field study in ux research

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UX Research Field Study: A Complete Guide

Understanding users’ needs, preferences, and pain points has never been more crucial for businesses aiming to create successful and impactful products and services. UX research, includes user interviews , usability testing , persona creation , data analysis , and the integration of emerging technologies.

As technology continues to advance, so does the complexity of users’ needs and expectations, making it essential to adapt and refine our research methodologies to meet these demands effectively. In this article, we’ll have a look at a complete guide to understand and get the latest insights, methodologies, and best practices in the field of UX research. 

What is UX Research?

The goal of UX (User Experience) research is to understand users’ behaviors, wants, and preferences when dealing with goods, services, or digital interfaces . It is a systematic and multidisciplinary approach. By providing information to the design and development process, its main objective is to enhance the overall user experience.

UX researchers learn important information about users , including their motivations, problems , and objectives, through a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. User interviews, surveys, usability testing, card sorting, and data analysis are a few of these techniques.

After a quick understanding of What UX research is , let’s now move toward understanding what is user research and user observation. 

User Research & User Observation 

Both user research and user observation are separate concepts, which are carried out based on the context of the problem designer or researchers are trying to solve.

1. User Research: Understanding Users for Better Design

A key component of the user experience design process is user research, which focuses on learning about the needs, wants, and preferences of the target audience. It entails gathering information using a range of qualitative and quantitative techniques to guide the creation of products, services, or digital user interfaces.

Methods of User Research:

• User Interviews: Conducting one-on-one interviews with users helps researchers gain in-depth insights into their thoughts, motivations, and pain points. It allows for a personalized understanding of individual experiences and preferences.
• Surveys and Questionnaires: Surveys are useful for collecting data from a large number of users quickly. They provide quantitative data that can reveal trends and patterns.
• Usability Testing: This involves observing users as they interact with a prototype or an existing product. Researchers can identify usability issues and areas for improvement based on users’ actions and feedback.
• Persona Creation: Personas are fictional representations of target users based on research data. They help designers and developers better empathize with users and make informed decisions.
• Card Sorting: Card sorting is a method where users categorize information or features to help designers understand how users mentally organize content.
• Data Analysis: Analyzing the collected data helps researchers identify patterns, trends, and key insights that inform design decisions.

2. User Observation: Observing Users to know how they perform a certain action

A qualitative research technique called “ user observation ” allows researchers to watch users as they engage with a product or service in real time. In contrast to surveys and interviews, which rely on self-reported information, observation offers more unbiased and behavior-based insights. 

Key Aspects of User Observation:

• Natural Context: Observing users in their natural environment provides a better understanding of their real-world interactions and challenges.
• Behaviour Patterns: Observations reveal patterns in user behavior, highlighting pain points, difficulties, and moments of delight.
• Non-Verbal Cues: Users may not always articulate their experiences accurately, but non-verbal cues like facial expressions and body language can offer valuable clues.
• User Empathy: Directly observing users fosters empathy, helping designers connect with users on a deeper level.
• Real-Time Feedback: Observations provide immediate feedback, allowing designers to make quick adjustments and iterate designs rapidly.

In order to produce products and services that actually resonate with users, increase satisfaction, and promote economic success, user research and observation are essential parts of the UX design process.

Data Gathering Method in UX Research

In order to obtain important data regarding users’ behaviors, preferences, and experiences, data gathering methods in UX research use a variety of methodologies and approaches. By using these techniques, researchers can develop user-centric designs by gaining insights into the wants, problems, and motivations of users. 

There are 3 dimensions of data gathering methods, using which designer or researchers conduct research sessions. 

• Direct & Indirect data gathering methods
• Individual & Group data gathering methods
• Performance & Discussion data gathering methods

Let’s have a detailed look at each of the dimensions of data gathering methods.

1. Direct & Indirect Data Gathering Methods

The two primary categories of data collection techniques used in UX research are direct and indirect techniques. Both strategies have different goals and provide distinctive insights on user actions and experiences. Let’s examine each in more depth:

Direct Data Gathering Methods:

• User Interviews: User interviews are one of the most popular direct approaches and involve in-person or virtual encounters with people. To acquire a thorough understanding of consumers’ thoughts, feelings, motives, and pain spots, researchers pose open-ended questions.
• Usability Testing: Usability testing involves watching actual consumers as they engage with a product or prototype. Researchers can spot usability problems, examine navigational patterns, and gather user experience input.
• Focus Groups: Focus groups involve gathering a small group of users to talk about particular subjects or ideas connected to a product. The dynamics of the group can encourage conversation and idea creation while offering insightful information about shared viewpoints and group dynamics. 
• Field Studies and Contextual Inquiry: Field studies entail monitoring people while they utilize a product or service in their natural contexts. This approach gives users context from the real world and reveals user behaviors that may not be seen in a controlled lab environment.

Indirect Data Gathering Methods:

• Surveys and Questionnaires: One of the popular indirect methods for gathering information from a bigger population of people. Surveys are important for determining user demographics, sentiments, and preferences.
• Analytics and Clickstream Analysis: Examining a website’s or an app’s analytics can provide you hints about how users behave by measuring things like time spent on a page, click-through rates , and conversion rates .
• A/B Testing: Following conversations and emotions about a product or brand on social media can provide indirect feedback from a larger audience. The public’s impressions and user sentiment can be better understood with this strategy.
• Social Media Listening: Comparing two or more iterations of a design to see which performs better is known as A/B testing. Researchers can decide on design changes using data-driven decisions by gathering information on user interactions with various versions.
• Heat-maps and Eye Tracking: These tools provide us a hazy understanding of how users interact with our products and what they are paying attention to. Eye tracking shows where users’ attention is focused on a screen, whereas heat maps show areas of strong user interaction.

Both direct and indirect data collection techniques have advantages and disadvantages. Direct techniques may take more time and only work with a smaller number of users, but they offer deep qualitative insights and a greater knowledge of user emotions and motives. On the other hand, indirect methods enable data collecting from a bigger audience and provide quantifiable data, but they could not provide the same level of knowledge as direct contacts.

2. Individual & Group Data Gathering Methods

Based on the number of participants, data collection techniques can be divided into two broad categories: individual and group data collection techniques. Each strategy has unique benefits and is appropriate for various research goals. Let’s examine each type in greater detail:

2.1. Individual Data Gathering Methods

Focuses on Depth of insights, Privacy and Personalisation.

Note: Individual methods might not capture the influence of group dynamics on user behavior.

• Diary Studies: In a diary study, participants maintain a journal or diary detailing their interactions with a good or service over time. This longitudinal approach offers deep insights into the experiences and behaviors of people in everyday life.
• Contextual Inquiry: Contextual inquiry entails observing and speaking with specific users while they carry out specific tasks associated with a product or service in their natural surroundings.

2.2. Group Data Gathering Methods

Focuses on Efficiency, Interaction insights and Stimulating Discussion. 

Note: Due to the dynamics of the group, some members may dominate conversations while others sit back and listen.

• Workshops and Design Sprints: During workshops and design sprints, participants collaborate to brainstorm, rank features, or give input on design concepts.
• Card Sorting (Group-Based): Group-based card sorting entails several individuals cooperating to classify data or qualities, offering insights into societal mental models and organizational preferences.
• Online Discussion Forums and Communities: Online forums and communities allow researchers to gather insights from a larger group of users asynchronously. Participants can share experiences, discuss ideas, and provide feedback at their convenience.

It would be right to say that both individual and group data collection techniques are essential because they provide distinctive insights into user experiences and preferences.

3. Performance & Discussion Data Gathering Methods

3.1. performance data gathering methods.

Focus on observing users’ actions and interactions to measure their task success, efficiency, and effectiveness. These methods provide quantitative data, allowing researchers to identify usability issues and assess the overall performance of a product or interface. 

Note: Performance data might not reveal the “why” behind users’ actions, requiring additional discussion data to gain a comprehensive understanding.

• Usability Testing
• Clickstream Analysis
• Eye Tracking
• Analytics and Heatmaps
• Objective Metrics: Performance data offers objective metrics to evaluate product usability and efficiency.
• Identifying Usability Issues: Performance data helps identify pain points and areas for improvement in the user experience.
• Data-driven Design Decisions: Quantitative data supports data-driven design decisions and can be useful for justifying design changes to stakeholders.

3.2. Discussion Data Gathering Methods

Focus on gathering qualitative data through interactions and discussions with users. These methods provide insights into users’ opinions, perceptions, and subjective experiences, offering a deeper understanding of their motivations and preferences. 

Note: Social desirability bias, where participants may give responses they think researchers want to hear, can have an impact on discussion data.

• User Interviews
• Focus Groups
• Online Discussion Forums and Surveys
• Contextual Inquiry
• User Perspectives: Discussion data provides rich qualitative insights into users’ perspectives, motivations, and emotional responses.
• Understanding Context: Discussion methods offer contextual information and provide a deeper understanding of user needs in real-life settings.
• Ideation and Innovation: Focus groups and discussions foster idea generation and encourage participants to suggest innovative solutions.

It is always a great idea to combine both quantitative performance data and qualitative discussion data to lead to a more comprehensive and informed understanding of users and their interactions with products and services.

Must Check: UX Design Process: A Complete Guide UX Design | Key Process, Flow and Principles 7 Tips to Create an Impressive UX Design

In this detailed article we explored what field studies are, the diverse data gathering techniques employed. We also had a look at the ethical considerations in conducting field studies, ensuring that users’ privacy and consent are respected throughout the research process. Field studies help researchers to find unexpected insights and validate assumptions by stepping outside of the boundaries of controlled lab settings, paving the way for user-centric design decisions. Field studies provide the rich qualitative data that supports the quantitative results from conventional usability testing, whether it be through anthropological observations, contextual queries, or user shadowing. In the end I hope this article serves the purpose as a complete guide to field study for beginners. 

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The Complete Guide to UX Research Methods

UX research provides invaluable insight into product users and what they need and value. Not only will research reduce the risk of a miscalculated guess, it will uncover new opportunities for innovation.

By Miklos Philips

Miklos is a UX designer, product design strategist, author, and speaker with more than 18 years of experience in the design field.

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“Empathy is at the heart of design. Without the understanding of what others see, feel, and experience, design is a pointless task.” —Tim Brown, CEO of the innovation and design firm IDEO

User experience (UX) design is the process of designing products that are useful, easy to use, and a pleasure to engage. It’s about enhancing the entire experience people have while interacting with a product and making sure they find value, satisfaction, and delight. If a mountain peak represents that goal, employing various types of UX research is the path UX designers use to get to the top of the mountain.

User experience research is one of the most misunderstood yet critical steps in UX design. Sometimes treated as an afterthought or an unaffordable luxury, UX research, and user testing should inform every design decision.

Every product, service, or user interface designers create in the safety and comfort of their workplaces has to survive and prosper in the real world. Countless people will engage our creations in an unpredictable environment over which designers have no control. UX research is the key to grounding ideas in reality and improving the odds of success, but research can be a scary word. It may sound like money we don’t have, time we can’t spare, and expertise we have to seek.

In order to do UX research effectively—to get a clear picture of what users think and why they do what they do—e.g., to “walk a mile in the user’s shoes” as a favorite UX maxim goes, it is essential that user experience designers and product teams conduct user research often and regularly. Contingent upon time, resources, and budget, the deeper they can dive the better.

What Is UX Research?

There is a long, comprehensive list of UX design research methods employed by user researchers , but at its center is the user and how they think and behave —their needs and motivations. Typically, UX research does this through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies.

There are two main types of user research: quantitative (statistics: can be calculated and computed; focuses on numbers and mathematical calculations) and qualitative (insights: concerned with descriptions, which can be observed but cannot be computed).

Quantitative research is primarily exploratory research and is used to quantify the problem by way of generating numerical data or data that can be transformed into usable statistics. Some common data collection methods include various forms of surveys – online surveys , paper surveys , mobile surveys and kiosk surveys , longitudinal studies, website interceptors, online polls, and systematic observations.

This user research method may also include analytics, such as Google Analytics .

Google Analytics is part of a suite of interconnected tools that help interpret data on your site’s visitors including Data Studio , a powerful data-visualization tool, and Google Optimize, for running and analyzing dynamic A/B testing.

Quantitative data from analytics platforms should ideally be balanced with qualitative insights gathered from other UX testing methods , such as focus groups or usability testing. The analytical data will show patterns that may be useful for deciding what assumptions to test further.

Qualitative user research is a direct assessment of behavior based on observation. It’s about understanding people’s beliefs and practices on their terms. It can involve several different methods including contextual observation, ethnographic studies, interviews, field studies, and moderated usability tests.

Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group feels that in the case of UX research, it is better to emphasize insights (qualitative research) and that although quant has some advantages, qualitative research breaks down complicated information so it’s easy to understand, and overall delivers better results more cost effectively—in other words, it is much cheaper to find and fix problems during the design phase before you start to build. Often the most important information is not quantifiable, and he goes on to suggest that “quantitative studies are often too narrow to be useful and are sometimes directly misleading.”

