Market Research vs. UX Research: How to Decide?

It’s an exciting time to be in UX research – a rapidly, evolving world means an increasingly important need to understand it. Where do you start, you ask? When to turn to market research, UX research – or both – to answer your company’s most burning questions isn’t always black and white, so let’s unpack the differences and similarities between the two.

The line between market research & UX research can be blurry at times. When speaking with fellow colleagues who’ve transitioned from dedicated market research to UX research roles over the years, you'll hear there’s a lot of overlap. Some argue:

• • UX research is a subset of market research
  • Both research types can occur at any point along the company and/or product lifecycle
  • Both researchers advocate for and/or act as the voice of the consumers

While both market researchers and UX researchers conduct research with many different purposes, in general, market research champions who your target is, while user experience research champions that target’s ideal experience. Ask these three questions to decide which expertise, UX or Market, to invest in:

• • What questions are you trying to answer?
  • What’s the desired delivery of insights timeline?
  • What impact will this research have?

Research Objective:

What questions are you trying to answer?

In market research, the questions usually stem from any team focused on trying to make business decisions related to the brand, its product or service offerings, or its mission. These teams will ask questions to understand consumer purchase behaviors, ensure business strategies are intact, and competitiveness is maintained in the industry. Here are some example questions:

• • What demographic targets and market niches hold the most sales potential?

• • What impact does an advertising campaign have on the audience’s brand perceptions and purchase interest?

• • How does the target audience feel about the brand’s overall mission?

UX research explores the optimization of product design and interaction. So whereas market research often focuses more broadly on the sales of a product or service, UX research narrows in on how people engage and interact with the products or services. In most cases, UX research is geared towards solutions-based insights because it stems from the idea that there is a problem to be identified, solved for, and/or prevented. Here are some example questions:

• • How do people use or interact with the product on a daily basis, and what frustrations or delights do they have?

• • How do product features impact the user’s ability to effectively complete a task? 

• • How will users feel about a redesign of a product or service, and what are the key watch-outs?

• • What groups of people use the product differently or have different expectations than others?

• • What current solutions and behaviors exist that unearth the white space for new product development?

Every company within every industry can benefit from both types of research to thrive – ensuring your target audiences are offered the right products that work optimally for their needs. Although the questions vary, the reality is that a research study can include aspects from both research types. For example, studies we’ve conducted at AnswerLab have assessed how users currently use products, as well as their interest in new products the team was considering, which included profiling the potential target. Here are some example questions that overlap:

• • Who is the target audience – what do they think, feel, see, and do…and what are their unique needs and desires?

• • How do people comprehend and resonate with elements of marketing programs and platforms, such as websites, social media messaging, content marketing, etc.?

Study Design:

What’s the desired delivery timeline for insights?

How quickly do these insights need to be shared with stakeholders? The answer will not always help you discern which research is best but in many cases, certainly not always, UX research can be better for quicker turnaround times. This is often because the questions and decisions needed to be made tend to be more pointed toward a specific product, service, or need.

Although UX research is historically associated with qualitative studies and market research with quantitative studies, both types of research can involve quantitative and qualitative methodologies and span any length of time to meet a deadline. In fact, both types of research can be conducted using most of the same types of quantitative or qualitative methodologies. 

So if the methodologies and the insights delivery timelines can overlap between the research practices, why are they often conducted by different researchers in dedicated agencies or departments? Although not drastically different, there’s a level of expertise and skill in asking UX-type questions and conducting impactful UX studies. For instance, UX researchers are often deeply embedded and knowledgeable in engineering and design team terminology. That said, those that transition between the two disciplines either for a specific project or in their larger career, usually feel really comfortable diving in. At its core, consumer research is consumer research.

Research Impact:

What impact will this research have?

Last but not least, the impact of this research will determine if market or UX research should be the main focus. How will the answer to this research question affect the company’s next move? If the answer will impact the trajectory of the user’s engagement with the product or future product’s design, UX research is key. However, if the answer will impact the trajectory of the overall strategy that the product will thrive in, market research is necessary.

Regardless of the intended impact, it’s important to remember why we’re here. The center of all research questions is what the impact will have on the business. Making users [insert goal: happier, more successful, etc.] will ultimately drive them to continue coming back to what your company has to offer. A holistic approach to research ensures users’ sign-off on every touchpoint with your product and brand overall.

Understanding your audience and their experiences are dependent on each other’s success, which is why one research type is not more important than the other. Knowing which type of research to employ based on these three factors – research objective, study design and research impact – will help your team decide which route to take.

Need help building your research program? Get in touch with a UX strategist to get started.