Get to the heart of user needs with generative research

Imagine using a product that felt like it was tailor-made just for you. As perfect and natural as slipping on a new pair of socks. This seamless-feeling experience isn’t just luck of the draw — it’s made possible through something called generative research.

Generative research is a qualitative design method that’s focused on understanding your users’ needs, so you can create products that are, as Goldilocks once said, just right. And chances are, you’re not doing enough of it. Let’s take a closer look.

What is generative research?

Generative research is, as the name suggests, a way to generate insights that guide your work. It is exploratory, with three main goals: identifying underlying problems, uncovering opportunities, and, more generally, building knowledge, which you’ll use to drive your project forward.

Often referred to as the ‘discovery phase,’ it’s about helping teams build a deep understanding of their users’ problem(s) before jumping into solutions. This keeps the design process guided by genuine insights, leading to products that fit to perfection. 

How does generative research work?

It involves running a series of qualitative research methods to uncover users’ needs. We’re not talking multiple choice questionnaires here — think deep dive interviews, diary studies and more. These highly engaged research sessions form the foundation for creating user-centric products.

Timings-wise, it’s a critical early stage in the UX design process. But it can also take place later on to dive into specific issues or to explore new areas of interest as user needs evolve. 

Generative research vs. evaluative research

Generative research explores user needs and behaviors to inform design, while evaluative research is about assessing the effectiveness of existing designs. Here’s a comparison:

	Generative research	Evaluative research
Purpose	Discover user needs and motivations	Assess the product’s effectiveness
Timing	Early in the design process	After a design or prototype is created
Focus	Exploration and understanding	Testing and validation
Methods	Interviews, field studies, diary studies	Usability testing, A/B testing, surveys
Data Type	Qualitative	Both qualitative and quantitative
Outcome	Insights and opportunities for design	Feedback for improvement and refinement
Approach	Open-ended, broad exploration	Specific, focused assessment
Usage	Define the problem and generate ideas	Validate solutions and ensure usability

Why is generative research useful in product development?

Generative research forms the foundation of user-centric design, helping developers understand what their users need. Depending on when you conduct your research, the information you gather will also help you refine your creation during the later stages. 

1. Helps you find problems: If you can’t find a real problem to fix, you don’t have a product. Generative research helps you uncover the issues users face, keeping your development team focused on solving actual issues rather than perceived ones. 
2. Shapes design decisions: Knowing users’ behavior and motivations helps designers make decisions supported by real data. This leads to higher confidence and more user-friendly products.  
3. Fuels innovation: Exploring user needs can inspire creative solutions designers might not have reached through other methods.
4. Reduces risk: Investing time in generative research in the early stages can lower your chance of expensive misfires later on. Building products deeply aligned with user needs lowers your chances of product failure.
5. Boosts user engagement: When a product is just right, users turn to it time and time again. This usually leads to higher satisfaction and loyalty.
6. Supports a user-centric culture: Incorporating generative research into the development process builds a user-first mindset within the team.

Types of user generative research

All generative research methods are qualitative for uncovering nuanced and highly specific data. 

User interviews

User interviews sit at the heart of generative research. As the name suggests, it involves running one-on-one sessions, where researchers ask users a range of open-ended questions to get to the bottom of their thoughts about a particular topic. 

It’s a qualitative method that allows for probing questions, which helps researchers uncover underlying motivations that might not surface via other routes. 

This type of interview can be structured, with a set list of questions. It can also be unstructured, allowing the conversation to flow more naturally based on the participant’s responses. This flexibility makes it a versatile option, but it’s best when you want to discover hidden pain points. 

Field studies

Instead of asking users how they feel, field studies (aka contextual inquiries) involve watching users in their natural habitat to understand how they interact with products or services.

During a field study, a researcher typically shadows a user as they go about their normal day-to-day activities. This can be in their place of work, on social media, in conferences — basically, anywhere your users congregate. Through this ‘fly on the wall’ approach, researchers can identify real unmet needs.

Field studies are especially useful for uncovering contextual factors that influence user behavior, like physical surroundings, social interactions, and cultural norms. They can be demanding on resources, but this method generates some of the richest qualitative data around, leading to more user-centered products.

Diary studies

Diary studies involve participants logging their thoughts and activities over a period of time using either traditional diaries or digital tools like voice recordings. This gives researchers detailed and extended insights into their daily experiences with your product/service. Ideally, you’ll see their pain points decrease over time.

Diary studies are best for understanding long-term behaviors and trends that might not appear during shorter research periods. 

Focus groups

Focus groups involve a small group of participants discussing a product or service under the guidance of a moderator. It’s useful for exploring user attitudes in a social context. 

