A recent article in Entrepreneur magazine he listed "inadequate testing" as the main reason startups fail. Inadequate testing essentially means inadequate or poor user research leading to poor UX design which, unsurprisingly, usually ends in failure. While working with startups and tech companies, I've also seen how even when people know how important user research is, they may not necessarily know how to conduct it optimally.
So let's take a look at some of the biggest UX search mistakes companies make and what I wish I had known when I started.
Conduct user experience research at the beginning and during product development
When considering a potential product or service, it is best to get some questions answered as soon as possible. Will it actually be something useful and feasible for target users and their organizations? They are your initials; correct assumptions? Ideas that look good at first may not seem so great after research, and many commonly criticized failures were likely the result of insufficient research. This is why it is vital to start user research before product development even begins.
While it's important to conduct fundamental research early on, you also want to make sure you conduct evaluative research by continually testing your product as you build or upgrade it. One of the reasons Google products like Gmail or YouTube are relatively easy to use for most people is that Google has teams that continually test their products, making sure their users know where to find what they're looking for.
Don't do all the user research yourself
One of the mistakes I see a lot of startups and entrepreneurs make (and that I made myself in the beginning) is doing all the research on the UX. In a way, the books like it "Lean Startup "has reinforced this trend by emphasizing the need to" get out of the building "and get to know your users. In itself this isn't a bad idea - it's good to know who your users are and build empathy for their experiences. Likewise, this doesn't mean you shouldn't do this whatever look for yourself.
However, you also want to make sure you complement it by having professional third-party UX researchers do research for you as well. When you are heavily invested in your research, as you invariably would be if it were your own product, it is difficult to conduct it impartially. And when research participants know you're asking them about your project, they're unlikely to give you a good signal that can actually help you improve your product.
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