Having vague research goals
feels a lot like trying to catch smoke.
No matter how hard you try,
it will always just dissolve in your hands.
Whether you are doing exploratory or evaluative research,
not being sure what you are trying to learn
is very frustrating.
You can run the risk of spending your entire research budget
and gathering data without actually gaining
many useful insights.
How do you create research goals
that will lead to meaningful insights?
In general, get specific.
Let me give you two contrasting examples with researchers
who are testing a site that sells
all kinds of custom flooring.
One researcher writes the research goal,
how intuitive is it for people
to customize their floors on our site?
As he sits down to write his screener
for gathering the right participants,
he isn't quite sure what kind of people he's looking for.
So to be safe, he stays quite broad
and decides to focus on people
who are currently interested in getting a custom floor.
He quickly recruits his participants
and runs five usability tests with some basic tasks
related to all aspects of the process,
and sits down to analyze the data.
Across the five individuals, there's a very broad range
in how well they performed the tasks.
The more he combs through the data,
the more confused he becomes and ultimately realizes
that he isn't very sure how intuitive the site is.
A second researcher writes a different goal.
What factors are slowing down homeowners
who are in the process of customizing their wood floors?
She easily crafts a screener that identifies homeowners
who are currently making decisions about their wood floors.
She runs her five usability tests,
and sits down to analyze the data.
As she carefully combs
through the recordings of the sessions,
she easily identifies a good list of specific pain points
that are making it difficult for homeowners
to successfully complete the customization process.
What is the main difference
between these two research goals?
Specificity.
Trying to discover meaningful and actionable insights
with vague research goals is almost as elusive
as trying to catch smoke with your hands.
You need research goals that won't dissolve in your hands.
Research goals that are specific
become a solid tool you can rely on.
They are almost like a sharp knife
that lets you cut through the data you gather
to easily identify what is relevant and what is not.
A good research study can investigate
multiple research goals.
Please just make sure that each one
is specific in its scope and purpose.
Now, two words of caution about being too specific.
First, none of us have unlimited time
or resources for conducting user research.
Your research goals need to be broad enough
that they can give you insights
that can help you make large improvements.
For example, having a unique research goal
for how long it takes users to purchase every product
on a typical e-commerce site is unrealistic.
Second, being too focused on a few small details
can make you miss other valuable insights.
Your research will reveal many interesting insights
that may or may not be directly related
to your research goals.
While being specific leads to actionable insights,
don't blind yourself to the other valuable information
that will inevitably arise in your studies.