User research, when applied to an entire product lifecycle, has tremendous advantages. Stakeholders are afforded the opportunity to benchmark their existing product, learn from users as they interact with prototypes and early concept ideas, shape the product offering as a result, and apply those decisions to the redesign. And once the product has been redesigned, testing it again to validate the final design is icing on the cake.

It all starts with a Wants & Needs Analysis. What do your users want? What do your users need? This is an important question to ask when redesigning a product. For the rest of this post, I’ll assume you are redesigning a website but the benefits of user research over the course of an entire lifecycle applies to any product. There are various ways to discover what your users want and need, such as asking them to fill out a survey or provide feedback in a focus group setting.

Based on this information and any other business objectives, a site benchmark should be conducted. Before tearing down your site, it’s always a good idea to get a good feel for what users think of it right now. Can they find the information they are looking for? Does your site provide the kind of content that visitors want? The site benchmark often involves a quantitative study, whereby site visitors are intercepted by a popup window asking if they would like to participate in a study. The results, in conjunction with the previous round of a wants & needs analysis should give your team further direction for the redesign.

Armed with tons of information about what your users really want and need, the design team can finally get to work! We suggest starting with very low level design ideas such as wireframes or simple paper prototypes. Why? They are low-cost, easy and quick to develop, and when tested with even a small group of participants, can verify whether or not you are heading in the right direction. Wouldn’t you rather know now that your understanding of your user’s needs is correct, before you’ve invested lots of money and resources?

Now that you’ve tested some early stage wireframes, learned where to make changes, and adapted your design, it’s time to build out a site that is higher fidelity. This could include full color mockups, clickable comps, or even something more developed like an iRise simulation. Many times, our clients think they have to get a fully developed prototype out the door for testing at this stage but that’s just not the case. Remember, when you are conducting user research across an entire product lifecycle, there is no rush. Take your time and think in stages. It’s far easier to make some changes, even if incomplete, and test, than it is to commit all your resources to making something ‘perfect’ and then having to adjust because it’s not ‘perfect.’

What’s next? A soft-launch. This could be a beta invite, or even a site that goes live under the radar. The main point with this, the live customer feedback, stage is to get feedback on the final decision you’ve decided to run with. All the previous steps lead here. Did your design reflect on what your users want and need? You’ll find out during this phase. Once you’ve synthesized the feedback, it’s time to launch.

Congratulations! You’ve not only launched your new website, you’ve approached it methodologically, taking into account, at every step, your users wants and needs. After all, your site is really all about your users, isn’t it? Sure, you can just test your site pre-launch and skip all the stages we’ve discussed here. But that would be doing your users a disservice. By listening to them early and incorporating them into the redesign process often, your site is much more likely to satisfy and create happy users.