More in UX Research — page 14
Institutional Review Board (IRB): Your Research Ethics Checkpoint
An IRB is an ethics committee that acts as a mandatory checkpoint for research involving human subjects. Before running user studies or surveys, especially in academic or medical settings, you must get their approval.
Securing Research Data with a Management System
Treat data security as a living system for managing risk, not a one-off checklist. A framework like ISO 27001 helps you systematically protect sensitive research data by defining policies and controls.
Data Minimization: Collect Only What You Need
Treat user data like a liability, not an asset. The Data Minimization principle states you should only collect personal data that is strictly necessary for a specific purpose. This is a core tenant of GDPR. The footgun is collecting data "just-in-case".
Debriefing: Closing the Loop in Research
Debriefing is a structured conversation after a research session to gather feedback and clarify observations. Use it after usability tests to understand a user's thought process and answer their questions.
UX Research Repository: Your Team's Shared Brain
A research repository is your team's shared brain for user insights, preventing knowledge from getting lost. It centralizes reports, recordings, and notes, making them searchable to prevent duplicate studies. The main footgun is poor adoption.
Triangulation: Stronger UX Insights from Multiple Angles
Triangulation strengthens research by combining methods to cover each one's blind spots. For example, pair a quantitative study showing *what* users do with a qualitative one explaining *why*. The footgun is treating a single data source as definitive proof.
UX Ethics: A Professional Code of Conduct
UX ethics formalizes your responsibility to users. It's about centering human well-being, being transparent with data, and actively preventing harm. This guides decisions from research to launch.
Formative vs. Summative Evaluation: Improve vs. Judge
Formative evaluation improves a design in progress; summative evaluation judges a finished one. Use formative tests to find and fix flaws iteratively. Use summative tests to measure a shipped product against a benchmark, like a prior version or a competitor.
Jobs to Be Done: Sell the Hole, Not the Drill
The Jobs to Be Done framework says customers 'hire' products to get a job done. Instead of selling a drill, sell the quarter-inch hole. This reframes innovation around stable customer needs, not temporary product features.
Double Diamond: Explore, Then Focus, Twice
The Double Diamond model prevents building the wrong thing by forcing two cycles of 'go wide, then narrow down.' First, explore the problem space, then define a specific problem. Second, explore solutions, then deliver a tested one.
UX Research: Building for Real People, Not Assumptions
UX Research is about watching what people *do*, not just what they *say*, to build products that solve their actual problems. It's used to design everything from websites to medical devices, guiding development with real user feedback.