Data-Gathering Methods Overview
The User Research Toolbox
User research is the second phase of the UCD cycle: after defining requirements, you investigate how real users behave, think, and work. The method you choose depends on the project stage, the research question, and the practical constraints of time, budget, and access to users.
| Method | What it is | When to use / pros and cons |
|---|---|---|
| Interviews (structured, semi-structured, unstructured) | Direct one-on-one conversation probing attitudes, experiences, and needs | Pros: rich qualitative data; good for unknown territory; can probe and follow up. Cons: time-intensive; small sample; interviewer bias (the interviewer’s phrasing or presence influences responses). |
| Questionnaires / Surveys | Written questions distributed to many participants, typically with Likert scales, multiple choice, and short open-text items | Pros: large sample; quantifiable; quick to distribute; low per-participant cost. Cons: low depth; cannot probe or clarify; low response rates; participants may misinterpret questions with no one to ask. |
| Observation (naturalistic or lab-based) | Watching users in their real environment or a controlled laboratory setting | Pros: reveals actual behaviour, not stated behaviour — people often say they do one thing but do another. Cons: intrusive (observer may change behaviour — the Hawthorne effect); time-consuming; lab-based observation has low ecological validity. |
| Focus Groups | Moderated group discussion with 5–10 participants debating a topic or reacting to a design | Pros: debate reveals a range of views and consensus; efficient for multiple perspectives at once. Cons: groupthink (participants converge on a dominant opinion); dominant voices can silence minority views. |
| Ethnography | Long-term embedded observation in the user’s natural context — the researcher is a participant-observer | Pros: deep, holistic understanding of “what happens” and “how it matters”; surfaces tacit, invisible workarounds. Cons: very time-consuming (weeks or months); expensive; hard to generalise from one site. |
| Card Sorting | Participants sort physical or digital cards (each labelled with a piece of content or a function) into groups that make sense to them | Pros: reveals users’ natural mental models for organising information; directly informs Information Architecture. Cons: subjective; needs many participants for reliable similarity data; does not test whether the resulting IA is actually usable. |
| Diary Studies | Participants self-record experiences over a period of days or weeks using structured logs, voice notes, or a diary app | Pros: captures longitudinal, in-the-moment behaviour; reveals patterns over time. Cons: heavy reliance on participant compliance — many participants drop out or record inconsistently. |
| Contextual Inquiry | A hybrid of interview and observation, conducted in situ while the user performs their real tasks | Pros: deeply contextual; reveals tacit knowledge; the user can demonstrate and explain simultaneously. Cons: labour-intensive; requires access to the real environment; may disrupt the user’s work. |
The Fundamental Distinction: Stated vs Actual Behaviour
Every self-report method (interviews, questionnaires, focus groups) captures what users say they do or think. Observational methods (ethnography, contextual inquiry, lab-based observation) capture what users actually do. These often diverge significantly — and the gap between them is where many usability problems hide.
A user may genuinely believe they “always check the error message before dismissing it,” but observation reveals they dismiss it reflexively within 200 ms without reading it. The self-report is sincere but inaccurate; the observational data is what the design must address.
When to Use Each Method
The choice of method depends primarily on the project stage within the UCD cycle:
| UCD Stage | Appropriate Methods |
|---|---|
| Early / formative (discovery) | Ethnography, contextual inquiry, unstructured interviews — open-ended research questions, no working system needed |
| Mid-stage (defining information architecture and structure) | Card sorting, focus groups, semi-structured interviews |
| Pre-launch (validating a design before release) | Lab-based observation, cognitive walkthrough, semi-structured interviews with a prototype |
| Post-launch (summative, measuring success) | Questionnaires at scale, A/B testing, analytics and log data |
Matching the method to the stage is itself an examinable skill. Using a questionnaire in the early discovery stage — when you do not yet know what to ask about — is a common design-process error. Using ethnography post-launch to measure satisfaction is wasteful when a questionnaire would achieve the same at a fraction of the cost.
Expected Learning
- Name at least six data-gathering methods and describe what each captures.
- Distinguish self-report methods from observational methods, and explain why the divergence matters.
- For a given project description and UCD stage, recommend an appropriate method and justify the choice.
- Explain why method choice depends on project stage, and identify inappropriate matches (e.g. questionnaires in early discovery).
Past Paper Questions
Method selection appears in: 2023 Q6 (mindfulness app — user research methods), 2022 Q6 (COVID-19 app — data-gathering methods), 2020 Q6 (weather app — data collection for visually impaired users), 2019 Q6 (primary stakeholder data-gathering techniques). The Supervision 1 Question 2 directly asks about suitable and unsuitable projects for each of the six core methods.