User research is cool. User research deliverables can even be cool. But sadly, to many people, analysis isn’t cool. Clients and project team members get excited by the idea of user research, they like being able to say they did user research, and they like to show off impressive user research deliverables. But the unsung-hero, who does much of the heavy lifting is analysis. Unfortunately, analysis remains underappreciated and is often overlooked.
There are plenty of books, articles, and presentations about user-research techniques and deliverables, but they seldom discuss analysis—the process that transforms research data into deliverables. To some, it may even seem that you come out of research with a fully formed understanding of users and their tasks and immediately begin creating personas, diagrams, and presentations.
Clients and project teams are often anxious to see research findings, but rarely have any idea about what analysis involves or how long it should take. Perhaps analysis gets overlooked because it isn’t an observable event that gets scheduled like user research sessions, and it isn’t a tangible document like research deliverables. As a result, there is rarely enough time for analysis.
In this column, my goal is to illuminate what analysis involves, to provide a better perspective on the significance of analysis, and to stress the importance of providing the time necessary to do analysis right.
