Best practices for user research teams

User research is essential to product development, providing valuable insights into user needs, preferences, and pain points. To harness the full potential of user research, teams can leverage Productboard, a powerful platform that streamlines the user research process and helps transform insights into action.

Whether your research processes are just getting started or are due for a tune up, read on to discover how you can effectively use Productboard to enhance your research efforts and drive product success.

In this article:

Relevant to both new and legacy boards

Centralize and organize research findings

Productboard allows user research teams to centralize and organize their findings in one accessible research teamspace. Researchers can store interview transcripts, survey results, usability test recordings, and other valuable research artifacts by creating dedicated features and insight boards to organize collections of notes within the platform.

This centralized approach ensures that research insights are easily searchable, shareable, and readily available for cross-functional teams.

Screenshot

For more information, see Organizing your feature ideas.

Visualize research timelines

Researchers can create a reliable roadmap to visually represent their research timeline, track progress, and align objectives. Using the roadmap, researchers can effectively communicate their research plans, key milestones, and deliverables to stakeholders and cross-functional teams.

This visual representation helps researchers stay organized, prioritize their research activities, and ensure alignment with product development cycles, ultimately enabling them to drive user-centered insights and contribute to the overall product strategy.

research

For more information, see How to create a High-level objectives and initiatives roadmap.

Streamline user research interviews with the customer board

The Customer board provides a valuable tool for user research teams to evaluate customers based on different personas or plan types, enabling more targeted and efficient interview planning. By utilizing the customer board, researchers can segment their customer base and identify specific groups of users that align with their research goals.

By tracking who they talk to and make discoveries with, researchers can ensure that they're engaging with individuals who represent various user personas or specific plan types. Th customer board also allows user research teams to streamline their interview planning process, optimize participant selection, and gather insights from a diverse range of users, ultimately leading to more comprehensive and representative research outcomes.

2023-04-18_14-41-48

For more information, see Using the Customer Board to see related customer context

Collaborate and share insights

Productboard provides a collaborative platform for UX researchers to share and collaborate on research insights. With insights boards, researchers can create a collection of notes, findings, and observations, making it easier to collaborate and foster a shared understanding among team members and stakeholders.

By inviting colleagues, product managers, designers, and engineers to collaborate within the platform, researchers ensure that everyone has access to the latest research findings. This collaboration promotes cross-functional discussions, facilitates ideation, and aligns teams towards making user-centric product decisions.

Additionally, Productboard offers a valuable feature for user research teams: note templates. These templates provide a standardized format for capturing interview and research notes efficiently. Using pre-designed templates ensures consistency, clarity, and ease of understanding across research findings.

This streamlines the note-taking process, saving time and effort during research sessions. Furthermore, the consistent format facilitates data analysis and enables seamless sharing of research findings among team members, fostering collaboration and a shared understanding of user insights.

With insights boards and note templates in Productboard, UX researchers can focus on extracting valuable insights, contributing to the overall product development process effectively.

ux

For more information, see Create templates to save time and align your team.

Categorize and tag research data

With Productboard, user research teams can categorize and tag research data, enabling efficient analysis and retrieval. By assigning tags such as user personas, research methods, or themes to individual findings, researchers can quickly filter and extract relevant information when needed.

This systematic organization of data streamlines the research analysis process and facilitates the identification of common patterns and trends. User research teams can streamline the process of tagging interview and research notes, using the Insights automation feature available on Essential+ plans.

ezgif.com-gif-maker

For more information, see Organize your notes with tags.

Connect research findings to features

Productboard allows user research teams to connect research findings to product features or improvements directly. By linking specific insights or user feedback to relevant feature cards or roadmap items, researchers can ensure that their findings influence product decisions.

This connection provides a clear rationale behind feature prioritization, making it easier for product managers and engineers to understand the user needs driving development efforts.

customer-research4.png

For more information, see Link user feedback to related feature ideas using insights.

Monitor user feedback and iterate

User research teams can leverage Productboard to continuously monitor user feedback, iterate on product improvements, and gain valuable insights. By integrating user feedback channels like customer support tickets, community forums, and even SatisMeter surveys, researchers can stay up-to-date with evolving user sentiments.

Within Productboard, they can analyze this feedback, identify emerging trends, and use these insights to drive iterative product enhancements. This holistic approach allows user research teams to quickly validate ideas, gather feedback, and make data-driven decisions within the platform, ensuring that user needs and preferences are prioritized throughout the product development lifecycle.

Untitled

For more information, see our articles on Help your organization understand what users need.

Productboard empowers user research teams to leverage their findings effectively and drive user-centric product development. By centralizing and organizing research data, categorizing and tagging insights, collaborating with cross-functional teams, connecting findings to product features, and monitoring user feedback, researchers can transform their insights into tangible actions.

This customer education guide highlights how Productboard serves as a valuable tool for user research teams, enabling them to maximize the impact of their research efforts and ultimately deliver products that truly meet user needs and expectations.

school Productboard Academy Content

To further enhance your Productboard skills and explore advanced features, we invite you to check out the Productboard Academy. It offers a wide range of courses and webinars curated specifically for designers like you, helping you extract the maximum value from the platform. So, don't hesitate to dive into the Productboard Academy and continue your journey towards becoming a Productboard power user. 

Continue learning

See also:

Was this article helpful?
1 out of 1 found this helpful

Comments

0 comments

Article is closed for comments.

Articles in this section

Our Support hours:
Monday to Friday from 9:00 am - 2:00 am CET. Monday to Friday from 0:00 am - 5:00 pm PST.
Productboard Academy
Become a Productboard expert with self-paced courses, quick tip videos, webinars and more.
Product Makers Community
Connect with product leaders, share and find product jobs, and learn how to approach similar challenges. Come join our Product Makers community.