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. William Bruce Cameron

Design research is not typical of traditional science with ethnography being its closest equivalent—effective usability is contextual and depends on a broad understanding of human behavior if it is going to work.

Nevertheless, the types of user research you can or should perform will depend on the type of site, system or app you are developing, your timeline, and your environment.

Top UX Research Methods and When to Use Them

Here are some examples of the types of user research performed at each phase of a project.

Card Sorting : Allows users to group and sort a site’s information into a logical structure that will typically drive navigation and the site’s information architecture. This helps ensure that the site structure matches the way users think.

Contextual Interviews : Enables the observation of users in their natural environment, giving you a better understanding of the way users work.

First Click Testing : A testing method focused on navigation, which can be performed on a functioning website, a prototype, or a wireframe.

Focus Groups : Moderated discussion with a group of users, allowing insight into user attitudes, ideas, and desires.

Heuristic Evaluation/Expert Review : A group of usability experts evaluating a website against a list of established guidelines .

Interviews : One-on-one discussions with users show how a particular user works. They enable you to get detailed information about a user’s attitudes, desires, and experiences.

Parallel Design : A design methodology that involves several designers pursuing the same effort simultaneously but independently, with the intention to combine the best aspects of each for the ultimate solution.

Personas : The creation of a representative user based on available data and user interviews. Though the personal details of the persona may be fictional, the information used to create the user type is not.

Prototyping : Allows the design team to explore ideas before implementing them by creating a mock-up of the site. A prototype can range from a paper mock-up to interactive HTML pages.

Surveys : A series of questions asked to multiple users of your website that help you learn about the people who visit your site.

System Usability Scale (SUS) : SUS is a technology-independent ten-item scale for subjective evaluation of the usability.

Task Analysis : Involves learning about user goals, including what users want to do on your website, and helps you understand the tasks that users will perform on your site.

Usability Testing : Identifies user frustrations and problems with a site through one-on-one sessions where a “real-life” user performs tasks on the site being studied.

Use Cases : Provide a description of how users use a particular feature of your website. They provide a detailed look at how users interact with the site, including the steps users take to accomplish each task.

You can do user research at all stages or whatever stage you are in currently. However, the Nielsen Norman Group advises that most of it be done during the earlier phases when it will have the biggest impact. They also suggest it’s a good idea to save some of your budget for additional research that may become necessary (or helpful) later in the project.

Here is a diagram listing recommended options that can be done as a project moves through the design stages. The process will vary, and may only include a few things on the list during each phase. The most frequently used methods are shown in bold.

Reasons for Doing UX Research

Here are three great reasons for doing user research :

To create a product that is truly relevant to users

• If you don’t have a clear understanding of your users and their mental models, you have no way of knowing whether your design will be relevant. A design that is not relevant to its target audience will never be a success.

To create a product that is easy and pleasurable to use

• A favorite quote from Steve Jobs: “ If the user is having a problem, it’s our problem .” If your user experience is not optimal, chances are that people will move on to another product.

To have the return on investment (ROI) of user experience design validated and be able to show:

• An improvement in performance and credibility
• Increased exposure and sales—growth in customer base
• A reduced burden on resources—more efficient work processes

Aside from the reasons mentioned above, doing user research gives insight into which features to prioritize, and in general, helps develop clarity around a project.

What Results Can I Expect from UX Research?

In the words of Mike Kuniaysky, user research is “ the process of understanding the impact of design on an audience. ”

User research has been essential to the success of behemoths like USAA and Amazon ; Joe Gebbia, CEO of Airbnb is an enthusiastic proponent, testifying that its implementation helped turn things around for the company when it was floundering as an early startup.

Some of the results generated through UX research confirm that improving the usability of a site or app will:

• Increase conversion rates
• Increase sign-ups
• Increase NPS (net promoter score)
• Increase customer satisfaction
• Increase purchase rates
• Boost loyalty to the brand
• Reduce customer service calls

Additionally, and aside from benefiting the overall user experience, the integration of UX research into the development process can:

• Minimize development time
• Reduce production costs
• Uncover valuable insights about your audience
• Give an in-depth view into users’ mental models, pain points, and goals

User research is at the core of every exceptional user experience. As the name suggests, UX is subjective—the experience that a person goes through while using a product. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the needs and goals of potential users, the context, and their tasks which are unique for each product. By selecting appropriate UX research methods and applying them rigorously, designers can shape a product’s design and can come up with products that serve both customers and businesses more effectively.

Further Reading on the Toptal Blog:

• How to Conduct Effective UX Research: A Guide
• The Value of User Research
• UX Research Methods and the Path to User Empathy
• Design Talks: Research in Action with UX Researcher Caitria O'Neill
• Swipe Right: 3 Ways to Boost Safety in Dating App Design
• How to Avoid 5 Types of Cognitive Bias in User Research

Understanding the basics

How do you do user research in ux.

UX research includes two main types: quantitative (statistical data) and qualitative (insights that can be observed but not computed), done through observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies. The UX research methods used depend on the type of site, system, or app being developed.

What are UX methods?

There is a long list of methods employed by user research, but at its center is the user and how they think, behave—their needs and motivations. Typically, UX research does this through observation techniques, task analysis, and other UX methodologies.

What is the best research methodology for user experience design?

The type of UX methodology depends on the type of site, system or app being developed, its timeline, and environment. There are 2 main types: quantitative (statistics) and qualitative (insights).

What does a UX researcher do?

A user researcher removes the need for false assumptions and guesswork by using observation techniques, task analysis, and other feedback methodologies to understand a user’s motivation, behavior, and needs.

Why is UX research important?

UX research will help create a product that is relevant to users and is easy and pleasurable to use while boosting a product’s ROI. Aside from these reasons, user research gives insight into which features to prioritize, and in general, helps develop clarity around a project.

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Miklos Philips

London, United Kingdom

Member since May 20, 2016

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How to Conduct Field Studies for UX Research

Field studies are a crucial component of ux research, allowing designers to gain valuable insights into user behavior and preferences. to conduct an effective field study, start by defining clear research objectives and selecting a diverse group of participants. then, immerse yourself in their natural environment, observe their interactions, and engage in meaningful conversations to uncover valuable user insights that can inform your design decisions..

User experience (UX) research plays a crucial role in designing products and services that meet the needs and expectations of users. While there are various methods to gather user insights, conducting field studies is one of the most effective ways to understand user behavior in real-world contexts. In this blog post, we will explore the process of conducting field studies for UX research and provide you with practical tips to ensure successful outcomes.

What is a Field Study?

A field study, also known as contextual inquiry or ethnographic research, involves observing and interacting with users in their natural environments. Unlike lab-based studies, field studies provide researchers with a deeper understanding of how users engage with products or services in real-life situations. By immersing themselves in the users' context, researchers can uncover valuable insights that may not be apparent through other research methods.

Benefits of Field Studies for UX Research

Field studies offer several advantages over other research methods, making them an essential tool for UX researchers. Here are some key benefits:

Real-world insights : Field studies provide researchers with a firsthand understanding of how users interact with products or services in their natural environments. This allows for a more accurate assessment of user needs, behaviors, and pain points.

Contextual understanding : By observing users in their natural settings, researchers can gain insights into the broader context in which products or services are used. This includes factors such as physical environment, social dynamics, and cultural influences, which can significantly impact user behavior.

Uncovering hidden needs : Field studies often reveal user needs and expectations that users themselves may not be aware of or unable to articulate. By observing users in real-life situations, researchers can identify pain points and opportunities for improvement that may have been overlooked.

Validating assumptions : Field studies help validate or challenge assumptions made during the design process. By observing how users interact with a product or service, researchers can assess whether it meets their expectations and identify areas for improvement.

Steps to Conduct a Field Study

Now that we understand the benefits of field studies, let's dive into the step-by-step process of conducting one:

Step 1: Define Research Objectives

Before embarking on a field study, it's crucial to clearly define your research objectives. What specific questions do you want to answer? What insights are you hoping to gain? By setting clear goals, you can focus your research efforts and ensure that the study remains on track.

Step 2: Recruit Participants

Identify and recruit participants who represent your target user group. Consider factors such as demographics, usage patterns, and familiarity with the product or service. Aim for a diverse sample to capture a range of perspectives and experiences. You can reach out to potential participants through online communities, social media, or by partnering with relevant organizations.

Step 3: Plan the Study

Develop a detailed plan for your field study, including the research methods, data collection techniques, and timeline. Decide whether you will conduct interviews, observations, or a combination of both. Determine the number of sessions required and allocate sufficient time for each session. It's also essential to obtain any necessary permissions or consent from participants before the study begins.

Step 4: Conduct the Study

When conducting the field study, it's crucial to establish rapport and build trust with participants. Make them feel comfortable and encourage them to share their experiences openly. Use a combination of observation and interview techniques to gather data. Take detailed notes, capture audio or video recordings (with participants' consent), and document any artifacts or physical evidence that may be relevant.

Step 5: Analyze and Synthesize Data

Once the field study is complete, it's time to analyze and synthesize the data collected. Transcribe interviews, review observation notes, and organize artifacts. Look for patterns, themes, and insights that emerge from the data. Consider using qualitative analysis techniques such as affinity mapping or thematic coding to identify commonalities and outliers.

Step 6: Derive Insights and Recommendations

Based on the analysis of the data, derive meaningful insights and recommendations. Identify key pain points, opportunities for improvement, and potential design solutions. Use the insights gained from the field study to inform the design process and make data-driven decisions.

Step 7: Communicate Findings

Finally, communicate your findings effectively to stakeholders, designers, and other relevant team members. Use visual aids such as charts, graphs, or personas to present the insights in a compelling and easily understandable manner. Clearly articulate the implications of the findings and how they can be applied to improve the user experience.

Tips for Successful Field Studies

To ensure successful field studies, consider the following tips:

Prepare a research kit : Pack a research kit with essential items such as a notebook, pens, audio or video recording devices, consent forms, and any other tools you may need during the study.

Be adaptable : Field studies can be unpredictable, so be prepared to adapt your research plan as needed. Stay flexible and open to unexpected insights or changes in the research direction.

Build rapport : Establishing a good rapport with participants is crucial for obtaining honest and valuable insights. Be friendly, empathetic, and respectful throughout the study.

Observe non-verbal cues : Pay attention to participants' non-verbal cues, such as body language or facial expressions. These can provide valuable insights into their emotions, frustrations, or delight.

Take detailed notes : Capture detailed notes during the study to ensure accurate data collection. Use shorthand or symbols to record observations quickly without interrupting the flow of the session.

Triangulate data : Whenever possible, gather data from multiple sources or methods to validate findings. Triangulation helps ensure the reliability and validity of the insights derived from the field study.

Field studies are a powerful tool for UX researchers to gain deep insights into user behavior and needs. By immersing themselves in the users' natural environments, researchers can uncover valuable insights that inform the design process and lead to better user experiences. By following the steps outlined in this article and implementing the tips provided, you can conduct successful field studies that provide meaningful and actionable insights for your UX research.

Explore More

Nielsen Norman Group. (2021). Field Studies. Retrieved from https://www.nngroup.com/articles/field-studies/

Interaction Design Foundation. (2021). Field Studies - Contextual Inquiry. Retrieved from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/field-studies-contextual-inquiry

Usability.gov. (2021). Field Studies. Retrieved from https://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/field-studies.html

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A Guide to Design System Field Studies

There is no shortage of guides published about how to build a design system . However, many of these guides do not pay enough attention to a crucial step in building a design system: user research. I’ll discuss why including user research in your design system process is an absolute must. I’ll also discuss one of my favorite methods for design system user research: the field study. We’ll take a leaf out of our elementary school curriculum and cover the “who, what, when, where, and why” of design system field studies. Plus, I’ll include some specific research questions to investigate when doing your field studies.

NEW RESEARCH: LEARN HOW DECISION-MAKERS ARE PRIORITIZING DIGITAL INITIATIVES IN 2024.

Why Companies Skip Design System Research

The usual reasons for skipping user research still apply to design systems — not enough time, not enough budget, can’t convince leadership, etc. However, design systems introduce some new reasons why people skip research.

Because design systems are internal products built for internal employees, teams discount the importance of user research to the system’s success. Essentially they think, “I work with these people every day — I know what they need and what problems they’re having.” In a worst case scenario, a team might not even think of their colleagues as people with problems and needs. Instead, they relegate them to cogs in a machine, with a job to do and a new tool they should be using.

