What Is Remote User Research?

What is remote user research?

What is usability testing?

Other remote user research methodologies

What is remote user research?

User feedback is a primary key to business success—whether you’re launching an app, redesigning a website, refining product features, or improving the overall customer experience.

So how do you go about getting that feedback?

Remote user research is a fast, reliable, and scalable way to get the insights you need to improve your customer experience.

Unlike traditional in-lab usability testing or testing with focus groups—both of which can be time consuming—remote user research allows you to recruit contributors and get results in a matter of hours, rather than days or weeks.

You’re not limited by your location, schedule, or facilities: you’ll get candid feedback from real people from your target demographic in their natural environment, whether that be at home, a store—whatever environment or context within which they’d typically interact with your product.

Performing remote user research on a regular basis helps you:

• Validate your product ideas before committing resources
• Influence decision-makers in your company to make improvements
• Align your team on priorities
• Identify opportunities to differentiate your company from your competition
• Transform your company’s approach to customer experience

What is usability testing?

One of the most popular remote user-research methodologies is usability testing. Performing remote usability testing allows you to gather insights into the following areas:

• Visual design (how it looks)
• Interaction design (how it works)
• Information architecture (how it’s organized)
• Content (what it says and how it sounds)
• Functionality (what it does)

Usability testing typically focuses on the qualitative aspect of feedback rather than the quantitative. For example, usability testing helps you...

• Generate that qualitative-based narrative with a smaller sample size.
• Focus more on the "why...?"  or "how...?" than the "how many...?" or "how much...?".
• Be quicker, more efficient—and reduce cost as a result.
• Understand or discover insights, instead of proving a point or winning a bar bet.
• Provide a subjective tilt and tint to objective 

Other remote user research methodologies

In addition to usability testing, here are other examples of approaches and methodologies to support remote user feedback:

• Longitudinal/Diary studies: Observing users interacting with a product/flow/process over time
• Benchmarking studies: Tracking changes in your users' experience on a monthly or quarterly basis
• Competitive benchmarking studies: Comparing the user experience of several similar companies over time
• Beyond-the-device studies: Observing non-digital experiences, such as unboxing a physical item or making a purchasing decision in a store
• Moderated studies (remote): Facilitating users through your study, one-on-one, in real time

To learn more about how and when to use each of these techniques, check out The UX Research Methodology Guidebook.

Summary

• Remote user research is a fast, reliable, and scalable way to get the insights you need to improve your customer experience,
• Unlike traditional in-lab usability testing or focus groups, you can recruit contributors and get results in a matter of hours—not days or weeks.
• One of the most popular remote user-research methodologies is usability testing, which can help you quickly get qualitative feedback.

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