Formative Research

Formative Research in UX

UX research is key to product development and serves various purposes. Generative research looks into user needs at the start. In contrast, Formative Research happens *during* the design and development stages. It aims to improve the product as it is built. This is done by finding usability problems and enhancing the user experience step by step. This article covers Formative Research. It compares it to other types, highlights key methods, and discusses its role in effective iteration. It also lists the advantages and challenges.

What is Formative Research?

Formative Research in User Experience happens while a product, feature, or design is being developed. The term “formative” highlights its role in shaping the design. The main goal is to collect feedback and insights that improve the design as it is refined.

Summative Research (or evaluation) takes place near the end of the development cycle or after a product launches. Its goal is to evaluate the overall effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction of the finished product. It often compares performance against benchmarks or competitors. While summative research helps assess overall impact, its findings typically come too late to allow for major changes without incurring high costs.

Formative research, conversely, is inherently iterative. Its findings are fed back into the design and development loop quickly. Insights from one round of formative research inform design modifications, which are then tested in a subsequent round, creating a continuous cycle of improvement. This aligns perfectly with agile development methodologies that emphasize iterative delivery and rapid feedback.

Formative research aims to answer questions directly relevant to the design being built, such as:

• Are users able to understand the intended workflow for this new feature?
• Where specifically do users encounter difficulty or confusion when using this prototype?
• Is the language used in this interface clear and intuitive?
• Do users understand the value proposition as presented in this early design?
• How long does it take users to complete a key task with this version compared to the last?

The data from formative research gives ongoing feedback to the design team. This helps them find and fix usability issues and design flaws early in the product lifecycle. User testing, especially on prototypes and new features, is the main method of formative research.

How to Conduct Formative Research

Formative research uses various methods to give feedback during design and development. The method you choose depends on the development stage, the artifact’s detail, the research questions, and the resources you have.

• Usability Testing (especially on prototypes and features): The cornerstone of formative research. This involves observing representative users attempt specific tasks with a design artifact. This might be a low-fidelity wireframe, a clickable prototype made with tools like Figma, Sketch, or InVision, or a feature that is either partially built or fully functional in a development or staging environment. The aim is to identify usability problems, observe user behaviour and mental models, and gather qualitative feedback. Platforms like Userlytics are helpful for this task. They allow researchers to conduct usability tests, both moderated and unmoderated, on various design fidelities. These tests capture user interactions, errors, time on task, and key think-aloud comments or verbal feedback. This data helps us understand why issues occur.
• Prototype Testing: A specific application of usability testing focused on evaluating early design concepts and interaction flows represented in prototypes before any code is written. This is highly cost-effective for identifying fundamental usability issues.
• Heuristic Evaluations / Cognitive Walkthroughs: While expert-based (not involving end-users), these usability inspection methods are often used formatively by UX professionals during the design process to predict usability issues based on established principles or cognitive walkthrough simulations before or alongside user testing.
• A/B Testing (during iterative development): When a feature is in development or rolled out to a small group, A/B testing can be used formatively to test variations of specific elements (e.g., different button copy, layout changes) to see which performs better on micro-conversion metrics.
• Surveys (short, iterative feedback): Short surveys embedded within a prototype or feature in development can gather quick feedback on specific aspects, although they capture stated opinion rather than observed behavior.
• Analytics (monitoring during iterative release): Analyzing behavioral data in a live product, particularly after releasing an iterative change to a feature, serves as formative data to see how the change impacted user behavior and identify new areas for refinement.

Key Outputs and Metrics in Formative Research:

• Detailed lists of identified usability problems, often prioritized by severity and frequency, are linked to specific moments in user tasks.
• Rich qualitative observations of user behavior, confusion points, errors, and successful interactions.
• User quotes and verbal feedback explaining their thought process, frustrations, and satisfactions.
• Quantitative data for tracking performance on specific tasks within the tested scope, such as task success rates, time on task, and error rates.
• Specific recommendations for design iteration are based directly on the identified problems and user feedback.

Formative research turns observations and data into specific insights. These insights show how the design performs and offer clear ways to improve it for the next cycle.

Why Formative Research is Crucial

Formative research isn’t just useful; it’s key to creating high-quality, user-friendly products quickly. Its role in UX and product development is crucial. It offers ongoing feedback that helps shape the design.

1. Identifies and Fixes Problems Early: The most significant benefit. Catching usability issues during the design and prototyping phase, or early in development, means they are much easier and cheaper to fix than after the product has been fully coded and launched. This prevents costly rework down the line.
2. Informs Iterative Design: Provides essential, timely, and specific feedback that directly guides design refinement throughout the development process, ensuring that each iteration moves the product closer to meeting user needs effectively.
3. Reduces Development Risk: Helps prevent investing significant development resources into building features or workflows that have major usability flaws, reducing the risk of launching an unusable or frustrating product.
4. Saves Time and Development Costs: By identifying and addressing usability issues in design and prototyping, formative research saves the significant time and cost associated with fixing problems that are already built into code.
5. Improves Final Product Usability: The iterative nature of formative research leads to a more refined and user-tested design, resulting in a final product that is more intuitive, efficient, and satisfying for users.
6. Builds Shared Understanding and Empathy: Involving product managers, developers, and other team members in observing formative research sessions builds empathy and a shared understanding of how users interact with the current design, aligning the team around user needs and struggles.
7. Supports Agile Development: Formative research integrates seamlessly into agile sprint cycles, providing rapid feedback that can directly inform the next sprint’s development priorities.
8. Provides Actionable Insights: The focus on specific tasks and designs generates concrete findings and clear recommendations that designers and developers can directly use to make improvements.

Formative research drives ongoing improvement in UX. It ensures products are shaped by user feedback during development. This process results in better outcomes for users and the business.

Pros and Cons of Formative Research

Formative research is vital for design iteration, but has constraints.

Pros:

• Identifies usability issues early (cost-effective).
• Directly informs design iteration.
• Reduces development risk and saves costs.
• Improves final product usability.
• Supports agile workflows.
• Builds team understanding of design performance.

Cons:

• Requires a design/prototype to test.
• Findings are tied to the specific design version tested.
• Requires ongoing research throughout development.
• May focus on tactical issues over strategic ones.
• Requires collaboration to integrate findings.
• Findings can become less relevant quickly as design changes.

It’s most effective when conducted iteratively, and findings are integrated into the development loop.

Formative Research is the Engine of Iteration

Formative Research is vital in UX research. It occurs during design and development. Its main goal is to gather ongoing feedback. This feedback shapes and improves the product. It also helps identify and fix usability issues early on.

Methods like usability testing are key to formative research. Testing prototypes and features in development is essential. Platforms like Userlytics enable this testing at different fidelities. They capture rich behavioral and qualitative data. These insights are crucial for understanding user interactions and identifying needed improvements.

By doing formative research during development, UX professionals improve designs based on real user experiences. This ongoing approach helps find and fix usability issues quickly. It reduces development risks and costs while leading to products that are easier and more satisfying to use. Formative research drives this improvement and is key to creating high-quality digital products.