Do you know how to conduct UX research for your SaaS product?
In this guide, I’m going to break down the answers to frequently asked questions about UX research for SaaS. If you’re trying to create a user experience design that’s informed by the needs of your target market, you should be leveraging various UX research methods.
Navigate through the answers to these frequently asked questions below:
Without wasting any time, let’s dive straight in
Without understanding your target users, it’s impossible to create experiences that will meet their needs. While some may believe they thoroughly understand their target market, UX research is critical for any SaaS startup trying to build exceptional user experiences.
UX research prevents you from wasting time and money on developing the wrong solutions. You can avoid letting emotional attachment or personal decisions cloud your ability to create incredible SaaS designs by leading with user experience research.
Focus on the users and everything else will follow. If you’re serious about building a SaaS solution that successfully meets the needs of your target users, you need data to back your strategy and design decisions.
A Forrester Research study in 2016 discovered that better UX design can yield conversion rates of up to 400%. The time you take to conduct UX research will eventually pay for itself.
If you’re able to focus on creating an optimal product for users, this will result in higher levels of customer satisfaction and retention. By developing and designing the right experience, you will increase user productivity and enhance the value proposition of your SaaS solution.
Without data to back up your UX designs, you’re simply guessing. This might work for a while but it can only get you so far.
A design study of 408 different companies found that the more a company invested in and focused on UX research, the more sales it generated. The study also noted a positive correlation between UX research and customer retention.
Low customer churn is critical to the sustainability of any SaaS company. If you’ve got a user base that’s like a leaking bucket, this is rarely sustainable in the long run.
The easiest way to address high customer churn is to go back-to-basics and take an objective look at your product’s user experience. Does your user experience design meet the demand and requirements of your target market?
This is an essential question to ask – and you will find the answer through UX research.
To grow your SaaS company, you must focus on developing a user-centric product that solves a specific set of problems for your target market. To ensure users can solve these problems with your solution, you must develop a user experience that’s optimized for their success.
A UX designer can gather data by conducting interviews and questionnaires. These can be held with existing or prospective customers.
The goal of each interview or questionnaire should be to learn more about the preferences of your target market. At the same time, you can use these opportunities to identify specific pain points and consider how your SaaS product can address them with an efficient user experience.
Rather than holding an interview with direct questions, some customers may prefer for you to take a more conversational approach. This is where you will speak only to prompt the user to provide additional details or explain specific concepts related to the user experience.
UX research serves many different purposes throughout the design process of a SaaS product. First and foremost, it should help to prove and disprove any assumptions that your SaaS team has about the target market for a product.
By identifying the needs of your target customers, you can craft user experiences that are optimized around unlocking the value in your product. Who doesn’t want to see their users win?
Recognizing the needs of your target market is essential to building a compelling SaaS solution to their problem. Attempting to rely on gut feelings is one of the biggest mistakes SaaS founders make in the design process.
Don’t trust your gut! SaaS leaders often allow their personal opinions to take over from designing a product that actually meets user needs.
UX research is used to prevent gut feelings and ego-driven decision-making from shaping your user experiences. When your approach to UX design is backed by data from your target users, it’s hard to go wrong.
UX research will consist of qualitative and quantitative data. Some UX design teams are better at using either quantitative or qualitative data to inform their work. When you provide teams with both types of data, you’re exposing them to both observational findings and metrics.
If you want to ensure your SaaS product is fully informed by the needs of your users, it seems logical to draw from as many different types of data as possible. When you’re leveraging both quantitative and qualitative data in the design process, this will give your SaaS design team a well-rounded understanding of what your target market is looking for.
If you’re tired of throwing darts at random ideas and need to take a more strategic approach to user experience design, you need to begin collecting data from your target market.
Collecting quantitative and qualitative data will involve different processes. For instance, you can collect quantitative data through a questionnaire or survey and qualitative data from in-person interviews with your users.
It’s important not to mix up quantitative data with qualitative data – as this can lead to the creation of false metrics. It’s vital that your SaaS team compares the two sets of data in isolation.
Here’s an example of why you should compare quantitative and qualitative data in isolation:
Compared to the second statement, the first could be perceived as having an overinflated value.
Quantitative research is all about collecting statistical and numerical data. This can help your team to draw conclusions on user behaviors and attitudes to inform the user experience design.
A clear benefit of quantitative research is that the data can be used to your stakeholders onside. If you have SaaS investors that are struggling to understand your approach to user experience design, you can provide them with statistical data to support your work.
When you’re collecting qualitative data from users, it’s important to remember that you’re getting insights into what users say they do and not necessarily what they actually do. To ensure you’re getting reliable data, you should find the right way to incentivize users to participate in research.
A UX researcher is responsible for ensuring that they deliver the best possible experience for their users. A user experience is only effective when it enables users to be productive.
A SaaS product should be as straightforward as possible. There’s no logical reason to produce convoluted interface designs that are challenging to navigate.
When you have UX research to support your design, you will end up developing an experience that’s geared towards meeting the needs of your users. A UX researcher is responsible for collecting qualitative and quantitative data from existing and prospective users.
Here are just a few of the most common UX research methods for you to consider:
If you’re struggling to decide on which UX research method to pursue, you should consider the merits of each. Ideally, I would aim to strike a balance between collecting both quantitative and qualitative data without attempting to mix the two – which can lead to false metrics.
User experience design is pointless without the relevant data to support your decision-making. If you don’t have the data to support your approach to UX design, it’s unlikely that you will build a product that fully meets the needs of your target market.
Many SaaS founders and UX designers underestimate the importance of UX research. When it comes to creating a product that successfully meets the needs of your target market, you must draw from the perspectives of those who intend to use your solution.
If you want to be an effective UX designer, you must conduct research into what your target market is looking for. Exceptional user experiences are built on a deep understanding of exactly what the target market needs.
UX research is not going anywhere. The name will change – but the concept of researching to enhance the user experience of a product will continue to be important.
If you’re not designing experiences that will benefit users, how can you expect to develop useful products? When you take an active interest in your target market, you develop an understanding of what is important to them and what requirements must be met.
Those who are passionate about understanding how user experiences can impact the general behavior of users and their overall productivity may be interested in UX research as a career.
UX research is all about empathy. If you’re empathetic to the needs of users, you will be good at using UX research methodology to collect quantitative and qualitative data on their needs.
Absolutely not! To be a successful UX researcher, all you need to do is use the right methods and deploy the right strategies to unlock the hidden gems of data from users.
Existing users have a treasure trove of useful information that’s waiting to be unlocked through the right UX research methods. If you have the ability to communicate with users in a way that provides you with data for UX research, you’re ready to be a UX researcher.
When you’re following tried and tested UX research methods, collecting data on your users doesn’t have to be a stressful experience. Having casual conversations with users can be a great way for SaaS founders to improve their understanding of the target market.
If you’ve never conducted user research before, you should surround yourself with those who have expertise in this area or seek resources that could inform some of your UX research methods. There is a range of pre-made research templates available online.
Are you new to the world of SaaS design? If you’re just getting started, you should make use of wireframe kits to supercharge your prototypes.
SaaS Design has developed several Figma templates and UI kits to support productive teams. To turn your ideas into a reality, you can leverage our design systems and potentially save weeks of time.
Once you have collected UX research on how your SaaS product can meet user needs, you can use this data to inform your designs. With the right Figma template, you will be able to quickly adapt and change key elements of your interface design to meet user needs.
Are you ready to get started? Browse through our Figma templates and UI kits today!