User Research

Real Users.
Real Results.

Talking to users, understanding their needs, and ensuring that they understand the experiences we build is a top priority for us.

User research and testing that enables the most complicated experiences to be usable by the simplest users.

We actively use the most popular tools for user research and user testing and are adaptable to different scenarios. Figma, Sketch, Invision, Usertesting.com. Name the tool and we’re proficient in it. We believe strongly in a scientific approach to software development. That is why we incorporate both moderated and unmoderated user testing and research into our software development process.

A part of this is ensuring that our software design team is always two steps ahead of our software development team, giving them time to iterate and ensure that both experience and interface design of a product is well-tested and refined to perfection.

You’ll be amazed at what you can discover through our
user research process.

Flatirons offers:

Functional prototypes for usability testing for web and mobile phones
Visibility for your product - you never know when a test can become a sale
Top expertise in creating and managing test plans, launching tests, and conducting analysis

Some of the User Research and User Testing methodologies we apply

Our user research methodology is geared to ensure that your custom application dovetails the best useability findings from our research with the design fundamentals provided by our experts to deploy a unique, functional and beautifully designed product you will be proud to call your own.

Prototyping
Flatirons Development can take you from sketch to prototype, and from prototype to the final product. We get user input every step of the way, even before code is written by getting feedback on wireframes and sketches, mapping functionality to design from the outset. By testing early with low-fidelity prototypes, we save time and money before committing expensive changes to code.
Card Sorting
We use both open and closed card sorts as part of our usability research. We engage our participants to organize features and tasks (in the form of cards) into groups that make sense to them. This lets us determine the groupings that make sense to our users, and the terms our users use.
Moderated User Interviews
In moderated user testing, we monitor and guide participants through the application/site, and gain qualitative insights into the users’ needs and pain points, as well as specific notes on points of friction in the application, with all necessary context to get the most out of these insights. We gain highly valuable insights from these potential end-users.
Unmoderated User Testing
This methodology is used to grab large amounts of data, as it does not require close supervision of the participants. The participants are given free reign to experiment with the product, and surveys conducted at the tail-end, allowing us to complement the qualitative data obtained in moderated testing with substantial quantitative data. This allows us to see pain points not expressly stated by participants, and allows us to redress design flaws before release.
Synthesis of Findings
Simply gathering large amounts of user research data is not enough. Without proper analysis, organization and categorization, valuable insights can be lost. Flatirons Development ensures the most valuable insights are actionable by systematically clustering data into themes, grouping by categories such as equivalence, association and hierarchy, then diving in to validate the insights via discussion, and “arguing the other side” to ensure our conclusions hold up.