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Software Engineering vocabulary · Web, Mobile and Interface Development

User research

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounCore term

In software engineering, user research means: The study of people who use or might use a product, through interviews, observation, surveys and tests, to understand their needs, behaviour and problems.

In Turkish: kullanıcı araştırması, UX araştırması

How it is used

Done by UX researchers or by designers themselves, before and during design. Teams do, conduct or run user research and share the findings in reports or readout sessions. Also called UX research or design research.

Example sentences

  1. Our user research showed that most customers shop on their phones during lunch breaks.

  2. We don't have budget for a big study, but we can still do some quick user research.

Common collocations

  • conduct user research
  • user research findings
  • user research plan
  • share the research
  • user interviewA one-to-one conversation with a user or potential user, usually 30 to 60 minutes long, to learn about their goals, habits, problems and opinions.
  • personaA fictional but realistic profile of a typical user, built from research, with a name, goals, needs and frustrations, that helps a team design for real people.
  • usability testingA research method in which real users try to complete tasks with a product or prototype while a researcher watches, to find out where they struggle.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Web, Mobile and Interface Development

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