A user research plan is useful for outlining a research project’s goals, objectives, and logistics, usually presented as a document, slide deck, or internal wiki page. It provides a concise overview of a research project’s who, what, when, why, and how and is used at the beginning of a research initiative to align stakeholders and the research team.

Throughout the research process, a user research plan serves as a point of reference to ensure that the inquiry remains focused on answering the critical research questions defined at the outset. It is also helpful in reporting the research results to stakeholders based on their needs defined at the beginning of the project.

What should the research plan include?

When it comes to conducting research, having a well-defined plan is essential for success. To help you get started, here are five key components that every research plan should include.

1. What: Your research question(s) and goals
   Your research goals should clearly state what you’re trying to learn or accomplish with your research, and your research questions should reflect these goals. To ensure that your questions are specific, practical, and actionable, consider whether they can be answered within the scope of your study.
2. Why: Business goals
   To gain buy-in from stakeholders, it’s essential to tie your research efforts to bottom-line goals effectively. Use stakeholder interviews to understand how key decision-makers talk about their objectives and measures of success.
3. How: Methodology
   Explain your approach to answering your research question and include brief descriptions of the methods and tools you’ll use. Remember to use the plain language since stakeholders may not be research-savvy.
4. Who: Participants
   Describe the participants you plan to recruit and how you’ll screen for good-fit participants. Also, explain how you plan to compensate people for their time and your strategies to recruit them.
5. When and where: Research schedule and logistics
   Be clear about the tools you’ll need, different team members’ roles, and your research schedule. Don’t forget to include the boring logistics!

By including these five components in your research plan, you can ensure that your study is well-defined, aligned with business goals, and practical to execute.

How to Plan UX research Study

Step 1: Identify Your Research Goals

Defining your research goals is an essential first step in planning your UX research study. Your research goals state what you want to learn from your research, and they should be specific, actionable, and practical. Ask yourself the following questions to identify your research goals:

• What do I want to know?
• What don’t I know?
• How will I know when I’ve learned it?
• What company goals will this work support?
• Where am I in the product development process?
• What decision will this research enable?
• What are the anticipated outcomes of this research?

Step 2: Develop Your Research Question(s)

Once you have defined your research goals, developing specific research questions is next. A good research question is:

• practical,
• specific,
• actionable.

It should be specific enough that you can tell when you have found an answer, practical enough to find an answer within the scope of your research, and actionable enough that your team can make changes based on what you learn.

Developing your research questions first allows you to investigate the problem deeply and opens you up to new solutions and ideas that may arise during your research. It also leaves room for the possibility that the solution you initially envisioned is wrong.

⚡️ Examples of good research questions:

• Can our customers successfully navigate to our site's support page?
• What tools do college students use to keep track of their schedules?
• Do people understand our blog categories and what content might belong in them?

Step 3. Gather all available data and insights

When conducting a UX research study, it’s important to gather all available data and insights before embarking on the actual research. This step is crucial to avoid duplicating efforts and to build on existing knowledge. Here are three ways to gather available data and existing insights:

• Stakeholder Interviews
  Conducting interviews with stakeholders can help you identify what they already know about the problem you’re trying to solve. These interviews can also help you clarify your research goals and determine what information is necessary to obtain.
• Secondary Research
  Secondary research involves reviewing existing literature and research relevant to your topic. This can provide valuable insights into user behavior, trends, and best practices. It can also help you avoid reinventing the wheel by building on previous studies and research.
• Analytics and Customer Feedback
  Analyzing data from your website, app, or product can provide insights into user behavior and preferences. Customer feedback, including reviews, ratings, and comments, can also provide valuable information about their experiences with your product or service.

Step 4. Choose the right research method(s)

Your research question should guide your methodology. Skipping ahead to methodology without considering your research question can hinder your study from the start. Different research questions require different methods to answer effectively, such as customer interviews, tree tests, task analysis, or field studies. Sometimes, a combination of methods may be necessary to provide a comprehensive answer.

Step 5. Design your study

Consider your purpose, research questions, and data type to create a research plan. Determine the appropriate methodology, study details, and logistics, such as the number of participants, session duration, tools needed, and artifacts produced. Create a research schedule with realistic daily session limits and set a timeline. Consider logistics, such as budget, incentives, space reservation, and software requirements.

Step 6. R ecruiting strategy

Your methodology determines the number of participants you need to recruit for your study. Quantitative studies require a large number of participants to achieve statistical significance. In contrast, interview-based studies or usability tests may only require 5 to 10 participants.

• Interviews — 3 to 10 participants
• A/B tests — 5 to 8 users
• Focus groups — 5 to 10 participants per group
• Diary studies — 10 to 15 participants
• Card sorting — at least 15 users per group
• Quantitative studies — at least 20 participants
• Surveys — at least 100 participants

Step 7. Research

The analysis and presentation of your research findings are critical components of your plan because they determine your research's impact on your company. It is almost as important as conducting the research to ensure you get these aspects right.

Consider the artifacts your study will produce and how you will present them to stakeholders. Will you share the findings gradually or in a final report? Will you present them in a meeting or asynchronously? Do you plan to conduct further studies after this one, and how will stakeholders access your research after completion?

Although you can’t predict the exact outputs of your research, you can plan to:

• Share your research results in the most relevant format for your stakeholders.
• Create compelling deliverables by incorporating quotes and videos to tell a story.
• Store your insights in a repository for easy access and future reference.