Staying Ahead of the Sprint: UX Research Across Product Development

Product managers working with teams employing an agile approach to software development face particular challenges when seeking to conduct user research. You may feel you don't have enough time in the process to do complex research or you don't know exactly where to start.

While user research can provide critical insights into customer or end-user behavior, mental models, and preferences, it's essential to conduct research in the right format and at the right time in your product development lifecycle to get the most value out of it. Picking the right research method and approach for the stage you're in can be a critical decision point.

How to Utilize UX Research at Every Stage of Product Development

Here are our recommendations for what kinds of research to tackle at each stage of your product lifecycle.

Getting started before “Day Zero”

“Day Zero” is what some refer to as when developers are hired and form an agile team with regular stand-ups. From that time forward, the developers must have direction on what code to write, what to build, and where to spend their efforts. To get ahead of your research needs before your developers are on the clock, it’s ideal to  conduct discovery types of research before Day Zero. We recommend exploratory research, persona development, concept testing, vetting early wireframes via Rapid Iterative Testing & Evaluation (RITE),  journey maps, etc.

Some agile advocates, such as Andy Cleff, call for the use of personas to aid in building user stories. In some instances, creating persona posters to hang prominently in an agile team room is an excellent way to help decision-making when considering how end users might approach using a particular feature or application. Persona development can happen early in the process to inform decisions from the get-go.

Staying ahead of your latest sprint

After Day Zero, it is paramount that user research and design efforts stay ahead of the work of the developers. Building upon the pre-Day Zero work mentioned above, user experience efforts must stay two or three sprints ahead of development work. Effective product managers establish this type of cadence by working in close collaboration with the scrum master and key stakeholders. Getting buy-in from these important individuals is essential. 

It is ideal to maintain a positive atmosphere for user experience efforts. As a result, it is vital to avoid being accused of slowing down the progress of the agile team. A user experience lead (designer or researcher) can participate effectively in stand-ups and planning meetings by staying ahead.

Rolling research for iterative insights

Developing an iterative, regular research program is key to staying ahead. Rolling research usually takes the form of regularly scheduled research sessions (e.g., every four to six weeks) that enable developers and designers to rapidly iterate on new features. Typically, these sessions would include recruiting ~10 participants according to the market segments or primary and secondary personas.

Researchers can bring two or three “mini-studies” into hour-long research sessions. In doing so, they can cover smaller design items that result from a sprint (e.g., login screen, account summary page, etc.). With this type of workflow, researchers can work directly with developers and designers to bring test assets in front of the intended audiences early enough to implement recommendations. By iterating design work on trouble spots, researchers can focus session time on these areas to ensure that the updated work is properly validated with the target audience or audiences.

Letting the user “break the tie”

Product managers often have to weigh the concerns and recommendations from various parties. When these people provide conflicting opinions, providing outside research to inform a final decision can be helpful.

UX researchers can jump in to help "break a tie" with user insights when situations like this arise. Allowing the user to make the decision, rather than the Product Manager, can help maintain the team dynamics and offer clear user-driven direction. Many of our clients find having an impartial third-party like AnswerLab come in to help in scenarios like these very beneficial.

Maximizing your impact with custom, deliverables 

It can be challenging to provide reports or research results to multiple audiences. For example, business stakeholders often need guidance when reading technical jargon. At the same time, development teams often want the facts to be able to create tickets for consideration with a Kanban board easily.

There are a few ways researchers can provide findings in engaging and creative ways that speak to different stakeholders. Here are a couple we find useful: 

• Full slide-presentations that share findings and recommendations with screenshots and participant quotes. We find this approach works best for business stakeholders.
• Tabular format so recommendations can be easily transferred to a ticketing system like Jira for agile teams to consider for future sprints.
• Video clips can be an easy and interactive way to build empathy with your users. It’s also a quick and digestible way for stakeholders to observe participants if they don’t have time to attend the entire session.
• During sessions, researchers can post impactful participant quotes, snippets, or surprising findings in a shared setting like a Slack Channel.
• Persona cards or posters can help make findings digestible and focused. Cards can pull from several rounds of research and share detailed attributes, motivations, and desired improvements for different user segments. If you’re able to add custom illustrations or icons, it can help bring your buyer personas to life and can help your team prioritize where to focus.

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If you’re a product leader who needs answers to your highest priority research questions, AnswerLab can help. Learn about Research Discovery or get in touch with our team!