There are very cheap and very expensive ways of doing UX research. And usually the cheap ways are more than enough to reach your goals. And that’s the next point of our excuses list.
3. We don’t have specific goals
When people say that, it means they have some basic understanding of how research should be done. It’s true, having a goal is crucial for efficient research. But goals don’t just appear on their own.
Especially if you are not used to doing the research and don’t have a clear vision of the value it brings, the goals won’t be clear as well.
Defining the goals should start with questions and challenges. Often research can help resolve roadblocks in product development. And then, there are always questions that every product manager should keep in mind regularly:
- Is the product easy to use?
- Does it solve the user’s problem?
- What do users want?
And these are exactly the questions that user research answers.
4. I can’t do the research without involving stakeholders
Sadly, not everyone in the world is fond of research (and that’s why this article exists). Not all product teams are at a high level of UX maturity, and when you are the only one interested in conducting user research, you may feel that it won’t have much impact: simply because people don’t care.
On the other hand, why expect that people will get enlightened at some point? They won’t, unless they are being pushed to it. There are a number of methods that help convince your colleagues of the importance of user research. Here are some ideas:
- Tell them stories about products that failed or succeeded because of (not) doing UX research
- Share some statistics that prove the business value of research
- Do little research on your own and present the results. Make sure that you boil it down to the most important insights, and don’t present lengthy documents that no one will read.
There’s no guarantee that it will magically turn your team into UX research Buddhas, but little by little it can change the situation. For more tips on how to become a user-centered company, read our article about UX maturity.
Real reasons
The purpose of this text is to combat the excuses, but when you dig deeper, it becomes obvious that there is the other side of the coin where user research is really unnecessary.
Apart from fake excuses, there are real reasons that can justify skipping user research. If you have that annoying colleague who is a fan of user research, just tell them one of these:
1. When you do user research just to prove your idea
Though it sounds like a case of an unprofessional person, this bias is very common even among academic researchers. Scientists say that no result is a good result, but UX professionals probably wouldn’t agree with that.
If you notice that your team approaches user research that way, it’s time to consider whether it is worth wasting time at all. Confirmation bias is one of the main UX research challenges.
2. When you can reach your goals through different types of research
When starting to do UX design for a new project, our designers often get many ideas from users’ feedback on competitors. It’s more than simple: you just go to Apple store, Playstore, or any review website and read what people are saying.
From there, you can learn what features users lack and what makes their experience pleasant or unpleasant. It gives lots of hints on how you can shape your product to get a competitive advantage.
If you only know two or three research methods, read our article about 14 UX research methods.
3. When the results of the research don’t turn into design decisions
Here we go back to the question about stakeholders. When you take on the initiative and conduct user research on your own, but other team members just go on with what they believe is the best, the situation gets frustrating.
The only satisfaction is telling those sweet four words later when you get feedback on the product after launch: “I told you so”. Is it worth the effort? It’s all up to you.
4. When there is no professional available who can do quality user research
This reason is pretty clear. When you can’t ensure good quality, don’t jump into the research until you find an experienced professional. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a dedicated consulting company. Finding a designer who did user research in the past is enough.
If you decide to do user research without previous experience and previous knowledge, you should take it more as a self-educational experiment than a reliable basis for design decisions. Experiments are good — just don’t think that user research is a piece of cake. There are many pitfalls that you are not aware of.
So, to do or not to do?
What are your reasons, fake or true? Not sure yet? When in doubt, just do user research. And if you don’t have a UX professional with relevant experience in your team, contact us — and get to know our designers.
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Customer Journey Map Examples to Get Some Fresh Ideas
When you are done with research and already got lost in templates, it is time to see what other customer journey maps look like. Chances are that you want to see some examples before you even started. That is natural.
As a design agency, we create customer journey maps for a wide variety of clients, from dating apps to CRM platforms. What we learned from that is how different those maps are in each individual case.
Why you need to tailor your customer journey map (cjm)
If this is the first cjm you are building ever, you are likely to be tempted to make that eye candy with colored icons, graphs, and pictures. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense to start with a basic customer journey map that would have all the essential information and be a great practical tool for your product. We’ve got few examples of both visually appealing and effective customer journey maps.
