UX research before launching a website: how to understand your users

You launch a website—functional and with a cool design—but you're not sure if users will like it? Why guess when you can know for sure? UX research is not just a step on a checklist, but an opportunity to look into the minds of customers before they even click the first button. It will help you understand their motivations, habits, and journey — and turn your website into an effective tool for business development.

What is UX research and why is it necessary

User Experience (UX) is the sum of all aspects of user interaction with a website, including usability, visual perception, and emotions. UX research plays an important role here. It helps to determine:

• the target audience, its interests and needs;
• the goals of users who are interested in products/services/prices;
• the convenience of the resource: how understandable, logical, and easy to use the interface is;
• areas where users get confused, lost, or annoyed;
• the reasons for leaving the site.

To find out the necessary information, specialists use surveys, interviews, analytical programs, and other methods. The result is an objective picture that allows you to:

• develop high-quality user scenarios;
• identify weak points in the interface;
• test different screen options;
• make informed decisions.

With the help of UX research, you can not only “make a beautiful website,” but also create a product that is truly interesting to customers — intuitive, useful, and comfortable.

Methods: interviews, user journey maps, prototypes

The list of UX research methods that cannot be ignored includes interviews, user journey maps, and prototyping.

Interviews

Conversations with customers help to identify their motivations, habits, and opinions about the product. Before conducting interviews, it is important to make a list of questions that interest you. Interviews must be recorded on a voice recorder so that they can be transcribed later and UX analysis can be performed by comparing them with the responses of other participants.

User Journey Map

A User Journey Map is a record of the steps a person takes from their first encounter with a website to achieving their goal. To get the right picture, you need to look at:

• all stages of the journey, paying attention to areas where the resource should be abandoned;
• specific user actions;
• the emotional background at each stage;
• the points at which key decisions are made and opportunities for their optimization.

Additionally, you can conduct a usability test to find out how the user journey works in practice.

Prototyping

Prototypes are simplified or clickable interface layouts that help you quickly check the following even before the final layout:

• navigation logic;
• the clarity of elements;
• the feel of interacting with the site.

In combination with UX analysis, prototypes allow you to identify potential problems and evaluate usability. This approach saves resources and increases the chances of a successful product launch.

How to conduct research during the website preparation stage

Before starting the research, it is necessary to conduct a preliminary analysis to help identify problems and ways to solve them. If the website already exists, a UX audit is conducted, which involves a comprehensive assessment in terms of usability:

• how clear the navigation is;
• whether the structure is logical;
• the convenience of forms and buttons;
• visual appeal;
• content quality;
• page loading speed, and so on.

It is also necessary to select research and analysis methods and prepare testing scenarios.

Using the results in development

It is important to take the results of the analysis into account when creating and optimizing the website. To do this correctly, you should:

• create typical user profiles that will help the team better understand their customers and make decisions based on their needs;
• compile a list of user scenarios and functions in order of priority and frequency of use;
• build a logical structure for sections and navigation, since improving conversion should be the basis for decisions;
• create and test prototypes;
• at each stage of layout and development, pay attention to small but important details: clear form field labels, logical errors, smooth animation. This interface design will improve the overall impression of the site and reduce the bounce rate;
• after launching the site, continue to collect data — track the time users spend on the page, conversions, and conduct usability tests. Timely analysis will allow you to identify problems in a timely manner and fix them quickly.

Would you like to learn more about how to conduct high-quality UX research before launching a website? Contact Megasite, an IT company that has been developing websites in Ukraine for over 10 years, successfully implementing user-centric approaches at every stage of the project.