Maximising User Research on a Zero Budget: UX Tactics for Companies
Categories
Business
Pro Tips
Author
Lee Barguss
Published
28 Dec 2024
For businesses tight on resources, traditional user research might seem out of reach.
But understanding your users doesn’t always require expensive tools or consultants. By leveraging creative, free, or low-cost tactics, you can gain meaningful insights into user behaviour and improve your product’s UX.
1. Mining Customer Support Data
Your customer support tickets are a goldmine of user feedback. These interactions are authentic, unfiltered, and directly address real user pain points. To make the most of them:
Identify Patterns: Review recent tickets to note recurring issues or requests.
Log Language: Document the terminology and tone customers use. This can help you align product messaging with user expectations.
Analyse Recurring Problems: Spot areas where your product may fall short with user expectations and prioritise the solutions to those issues.
This approach not only informs UX improvements but also strengthens your relationship with customers by communicating and listening to them, addressing their most pressing concerns, and showing that you value their opinions.
2. Leverage Reviews and Social Mentions
User feedback is everywhere online – you just have to know where to look. Public forums, app stores, and social media platforms provide honest and unfiltered perspectives:
App Store Reviews: Scan for praise or complaints about your product, so you can easily find what works and what doesn’t.
Social Media Mentions: Search for mentions on Twitter, Instagram, or LinkedIn for insights into user sentiment.
Forums and Communities: Platforms like Reddit often host discussions that can reveal nuanced and well-informed user opinions.
This type of feedback is completely free and offers an unvarnished view of how people perceive your product. It also gives you an opportunity as a product owner to communicate directly with your users in a public space.
3. Feedback from Internal Support Teams
Your support staff deals with user pain points all the time, making them invaluable for UX research. Regular check-ins with these teams can surface critical insights:
Track Issues: Ask support staff to record all (and especially) recurring user challenges.
Identify Patterns: Look for trends and group similar issues together so you can more efficiently resolve pain points.
Outline User Stories: Build user personas and scenarios based on these trends to help identify how you can improve flows.
This method can be more time-intensive than the others, but ensures you’re gathering insights from the frontline of user interaction.
4. Dive Into Analytics
Analytics tools provide a quantitative view of user behaviour, helping you identify patterns and problem areas. Key metrics to track include:
User Drop-Off Points: Where in your product are users leaving the platform?
Error Patterns: Are there common technical issues hindering the user experience?
Success Flows: Analyse how users who achieve desired outcomes navigate your platform.
With tools like Google Analytics, Hotjar, or even built-in analytics in many platforms, you can get started without spending a penny.
5. Conduct Competitor Research
Your competitors are another rich source of inspiration and insight. By observing their successes and failures, you can easily refine your strategy:
Review Their Feedback: As well as your own, read through their app store reviews and online mentions.
Track Their Patterns: Note when and how they release new features or pivot strategies.
Identify Gaps: Spot areas where your competitors fall short and capitalise on those gaps.
Competitor research not only helps you stay competitive but also ensures your product meets unfulfilled user needs.