There are so many parameters and metrics that you may want to include in your customer journey map. There is no single right way to do this. When you follow all the steps correctly, your cjm will take its own shape. You can insert statistics, research data, quotes, and videos if you find that helpful. The information you include in it and overall look depends on your product and personal vision.
Customer journey map examples
Basic customer journey map
Let’s start with mapping an experience that everyone probably had in their lives: buying shoes.
As you can tell, the customer journey map divides the process of buying into clear stages that include buyer's activities, emotions, problems, user and organizational goals, etc. All the information is clear and easy to read, the graph shows top and down moments of the journey.
Now let’s take a look at what other businesses’ cjms may look like.
Online shopping
Ecommerce is one of those kinds of businesses that would benefit most from creating a customer journey map. Here is an example from research made for Walmart, based on a representative selection of customers (you can clearly see they did great research work with real clients by the number of problematic points shown on the map).
Bigger circles show the issues that are more important to the customer: simple but effective visual solution that helps to draw attention to the most critical points without overcrowding the map with data.
Telecom
Here is a nice and clean telecom provider customer journey map. The stages are similar to the previous product purchase cjm, but this one involves calling and waiting for the installation, which is the most painful moment.
Note how the thoughts and feelings of the persona are located above everything – even the stages of the journey! That is a true sign of a human-centered design approach.
Unlike many others, this map is realistic in showing that the process of choice is not always direct and linear: look at “go back” arrows marking the long process of picking the right provider out of all the offers.
The map has two graphs: one showing emotion throughout the journey, and another showing emotion toward the vendor. Still, the image is clear and not overcrowded with symbols.
Curiously, colors seem to match perfectly the picture of Gwen, the persona. However, low contrast may be hard to read for some people, so be careful with those nice pastel palettes.
Travel
Online travel agencies, booking services, hotels - all these businesses open up wide opportunities for customer journey maps. The moment of purchase here is just a tiny dot in a long story that may be hard to fit into one comprehensive document. The example shows a hotel guest journey shown from both sides: what tools a client uses and the business on each stage. LoungeUp is a guest engagement platform, so for them, the hotel experience is as important as the guest experience.
In the travel and entertainment industry, customer journey maps can grow into something unexpected, as the main product is often a highly intangible thing: emotions, adventures, fun time.
There is a well-known legend of how Airbnb founders were inspired by Disney’s creation of Snow White. It was the first long cartoon at a time, and to draw it consistently, they made a storyboard.
The founders of Airbnb looked up to the movies that showed examples of perfect trips. So, they made a storyboard depicting their clients' experiences. Then Rebecca Sinclair, the Head of User Experience at Airbnb, built an actual customer journey map based on the storyboard. That is when it came clear that the main product was the experience that people have when traveling or hosting, not the moment of booking the place on the website. This insight defined their strategies for years ahead.
If you want to learn more on how Airbnb shaped great user experiences, read our article about design thinking.
There is a lot to learn from this example. When you are working with something less technical and more experience-like, consider adding storyboards. You can even insert colorful photos in the storyboard to give it a flavor of a real trip.
There are more movie-inspired elements that help to bring the elements of storytelling to your customer journey mapping to make it more immersive. Jim Tincher, founder and mapper-in-chief of Heart of the Customer says that pieces of video interviews included in the customer journey map make a lot for empathizing with your clients.
Banking
In such a complex business as banking, a separate customer journey map is needed for all the different services and personas, and the cjm for an individual account holder and cjm for a business account can't be the same.
Take a look at this template. The persona is an individual using an online banking service. For sure, you may want to include way more metrics in your customer journey map, and more details, but the template has all the basic stages: discovery, purchase, usage... And there is one interesting thing about this example: the end-stage is Unsubscribe. This is such a breath of realism in the often idealistic customer journey mapping process.
Health insurance
This customer journey map template for a young family looking for health insurance shows very precise levels of satisfaction and the importance of each touchpoint. You can surely see how users were involved in the process and gave detailed feedback.
Still, this example shows only the beginning of a long (lifelong, hopefully) journey of a health insurance service client. Their journey surely does not end at the moment of purchase. However, if the objective of your customer journey map is to answer a specific question related to the sales funnel, a shortened version would do the job.
