In this article, we will discuss the qualitative research methods we apply in working with fintech projects and how they can help businesses.



UX research

To create a convenient and popular product, it is necessary to understand how it can be useful to users. UX research is used to ensure good design, user-friendly interface, and positive user experience. They help to understand users' needs and how they want to use the product.

UX research is an important part of design and should be given special attention at all stages of development. These studies help to solve many problems related to product use.

UX research provides many advantages, such as:
1. Reducing the risk of creating an unpopular product.
2. Choosing the most successful UI.
3. Increasing user satisfaction and loyalty.

All UX research can be divided into quantitative and qualitative.

Quantitative UX research measures numerical indicators and answers questions such as "how much?", "how often?", and "how many?". These methods are important for understanding statistical data and can include surveys, A/B testing, card sorting, and usability testing.

Qualitative UX research allows for deep insights into user behavior and helps to understand the reasons behind their actions. These types of research answer questions such as "why?" and "how exactly?". They can include various methods such as in-depth interviews, focus groups, usability tests, and persona synthesis. Such research can provide valuable data on user needs, motivations, and problems, which can help to improve the product and increase its popularity.



Focus groups

Focus groups are a qualitative method that involves gathering a group of people to discuss specific tasks. They help to obtain a broad spectrum of opinions and new ideas in one interview. Focus groups provide a general understanding of how people perceive your brand or product concept.

There are three types of focus groups: standard (8-10 participants), mini (5-6 participants), and peer (2-4 participants). However, in modern digital product development, this method is not used as it does not allow for enough reliable information to be gathered from respondents, requires offline meetings, and involves significant efforts in moderation and data processing. In the group dynamics of focus groups, respondents may become involved in conversation and say more than in a personal interview. However, respondents may influence each other, change their opinion due to other participants' arguments, or be hesitant to share their ideas, especially if they differ from the majority's ideas.



In-depth Interviews

In-depth interviews are informal and free-flowing conversations with respondents that allow researchers to learn about their opinions, beliefs, knowledge, and habits. This method is particularly useful in developing new products, features, or refining current solutions, where it is important to understand users' needs and expectations. In-depth interviews provide insights into the user's gender, age, experience, hidden and explicit motivations, as well as their attitudes towards your product and competitors. The main goal of this method is to uncover the true reasons and motivations behind user behavior, as people often do not realize why they make certain decisions. In-depth interviews can be useful in almost any business area and in various situations.
Let's look at some of them:

1. Target audience research.
To successfully offer your solution to a broad audience, it is necessary to segment users and create a portrait of each segment. In-depth interviews help identify needs, barriers, behavior patterns, purchasing experience, and differences between segments. This is an essential tool when working on a new product, finding your niche, or a new target audience.

2. Collecting feedback from users.
Any product needs constant improvement and refinement. The best way to find out what needs to be changed or added is to ask your users. Through in-depth interviews, researchers can understand how users use the product, what they don't like, what makes tasks difficult, and what expectations they have.

3. Competitive analysis.
At any stage of product development, it is important to assess the competitive environment. In-depth interviews help to understand the market situation, identify current trends and issues. Competitor analysis also allows you to use their experience, identify best practices and successful interaction patterns. In addition, communication with users provides an opportunity to learn more about consumer perceptions of other companies: what difficulties they face when using products, what are the pros and cons of competitors, and what are the advantages of your product.

4. Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) development.
Using in-depth interviews, you can identify the customer's points of contact with your product, as well as identify obstacles they face at each stage. You can also find out what emotions each interaction stage with the product evokes and identify potential growth and development opportunities for the product.

5. New functionality assessment (testing and analysis of new solutions).
Thorough testing and evaluation are necessary before implementing a new function. Interviews can be useful for testing new solutions and getting feedback from users of your product. This is usually applicable when creating a new product or evaluating prototypes.

6. Hypothesis testing.
In-depth interviews, as well as focus groups, can help formulate hypotheses. After formulating hypotheses, quantitative research, such as surveys, can be conducted to confirm or refute them using statistical data.



Types of in-depth interviews

• Solution-focused: these interviews have a ready solution (prototype) or hypothesis that needs to be tested on real users.
• Problem-focused: in these interviews, the focus is on a problem or hypothesis that needs to be confirmed/disproved and finding ways to solve it based on feedback from users.
• Exploratory: these interviews are aimed at obtaining data about the target audience, points of interaction with the product, and other aspects that help understand users and improve the product.

UX testing: what it is and what tasks it can solve

UX testing is a qualitative research method where participants complete tasks on a real interface or a prototype of a future interface. This method allows us to assess how user-friendly the interface is, what problems arise during interaction with the product, and what emotions the user experiences during use.

UX testing is suitable for evaluating the usability of an existing product, comparing two interfaces (old and new, your own and a competitor's), and comparing the interface usability for different user groups, such as beginners and advanced users.

In addition, UX testing can help identify possible usability issues before launching a product and address them in advance. This can significantly impact the usability of the product and, as a result, customer satisfaction.



Types of UX testing:

1. Moderated testing: the interviewer gives tasks to the user and observes their completion.
2. Moderated testing with elements of IDI: the interviewer gives tasks to the user and observes their completion, as well as conducting an interview with the user about their experience interacting with the interface.
3. Unmoderated testing: tasks are given to the user without the involvement of an interviewer.
4. Quantitative unmoderated testing.



Definition of sample size in UX testing

Usability expert Jakob Nielsen developed the "five user rule," which states that testing with 5 participants is enough to discover 85% of interface problems. However, this rule should be applied with caution and take into account the specifics of the research. For CustDev, more participants are required, ranging from 20 to 50, segmenting the audience and selecting at least 2-3 representatives with different levels of experience in each segment. Qualitative studies use the concept of saturation, in which the sample should be sufficient to identify all meaningful configurations and experiences relevant to the research, but not too large to avoid counter-productivity.



