Smart ways to combine research during a web development process

Developing the ultimate website requires good planning and good research. It requires the right method at the right time. And often also the right combination of these two factors. The latter will result in useful insights and ultimately yield the best and most comprehensive results. It’s a good thing to know beforehand what kind of research you are going to apply, so that you won’t overextend your schedule and budget. The current trend is iterative testing – research or sub-research – for each step in the development process.

 Developing a website entails approximately five steps:

1. Setting up an online strategy (with ambitious objectives and the strategic concept)
2. Defining the requirements (from the user and organization’s vantage point)
3. Devising a concept and design (interaction design and visual concept)
4. Realization: live website
5. Development: executing the online strategy

The phases of a web development process

Suitable research for each development phase

Several questions emerge during these steps that can be addressed with a variety of different research techniques. During the strategy phase, for example, you will want to know what your future opportunities are or how well you can respond to the experiences and requirements of your target group. If you already have a website design, then you’ll want to know whether your design has caught on with your target group. And you will want to test this at different times. A single test might not suffice to put your design team on the right track. In some cases, it is wise to let the user speak, while in other cases you may learn more from experts. Below is an overview of the most important research methods that you can use in the different phases. 

Jungle Minds – examples of research methods for a web development project

• Strategy: this is the phase for discovering whether you are reaching your target group (online survey) or for examining in detail what your target wants (focus group). You can also assess what your online opportunities are with regard to your competitors (benchmark).
• Defining the requirements: here, too, you can involve users, for example when setting up an ideal navigation structure (card sorting).
• Preparing the concept and design: you will have several opportunities here to consult users during a usability study (is the subject popular, do users understand it?). Are users aware of all the elements on a page (eye tracking)? But you can also use a usability expert to review the user-friendliness of a design. The major advantage of testing during this phase is that you can implement recommendations for going live before you have gone through the entire development procedure.
• Realization: you can involve users right before going live (if your site already contains all the content). Often, you will be testing details more than content. It is frequently impossible to implement truly intrusive interventions before going live
• Utilization: once a new website goes live, it is important to start measuring the impact. The obvious thing to subsequently do is conduct an online survey (who am I reaching and how satisfied is the target group?). In addition, you can intermittently conduct tests with web analytics and ultimately also a usability post-test 

An effective way to conduct research 

Different types of research can be used in different ways. For example, you can find out what your target group’s requirements are before formulating a strategy (tentative focus group), and test it afterwards in order to see if your plans were on target or not. It’s possible to discover the detailed requirements of a small group (what information does someone need before he’s willing to take out online car insurance) by means of quality research or to find out the masses’ opinion on a particular subject (are car owners really prepared to take out car insurance online?). In such cases, you would conduct online surveys. 

If you’re in the middle of a design process, then you’ll want to test users’ opinions, perhaps even at different appointed times.  

In determining the most suitable research method, it’s important to take the following considerations into mind: 

• Do I need exploratory or in-depth insight or do I want test results? (Quantitative-qualitative research.)
• Do I need in-depth insight or results that can be formulated in generalizations (quantitative-qualitative research)?
• Is user appreciation necessary (user/expert research)?

Choosing the most suitable research method

Often, one research method will not provide the answers to all your questions. Therefore, you will have to use several different methods of research simultaneously. Frequent research combinations include: 

• Combination of online surveys and usability tests
• Usability tests: prototype, pre-test and post-test
• Card sorting and usability test

In addition, web analytics are being increasingly used as a standard form of research input together with other methods of research.

Ultimate method of research during a development process: iterative testing

Ideally, you would use a combination of different research methods. Using only one research method will not lead to well-founded insights: a combination is frequently the key. In practice, you have deadlines to take into account during your development process, and that holds true for budgets as well. Iterative testing is a solution in such cases. Not only does this allow you to combine different research methods, it also enables you to adjust your research results in such a way that they link up seamlessly with each other. 

Do research when it’s necessary in an iterative test process. Begin research scheduled for one year with an online survey, followed by usability research in phases and finally measure the impact of improvements with another online survey. 

Iterative testing is a type of research that enables you to gauge whether you’re still on the right path throughout the entire development process. That can be achieved by having the target group continuously provide feedback on preliminary versions of your strategy or your website. You can opt for the target group to give brief evaluations of your website design. This will give you the opportunity to interview them in more detail at a later stage about navigation and content. You can then get by with shorter interviews. This will result in a constant flow of key input, which will enable you to make adaptations in between. If you are planning to conduct research in advance, you can also determine in a targeted way how detailed your research will be and how detailed you want your reporting to be. You prepare the research with the entire procedure in mind. This will allow you to rapidly proceed with subsequent research, whereas you would normally have to come up with new study. Because you incorporate your findings into the entire process, you will always be able to gauge your website’s effectiveness. The major advantage of iterative testing is that you are always up to date. You therefore avoid unnecessary development time and development costs, which results in optimum client satisfaction and conversion.

 

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