Most articles and courses can only teach you about 1 — what techniques there are, why they work, when to use which, and how to conduct them. What th

User research vs. User understanding

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2024-09-21 17:00:02

Most articles and courses can only teach you about 1 — what techniques there are, why they work, when to use which, and how to conduct them.

What they can’t teach you is 2 — how to interpret and synthesize raw signals into insights. This part will always be contextual.

They would spend 95% of their time planning their research, collecting data, cleaning data, and presenting the results…leaving only 5% of the time to discuss and think about what it all means.

These PMs think they’ve followed all the best practices to extract information from users, so they expect to get clear answers on what to do next. But as we all know, that’s rarely the case.

So what do they do next? More research → More data → More contradicting signals → More research → More processes → Less time to interpret the results→ Repeat.

The irony is that even when the answer is clear, they often choose to ignore it. Why? Because the answer is so obvious from just talking to five users that all the extra effort seems like a waste.