During a focus group session, the moderator asks questions and leads answers among the participants. This interactive setting often yields insights that might not surface during one-on-one sessions. 

Focus groups are great for generating lots of qualitative data in a short amount of time. They’re particularly good for brainstorming new ideas, gathering feedback on concepts or prototypes, and understanding the emotional and social factors that direct user behavior. 

Til: A moderator who knows how to lead team decision-making and nip groupthink in the bud is a must.

Literature review

Why reinvent the wheel? A literature review involves analyzing existing research relevant to a specific topic. Studies, articles, theoretical frameworks, and reports offer a goldmine of data you can use to uncover insights. This means you can gather data without having to invest in surveys and interviews yourself. It’s best for teams still working out who their user base is

Running a literature review involves several steps:

1. Defining the scope: Determine the specific topics or questions you want to investigate.
2. Searching for sources: Use databases, journals, books, and other resources to find relevant publications.
3. Evaluating sources: Assess the credibility, relevance, and quality of the identified sources.
4. Synthesizing findings: Organize and summarize the key insights from the literature, highlighting patterns, themes, and gaps.

10 steps to conducting generative research 

Broadly speaking, the process happens in five steps: defining objectives, creating a plan, doing the research, analyzing the data, and applying it. But there are stages within those steps, so we’ve expanded it out into 10. 

1. Define objectives

You don’t really have a problem. Perhaps you’re not even sure who your users are. So let’s start with some objectives. Examples include: 

• Finding out who your users are 
• Gathering unknown inefficiencies or pain points associated with your product/service 
• Exploring your users’ lifestyle and environments
• Looking for solvable problems in your users’ lives that you can fix.

2. Choose your methods

Based on your objectives, start thinking about the appropriate generative research methods. Each method offers unique insights and can complement the others to give you a well-rounded understanding of your users’ needs and behavior. So if you have the resources, do more than one. Literature reviews and user interviews are ideal for very early stage projects. Focus groups work well later on, or during the prototype stage. 

3. Create a research plan

All good projects begin with a plan. Once you have your objectives pinned down and a rough idea of your methods, it’s time to set out the scope, timeline, and resources you’ll need to bring your goals to fruition. 

Your plan should include: 

• The methods you’ll use (which might include more than one)
• Who you’re getting involved (Consider demographics, behavior patterns, and specific user needs to make sure your sample is relevant and diverse)
• Any incentives you’re offering them for their time
• The objectives you’ll tackle and in which order (don’t try and do them all at once); and
• Any other logistics

4. Recruit participants

Now you’ve decided who you want to involve, it’s time to get recruiting. 

Do this sooner rather than later so participants have as much notice as possible. Good recruitment strategies might include outreach through social media, email campaigns, or collaboration with various communities. 

Avoid targeting friends and family. Diversity is key for a good range of responses, and you’re more likely to get objective answers from someone who isn’t your mom. 

5. Prepare materials

Research requires resources, so get them prepped before you dive in. 

Interview guides, survey questionnaires, consent forms, and data recording tools are all standard. Make sure these materials are easy-to-use and will fit into the interview without obstructing the Q&A process. Remember to take everything for a test run beforehand.

6. Conduct research

Now it’s time to interact with users. Make sure you capture detailed notes and recordings. These will be critical for your analysis later on.

7. Analyze data

After collecting all that useful data, analyze it to identify patterns and themes. Ask yourself what the data shows, and what it reveals about your users and their pain points. 

You’ll have lots of information to crunch, so use qualitative analysis software to help you manage and interpret all of your findings. 

8. Synthesize findings

Part two of your analysis. Summarize your research to highlight the most important parts and their implications for design. Create visual aids like user personas, journey maps, and thematic diagrams to make the information easier to digest. And make sure your synthesis comes complete with actionable recommendations for the design and development team.

9. Share insights

Present your findings to your team and stakeholders through clear and compelling storytelling. Use visuals and real user quotes to make the data relatable. Your main goal here is to make sure everyone understands the users’ needs and why the project needs to go ahead. 

10. Apply your data

Take all those insights and integrate them into your product development process. Use the data to inform design decisions, prioritize features, address identified pain points, and generally guide you forwards with the user and their needs front-of-mind. Refer back to your research to keep the product aligned with users throughout its lifecycle. 

Turn data into diagrams with Cacoo

Data is easier to digest in diagram format, and that’s a fact. So why let your stakeholders struggle? Choose a diagram from Cacoo’s template library, then add your data and turn it into charts and graphs, user journeys, personas, and more. This makes it easier to identify patterns and insights, whether you’re talking to a designer, manager, or non-tech-minded stakeholder.

By visually organizing information, these tools make it easy to apply research insights, leading to more user-centered design decisions, wherever you are on the development journey. Ready to take Cacoo for a spin?