First of all, design systems are inclusive tools — they serve more than just designers and developers. They’re a resource for marketing, copy writers, and even legal teams. So, unless you’re an expert in all of those things, slow your roll on assuming you know the exact pain points a design system can solve for your company’s employees. In fact, even if you are a genius lawyer-designer-author-developer hybrid-cyborg, you still haven’t lived the lives of the people you’re designing for . Each person will have different experiences, attitudes, expectations, skills, and abilities that will affect how they experience your design system. For example, maybe Jane Doe refers to a dropdown as a “select box” because that’s the verbiage her last company used. Have fun telling Jane she’ll never find a select-box in your design system because you never bothered to chat with her for a few minutes.

Your design system is only valuable if people use it. Imagine if Tim Berners-Lee launched the world wide web and hid it away in his basement. Without buy-in, your design system is nothing. Including multiple teams, partners, and stakeholders in your design process garners more buy-in throughout your organization. Think about it — which tool are you more likely to use?

• A tool that you actively helped create;
• A tool that a co-worker built for you, but it’s annoyingly useless because your co-worker never bothered to ask how you work;

The second approach is a fast track to making people feel invisible. The people you leave out will not only avoid your system, but they will become active detractors and undermine it.

The other main reason people skip design system research is because people still have a general misconception about what a design system is. Many think that a design system is just a library of reusable UI components. But it’s actually much more than that. A design system is more about the people who use it and how they interact than the components inside it. It must establish a governance process and design principles, among other things. However, because people think of a design system as just a component library, they think they can simply copy another public system. They look at material design or whatever the hottest new design system is and view it as a one-size fits-all solution.

However, your company is probably more unique than you think it is. Yes — there is probably a lot of overlap between each design system’s components. Every product is probably going to have buttons somewhere. But when it comes to things like the system’s governance process, different approaches are going to work better at different companies or for different products. Without doing user research, you won’t be able to make an informed decision about how to structure your governance process. For example, you’ll want to understand your team’s general outlook regarding design systems. If they feel that design systems tend to limit their creativity, then your governance process should be more inclusive and less authoritative.

The design system team’s structure is also an important part of the governance process. It defines who has the authority to make changes to the system. The team structure you decide to use will depend on several factors:

• How much time can people devote to the design system?
• How do people feel about being fully or partially dedicated to building and maintaining the design system? Are they interested in such a project?
• How well do your team member’s skills align to design system responsibilities?
• How much exposure does each team member have to different products throughout your organization?

Guess what? Unless you do user research, you can bet you won’t have accurate answers to the above questions.

So, now that we’ve established you’ll be doing user research for your design system (we have established that right? Nod your heads), let’s talk about how to actually do it. First, let’s talk about two different types of user research: generative research and evaluative research.

Generative research focuses on finding answers to your “known unknowns” as well as your “unknown unknowns.” In other words, through generative research you can answer your existing research questions, but you can also discover new insights and questions you didn’t even know you should be looking for .

Next we have evaluative research, which is a bit more straightforward. With evaluative research, your goal is to evaluate something (shocker). That something could be how well your solution solves the problems you set out to solve. Or, it could be evaluating the validity of a hypothesis or risky assumption. Most importantly, good evaluative research highlights why the solution is performing well or not.

So how does this apply to design systems? Your first instinct might be to follow a linear approach: do generative research first, then build the design system, then evaluate it. That approach would still be more valuable than doing no research at all, but it’s not the most optimal approach. To get the most out of your research, you want to do it continuously throughout the entire product development lifecycle. Everytime you release a new version of your design system or start to conceive a new feature, you should do user research.

There are a lot of user research methods out there that can be applied to your design system:

• Collaborative journey line exercises
• Field studies/contextual inquiry
• Participatory design
• Card sorting and tree testing

And the list goes on. For a great rundown of which methods to use when, I repeatedly refer back to this Neilsen Norman article . But today, I want to focus on one method in particular that works well with design systems user research: field studies.

What is a Field Study?

Think of a field study like your typical research interview, except it’s performed in context. Rather than asking someone to recount how they did something, you actually observe them perform the task in their natural environment and ask questions when necessary. The technical term for this method is “contextual inquiry.” However, I tend to use the term field study because it’s more relatable for participants and others.

Why Field Studies?

Memory is notoriously fallible. If you asked me to recount the exact steps I took to make my breakfast this morning, I wouldn’t be able to accurately tell you. I would leave steps out, recount them in a different order, or even add steps that never happened. This is the drawback of your traditional research interview: what people say they do is almost always different from what they actually do . With a field study, you see the action firsthand. You uncover much richer and more accurate data.

Field studies are my preferred method when doing design system research because users are completing very complex tasks. For example, when I design something, I’m making key decisions every few minutes. Meanwhile, the engineering side is so complex that I can’t even begin to fully understand it (another reason why user research is so important). The more complex the task is, the more likely that a participant will leave out details in a typical interview.

There are drawbacks to field studies as well. For example, you have to get the timing right. Field studies are only valuable if you observe your users in their natural environment, performing tasks as they would usually perform them. This means that your participants need to actually have the tasks you want to observe on their to do list. Artificially recreating a task will introduce issues, because then you move into the realm of what the user “typically” does, instead of what they actually do .

A field study can be more time consuming than your typical interview because you have to observe participants as they fully complete their tasks. Often, completing a task takes longer than explaining how to complete it. Similarly, because you collect richer and more data, the analysis process can take more time.

Lastly, it’s often more difficult to find participants willing to let you shadow them for an extended period of time. Many participants perceive an interview as lower effort than doing a field study. That’s because in a field study we ask the participant to take the lead. They explain everything they’re doing to the moderator, which requires thought and effort. However, unlike an interview, the participant completes their work tasks and remains productive . Be sure to stress this point when recruiting co-workers for field studies.

These challenges may seem tough to overcome, but they are minimized when working on an internal tool like a design system. For one, you’ll have more luck recruiting co-workers than consumers. You’re likely to have an existing relationship with many of your co-workers. Your co-workers also will have more motivation to participate. A consumer’s motivation is usually to receive compensation or to improve the tool they use. For your co-workers, it may actually be within their job duties to help you out.

Who to Research With

We’ve already covered the different teams that a design system can impact. But who within those teams should you observe? Not all engineers are the same and not all designers are the same. You should consider having sessions with senior engineers and junior engineers. Engineers with React skills and engineers with Angular skills. Designers who code and designers who don’t. There are a ton of ways to slice it. The point here is that, right off the bat, you might not know who exactly you should research with or how many people to do sessions with. There’s no hard and fast rule for this. As you start your research, you will start to identify different skills, goals, and personalities for each persona. The rigorous researcher side of me will tell you to continue researching until you hit saturation. In other words, research until you stop hearing new things and discovering new types of people.

Also, a word of caution here. Some design system teams structure their teams using a federated model. In this model, different “representatives” from your various product teams also contribute to the design system. In this case, you might be tempted to rely heavily on these representatives to give you insights on what they need from a design system or how well the design system is working. After all, they’ve set aside the time to specifically work on the design system. However, we need to cast a wider net than just these representatives. You’re looking for different perspectives from people across your company . Plus, the people who are on your design system team are most likely biased. Why? Well, they’re on the design system team, so they have inside knowledge and probably an affinity for the design system that others might not have.

Where to Do a Field Study

This might seem obvious, but you should perform your field studies in the field, or in other words, within the user’s natural environment. This means that if your designers typically work from the office at their desk, you should hold your session there. If your participants do any face-to-face collaboration with others during their work day, try to attend the session in person.

If you have a session with an engineer who is 100% remote, you can try doing the session remotely over screen share. Doing these sessions remotely is possible, but there are some technical challenges. For example, your colleagues might use multiple monitors and most screen share tools only share one monitor at a time. So you run the risk of missing important actions the participant might take, like sending a message to someone on another monitor. In this case, it can be helpful to have the user talk through all the steps they are taking to ensure nothing is missed.

How to Do a Field Study

Your first time running a field study might feel a little foregin, because it’s very different than most common UX research methods. Remember, it’s also probably unfamiliar for your participants. That’s why your first step when doing a field study is to make sure your participant is aware of what to expect. Send them an email ahead of time making sure they will have tasks ready to perform. Make it clear that you’re not doing a typical interview. Also make sure they know the session is an individual session, unless they always perform the tasks in question with other people. You’d be surprised how many people “bring a friend.” For design systems, this is a key point, because often designers and developers will collaborate for long periods of time. A design system can be a key resource during those collaboration sessions.

Before you go into the session, I also recommend creating an intro script to follow. This script can be as fleshed out as you need it to be. Personally, I write out every single word that I say to make sure everyone gets the exact same instructions. In this script, I explain what we’ll be doing during the session. There are a few key points to focus on here:

• Tell the participant it’s important to do their work as they naturally would.
• Assure the participants that they can be honest. Nothing they say or do will be held against them.
• Explain that the session will be different from a typical interview. Walk the participant through how the session will work.

On this last item, there are two different ways you can approach the session. In a more structured session, you will know exactly which tasks you would like to observe and should inform the participant beforehand to have those tasks ready. In a less structured session, you’ll start the session with a brief interview to understand the design system related tasks the participant will perform that day. Once you’ve created a list of tasks, ask your participant to complete them in a natural order. When it comes time for the participant to start their work, I make it clear that we are making a dramatic shift in how the session is run. I say something like:

“Okay, now we’re going to change gears and do something completely different. Up until now, I’ve been doing most of the talking and asking you questions. Now, I’m going to turn it over to you and ask you to walk me through your work tasks. I’d like you to think of this session as if you are a trainer and I’m your apprentice. Assume that I know nothing about the work you do, and you’re trying to teach me how you do it. This means don’t skip any of the details, even if you feel I might think they’re boring. I want to see absolutely everything.”

Even with this introduction, your participants will likely try to gloss over the “boring” details. In such cases, gently remind them you would like to see everything. In the case of a design system, the boring, repetitive tasks are actually the most important to observe. After all, a design system is meant to make design and development more efficient.

Tasks and Research Questions

As mentioned, the tasks that people at your company perform will be unique in certain ways. That being said, below I’ve included a set of tasks you can explore with your team members and research questions for each task. The questions you investigate might be slightly different depending on whether you have launched your design system or not.

Collaboration between Team Members

Design systems are meant to streamline collaboration between your team members by limiting disagreements about how components work and building a shared terminology. Here are some things to look out for when watching teams collaborate:

Design Concepting & Prototyping

Design systems play a big role in making prototyping more consistent and efficient. Similarly, they can introduce consistency into very early stages of the design process as well. Investigate these research questions to make sure your designers get the most out of your design system when using it to concept and prototype:

Design Review or Critique

Hopefully your design team performs regular design reviews to gather actionable feedback. Try to answer the following research questions when observing this task:

Translating Designs into Front-End UI

If your team has designers and developers, there’s a good chance that at some point your developers will reference a design artefact, such as a prototype or mockup, to begin building part of the product.

Updating Existing UI

One of a design system’s biggest benefits is that it makes changing your existing front-end UI much faster. Explore these research questions to understand how you can help your teams achieve this goal:

User Research and Analytics

This is going to get a bit meta, but just as you should perform user research for your design system, your product teams should also perform user research on their products. More broadly, your product teams should inform their decisions with data, including product analytics, to reduce risk.

Most people won’t think of a design system as affecting user research and analytics all that much. However, the design principles you evangelize through your design system can transform your entire design and development process. For example, if your company struggles to do user research but wants to improve, you might include a design principle like “Test early and often.” You could also include best practices for how to use data in the design process. That’s not something you typically see in a design system, but that’s the point — design system user research allows you to make your system your own.

With that in mind, here are some good research questions to explore when observing people perform user research.

Evolving the Design System

A design system is never done. Over time, your system should evolve to include new components, principles, and content. You should improve your processes over time. A good design system provides guidance on how this evolution should occur. Making changes to the system is one of the most complex challenges you will face, so here are some research questions to help you fully understand the challenge.

Wrapping It Up

In summary, performing user research for your design system is important because your organization has unique needs. Your organization employs people with different perspectives, skills, and experience. Tapping into this rich data can be challenging, but it will result in greater buy-in and engagement. With this article, you can arm yourself with some great questions to research at each step of the process. If you give it a shot, let us know how it goes in the comments.

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UX research methods: Deciding which to use for your project

Choosing the right method in UX research can be confusing because it has to be tailored to your specific product and rely on your unique organizational goals.

Each research method has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, but being able to identify the best one to apply to your case is the key to UX research success.

Therefore, it is critical to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the most popular UX research methods and clearly understand the application possibilities and constraints, considering which might make the difference in the choice of one over the other.

Let’s walk you through some of the most common UX research methods to make choosing your option easier.

Overview of different UX research methods

Field studies, focus groups, diary studies, usability testing, five-second testing, a/b testing, considerations for choosing the best ux research method, examples of successful ux research projects, and the methods used, recruiting participants, develop a research protocol, use analytical tools.

