What even is user research

This an ancient x-post from Medium. Still up for knowing if you think this is a useful way of encapsulating things.

I’ve narrowed down the reasons for doing research with your users to a good old List of Three Things.

1. On a fundamental level, asking questions is the best way to dig into a problem. Research is simply a series of questions. These might be questions you ask people. These might be questions you hold in your head while watching someone go about their life. These might be questions people you’re talking to come up with. But they’re questions nonetheless.
2. On a theoretical level, what the act of collecting, analysing and interpreting responses to those questions in a systematic way allows you to do is model people’s actions within a particular context, which you can develop into hypotheses about how design can resolve the issues emerging from that context. As design is the communication of intent, our research signals what that intent should be in order to solve people’s problems.
3. On a commercial level, the goal of user research is to deliver credible answers to three challenges:
   • How do we know if people need what we’re offering?
   • How do we avoid making the wrong thing?
   • Where do we go from here? Research can mitigate the risk of producing the wrong solution for the wrong audience — and, sometimes, challenge the model that an organisation operates under. Researchers need to communicate the challenges to internal convention — to provide direction and be the envelope-pushers.

User research is the mechanism that allows us to recognise areas of need and deliver the greatest value to those who need us.