UX Research And Usability Testing

UX Research and Usability Testing

Use When

• You need to choose a research method and cannot tell which one answers the question (generative vs. evaluative, attitudinal vs. behavioural, qual vs. quant). Use references/research-method-selector.md.
• You are running user interviews, contextual inquiry, surveys, card sorts, tree tests, or diary studies and need a defensible plan, screener, and guide.
• You are running a usability test — moderated or unmoderated — and need a real protocol: tasks, success criteria, think-aloud, severity rating. Use references/usability-test-protocol.md.
• You have raw research notes and must synthesize them into findings and then into decisions (not a report that gets shelved).
• A stakeholder is asserting a user "fact" with no evidence, or a design debate has stalled on opinion and needs data to break the tie.

Do Not Use When

• The work is applying cognitive/behavioural theory or heuristics to a design (Nielsen, Norman, Gestalt, biases, cognitive load) → use the sibling ux-psychology.
• The work is the end-to-end product/discovery process, RACI, and rituals → use the sibling enterprise-ux-process.
• The work is purely writing interface copy, microcopy, or error messages → use group 10 ux-writing-and-microcopy / error-empty-and-system-messaging.
• The work is building the prototype that the test will run on → use group 05 wireframing-and-prototyping.

Required Inputs

• The decision the research must inform. Every study starts from a decision that is currently being made on a guess. No decision → no study.
• The research question(s), stated so they can be answered with evidence, and what you currently believe (the assumption being tested).
• The target user / segment, and access to them (recruiting source, screener constraints, incentive budget).
• The artifact under test where the method is evaluative: live product, prototype, wireframe, IA, or competitor.
• Timeline and constraints (how many participants, moderated vs. unmoderated, remote vs. in-person, regulatory/consent constraints).

Workflow

1. Anchor to a decision. Write the decision, the question, and the current assumption in one line each. If you cannot name the decision the result will change, stop — you are doing research theatre. This is the research-to-decision spine; everything traces back to it.
2. Select the method. Use references/research-method-selector.md to pick on two axes — generative vs. evaluative and attitudinal (what they say) vs. behavioural (what they do). Behaviour beats opinion when they disagree. Prefer the cheapest method that actually answers the question; do not run a survey to answer a "why".
3. Plan the study. Write a one-page plan: decision, question, method, participants (number + screener), tasks/topics, success metrics, schedule, and what result would change the decision in each direction. Pre-committing the decision rule prevents post-hoc rationalisation.
4. Recruit honestly. Screen for real target users; screen out friends, colleagues, and people who can guess the hypothesis. State the incentive. Get informed consent and recording permission in writing — non-negotiable for any session.
5. Run the session. For usability tests follow references/usability-test-protocol.md exactly: neutral intro, realistic task scenarios (never instructions that name the UI element), think-aloud, no leading or rescuing, observe behaviour first and ask "why" after. For interviews: open questions, past-behaviour over hypotheticals ("tell me about the last time…"), embrace silence, never pitch.
6. Capture observations, not conclusions. Record what happened (quote, action, where they got stuck) separately from your interpretation. Tag each with the participant ID so a claim can be traced to evidence later.
7. Synthesize. Cluster observations into themes (affinity mapping). For usability issues, rate severity (frequency × impact × persistence) so the team fixes the right things first. Quantify where honest to (task success rate, time, error count, SUS); never fabricate precision from a 5-person sample.
8. Convert findings to decisions. For each theme write: the finding → the evidence (participant count + quotes) → the recommended decision → confidence. Close the loop back to step 1. A finding with no recommended action is incomplete.
9. Apply the doctrine lens. Research is also how you defend that the product looks authored, not templated (doctrine/design-doctrine.md §0). Usability findings that surface "this feels generic / I didn't trust it" are slop signals (doctrine/references/ai-slop-taxonomy.md), not just nuisance comments — escalate them.
10. Check accessibility coverage. If the test never included a keyboard-only, screen-reader, low-vision, or motor-impaired participant, state that as a known gap; pair findings with doctrine/references/wcag-2.2-criteria.md before claiming the experience "works for users".

Decision Rules

Capability Contract

• Must protect consent, privacy, recruitment fairness, and raw evidence; planning/review is read-only unless study execution is authorised.
• Do not contact participants, record sessions, spend incentives, or publish identifiable data without explicit authority and approved handling.

Degraded Mode

• If decision, population, consent, or data-handling rules are missing, stop recruitment/collection and return the blockers.
• Without participant access, deliver a validated protocol or secondary-evidence synthesis, not fabricated findings. Recover weak sessions by documenting deviation, excluding compromised evidence where necessary, and revising the protocol.

Quality Standards

• Findings separate observation, interpretation, prevalence, and limitation; claims do not exceed sample or method.
• Every recommendation traces to evidence and names the decision, owner, confidence limits, and next validation.

Anti-Patterns

• Research theatre — running a study whose result cannot change any decision. The most common and most expensive mistake.
• Leading the witness — "Don't you find this easy?", naming the button in the task, nodding at the answer you want. Invalidates the data.
• Rescuing the participant — jumping in the moment they struggle. The struggle is the finding.
• Asking people to predict their behaviour — "Would you use this?" / "How much would you pay?" Self-reported future behaviour is near-worthless; ask about the last real instance instead.
• Confirmation harvesting — recruiting fans, cherry-picking the quote that fits the roadmap, ignoring the disconfirming participant.
• Sample-size theatre — reporting "80% of users" from 5 people, or running 30 sessions when 5 would have surfaced the same top issues (Nielsen's diminishing-returns curve).
• The shelved report — a 40-slide deck with no recommended decision. Findings without "so we should…" are inert.
• Opinion laundering — presenting a designer's preference as a "research finding" with no traceable evidence.

Outputs

• A one-page research plan (decision → question → method → participants → success criteria → decision rule).
• A screener and a moderation guide / interview guide.
• A usability-test protocol with task scenarios and pre-stated success criteria.
• A synthesis: themes, severity-rated issues, quantified metrics where honest, traced to participant evidence.
• A research-to-decision summary: each finding paired with a recommended decision and a confidence level.

Examples

• See examples/research-plan-and-synthesis.md — a real, worked study for an onboarding flow: the plan, the moderated unmoderated mix, the raw observations, the affinity synthesis with severity ratings, and the research-to-decision table that changed the roadmap. Never lorem.

References

• references/research-method-selector.md — choose the method by generative/evaluative × attitudinal/behavioural; cost vs. answer-fit.
• references/usability-test-protocol.md — a real moderated + unmoderated protocol: tasks, think-aloud script, success criteria, severity rating, SUS.
• doctrine/design-doctrine.md — §0 Mission (the authored-not-templated moat) and the Anti-Slop Charter; usability findings are evidence the product reads as human-made.
• doctrine/references/ai-slop-taxonomy.md — the interface/product slop tells; "feels generic / didn't trust it" findings map here.
• doctrine/references/wcag-2.2-criteria.md — accessibility coverage gate; a study without disabled participants is incomplete, not done.
• Sibling skills: 05-ux-process-research-and-psychology/ux-psychology (theory to apply), enterprise-ux-process (the surrounding process), wireframing-and-prototyping (what you put under test).