The different UX research methods each have their own strengths and limitations, and selecting the right method is essential for gaining meaningful insights. Here are the most popular UX research methods:

• Interviews : involve asking questions to gain insights from users. It is important to start with a wide context, avoid bias, ask questions that focus on tasks users are trying to complete, and analyze the data
• Field studies : a research method where researchers observe people in their natural environment to understand their behavior, needs, and constraints. It is useful for understanding the context in which users complete tasks and gaining a better understanding of customers
• Focus groups : involves studying a group of people and their beliefs and opinions on a topic, usually through face-to-face meetings or video conferencing tools. It can help understand how users perceive a product, identify important features, and discover problems users experience with the product
• Diary studies : a research method where users keep logs or diaries to uncover their behaviors, activities, and experiences over an extended period. It is important to plan well, decide on the type of feedback, and determine triggers for the diary entries
• Surveys : helps gather both qualitative and quantitative data from a group of participants to gain meaningful insights. Surveys can include close-ended or open-ended questions, and it is important to formulate questions correctly to get accurate responses
• Usability testing : involves observing people completing tasks to evaluate usability, using various methods. Method selection is based on research goals and resources, and usability testing should be conducted early and often
• Five-second testing : gauges users’ first impressions by showing them an image for five seconds. The method is useful for assessing messaging effectiveness and attention-grabbing techniques, capturing users’ initial perceptions
• A/B testing : allows testing of design variations to find the most effective one for conversion optimization. The method involves presenting users with two different versions of the design and asking for feedback, with a focus on the prevention of biases and ego-based decision-making

Strengths and weaknesses of each UX research method

The existence of various research methods could confuse you about which method is best suited for your specific situation.

However, accessing the strengths and limitations of each method might help in identifying your preferences, while experience with all of them might give an additional advantage in understanding the best fit — trying and learning from mistakes is the way to perfection.

• Provides rich and detailed information about users’ experiences, preferences, and opinions
• Allows for follow-up questions to clarify responses and gain a deeper understanding of the topic
• Helps build a relationship with users and gain trust
• Can uncover new and unexpected insights

Weaknesses:

• May suffer from bias or social desirability effects
• Requires skilled interviewers to avoid leading questions and extract relevant information
• Time-consuming and expensive to conduct, especially with a large number of participants
• Results may not be generalizable to a larger population
• Provides a realistic view of how users complete tasks and interact with products
• Allows for the observation of behavior in a natural setting, providing contextual information
• Can uncover problems that users might not be aware of or might not report in interviews or surveys
• Provides a broad range of data types, such as visual and audio data
• May require specialized equipment or access to specific locations, making it difficult and expensive to conduct
• Observers may interfere with the natural behavior of participants
• Researchers may struggle to maintain objectivity and avoid bias when collecting and analyzing data
• Allows for the exploration of a wide range of opinions and perspectives in a short amount of time
• Provides insights into how users interact with each other and their social dynamics
• Can uncover new insights that would not have been obtained through individual interviews
• Allows for immediate feedback and discussion among participants
• Participants may be influenced by others’ opinions and not provide independent feedback
• May suffer from groupthink or dominant participants influencing the conversation
• Requires skilled moderators to guide the conversation and extract relevant information
• Provides rich and detailed information over an extended period
• Allows for the collection of data in a natural setting
• Participants have control over their own data and can report on their own experiences
• Can provide insights into changes in behavior or attitudes over time
• Requires participants to commit to recording data over an extended period, which can lead to high attrition rates
• Participants may forget to record important information or not record it accurately
• Results may be influenced by the participant’s memory, attention, or motivation to report accurately
• May not provide a complete picture of the participant’s experience, as they may not report everything they do or feel
• Can collect large amounts of data from a large number of participants quickly and easily
• Allows for the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data
• Provides standardized responses, making it easy to compare and analyze data
• Can be used to obtain data on a wide range of topics
• Participants may not provide accurate or truthful responses
• Can suffer from response bias or question order effects
• Close-ended questions may not capture the nuances of participants’ opinions or experiences
• Results may be influenced by the quality of the questions or response options
• Provides objective feedback on how users interact with products
• Allows for the identification of problems and areas for improvement
• Can be used to compare products or designs
• Can be conducted remotely, making it accessible and cost effective
• May not capture the full range of user experiences or behaviors
• Can be influenced by the tester’s biases or expectations
• May not replicate the natural environment in which the product will be used
• Can be time-consuming and expensive to conduct with a large number of participants
• Quick way to gather initial impressions of users
• Cost-effective method of testing
• Helps to identify potential issues or areas for improvement in design
• Easy to administer and analyze results
• May not provide a comprehensive understanding of the user experience
• Time constraint may not reflect real-life user interactions
• Results may be influenced by personal bias or preferences
• Limited information on how users actually interact with the design beyond initial impressions
• Allows for testing of different variations of a design or webpage
• Provides data to support decision-making and validation of assumptions
• Can be used to optimize the design for specific goals (e.g., conversion rate)
• Helps to control for variables that may affect user behavior
• May not capture the full user experience or account for all variables that could influence behavior
• Can be time-consuming and expensive to administer
• Requires a large enough sample size to ensure statistically significant results
• May lead to decision-making based solely on quantitative data, without considering qualitative insights

When it comes to conducting UX research, the method you choose will depend on the stage of the design process you’re in and what you want to know. It’s important to conduct research first to understand how your product will meet your audience’s needs before testing its effectiveness.

While all research methods have value, it’s often better to observe users’ behavior to discover their needs rather than ask them outright. You’ll also need to decide if what people think and believe or what they do with the product is more relevant to your question. It should also be noted that quantitative research typically assesses success, while qualitative research determines thoughts and motivations.

Once you’ve determined the type of research needed, consider the product’s context in your question to narrow your focus.

However, factors like cost, time, and resources may impact your choice of research method. UX researchers also need to stay in contact with business stakeholders to ensure that research aligns with business goals. Ultimately, the right researcher can make or break a study.

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If you have a small budget, consider starting with a small usability test with five users. If you have a short timeline, conduct an expert review and plan for a usability test in the next phase of development. At any stage in development, consider conducting one or more small usability tests and building improvements into the product as you iterate product design and testing throughout the development cycle.

While I already mentioned a lot of research methods, now it is time to get some insights into the best practices and grasp the feeling of how a successful application looks like in real-life scenarios.

An example of a practical application A/B testing is Spotify , which used this method to determine that users preferred a tab bar instead of the standard three-line menu icon on their mobile app. This resulted in a better user experience and decreased subscription churn, making it clear how A/B testing can have a significant impact on businesses.

Another user research strategy is usability testing, which produces both qualitative and quantitative data. The data gathered from usability testing can be applied in various ways depending on the type of testing and desired outcomes. I mentioned it more than others, as it seems that a lot of great companies constantly use some kind of usability testing to improve their performance.

For example,the world’s largest airline Ryanair’s official website utilized usability testing to increase improve the UX metrics of the website and create a better experience for clients, refreshing its look according to 21st-century expectations. The continuous work of more than 200 employees and an additional large group of testers provided the result that helped the company to stay on top of the airline industry as the website started not to just look better, but to work faster, attracting more clients. Hence, such work has to be ongoing as trends shift while the company has to stay on top of the competition, providing only the best for its clients. Therefore, major companies concentrate on continuous usability testing to increase sales.

An important note here would be that for specific product types, such as an ecommerce website or medical device, there are recommended research methods. When seeking responses from a large number of respondents, consider using a survey delivered electronically via a link or survey platform. On the other hand, if the website or app focuses on experience rather than usability, the chosen research method will usually go with interviews or surveys.

For example, some gaming apps might work just fine, but the visual aspects and music are just not enjoyable for the users, and the only way to grasp such feedback is to access qualitative responses from users in one way or another.

Tips for conducting effective UX research

Recruiting participants for low-cost UX research can be challenging, but there are ways to make it easier. A free 190-page report from the Nielsen Norman Group offers guidelines on how to set up and manage a recruiting program.

You can also use online tools like Doodle to sync schedules and Zoom, Google Hangouts, or Skype to conduct remote interviews, reducing the time it takes to organize multiple in-person interviews. While remote interviews may not provide as much data as other research methods, they can be useful in discovering usability issues and gauging user interaction with these issues.

It is important to ensure that your tested audience’s demographic is diverse and that you prepare by gathering adequate resources and background information. This can help you answer any questions your UX team may have and avoid bias and possible negative feedback from one demographic that you missed during the UX research.

One-on-one interviews can be beneficial because they allow you to focus on specific issues and go in-depth. This eliminates the risk of “groupthink” that can occur in focus groups, for example.

Developing a research protocol can help you stay organized and focused during your user research. This protocol should include tasks you want your participants to do, how much time you’ve set aside for the session, a script or description that you can use for every session, and your process for recording the interviews and looking after participant data.

Analytics tools can also provide valuable quantitative data for your user research. Free tools like Google Analytics and low-cost tools like LogRocket can help you answer questions such as how long it takes for users to complete a task, where they click, how far they scroll, what features are most popular, what paths people usually take, and when they leave.

However, it’s important to pair this raw data with real qualitative user research for insight. Plan ahead and collect useful, properly structured raw data that can be analyzed with as little effort as possible.

In conclusion, understanding the strengths and weaknesses of different UX research methods is crucial for creating effective user-centered designs. Interviews, field studies, focus groups, diary studies, surveys , usability testing, five-second testing, and A/B testing each offer unique insights into user behavior and preferences. When selecting a method, it’s important to consider factors, such as the research goals, target audience, and available resources.

To conduct effective UX research, recruiting diverse and representative participants, developing a research protocol, and utilizing analytical tools are all key factors.

Overall, incorporating UX research into the design process can lead to more satisfying user experiences, and choosing the most appropriate method can make all the difference.

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7 Great, Tried and Tested UX Research Techniques

Thinking about conducting some user research ? Wondering which techniques are most likely to provide useful results? Then look no further. We’ve compiled a list of 7 excellent techniques which are tried and tested and have been proven to deliver real value in UX projects. Let’s take a look at each technique and see what it is and why it works:

Technique Number 1 – Card Sorting

Card sorting was originally a technique used in psychological research long before UX research was a “thing”. It’s a simple concept, you write words or phrases on cards, then you ask the user to categorize them. You might also ask them to label the categories. It’s a great way to determine whether your Information Architecture (IA) is heading in the right direction or to examine IA for new products.

There are all sorts of card sorting techniques and choosing the right one is important. Better still, there are a bunch of online tools that let you do card sorting remotely now – allowing you to use the technique globally and not just locally.

Why is card sorting a good technique?

It’s a very cheap form of research – particularly face-to-face, online tools may be more expensive.

It’s a very easy technique for users to understand and for clients to understand too.

It’s a very easy method to get user input (or even to get user validation) for ideas early on in a UX project.

It requires next to no effort to prepare a card sorting study.

Technique Number 2 – The Expert Review

Expert reviews involve a single “expert” walking through a product via the User Interface ( UI ) and looking for issues with the design, accessibility , and usability of the product. There’s no fixed process to follow and the expert review can vary from professional-to-professional as well from product-to-product. The more expertise the reviewer has in usability and UX design – the more valuable their input (in most cases).

Why is an Expert Review a Good Technique?

It’s quick, easy and cheap. This is doubly so when you compare it to more formal usability testing methods.

It only takes a single professional to conduct an expert review.

It is a great way to inform further UX research and caution should be used in taking an expert review at face value without further user testing .

Technique Number 3 – Eye Movement Tracking

It can be really useful to know where your users are looking when they’re using your system. It helps with UI design and it helps with knowing how to prioritize certain kinds of content. This technique was developed for academic research and has been used extensively in medical research and has now become popular and cost-effective enough to be deployed by the UX team too.

Why is Eye Movement Tracking a Good Technique?

Now that technology is advanced enough, eye movement tracking systems are no longer bulky and invasive and they do not interfere with the results of usability tests.

The technology is reasonably affordable now. It won’t suit every project budget but it often won’t break the bank either.

The technology is now reliable enough for results to be easy to reproduce and for researchers to be able to rely on the outputs.

Clients love eye movement tracking. It’s a great way to demonstrate why they might want to invest in further usability testing.

Technique Number 4 – Field Studies

This is actually a number of techniques under a broad heading. It’s all about going out and observing users “in the wild” so that behaviour can be measured in the context where a product will actually be used. It includes; ethnographic research , interviews and observations, plus contextual enquiry.

Why are Field Studies a Good Technique?

There’s no stronger form of research than observing users behaving as they will when they use your product. Researchers love these techniques and are often passionate about persuading their clients to take them on board.

When conducted well, the outputs of field studies provide the deepest insights into user issues and how they might be solved.

Technique Number 5 – Usability Testing

A firm favourite that has a long and prestigious history in UX research. Usability testing is the observation of users trying to carry out tasks with a product. They can focus on a single process or be much more wide ranging.

Why is Usability Testing a Good Technique?

