User research

User research helps you to learn about users and create services that meet their needs.

The value of user research

The better you understand your users, the more likely you are to design and build a service that works well for them. User research helps you and your agency:

• make fewer assumptions about your users and reduce the risk of expensive failures
• reduce delivery times by building with certainty
• reduce risks by releasing in increments.

When to involve users

You will do user research across the entire service design and delivery process.

During the Discovery phase, you’ll start to ‘know your user’ and validate initial assumptions made in Criterion 1.

Have a clear intent 

You will continue to test and validate your service with users as your knowledge of the problem grows. This allows you to:

• expand your understanding of users and their needs
• test new design ideas, content and features
• understand user problems and how they might be resolved
• save time by only building what your users need
• improve the service by responding to user behaviour and feedback.