Coffee shop
The service industry is highly oriented at the customer experience, as well as hospitality. Let’s take a look at the customer journey map of Starbucks, as an example.
What we see here is a basic customer journey map of a coffee shop guest who is coming to the shop to work. Some ups and downs in the experience, with detailed thoughts and feelings of the client, revealing things familiar to everyone who has ever visited Starbucks. Now, let’s see the second version.
This is a different Starbucks customer journey map, showing three scenarios of coffee shop client interaction. It is an interesting example. This map was built to answer a very concrete question: what are the risks of virus contagion in a coffee shop? So, this student work addresses a real problem, and for that, the minimum information is enough.
Also, the visuals work well here: there is no need to get an icon for every action, but some little sketches make the map look more interesting.
SaaS
Our design agency is focused on SaaS, so these are the cjms that we work with all the time. Check out our article about SaaS customer journey.
This map made for Midigator is a great example of how to make a comprehensive and visually appealing cjm without using pictures, icons, and complicated design. Take a closer look if you need a B2B customer journey map.
It includes department breakdown: for a big company, it is crucial to understand which department is involved in every stage of the customer journey. All the client data points that are relevant to each stage are listed as well. If you feel like you need to include some data that is not on the standard list of cjm elements, feel free to do it. Customizing is essential here.
Note that the journey does not end with the purchase, it goes as far as the Loyalty & Advocacy stage. That is what many people overlook when creating customer journey maps. Here is what Annette Franz, the CEO of CX Journey Inc, said about that:
“There are so many businesses who think that the sale is it. And that the customer experience ends at the sale. But it really is only just beginning.”
Annette Franz
Experience wheel
For SaaS, as well as some other businesses, the circular formula of customer journey map would work best, as it reflects the specifics of subscription and the importance of lifelong relations with the clients. This round-shaped diagram is also called an experience wheel.
To sum up
There is no perfect formula for a customer journey map. Well, it exists, but you won’t find it on Google. It all depends on what your business is about and, no less important, what is the question you are trying to get answered.
We encourage you not to rely too much on templates and go through all the steps of creating a customer journey map from scratch, starting with deep research. And when you are done with that, visualization will be easy. Check out our list of the best tools for customer journey mapping.
A Checklist for UX Design Audit Based on Jakob Nielsen's 10 Usability Heuristics
When you start noticing that it became harder to acquire new users, your app seems too complex and messy, and you receive more and more support requests from customers, it may be a sign that your product has some gaps in its user experience (UX).
One of Eleken’s responsibilities, as a team of product designers, is to conduct a UX audit that helps identify and fix such bottlenecks. As a rule, we start the checkup with deep product research which may take into account accessibility, structure analysis, brand consistency, and more. Still, the basics of UX design audit we perform always include going through ten usability heuristics.
Today we want to offer you to examine your product with a UX design audit checklist that takes into account ten usability heuristics developed by Jakob Nielsen. Further on, we’ll explain why we consider this method to be effective and provide you with an explanation of each point in our list. As well, at the end of this article, you'll find a downloadable version of the checklist for your convenience.
Who is Jakob Nielsen and why do his usability heuristics matter?
Meet Jakob Nielsen, a web usability expert, researcher in human-computer interaction, and co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group, also known as the “guru of Web page usability” (according to New York Times) and the "king of usability" (according to Internet Magazine).
In 1990, together with Rolf Molich, they developed ten rules to help designers create better user interfaces. These heuristic principles were created using their years of professional experience, insights, and skills.
Nielsen's heuristics do not specify any particular usability requirements - they are basic guidelines you may adhere to in order to make digital products more accessible, user-friendly, and intuitive. Heuristics have been relevant for over thirty years already and it’s because they are broad and are formed based on basic human behavior. You can read more about each principle at the Nielsen Norman Group website.
In addition, heuristic evaluation allows us to receive quick feedback, doesn't require many resources, and can be combined with other usability testing techniques. So at Eleken, we find this evaluation very useful when conducting a UX audit.
Before we proceed with the UX heuristics checklist, it’s worth mentioning that an audit can go beyond the ten heuristics and take into account an app’s structure, accessibility, brand consistency, design continuity, consistency of a design system and visual style, and more. The points of a checklist we’ll provide below are the basis we recommend to start with.