Can you think of a better way to understand what users do than watching them do stuff? Of course, you have to pick the right users – they need to be a good representation of the user base as a whole but that’s pretty much the only constraint.

Usability tests produce specific results that lead to specific action. Better still, it’s very hard for people to contradict decisions based on these tests; it’s nearly impossible to refute evidence of user behaviour.

You can bring clients into usability testing easily as observers. This increases their enthusiasm for such testing and shows clearly why such testing adds value.

Technique Number 6 – Remote Usability Testing

This is usability testing but without the need to drag users into your laboratory environment. It was once complex and expensive but technology has moved on and now it’s fairly simple to set up and reasonable value for money too.

Why is Remote Usability Testing a Good Technique?

It often saves time and money when compared to lab testing and it allows for a wider range of participants when you don’t have to get them in the lab.

It is closer to field testing in some respects in that the tests are conducted in the user’s environment and not an artificial lab environment. This delivers better results in many cases than a lab environment.

Technique Number 7 – User Personas

User personas are a fictional representation of the ideal user. They focus on the goals of the user, the characteristics that they have and the attitudes that they display. They also examine what the user expects from the product.

User personas are created from other forms of user research and thus offer an in-depth real-life vivid portrait that is easy for the whole team to keep in mind when designing products. User personas have a name and a backstory. They inspire the imagination and keep focus on the user.

Why are User Personas a Good Technique?

They are a step above the old user profile and give a more in depth and specific look at a user.

They are easy for people to relate to and become part of the team as they are constantly spoken about during a project.

They are a lot of fun and they tend to be interesting, easy for people to engage with and more memorable than many other research outputs.

There are many user research techniques but these 7 have shown time and again to offer valuable input into UX projects. Which is your favourite?

Header Image: Author/Copyright holder: Zeke Franco. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

User Experience: The Beginner’s Guide

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UX Researcher

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What Is a UX Researcher? How to Become One, Salary, Skills.

UX researchers are responsible for studying and understanding what users of a system or product need and want. UX researchers use their findings to improve the design of goods, software and services. Here’s what to know about a UX researcher’s salary, needed skills and how to become one.

What Is a UX Researcher?

UX researchers study user behavior to answer important questions about how digital products and services are designed and how customers interact with them. The goal of a UX researcher is to improve a product or service through their findings. Some of the key insights UX researchers must uncover about users include their demographic information, how they use a product, what they get from a product and what issues they may have with the product. 

What Do UX Researchers Do?

UX researchers are tasked with learning what motivations, needs and behaviors users have when interacting with a product or service. The two main types of UX research are quantitative and qualitative. The goal of quantitative research is to identify the experience of a user by looking at data, such as click-through rates on landing pages, for example. The goal of qualitative research is to understand why users behave the way they do, and for this, UX researchers rely on field studies, moderated usability tests and user interviews.

UX Researcher Responsibilities

• Design, organize and implement user research projects, including A/B tests, field studies, user surveys, user interviews and usability tests.
• Analyze and synthesize qualitative and quantitative research to create and report findings.
• Present findings to designers, developers, leadership and stakeholders. 
• Collaborate with product and design teams and provide actionable feedback. 

Day-to-Day Responsibilities of UX Researchers

• Craft user research plans.
• Develop budgets and timelines for research projects. 
• Recruit targeted users.
• Conduct user interviews. 
• Create user surveys. 
• Organize usability tests.
• Conduct field studies.
• Analyze results from interviews and surveys. 

UX Researchers Within a Company

UX researchers are typically part of the product development team within a company. They often collaborate with leaders on the product team and design to create research plans, analyze results and data from surveys and questionnaires and make product recommendations. 

Importance of UX Researchers

UX researchers help companies understand the needs and wants of their customers as they approach the product or service. Without thoughtful UX researchers, companies will overlook the most important part of the design process: empathy. 

What Skills Are Needed to Be a UX Researcher?

Qualifications to be a ux researcher.

• Experience designing and executing user research.
• Knowledge of UX design principles.
• Strong understanding of statistics and data.
• Experience with user research tools and software.

UX Researcher Prerequisites

• UX researchers usually hold a bachelor’s degree in psychology, statistics, human-computer interaction, information systems or a related field. 
• A portfolio of previous user research projects. 

UX Researcher Hard Skills

• Data analysis.
• Math and statistics.
• UX research methods and software tools. 
• User testing. 
• Basic design skills.

UX Researcher Soft Skills

• Empathy and curiosity.
• Interpersonal communication and writing skills.
• Problem solving and critical thinking skills.
• Collaboration and teamwork skills.

Tools and Programs UX Researcher Use

• Google Forms 
• Google Optimize
• Optimal Workshop

How to Become a UX Researcher

Ux researcher education and experience.

UX researchers can come from a variety of different backgrounds; there isn’t one set degree that is necessarily best for UX research. Studying technology or behavioral and social sciences can all be relevant to UX research, as an understanding of tech and how humans interact with it is central to the role.

Outside of education, volunteering to run UX research projects for local businesses and non-profit organizations, as well as participating in hackathons, may be helpful experience in developing a UX research portfolio.

• UX Researcher Certificates and Courses
• UX Bootcamps to Know
• Google UX Design Professional Certificate
• General Assembly UX Design Immersive
• Northwestern UX/UI Boot Camp

UX Researcher Career Path

Although UX researchers can come from many different educational backgrounds, starting a UX research career with an internship is a great first step in the field. UX researchers may later take on roles such as UX designer or UX engineer.

UX Researcher Salary and Job Outlook

UX research is a growing field, with 41 percent of researchers only having five years of experience in the field. But the size of UX researcher teams is expected to grow too. Of UX researchers surveyed by User Interviews , 71 percent said there are five or more researchers on their team.

The full compensation package for a UX researcher depends on a variety of factors, including but not limited to the candidate’s experience and geographic location. See below for detailed information on the average UX researcher salary.

Expand Your UX Researcher Career Opportunities

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UX Researcher Certifications + Programs

Reignite your journey up the career ladder with Udacity’s online UX and design certifications.

General Assembly’s User Experience Design Immersive is a transformative course designed for you to get the necessary skills for a UX Design role in three months. 

The User Experience Design bootcamp is led by instructors who are expert practitioners in their field, supported by career coaches that work with you since day one and enhanced by a career services team that is constantly in talks with employers about their UX Design hiring needs.

What you'll accomplish

As a graduate, you’ll have a portfolio of projects that show your creative and technical ability to launch the next generation of successful apps, websites and digital experiences. Throughout this program, you will:

Identify and implement the most effective methods of user research to gain a deeper understanding of what users want and need.

Use interaction and visual design techniques to craft a dynamic digital product that brings delight and function to users.

Conduct usability testing to make product experiences more accessible for diverse user populations and environments.

Learn best practices for working within a product team, employing product management techniques and evaluating technical constraints to better collaborate with developers.

Produce polished design documentation, including wireframes and prototypes, to articulate design decisions to clients and stakeholders.

Prepare for the world of work, compiling a professional-grade portfolio of solo, group, and client projects.

Prerequisites

This is a beginner-friendly program with no prerequisites, although many students are familiar with common tools for graphic and web designers and some may have had exposure to UX concepts in the past. The General Assembly curriculum helps you gain fluency in end-to-end UX processes, tools, and documentation and put them to work on the path to a new career as a User Experience Designer.

Why General Assembly

Since 2011, General Assembly has graduated more than 40,000 students worldwide from the full time & part time courses. During the 2020 hiring shutdown, GA's students, instructors, and career coaches never lost focus, and the KPMG-validated numbers in their Outcomes report reflect it. *For students who graduated in 2020 — the peak of the pandemic — 74.4% of those who participated in GA's full-time Career Services program landed jobs within six months of graduation.  General Assembly is proud of their grads + teams' relentless dedication and to see those numbers rising. Download the report here .

Your next step? Submit an application to talk to the General Assembly Admissions team

Note: reviews are referenced from Career Karma - https://careerkarma.com/schools/general-assembly

Careers Related to UX Researcher

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The Future of User Research Report

Discover the trends shaping the user research industry in 2024 and beyond.

Maze surveyed over 1,200 product professionals to uncover how product teams conduct research to inform decision-making and build successful products. Learn about the top three trends defining the user research landscape.

Key trend #1

The demand for user research is growing

Key trend #2

Research democratization empowers stronger decision-making

Key trend #3

New technology allows product teams to significantly scale research

With support from experts at

62% of respondents say the demand for user research has increased in the past 12 months. A variety of teams are leveraging research to make decisions across the entire product development lifecycle—resulting in positive business outcomes like improved product usability, customer satisfaction, and engagement.

While bandwidth and time constraints remain the main challenge for product teams, 75% of respondents are planning to scale research in the next year by increasing the number of research studies, leveraging AI tools, and providing research training to promote democratization.

75% of respondents are planning to scale research in the next year by:

Organizations are operating in increasingly uncertain times. I’ve sensed a shift towards more risk-averse attitudes, where organizations feel they need to “get it right” the first time. In this uncertainty, increasing our speed of learning and anticipating the changes that could come will help us be more resilient. const t="undefined"!=typeof HTMLImageElement&&"loading"in HTMLImageElement.prototype;if(t){const t=document.querySelectorAll("img[data-main-image]");for(let e of t){e.dataset.src&&(e.setAttribute("src",e.dataset.src),e.removeAttribute("data-src")),e.dataset.srcset&&(e.setAttribute("srcset",e.dataset.srcset),e.removeAttribute("data-srcset"));const t=e.parentNode.querySelectorAll("source[data-srcset]");for(let e of t)e.setAttribute("srcset",e.dataset.srcset),e.removeAttribute("data-srcset");e.complete&&(e.style.opacity=1,e.parentNode.parentNode.querySelector("[data-placeholder-image]").style.opacity=0)}} Emma Craig Head of UX Research at Miro Share

Research studies are conducted not only by UX and product researchers but also by product designers (61%), product managers (38%), and marketers (17%). In particular, respondents with a democratized research culture report improved agility, collaboration, and decision-making.

When research is democratized, teams are 2X more likely to make strategic decisions based on user research. With other teams focusing on more tactical research studies, UX researchers have more time to work on strategic projects with greater organizational impact.

Organizations with a democratized research culture are:

Research democratization has allowed our product partners to make better decisions and build more synergy with our customers. I see PMs and designers fighting for the customer when making decisions, which is exciting. As for me, it’s freed me up to tackle more complex questions at the strategic level. The projects I execute have an impact across the entire organization, which is incredibly motivating. const t="undefined"!=typeof HTMLImageElement&&"loading"in HTMLImageElement.prototype;if(t){const t=document.querySelectorAll("img[data-main-image]");for(let e of t){e.dataset.src&&(e.setAttribute("src",e.dataset.src),e.removeAttribute("data-src")),e.dataset.srcset&&(e.setAttribute("srcset",e.dataset.srcset),e.removeAttribute("data-srcset"));const t=e.parentNode.querySelectorAll("source[data-srcset]");for(let e of t)e.setAttribute("srcset",e.dataset.srcset),e.removeAttribute("data-srcset");e.complete&&(e.style.opacity=1,e.parentNode.parentNode.querySelector("[data-placeholder-image]").style.opacity=0)}} Morgan Mullen Lead UX Researcher at User Interviews Share

New technologies, like AI, are reshaping the way we work in countless ways, and user research is no exception. 44% of product teams are already using AI tools like ChatGPT, Miro, and Maze to conduct research, and 31% plan to use AI to scale research next year.

AI tools are helping with the tactical aspects of research, leading to improved team efficiency (56%), increased turnaround time of research projects (50%), and freeing up time for researchers to focus on the human and strategic side of research (35%).

What benefits have you experienced using AI tools?

Think of AI as an assistant, not a replacement for a skilled researcher. AI can speed up your workflow by processing large amounts of raw data and identifying trends. But it can't replace the contextual knowledge and expertise that allow researchers to connect the dots and uncover meaningful insights and recommendations. const t="undefined"!=typeof HTMLImageElement&&"loading"in HTMLImageElement.prototype;if(t){const t=document.querySelectorAll("img[data-main-image]");for(let e of t){e.dataset.src&&(e.setAttribute("src",e.dataset.src),e.removeAttribute("data-src")),e.dataset.srcset&&(e.setAttribute("srcset",e.dataset.srcset),e.removeAttribute("data-srcset"));const t=e.parentNode.querySelectorAll("source[data-srcset]");for(let e of t)e.setAttribute("srcset",e.dataset.srcset),e.removeAttribute("data-srcset");e.complete&&(e.style.opacity=1,e.parentNode.parentNode.querySelector("[data-placeholder-image]").style.opacity=0)}} Kate Pazoles Head of Flex User Research at Twilio Share

Methodology

The report survey was created using Maze and distributed between December 20, 2023 and January 16, 2024. During that time, Maze collected 1,234 responses from a variety of research-focused roles: 43% UX/Product Researchers, 39% UX/UI/Product Designers, 9% Product Managers.

