Set a Solid Foundation - Research and Analyze

When creating a website, as with any product, you could just start by designing and building it. However, unless you are very lucky, this strategy is unlikely to end with a great website. Without knowledge about things such as your potential users, the business requirements, and the competitors in the market, you will create an inferior product that your target market does not want. Research provides the data that gives you the required knowledge.

As a UX practitioner, you first need to think of your users: who will be using the website; why they want to use it; and when they will use it. You cannot create a product that will really work for people without exploring who those people are. This is user research.

In this chapter, we will describe research, with our examples focusing on studies typically conducted during the discovery...