A UX audit checklist: explanations and examples
To begin with, here’s a short instruction on how to use a Nielsen heuristics checklist.
- Using a design audit checklist to assess the product involves having an evaluator (or several) who examines the interface and judges its compliance with usability tips mentioned in a list.
- As you evaluate the app from the viewpoint of a typical user, make notes and screenshots of every problematic area you find. Don’t get frustrated if there are many: all usability issues your product has are opportunities for improvement.
- At the end of this procedure, organize all your findings in a UX audit report.
Now let’s move on to the checklist itself.
1. Inform users of the interaction status by providing timely feedback
Status mechanisms are essential for giving users the knowledge they need to react effectively to changing circumstances. Users should always be able to tell what the app is doing and what state it’s in. They don’t have to guess whether their request went through or not, the system itself should give quick feedback.
The feedback may be a color change after the user clicks a button, a progress bar when a procedure takes a bit longer to complete, a toast-notification or a simple “thank you” message - anything that would let users know that the system is functioning and eliminate their doubts concerning the success of the initial action.
For example, the web app Tinypng that I commonly use to compress images for my articles, lets me easily understand if the image is processing, ready to download, or impossible to compress with its progress indicator.
2. Use the language your users will definitely understand
Avoid using internal jargon, professional terminology, abbreviations, and the like in your app, as it adds a cognitive load and increases the chances that your users will feel confused and forced to search for a definition.
Use plain language if possible, or conduct user research to learn if your audience understands the terminology you need to have in your app. In case you want to use a shortening or abbreviation, make sure to explain the whole phrase the first time the user sees it.
3. Always allow the “Return”, “Undo” and “Cancel” options
When users explore your app they sometimes may go beyond the standard navigation menu. Some of them may want to know what would happen if they took a possibly risky action, other people may choose the wrong feature by chance. As well, the lack of a “return” or “undo” button makes people work much more slowly and carefully to prevent mistakes. As a result, there’s a significant decrease in productivity.
When you make each action reversible, users may both explore the app safely and make mistakes without being afraid of negative consequences.
As for a “cancel” button, it’s especially relevant when using Wizards (a design pattern that makes complicated tasks that are carried out rarely or by new users simpler). Allow your users to go whenever they want, but be sure to let them know they can complete the task later. It’s also a good practice to remind them about their unfinished activity later.
For instance, to make a lengthy onboarding process less tiring for users, for one of our projects, our designer offered to add the “Save&Exit” button, which allows users to leave the registration process at some point and then come back to it later and continue from the same point where they left.
4. Use design patterns where possible
Jakob’s law states that “people spend most of their time on sites other than yours.” It means they have certain expectations about your product based on their previous experience of using similar apps. By breaking those conventions you force people to learn something new, adding them a cognitive load (so do it only if it’s absolutely necessary).
Design patterns are typical solutions to commonly occurring issues in UI/UX design. Users who are familiar with design patterns can explore a digital product without having to learn a new system from scratch.
Some examples of UX patterns are scrolling down to refresh the page, placing the menu in the header of the website, double-tapping the screen to like an image/video, and the like. All these design solutions are well-known to the majority of people, so they make the software more intuitive and user-friendly.
This way, if a user is searching for a share button, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel, choose sharing symbols, such as an arrow bending to the right or an open triangle with a three-dot share icon.
5. Ensure your design is consistent within your product or a group of products
When related elements have a consistent look and function similarly it improves your product's learnability and usability. Users get used to particular interface elements, including their location on screens. As a result, the experience becomes more comfortable and your product is easier to use.
To maintain consistency, businesses on scale build design systems.
With a design system, all visual design elements are available for usage when designers need to build a new piece of an interface, engineers may reuse the code by simply copying and pasting, and overall, the design system helps the product team increase productivity and product consistency.
6. Ensure error messages are helpful
When users make mistakes, it’s often the design's fault, not the users’. For example, "Error -1264" (or something like that) gives the user none of the information they may need to resolve the problem. So, to prevent your audience from making mistakes, carefully think out an error message and ensure they
- clearly explain the issue
- state what the user has to do about it
- have visual treatments that will help users notice and recognize the error message.
Any notification that doesn't meet the three requirements should be reported back to you by your QA team.