The respondents worked at a mixture of enterprise organizations (60%) and small-medium businesses (40%). Survey respondents were located in multiple regions around the world, including 40% in Europe, 32% in North America, 9% in Asia, and 8% in Latin America. 

Maze is the user research platform that makes products work for people. Maze empowers any company to build the right products faster by making user insights available at the speed of product development. Built for ease of use, Maze allows designers, product managers, and researchers to collect and share user insights when needed most, putting them at the center of every decision.

Discover the User Research Insights Shaping 2024

Dive deeper into the trends defining the user research landscape in 2024 and beyond. 

Northwestern to build new softball stadium

• Student Experience

Northwestern University’s Big Ten Champion softball program has received a $5 million gift from Northwestern Trustee and former student-athlete Harreld N. “Kip” Kirkpatrick III ’94, ’97 MBA and his wife, Sara Kirkpatrick. The gift will support the construction of a new softball stadium, which will be named Kip and Sara Kirkpatrick Stadium.

“We are deeply grateful for Kip and Sara’s incredible dedication and generosity to many areas across the University,” Northwestern President Michael Schill said. “One of Northwestern’s stated priorities is to enhance the student-athlete experience. With this new gift, the Kirkpatricks are making a significant impact on Northwestern softball for years to come and helping ensure that the team’s facilities match the distinction of the overall program.”

The project will create spaces for student-athletes, increase the stadium’s seating capacity and elevate the fan experience. Construction is expected to begin in 2025, with completion anticipated by spring 2026. The softball team will continue playing home games on the current field during construction.

“Through their philanthropy, Kip and Sara Kirkpatrick are not only supporting our softball student-athletes in their continued success but also helping advance women’s collegiate athletics on a grander scale,” said Dr. Derrick Gragg, the Combe Family Vice President for Athletics and Recreation.

The Kirkpatricks’ gift kicked off a fundraising drive to support additional aspects of the new stadium . Several spaces are available for naming. Learn more about opportunities to support this project.

“The transformation of our stadium will have a tremendous impact, creating an environment for our student-athletes and fans that will complement the championship play of our program,” Head Coach Kate Drohan said. "As a former student-athlete at Northwestern, Kip understands the amazing life lessons learned on our campus, especially through sports. This gift is a commitment to the standard of excellence here at Northwestern, ensuring that our student-athletes can train and compete in a state-of-the-art facility.

“On behalf of the entire Northwestern softball family — especially our alumni and current and future student-athletes — we sincerely thank Kip and Sara Kirkpatrick for their belief in our program.”

The design will feature a team clubhouse with a players’ lounge and new locker rooms. In the new layout, softball student-athlete support areas — for training, team development, practice and competition — will be centrally located and easier for the student-athletes to access.

Kirkpatrick Stadium also will include:

• New dugouts and a clubhouse connected to the home dugout
• New seating bowl and concourse with chairback seating
• New restrooms
• Expansive press box for full TV and radio coverage
• New entrance with courtyard space for tailgating and special events
• Improved ADA accessibility

“It is an honor to be able to give back to the University that gave me so much,” Kip Kirkpatrick said. “We have truly enjoyed watching Wildcats softball achieve such great success on a national stage, like their appearances in the Women’s College Softball World Series, and reaching historic milestones under the direction of Coach Drohan and her team.”

“We look forward to seeing these outstanding women showcase their talent in a stadium that reflects their skill, hard work and dedication,” Sara Kirkpatrick said. “This project is an investment for today and for future generations of Wildcats softball superstars.”

“These student-athletes deserve an upgraded home that allows the women’s softball program to stand out among Big Ten collegiate programs,” Kip Kirkpatrick said. “Sara and I invite fellow Wildcats supporters to join us in helping to realize this vision.”

The playing field within the stadium will retain the name Sharon J. Drysdale Field, which was named in honor of the legendary Northwestern softball coach upon her retirement in 2001.

About the Kirkpatricks

Kip Kirkpatrick received a bachelor’s degree in history from Northwestern in 1994 and a master’s degree in business administration from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management in 1997. He was a three-year starting forward for the Wildcats men’s basketball team and played in the 1994 National Invitation Tournament (NIT). In his senior year, he was nominated for the GTE Academic All-American team.

In 2013, Kip Kirkpatrick co-founded The Vistria Group, a middle market private equity firm that invests in health care, knowledge and learning solutions, financial services and real estate, with offices in Chicago, Dallas and New York. He serves as co-CEO of the firm, which focuses its investments in areas that produce positive societal change.

Kip Kirkpatrick is an active volunteer leader for Northwestern. He joined the University’s Board of Trustees in 2008 and currently serves on the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences Board of Visitors and the Kellogg School of Management Global Advisory Board. He also chairs the Kellogg Private Equity Advisory Council. He previously served on the Northwestern University Leadership Circle’s Chicago Regional Board, the Chicago Regional Committee for We Will. The Campaign for Northwestern and the Northwestern Alumni Association Board of Directors. He is a life member of the N Club and helped lead his 10th, 15th, 20th and 25th Class Reunion committees.

Sara Kirkpatrick is a former Chicago Public Schools teacher and has spent time serving on several boards related to early childhood education. She is an active member in her community, serving as an athletic booster and a member of the New Trier Parents’ Association in Illinois. She also is a member of Northwestern University’s Women’s Board. The Kirkpatricks have contributed generously toward the renovation of Northwestern’s Welsh-Ryan Arena and have supported numerous academic and outreach programs at the University, including at Kellogg, the Bienen School of Music and Weinberg College. They are platinum members of NU Loyal, the giving society recognizing consistent annual giving to Northwestern.

About Northwestern softball

Now in its 49th season, Northwestern softball is led by Head Coach Kate Drohan and her twin sister, Caryl Drohan, who are currently in their 23rd season at the helm. The Drohans took over for legendary Head Coach Sharon Drysdale, who led the Wildcats for the 23 seasons prior and took the program to unprecedented heights.

The Wildcats have appeared in 21 NCAA Tournaments, including eight in the past nine seasons, and made six appearances in the Women’s College World Series, headlined by a national runner-up finish in 2006 during which Kate Drohan and her staff were named National Coaching Staff of the Year. Northwestern’s six Women’s College World Series appearances since 1984 are the second-most among Big Ten programs.

Drysdale took over the softball program in 1979 and led the Wildcats to their first-ever Big Ten championship in 1982. Soon after, she led the Wildcats to three consecutive appearances in the Women’s College World Series, from 1984 to 1986. Drysdale captured five Big Ten titles at Northwestern and was named the Big Ten Coach of the Year three times — in 1984, 1987 and 1995. She was inducted into the National Fastpitch Coaches Association in 1994 and retired from her post in 2001.

Kate Drohan has led Northwestern softball since 2002 and is the program’s all-time wins leader with more than 750 wins. Northwestern has advanced to the NCAA Super Regionals seven times under the Drohans and has made three trips to the Women's College World Series — in 2006, 2007 and, most recently, in 2022. Kate Drohan has been named the Big Ten Coach of the Year five times in her career, including three of the past four seasons, which ranks second-most in Big Ten history. The Wildcats have won four Big Ten regular season championships under Drohan, including two consecutive titles in 2022 and 2023.

Northwestern has earned 23 All-American honors among 12 different players in the program’s history. The Wildcats have also seen 172 All-Big Ten honorees and 254 Academic All-Big Ten recipients. The program has posted a perfect 100 percent graduation success rate in each of the last four years.

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Northwestern receives $10 million gift to foster collaboration in social sciences and global studies research

Bob mcquinn to step down as vice president for alumni relations and development, $25 million grant will accelerate global sustainability and energy innovation.

'Curious Conversations' podcast: Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz talks about air pollution

• Travis Williams

18 Mar 2024

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Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz joined Virginia Tech’s “Curious Conversations” to talk about air pollution and its misconceptions. He shared his insights related to how plant and human emissions interact, what that means for our shared environment, as well as how he got into this field of study and his hope for the future.

About Isaacman-VanWertz

Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz is associate professor in civil and environmental engineering in the College of Engineering and an affiliate faculty member of the Global Change Center. His research focuses on understanding the chemical transformations of reactive organic compounds in the atmosphere – their physicochemical properties, their fate in the environment, and their impacts on ecosystems and populations. He is currently researching air quality in Ecuador with a focus on climate change on the Amazon rainforest and its feedback on the atmosphere.

Your browser does not support iframes. Link to iframe content: https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/2W9vKbImhp9Wd6Grey8t56?utm_source=generator&theme=0

Three takeaways

Air pollution is not limited to the visible emissions humans create, such as smoke stacks, but also includes the pollutants chemically formed from those emissions interacting with plant emissions. 

Understanding the interaction between humans and the environment is crucial for taking care of the environment.

As awareness and concern of environmental issues grows throughout our cultures, so too does the hope for positive, large scale changes to take place.

Researchers create air samplers that could help develop pest management practices for agriculture

Gabriel Isaacman-VanWertz receives NSF CAREER Award, Department of Energy grant to study atmospheric gases

About the podcast

"Curious Conversations" is a series of free-flowing conversations with Virginia Tech researchers that take place at the intersection of world-class research and everyday life. Produced and hosted by Virginia Tech writer and editor Travis Williams, university researchers share their expertise and motivations as well as the practical applications of their work in a format that more closely resembles chats at a cookout than classroom lectures. New episodes are shared each Tuesday.

Lindsey Haugh

• Air Pollution
• Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Climate Action
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• Fralin Life Sciences Institute
• Global Change Center
• Responsible Consumption and Production

Related Content

Every 2.4 million years, Mars tugs on Earth so hard it changes the ocean floor

A new geological study suggests that Mars' gravitational field pulls the Earth closer to the sun over cycles lasting millions of years, warming our climate.

Mars' gravitational pull on Earth may be influencing the climate on our planet, new research hints.

Geological evidence tracing back more than 65 million years and taken from hundreds of sites across the world suggests that deep-sea currents have repeatedly gone through periods of being either stronger or weaker. This happens every 2.4 million years and is known as an " astronomical grand cycle ." 

The stronger currents, known as "giant whirlpools" or eddies, may reach the seafloor at the deepest parts of the ocean, known as the abyss . These powerful currents then erode away at the large pieces of sediment that accumulate during calmer periods in the cycle, according to research published Tuesday (March 12) in the journal Nature Communications . 

These cycles happen to coincide with the timing of known gravitational interactions between Earth and Mars as the two planets orbit the sun, the study found.

"The gravity fields of the planets in the solar system interfere with each other and this interaction, called a resonance, changes planetary eccentricity, a measure of how close to circular their orbits are," study co-author Dietmar Müller , a professor of geophysics at the University of Sydney, said in a statement .

Related: 'We are approaching the tipping point': Marker for the collapse of key Atlantic current discovered

Due to this resonance, the Earth is pulled slightly closer to the sun by Mars' gravitational pull, meaning our planet is exposed to more solar radiation and hence has a warmer climate, before drifting backward again — all over a period of 2.4 million years. 

The authors of the new study used satellite data to map the accumulation of sediment on the ocean floor over tens of millions of years. They found that there were gaps in the geological records where sediment stopped building up within these astronomical cycles. They believe that this could be linked to stronger ocean currents as a result of warmer weather caused by Mars' gravitational influence on Earth. 

These findings support the idea that the Red Planet influences the climate on Earth, just as passing stars and other astronomical objects have been theorized to. However, the observed warming effect is not linked to global warming that is being driven by human greenhouse gas emissions , the authors emphasized in the statement. 

Nevertheless, although speculative at this stage, the findings suggest that this cycle may help periodically maintain some of the ocean's deep currents in the event that global warming decreases them, the authors say. 

"We know there are at least two separate mechanisms that contribute to the vigor of deep-water mixing in the oceans," Müller said. One of these mechanisms is known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), Müller said. This acts as an ocean "conveyor belt," bringing warm water from the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere, pulling heat deep into the ocean in the process. 

— What if the ocean's climate-controlling 'conveyor belt' came to a halt?

— Here's a disturbing theory about why climate change seemed to 'pause' for 15 years

— Antarctic currents supplying 40% of world's deep ocean with nutrients and oxygen slowing dramatically

Some scientists predict that the AMOC may collapse over the next few decades so it's possible that the ventilation induced by deep ocean eddies could be beneficial. 

"Our deep-sea data spanning 65 million years suggests that warmer oceans have more vigorous deep circulation," Adriana Dutkiewicz , lead study author and sedimentologist at the University of Sydney, said in the statement. "This will potentially keep the ocean from becoming stagnant even if Atlantic meridional overturning circulation slows or stops altogether." 

