user-research · diff
v1.0.1 to v1.1.0
36 added, 2 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: user-research
description: >-
Plan, conduct, and synthesize user research. Trigger with "user research plan",
"interview guide", "usability test", "survey design", "research questions", or when the
- user needs help with any aspect of understanding their users through research.
+ user needs help with any aspect of understanding their users through research. NOT for
+ usability of code you cannot observe, or research with no user access.
slug: user-research
- version: 1.0.1
+ version: 1.1.0
displayName: user-research
---
# User Research
Help plan, execute, and synthesize user research studies.
## Research Methods
| Method | Best For | Sample Size | Time |
|--------|----------|-------------|------|
| User interviews | Deep understanding of needs and motivations | 5-8 | 2-4 weeks |
| Usability testing | Evaluating a specific design or flow | 5-8 | 1-2 weeks |
| Surveys | Quantifying attitudes and preferences | 100+ | 1-2 weeks |
| Card sorting | Information architecture decisions | 15-30 | 1 week |
| Diary studies | Understanding behavior over time | 10-15 | 2-8 weeks |
| A/B testing | Comparing specific design choices | Statistical significance | 1-4 weeks |
## Interview Guide Structure
1. **Warm-up** (5 min): Build rapport, explain the session
2. **Context** (10 min): Understand their current workflow
3. **Deep dive** (20 min): Explore the specific topic
4. **Reaction** (10 min): Show concepts or prototypes
5. **Wrap-up** (5 min): Anything we missed? Thank them.
## Analysis Framework
- **Affinity mapping**: Group observations into themes
- **Impact/effort matrix**: Prioritize findings
- **Journey mapping**: Visualize the user experience over time
- **Jobs to be done**: Understand what users are hiring your product to do
## Deliverables
- Research plan (objectives, methods, timeline, participants)
- Interview guide (questions, probes, activities)
- Synthesis report (themes, insights, recommendations)
- Highlight reel (key quotes and observations)
+
+ ## Example
+
+ Input: "I need to find out why trial users churn in week 1."
+ Output: a short plan — method (5-8 interviews), 6 open questions that avoid leading the
+ witness ("walk me through the first thing you did after signing up"), a recruiting
+ criterion (signed up in the last 30 days, churned), and a synthesis template ready to fill.
+
+ ## Edge cases → what to do
+
+ - **No access to real users**: say so and stop short of fabricating findings. Offer the
+ closest legal substitutes — support-ticket mining, public community threads, review
+ mining — and label them as proxies, not user research.
+ - **Stakeholders want a survey first**: push back with the sample-size reality (100+
+ respondents, and you still won't learn *why*); recommend interviews unless the question
+ is genuinely quantified ("which of these 2 labels do more people understand?").
+ - **Findings conflict with stakeholder beliefs**: report the evidence with quotes and
+ counts; do not soften it into what the room wants to hear.
+
+ ## Common pitfalls
+
+ | Pitfall | Fix |
+ |---|---|
+ | Leading questions ("Don't you find it confusing?") | Ask what the user did / expected, not what they feel about your hypothesis |
+ | Interviewing only happy customers | Recruit churned and struggling users too; add a screening criterion |
+ | Synthesizing from memory | Do affinity mapping on notes/quotes the same day as the session |
+ | Survey measuring "why" | Use surveys to quantify *what*; use interviews to explain *why* |
+
+ ## NOT for
+
+ - Pure market sizing or competitive analysis — that is market research, not user research.
+ - Studies with no user access and no proxy data — say so instead of inventing personas.
+ - A/B test implementation — design the comparison here; the code change is out of scope.