Hi again. We now know
the seven elements of a research plan.
Let's discuss a few of them in more detail.
The project background,
research goals, and research questions.
These elements shape the rest of
your research study so
developing them is really important.
Let's start by examining
the project background of a research plan.
This element summarizes the situation
leading to the needs for this research.
It's a brief explanation you can give to
anyone who asks why you're doing this research?
Why is the project background and
important part of your research plan?
Establishing a project background gets
the team on the same page at the beginning of the study.
Everyone on the team needs to have
a common grasp of
the history leading up to the current situation.
Think of it this way, your team needs to agree on
why you're doing the research before you start the study.
A clear project background also
shows you understand why you're doing
this research and promotes
confidence in the overall quality
of your analysis and insights.
The value of this might not be
apparent when you're planning your study,
but it will be when you present your research to people
who have the power to act on your recommendations.
Now that you know why
the project background is
an important part of a research plan,
you're ready to create your own.
Keep these three things in
mind as you write the project background.
Identify the signals that
indicated research was necessary,
ask yourself why you're doing
this research and if there's
a problem you're trying to solve,
describe any previous research that has been
conducted or solutions that have been tried.
How have previous attempts
brought us closer to solving the problem?
Lastly, list insights the research will generate.
An insight is an observation about people that helps
you understand the user
or their needs from a new perspective.
A great insight inspires
clear action and uses simple language.
In the project background,
include how the insights will be used and
what decisions will be made based on those insights.
There might be a lot of information,
but keep the project background
concise so that everyone on your team will read it.
Now, let's move on to the second element of
a research plan, research goals.
This element might also be called research objectives.
Research goals, state the
specific ideas that you want to learn
from the research or what you would
like the outcomes of the research to be.
Research goals help you understand what
does the bigger picture of doing this research.
That's why identifying
your research goals is so important.
Essentially, they drive the entire study.
How do you develop research goals?
Let's break it down. The goals of
your research will differ from project to project.
It will fit into one of
three categories depending on when,
during the product life cycle,
you run your research.
If you run research before you start the design process,
your research goal should help you understand
why or if you should build the product.
As a reminder, research at this time is called
foundational research and the goals of the research,
or to better understand
the user problem you're trying to solve.
You want to make sure that there
is a real need for the product.
For our dog walking app,
the goal of foundational research would be to
understand if there is a need for a dog walking app.
If you run research during the design phase,
your goal should help you
understand how to build the product.
Research at this time is called design research,
and it will give you the answers you need to move
forward through the design process with confidence.
In our example, the goal of
design research would be to learn how you should build
the dog walking app and what features
it will need in order to solve the user's problem.
Finally, if you run research on
a product after it has been launched.
Your research goals help you
understand if the product worked as expected.
This type of research is called post-launch research and
the goals reflect whether you have
successfully completed what you set out to do.
The post-launch research goal for
our dog walking app could be to
understand if the app we designed
attracts and retains regular users.
Now you've got the hang of the project
background in research goals.
Next, let's think about the third element
of a research plan, research questions.
To put it simply your research questions or the handful
of questions you plan to answer during the study.
These should not be
the literal questions you plan
to ask steady participants.
We'll go over these later when we
start creating our interview script.
Instead, the research questions
should be the questions you want
your research to answer and
should align with the goals of your research.
Why are research questions important?
They guide your research.
Research questions provide focus
and structure for your research study.
In addition, research questions will be
the main topics you cover in your presentation.
A few quick tips for writing research questions.
A good research question should be actionable.
You should be able to identify
a clear way to attempt to answer
the question and you should
know when you found the answer you're looking for.
Make sure your research questions are
specific and not too broad.
You want to answer specific questions
and produce meaningful data.
Make sure your research questions aren't leading.
Questions should be neutrally phrased so that they don't
sound like you're assuming
a particular answer to your question.
For example, let's say your research goal is to make
your dog walking app easier to
use on order to keep customers.
You might ask research questions like, on average,
how many times a week does
a user hire a dog walker through the app
or what frustrated users most
about finding a dog walker through the app?
One last thing to keep in mind about research questions.
The way you write research
questions will determine whether
your research method should
be quantitative or qualitative.
You might remember that we talked about
quantitative and qualitative research
in an earlier video.
Quantitative research focuses on data that can be
gathered by counting or measuring numbers.
Qualitative research focuses on
observations about why and how things happen.
Think written descriptions.
Let's revisit the example from our dog walking app.
The first research question, On average,
how many times a week does
a user hire a dog walker through
the app will give you quantitative numerical data.
The second research question,
what frustrated users most about finding a dog walker
through the app will give you qualitative information.
Both of these questions are important to consider for
your design and they focus on
different parts of the user experience.
Do you feel you can write a project background,
research goals, and research questions?
You can do it. For our next adventure,
we'll describe how to measure
the success of your journey.
Ready to explore the world of key performance indicators?