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Emily is a health news writer based in London, United Kingdom. She holds a bachelor's degree in biology from Durham University and a master's degree in clinical and therapeutic neuroscience from Oxford University. She has worked in science communication, medical writing and as a local news reporter while undertaking journalism training. In 2018, she was named one of MHP Communications' 30 journalists to watch under 30. ( [email protected] ) 

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• OldNDumb So, when is this going to happen? Exactly where are we in this cycle? Reply

admin said: A new geological study suggests that Mars' gravitational field pulls the Earth closer to the sun over cycles lasting millions of years, warming our climate. Every 2.4 million years, Mars tugs on Earth so hard it changes the ocean floor : Read more

• The Old Ranger Every time I read "millions of years" on these posts, I just laugh because if they base their dating on Darwin, they are totally off base. According to the Bible, the universe was created a little over 6 thousand years ago, around 4004 BC... chronologies based on research by PhDs in math, science, geology, chemistry, geophysics, et al have a provable time table, and certainly not based on man coming from slime or apes. Man likes to think he has all the answers, but look at the mess the world is in... where is all their knowledge to make things better... what they believe in is unprovable theories and hypotheses .... even today, the call is out to get rid of combustible engines burning oil to go to electric cars, and then our utility companies ask us to cut back on usage of electricity during the summer because they don't have enough sources to supply what we need.... where are we going to get all this electricity to keep up with charging stations for millions of cars?? Man can only suggest, but God knows and He has a time table not known to our best scientists who only suppose to know. As we say in Texas, bless your little pea-picking heart. Just in case, I have advanced degrees in math and physics, so I'm in a position to know the weaknesses of the "theories" posted. We can't even cure illnesses on this planet. Reply

The Old Ranger said: Every time I read "millions of years" on these posts, I just laugh because if they base their dating on Darwin, they are totally off base. According to the Bible, the universe was created a little over 6 thousand years ago, around 4004 BC... chronologies based on research by PhDs in math, science, geology, chemistry, geophysics, et al have a provable time table, and certainly not based on man coming from slime or apes. Man likes to think he has all the answers, but look at the mess the world is in... where is all their knowledge to make things better... what they believe in is unprovable theories and hypotheses .... even today, the call is out to get rid of combustible engines burning oil to go to electric cars, and then our utility companies ask us to cut back on usage of electricity during the summer because they don't have enoug The Old Ranger said: Every time I read "millions of years" on these posts, I just laugh because if they base their dating on Darwin, they are totally off base. According to the Bible, the universe was created a little over 6 thousand years ago, around 4004 BC... chronologies based on research by PhDs in math, science, geology, chemistry, geophysics, et al have a provable time table, and certainly not based on man coming from slime or apes. Man likes to think he has all the answers, but look at the mess the world is in... where is all their knowledge to make things better... what they believe in is unprovable theories and hypotheses .... even today, the call is out to get rid of combustible engines burning oil to go to electric cars, and then our utility companies ask us to cut back on usage of electricity during the summer because they don't have enough sources to supply what we need.... where are we going to get all this electricity to keep up with charging stations for millions of cars?? Man can only suggest, but God knows and He has a time table not known to our best scientists who only suppose to know. As we say in Texas, bless your little pea-picking heart. Just in case, I have advanced degrees in math and physics, so I'm in a position to know the weaknesses of the "theories" posted. We can't even cure illnesses on this planet.

• Amphoteric_ Rhetoric Put "this has no relationship with global warming" on the top somewhere, before someone decides to cite this paper "proving" that global warming isn't real. Reply

Giovani said: Mars asserts its influence measured in millions of years; what other strange things occur from this sort of situation? It could be that in the span of millions of years, every so often, something not even imagined takes place in the neighboring cosmos. My imagination sees Mars "waking up" in such an event. Transforming quickly into an active planet, including volcanic awakening. Meanwhile the entire solar system appears to be affected by these phenomena. I think it's happened before many times and we may be just right in circumstance, to witness an upheaval appearing in the time slot discussed. Wouldn't that be just our luck, what an ego crusher. We are not only not all that, but the built-in arrogance of the human frame would also evaporate spontaneously.

• gonzo I could do a study and suggest that drinking motor oil is good for you. Does that mean it's true? Probably not. Do I suggest you to start drinking motor oil? Don't think so. Does their study mean anything? No. Shut up until you have proof and quit wasting everybody's time and lying to people and misleading. You see it all the time this such and such study suggests, I don't remember asking what they suggested and I imagine nobody else did either. Just anonymous people doing some stupid study that nobody knows anything about and couldn't prove if they wanted to but we're supposed to believe it. Nope those days are over Reply

OldNDumb said: So, when is this going to happen? Exactly where are we in this cycle?

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Renowned primatologist Frans de Waal — who pioneered studies of animal cognition while also writing best-selling books that helped popularize the field around the globe — passed away on March 14, 2024

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Ux research methods: glossary.

September 10, 2023 2023-09-10

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UX research requires knowledge and understanding of many jargon terms. Use this glossary as a reference as you delve into research.

Jump to a definition in the table or review the complete glossary.

Attitudinal Methods

A class of research methods that collects self-reported data about users’ perceptions and attitudes. Attitudinal data is based on “what users say.” Surveys, user interviews, and focus groups are attitudinal methods. Attitudinal methods are often contrasted with behavioral methods, which collect data about user actions and behaviors.

• See also: behavioral methods

A/B test (A/B testing)

An analytics method that involves randomly deploying two different versions of a product to two different user groups in order to identify which works best. The winning version is usually selected based on metrics such as conversion rate or click-through rate. To conduct an A/B test, you will need to install specialized analytics software.

• Related article: Putting A/B Testing in Its Place
• See also: analytics , multivariate testing

A class of research methods that involve collecting real-time usage data for a product. Examples of collected metrics include the number of user visits, the number of clicks on a particular element, percentage of users who took a particular action (e.g., checkout, scroll) on a web page. Analytics research methods are not controlled: the data collected reflects users’ behaviors in their natural environment. Using such methods requires that the product is instrumented with analytics software such as Adobe Analytics or Google Analytics.

• Related article: Three Uses for Analytics in User-Experience Practice
• See also: A/B testing , multivariate testing , clickstream analytics

Behavioral Methods

A class of research methods that collect data reflecting users’ actions and behaviors. Unlike attitudinal methods, which are based on “what users say,” behavioral methods are based on “what users do.” Examples of behavioral methods include usability testing and analytics methods.

• See also: attitudinal methods

Card Sorting

A research method in which study participants group individual labels according to criteria that make sense to them. This method helps designers to group items into categories and create an information architecture of a site or application. Card sorting can be “open” (if the categories are not defined in advance of the study and participants group similar items into clusters) or “closed” (if a predefined set of categories is given to participants and they are asked to assign items to these categories).

• Related article: Card Sorting: Uncover Users' Mental Models for Better Information Architecture
• See also: tree testing

Clickstream Analytics 

An analytics method that involves analyzing the sequence of pages that users visit as they use a site or application. It can provide insights about potential issues, typical navigation routes, and the content that users interact with right before completing key actions on a site or in an application.

• Related article: Understanding User Pathways in Analytics
• See also: analytics

Concept Testing

An attitudinal research method that involves collecting users’ thoughts and attitudes about a product idea (“concept”) in its incipient stages, usually through a qualitative survey. It is used very early in the discovery phase of the design process to understand whether a specific product idea meets users’ needs and expectations.

• See also: survey

Context Methods

A class of research methods that involves capturing the context in which users naturally engage in a specific behavior. The context can be captured directly, by observing users in their natural environment (field studies), or indirectly, by asking them to log context details whenever that behavior occurs (diary studies).

• Related article: Context Methods: Study Guide
• See also: diary study , field study

Contextual Inquiry

A type of field study in which the researcher watches the user as they naturally perform their task in their normal environment (e.g., home, office) and asks for information to understand how and why the user did what they did. Contextual inquiry is a combination of in-depth observation and interview and aims to gain a robust understanding of work practices and behaviors. Contextual inquiry is typically conducted in the early discovery stages of a project.

• Related article: Contextual Inquiry
• See also: field study , context methods

Desirability Study

A research method that involves exposing participants to a product and then asking them to select a few words that describe their reaction to that product out of a list of possible options. This type of method can be done qualitatively or quantitatively, to assess the aesthetic properties of an image and whether they are consistent with a desired brand image.

• Related article: Using the Microsoft Desirability Toolkit to Test Visual Appeal
• See also: five-second test

Diary Study

A research method used to collect self-reported data about user behaviors, activities, and experiences over an extended period that can range from a few days to months. During that period, study participants are asked to keep a diary and log specific information about the activities of interest.

• Related article: Diary Studies
• See also: context methods

Ethnographic Study

A class of qualitative research methods that involves observing users in their natural habitat. In UX, the term is used as a synonym for “field study.” However, in social sciences, ethnographic studies involve immersion in a particular culture or community, to observe the behaviors and rules of that community.

• Related article: Field Studies

Eyetracking

A behavioral research method that involves tracking users’ eye movements as they interact with a product or perform a specific activity, to determine where they focus their attention. Eyetracking studies require special equipment to capture participants’ eye movements. Eyetracking data can be used to understand which design elements attract users’ attention and which are ignored.

• Related article: Text Scanning Patterns: Eyetracking Evidence
• See also: retrospective think aloud

Field Study

A research method that involves observing the users in their natural context. Field studies are a type of context method. Field studies vary in the amount of interaction between the researcher and the participant. Some field studies are purely observational, while others involve active participation from the researcher in the form of interviews or tasks given to the user.

• See also: context methods , diary study , ethnographic study

First-Click Test

A behavioral, task-based research method in which participants are given a specific task before they are exposed to a design and then stopped immediately after their first click on the corresponding screen. This test works best when users have a specific goal in mind the first time they encounter the site. The first-click test is similar to the five-second test in that they are both very quick; however, in the first-click test, participants are likely to ignore most page elements that are not directly related to their goal.

• Related article: How to Test Visual Design

Five-Second Test

An attitudinal research method in which a study participant is shown a design for five seconds and then asked to describe what they saw. A five-second test is meant to gather users’ first reactions to the aesthetic qualities of a design.

• Related video: 5-Second Usability Test
• See also: desirability test

Focus Group

A qualitative, attitudinal research method in which a facilitator conducts a meeting with a group of 6–9 people to discuss their experiences with a product or service. The term “focus” relates to the role of the facilitator, who maintains the group’s focus on certain topics during discussions. Focus groups are used in the early discovery stages of product development to gauge users’ mental models and expectations.

• Related article: Focus Groups
• See also: attitudinal methods , qualitative methods

Formative Method

Any method that focuses on determining which aspects of the design work well or not, and why. Formative evaluations occur throughout a design or redesign and provide information to incrementally improve the interface. Formative methods are often contrasted with summative methods, which are used after a design has been finalized to provide an overall assessment of its usability.

• Related article: Formative vs. Summative Evaluations
• See also: summative method

Moderated Usability Testing

The traditional type of usability testing which involves a facilitator (moderator) and a participant interacting synchronously. The facilitator gives participants tasks to do one at a time and may probe with further questions and clarifications; they can also ask the participant to stop when they consider it necessary.

• Related article: Moderated (Usability) Testing
• See also: usability testing , unmoderated usability testing

Multivariate Test

A design-optimization method in which multiple variants of specified design elements are tested in a user interface, with the goal of maximizing an analytics metric such as conversion. This method determines which combination of the variants results in the highest-performing design. For example, a multivariate test could be used to determine whether a button should be labeled Place Order or Submit and whether it should be blue or red.

• Related article: Multivariate vs. A/B Testing: Incremental vs. Radical Changes
• See also: A/B testing , analytics

Participatory Design

A research method in which one or several users are invited to offer their own solution to a particular design problem. Participants may be provided with some basic building blocks that they could use to create their designs. The resulting designs are not usually implemented, but rather used to get an understanding of users’ needs and expectations.

Paper Prototyping

A type of usability testing that is related to the Wizard of Oz method and in which an early-stage design is shown to the participant on paper. The piece of paper schematically represents the prototype of a specific page. The participant indicates to the facilitator which action(s) they would take on that page in order to complete the assigned task. The facilitator (or another person present in the room who plays the role of the computer) then changes the page to reflect the new state of the system. Paper prototyping is a type of prototype testing.

• Related article: Paper Prototyping: A Cutout Kit
• See also: usability testing, prototype testing , Wizard of Oz

Prototype Testing

A type of usability testing in which the interface being tested is a design prototype rather than a live product. The prototype can be presented to the participant on paper (paper prototyping) or using interactive prototyping software. Prototype testing is used before a design is implemented to identify potential usability issues and fix them, or to explore how alternative design solutions fare with users.

• See also: paper prototyping , usability testing

Qualitative Method

A type of research method that aims to collect observational data about users’ behaviors and interactions. Such data may identify whether particular aspects of the interface are easy or hard to use. Focus groups and user interviews are examples of qualitative methods. Usability testing can also be qualitative when used to uncover issues in a design.