Preparing for an interview: how to define the research goal, form hypotheses, and a list of questions

Before conducting an interview, it is necessary to define the research goal and create a list of hypotheses that need to be tested. The hypotheses should be related to the research goal and can cover topics such as user profiles, behavior, possible problems, solutions, barriers, and triggers related to the product, clarity of the interface and its elements, as well as ways of using the interface and its elements.

After the list of hypotheses is created, it is necessary to form a list of questions that will help to test each hypothesis. The questions should be broken down into parts to make it easier to answer them. It is also important to ensure that the topics and questions correspond to the research goal.

To effectively prepare for an interview, it is also necessary to coordinate the research's overall goals with the team to correctly determine the topics and save time. Moreover, it is essential to remember that the questions should be open-ended and not directed towards obtaining a specific answer to get the most useful information from the respondents.

Based on tips for conducting effective research, examples of good and bad interview questions can be given:

Bad example:
1. "Why do people buy online?"
2. "What products do you never buy online? Why?"

Good example:
1. "What products do you buy online?"
2. "What do you like and dislike about the online payment process?"

Avoid using phrasing that may influence the respondent's answer. People often rush to get the necessary information and start thinking for the client, assuming what they might answer. However, the main goal of research is to get answers from the client, not to impose one's point of view on them.

Bad example:
"Does it annoy you when something doesn't work when ordering goods online?"

Good example:
"Do you remember a time when you tried to buy a product online but something wasn't working? What emotions did it cause you?"

Ask about specific events. To get more accurate and detailed answers from clients, it is necessary to ask about specific situations from their past experience. Clients often tell more sincerely about their real impressions and emotions than about theoretical assumptions. Therefore, to maximize the valuable information from clients, it is necessary to try to direct them to a specific situation by asking specific questions.

Bad example:
"What thoughts come to mind when you can't complete a purchase online?"

Good example:
"Describe what happened last time you tried to complete a purchase online, but couldn’t?"

Whenever possible, ask open-ended questions

Bad example:
"What have you recently purchased online?"

Good example:
"Tell me about the last time you bought something online."

Signs of a good interview
• A good interview is characterized by the following:
• Questions relate to the respondent's specific experience.
• Questions are asked about past and current customer needs.
• Few or no closed questions are used.
• The interviewer does not promote the product during the interview.
• Clarifying questions are used to understand the reason.
• Only one question is asked at a time.
• Pauses are observed.
• There is no useless chatter.
• The conversation is recorded on a dictaphone.
• Questions are asked sequentially, without pressure on the respondent.

It is not worth focusing on the number of questions, as it is important to ask those that will help you learn more about the product and customer experience. However, it is important to keep in mind that the respondent may get tired and give formal answers, so you need to be able to balance and not overload them with questions.



How to conduct in-depth interviews: a few additional tips

1. Do not offer answer options. Offered answer options can lead to a choice that does not reflect reality. Allow the respondent to freely express their thoughts and feelings.
2. Do not ask questions about the future. A person cannot predict their future needs and behavior, so questions about the future can lead to inaccurate answers. Focus on the respondent's present and past experiences.
3. Specify evaluative statements. Evaluative statements can have different meanings for different people, so clarify what each statement means.
4. Do not assume answers for the respondent. If you have doubts about understanding the answer, it is better to clarify what the respondent meant.
5. Do not interrupt the respondent, but moderate the conversation. It is important not to allow the conversation to deviate from the topic, but also not to interrupt the respondent during their statement.

Before starting the interview, it is important to introduce yourself and share a little bit about yourself so that the respondent feels more comfortable and ready to share their life. This may include your experience and role in the company, as well as a description of what you are researching and what goals you are pursuing.

It is important to show interest in the respondent during the interview, even if it is being recorded. Listen carefully and respond to the interviewee's answers so that they feel that their opinion is important. Do not interrupt them if they are off-topic - let them finish their thoughts and ask guiding questions to steer the conversation back on track. Do not express your own opinion, but focus on the respondent and their answers.

Clarifying questions can help get complete and detailed answers. Ask them to get more information, but be attentive to the respondent's reaction and do not ask unnecessary questions. If the respondent is talking about a topic that you consider important, ask them additional questions to delve deeper into the topic.




How to prepare the results of a depth interview

After conducting a depth interview, it is necessary to gather all the information and analyze it to understand whether the research objectives have been achieved and whether further research is needed. However, to properly assess the results of the interview, it is necessary to identify key insights, including not only the most popular but also the individual answers.

As a result of the research, several types of information can be identified, such as real problems, advantages, assumptions, etc. The primary results can be formatted as a table that contains general information about the respondent, answers to the main questions, and an additional section with notes.

It is also important to understand how many respondents answered the same way to extract this information into a general conclusion. The conclusion should be neat and accurate since it is the most important part of the research, upon which other departments will make decisions to improve the product or service.

There is no universal template for a depth interview report since it is more of a set of hypotheses to be tested. However, by following the recommendations above, you can properly process the interview results and make useful conclusions for further work.



Conclusion

The ultimate goal of conducting research is to better understand users, their needs and problems, and to learn how and why they use products. To conduct successful research, it is necessary to determine in advance what problem we want to solve and which research method will be most effective in achieving this goal.

In-depth interviews are one of the most popular research methods that allow us to gain valuable insights from customers through questioning. However, to make the interview as effective as possible, it is necessary to prepare a list of questions divided into blocks and supplement the main questions with clarifying ones.

The results of the research will help to formulate hypotheses that can then be tested, or to collect a list of ideas and proposals for improving the current product or developing a new one. Conducting research is a necessary step to better understand customers and to create a product that truly meets their needs and expectations.