Take a look at the error notification from Slack:
7. Add clues to the context to make the user interface more intuitive through recognition
Which question is easier to answer: “Is the Antarctic blue whale the biggest animal on the planet?” or “What is the biggest animal on the planet?”
I bet you’ve chosen the first variant, and that’s because answering it involves recognition rather than recalling (you simply have to recognize if the information is correct or not).
So, instead of forcing users to recall information from memory, showing them things they can recognize (clues) increases usability, since the additional context makes it easier for users to get the meaning of the information they encounter.
The common illustration of a recognition-based user interface is a menu: the software displays the available commands, and you choose the one you want.
For instance, here’s a screen from Zoom mobile app, a cloud video communication platform.
The icons at the top and bottom of the screen alone don't promote recognition: it’s difficult to understand what features they represent. However, Zoom places a label next to each of them, so that it becomes super easy for users to choose the feature they need.
8. Provide various methods of interaction for beginners and advanced users
The features of your app should be efficient for experts and friendly to newbies, as users with different skill levels have different needs. While expert users can make use of secondary tools meant to speed up frequently performed processes, new users may need assistance in carrying out their tasks.
Going through this point of a checklist means that you allow user customization, avoid being prescriptive about the fundamental task steps, and include accelerators that help advanced users get their jobs done more effectively.
For example, in the WhatsApp app, if you swipe the chat left you can find an accelerator that allows you to quickly archive, or, if you tab for more, delete the chat. These operations may still be performed straight from each individual message, of course, but using the accelerator will speed up the process for more experienced users.
9. Eliminate any element of the application that is not helping
A minimalist design is one that contains all the necessary elements to allow users successfully complete their tasks. That is, a smart user interface should aim to improve usefulness and usability with exactly the right amount of items on the page.
Having too few elements would affect the app's usability (as users won’t be able to complete the necessary tasks), while too many elements will make it difficult for users to find those necessary features. So, include only those interface elements that are in your app for a purpose to make users’ interaction with the product more effective.
This rule is especially relevant when designing a dashboard, as it has to show only the essential data to be useful for a viewer.
10. Make sure your users can ask for additional help and it’s easy for them to find it
Of course, we should strive to make a product design so intuitive to its users that they won’t need to search for additional help or troubleshooting. However, you can’t predict every challenge your users may face, that’s why you need to have onboarding, tooltips, chatbots, documentation, videos, or tutorials.
The help should be concise, easy to find, take into account the user’s goal, and provide the user with clear steps on how to resolve the issue.
For example, an online graphic design tool Canva has an easy-to-notice question-mark icon in its bottom right corner. Once you click on it, you’ll see the list of the most frequently viewed topics. You can also start typing your question in a search bar, or start a chat with the Help Center.
And as we promised at the very beginning, here's a downloadable UX audit checklist based on 10 usability heuristics.
Why conducting a UX audit with our checklist is a good idea
Let’s take a look at one of Eleken’s design audit examples - a redesign for Enroly, a student engagement app. The company knew they had issues with visuals and usability, so we needed to analyze the app before starting the actual revamp to find the exact product’s weak spots. And of course, Jakob Nielsen’s ten usability heuristics came in handy here.
We put ourselves into Enroly users’ shoes and headed straight to the “filtering” feature. The first thing we noticed was the empty top navigation menu that makes users disoriented, not knowing what is going on (seems like it's the first point in our checklist). Additionally, it was completely unclear how to activate the filter. The solution was to put the proper markers and add a separate button to enable the filtering feature.
As we finally found the filter option, we understood that it becomes activated only after selecting some students in a list, while the rest of the time users just don’t need this feature. Remembering the ninth principle from our checklist (eliminate any element of the application that is not helping), we decided to remove this feature from the toolbar. Now it comes up in already active status only after you tick a box in the list.
We can go on with the case, but I guess it’s enough for you to understand the importance of running a user experience audit: it helps to make informed decisions rather than doing a redesign for the sake of redesign without a clear understanding of the goals and metrics you want to improve.
So, if you are not sure what exactly you want to improve, consider running a user experience audit first. You can learn to conduct it on your own, or let professionals do it for you.
At Eleken, we offer UX audit services that will help you identify areas of your product that need improvement, and we have years of experience in creating designs that help our clients pursue their business goals.
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