• Related article: Quantitative vs. Qualitative Usability Tests
• See also: qualitative method

Qualitative Usability Testing

A type of usability testing that aims to collect observational data about user behaviors and interactions and that is often used to identify problems in an interface. Qualitative usability testing can be moderated or unmoderated.

• See also: usability testing , qualitative method , quantitative usability testing

Quantitative Method

A type of research method that collects metrics such as success, satisfaction, conversion, task time, or number of user visits. Quantitative methods focus on numbers. Examples of quantitative methods include analytics-based methods and quantitative usability testing. In quantitative usability testing, metrics such as task time and success are gathered in order to assess whether particular tasks are easy to perform.

• See also: quantitative method

Quantitative Usability Testing

A type of usability testing that collects metrics such as task success, user satisfaction, and time on task to understand whether particular tasks were easy to perform. Quantitative usability testing is usually used to assess the overall experience of a product and make inferences about user behavior in the target user population.

• See also: usability testing , quantitative method , qualitative usability testing

Remote Research Method

Any type of research method that involves a facilitator and one or more participants and in which the participant is in a different location than the facilitator. Usability testing, focus groups, user interviews, and contextual inquiries can be done remotely, with various degrees of success.

• See also: usability testing , moderated usability testing , remote moderated usability testing

Remote Moderated Usability Testing

A type of user testing in which the facilitator and the participant are not in the same room and interact through video-conferencing software.

• Related article: Remote Moderated Usability Tests: How to Do Them
• See also: usability testing , moderated usability testing , remote research method

Retrospective Think-Aloud Protocol

A variation of the think-aloud protocol in which participants are asked to explain their behavior immediately after they interact with a product. In a variation of the protocol, participants may be shown a replay of their interaction and asked to explain out loud what they were thinking when they were doing those actions. Retrospective think-aloud is used in situations where thinking out loud would be too distracting for participants (e.g., during complex activities) or would contaminate data (e.g., in eyetracking or quantitative usability testing).

• See also: think aloud , usability testing , eyetracking

Summative Method

A research method that focuses on evaluating the user experience of a product, usually by comparing it with that of a competitor or of one of its own prior versions. Quantitative usability testing is usually used as a summative method.

• See also: formative method

A research method in which a participant responds to multiple-choice or open-ended questions that are presented to them online, on paper, or by phone. Surveys are an attitudinal research method that collects participants’ self-reported perceptions and attitudes. Surveys can be used to collect qualitative or quantitative data.

• Related article: 10 Survey Challenges and How to Avoid Them

Task Analysis

A research method that studies how users perform a specific task: their goals, the different steps they take, the order in which they do them, when and where they do it, and what information they need during the task. Task analysis often involves a mix of interviews and context methods such as contextual inquiry, field studies, or diary studies. It is used to inform the design of complex workflows for a product.

• Related article: Task Analysis: Support Users in Achieving Their Goals
• See also: contextual inquiry , user interview ,  field study , ethnographic study , context methods

Think-Aloud Protocol

The practice of asking a usability-testing participant to “think out loud” as they are interacting with an interface – in other words, to verbalize their actions and thoughts. It is widely used in qualitative usability testing to supplement the behavioral data provided by the participant’s actions.

• Related article: Thinking Aloud: The #1 Usability Tool
• See also: retrospective think-aloud protocol , usability testing

Tree Testing

A task-based research method that evaluates a hierarchical category structure (or tree) by having users find the locations in the tree where specific resources or features can be found. It is an information-architecture method used to assess how well the navigational hierarchy of a site matches users’ expectations.

• Related article: Tree Testing
• See also: card sorting

Unmoderated Usability Testing

A type of usability testing in which there is no facilitator (moderator) and in which the tasks are presented to the participant by special software. Unmoderated testing is usually remote, with the participant testing the software at their location of choice, through an Internet connection. However, it is possible to run unmoderated usability tests in person, by having the participant interact by themselves with the interface of interest.

• Related article: Unmoderated User Tests: How and Why to Do Them
• See also: usability testing , remote moderated usability testing , remote research method

Usability (UX) Benchmarking

A type of summative research method that involves evaluating a product’s user experience by comparing its performance against a competitor or a previous version of the same product. Many UX benchmarking studies are quantitative usability-testing studies in which participants perform a set of top tasks; metrics such as task success, task time, and satisfaction are collected and compared across product versions or competitors.

• Related article: Benchmarking UX: Tracking Metrics
• See also: quantitative usability testing ,  quantitative method , summative method

User Interview

A one-on-one attitudinal research method in which an interviewer asks a participant questions about a topic, listens to their responses, and follows up with further questions to learn more details. User interviews can be used by themselves in discoveries to inform the early stages of product design or can be combined with other methods such as contextual inquiry and usability testing.

• Related article: User Interviews: How, When, and Why to Conduct Them

User Testing

See usability testing

Usability (User) Testing

A research method in which a researcher (called a “facilitator” or a “moderator”) asks a participant to perform tasks, usually using one or more specific user interfaces. While the participant completes each task, the researcher observes the participant’s behavior and listens for feedback. Usability testing can be qualitative or quantitative. Qualitative usability testing is used to identify problems in an interface, whereas quantitative usability testing focuses on collecting metrics that help assess the overall user experience of the product.

• Related article: Usability Testing
• See also: qualitative usability testing , quantitative usability testing , think-aloud protocol , unmoderated usability testing , moderated usability testing

Wizard of Oz

A moderated research method in which a participant interacts with a prototype manned by a human who controls the system responses. This method is used to test early stages of the design, before investing resources in developing it. It is also used to understand users’ expectations, mental models, and vocabularies.

• Related article: The Wizard of Oz Method in UX
• See also: paper prototyping

Is there a method that you think is missing? Please send suggestions at [email protected] and we will consider them for further versions of this glossary.

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Silicon Valley is pricing academics out of AI research

Fei-Fei Li, the “godmother of artificial intelligence,” delivered an urgent plea to President Biden in the glittering ballroom of San Francisco’s Fairmont Hotel last June.

The Stanford professor asked Biden to fund a national warehouse of computing power and data sets — part of a “moonshot investment” allowing the country’s top AI researchers to keep up with tech giants.

She elevated the ask Thursday at Biden’s State of the Union address, which Li attended as a guest of Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Calif.) to promote a bill to fund a national AI repository.

Li is at the forefront of a growing chorus of academics, policymakers and former employees who argue the sky-high cost of working with AI models is boxing researchers out of the field, compromising independent study of the burgeoning technology.

As companies like Meta, Google and Microsoft funnel billions of dollars into AI, a massive resources gap is building with even the country’s richest universities. Meta aims to procure 350,000 of the specialized computer chips — called GPUs — necessary to run gargantuan calculations on AI models. In contrast, Stanford’s Natural Language Processing Group has 68 GPUs for all of its work.

To obtain the expensive computing power and data required to research AI systems, scholars frequently partner with tech employees. Meanwhile, tech firms’ eye-popping salaries are draining academia of star talent.

Big tech companies now dominate breakthroughs in the field. In 2022, the tech industry created 32 significant machine learning models, while academics produced three, a significant reversal from 2014, when the majority of AI breakthroughs originated in universities, according to a Stanford report .

Researchers say this lopsided power dynamic is shaping the field in subtle ways, pushing AI scholars to tailor their research for commercial use. Last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the company’s independent AI research lab would move closer to its product team, ensuring “some level of alignment” between the groups, he said.

“The public sector is now significantly lagging in resources and talent compared to that of industry,” said Li, a former Google employee and the co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI. “This will have profound consequences because industry is focused on developing technology that is profit-driven, whereas public sector AI goals are focused on creating public goods.”

Some are pushing for new sources of funding. Li has been making the rounds in Washington, huddling with White House Office of Science and Technology Director Arati Prabhakar, dining with the political press at a swanky seafood and steakhouse and visiting Capitol Hill for meetings with lawmakers working on AI, including Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.).

Large tech companies have contributed computing resources to the National AI Research Resource, the national warehouse project, including a $20 million donation in computing credits from Microsoft.

“We have long embraced the importance of sharing knowledge and compute resources with our colleagues within academia,” Microsoft Chief Scientific Officer Eric Horvitz said in a statement.

Policymakers are taking some steps to address the funding gaps. Last year, the National Science Foundation announced $140 million investment to launch seven university-led National AI Research Institutes to examine how AI could mitigate the effects of climate change and improve education, among other topics.

Eshoo said she hopes to pass the Create AI Act, which has bipartisan backing in the House and Senate, by the end of the year, when she is scheduled to retire. The legislation “essentially democratizes AI,” Eshoo said.

But scholars say this infusion may not come quickly enough.

As Silicon Valley races to build chatbots and image generators, it is drawing would-be computer science professors with high salaries and the chance to work on interesting AI problems. Nearly, 70 percent of people with artificial intelligence PhDs end up getting a job in private industry compared with 21 percent of graduates two decades ago, according to a 2023 report .

Big Tech’s AI boom has pushed the salaries for the best researchers to new heights. Median compensation packages for AI research scientists at Meta climbed from $256,000 in 2020 to $335,250 in 2023, according to Levels.fyi , a salary-tracking website. True stars can attract even more cash: AI engineers with a PhD and several years of experience building AI models can command compensation as high as $20 million over four years, said Ali Ghodsi, who as CEO of AI start-up DataBricks is regularly competing to hire AI talent.

“The compensation is through the roof. It’s ridiculous,” he said. “It’s not an uncommon number to hear, roughly.”

University academics often have little choice but to work with industry researchers , with the company footing the bill for computing power and offering data. Nearly 40 percent of papers presented at leading AI conferences in 2020 had at least one tech employee author, according to the 2023 report . And industry grants often fund PhD students to perform research, said Mohamed Abdalla, a scientist at the Canadian-based Institute for Better Health at Trillium Health Partners, who has conducted research on the effect of industry on academics’ AI research.

“It was like a running joke that like everyone is getting hired by them,” Abdalla said. “And the people that were remaining, they were funded by them — so in a way hired by them.”

Google believes private companies and universities should work together to develop the science behind AI, said Jane Park, a spokesperson for the company. Google still routinely publishes its research publicly to benefit the broader AI community, Park said.

David Harris, a former research manager for Meta’s responsible AI team, said corporate labs may not censor the outcome of research but may influence which projects get tackled.

“Any time you see a mix of authors who are employed by a company and authors who work at a university, you should really scrutinize the motives of the company for contributing to that work,” said Harris, who is now a chancellor’s public scholar at the University of California at Berkeley. “We used to look at people employed in academia to be neutral scholars, motivated only by the pursuit of truth and the interest of society.”

Tech giants procure huge amounts of computing power through data centers and have access to GPUs — specialized computer chips that are necessary for running the gargantuan calculations needed for AI. These resources are expensive: A recent report from Stanford University researchers estimated Google DeepMind’s large language model, Chinchilla, cost $2.1 million to develop. More than 100 top artificial intelligence researchers on Tuesday urged generative AI companies to offer a legal and technical safe harbor to researchers so they can scrutinize their products without the fear that internet platforms will suspend their accounts or threaten legal action.

The necessity for advanced computing power is likely to only grow stronger as AI scientists crunch more data to improve the performance of their models, said Neil Thompson, director of the FutureTech research project at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, which studies progress in computing.

“To keep getting better, [what] you expect to need is more and more money, more and more computers, more and more data,” Thompson said. “What that’s going to mean is that people who do not have as much compute [and] who do not have as many resources are going to stop being able to participate.”

Tech companies like Meta and Google have historically run their AI research labs to resemble universities where scientists decide what projects to pursue to advance the state of research, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak to private company matters.

Those workers were largely isolated from teams focused on building products or generating revenue, the people said. They were judged by publishing influential papers or notable breakthroughs — similar metrics to peers at universities, the people said. Meta top AI scientists Yann LeCun and Joelle Pineau hold dual appointments at New York University and McGill University, blurring the lines between industry and academia.

In an increasingly competitive market for generative AI products , research freedom inside companies could wane. Last April, Google announced it was merging two of its AI research groups DeepMind, an AI research company it acquired in 2010, and the Brain team from Google Research into one department called Google DeepMind. Last year, Google started to take more advantage of its own AI discoveries, sharing research papers only after the lab work had been turned into products, The Washington Post has reported .

Meta has also reshuffled its research teams. In 2022, the company placed FAIR under the helm of its VR division Reality Labs and last year reassigned some of the group’s researchers to a new generative AI product team. Last month, Zuckerberg told investors that FAIR would work “closer together” with the generative AI product team, arguing that while the two groups would still conduct research on “different time horizons,” it was helpful to the company “to have some level of alignment” between them.

“In a lot of tech companies right now, they hired research scientists that knew something about AI and maybe set certain expectations about how much freedom they would have to set their own schedule and set their own research agenda,” Harris said. “That’s changing, especially for the companies that are moving frantically right now to ship these products.”