Creating a great website or product experience isn’t just about clean design or fast load times. At the heart of every intuitive, high-performing digital experience is a clear understanding of who your users are, what they need, and how they behave.
That’s where User Research comes in.
In a fast-evolving digital environment, User Research has become a critical tool for making smart, customer-focused business decisions. With improved technologies and more accessible research tools, organisations are moving from one-off studies to embedding research as an ongoing practice across entire teams.
In this article, we’ll walk through some of the most commonly used User Research methods and how they can help you design better experiences that support your business goals.
1. Card sorting: Untangle messy navigation
As websites grow and evolve, their structure often becomes cluttered. New pages are added, services change, and suddenly it’s unclear how content should be grouped. That’s where card sorting shines.
Card sorting is a simple technique for discovering how users naturally group and categorise information. Participants are given a set of “cards” (which represent website pages or topics) and asked to organise them into logical groups. Sometimes, they’ll even name these groups, such as “Services” or “Resources”, and rank their importance.
By analysing these patterns, you can uncover how users actually think about your content, helping you restructure your site in a way that feels more intuitive and logical to navigate.
2. Tree testing: Test how easily users find content
If users can’t find what they’re looking for on your website, two things typically happen:
- They contact your team for help, increasing admin time
- They give up and head to a competitor’s site
Tree testing is a research method that evaluates the findability and clarity of information on your site. It’s especially useful for diagnosing usability issues early in a redesign process.
Participants are given tasks (e.g. “Find how to apply for a refund”) and asked to complete them by navigating through a simplified site structure or “tree” — usually just text-based, without visual distractions.
The results help you see where people get stuck, how long tasks take, and where your content structure might be unclear, giving you the data you need to refine your navigation and page hierarchy.
3. Usability testing: Validate how well your website works
It doesn’t matter how beautiful your website looks — if people struggle to use it, the experience falls flat.
Usability testing focuses on how easy it is for real users to interact with your site and complete specific tasks. This might involve observing participants as they try to book a service, fill out a form, or navigate to key information.
Whether you’re planning a full website refresh or just want to validate a new feature, usability testing gives you direct insights into what’s working and what’s not.
You can run these tests at various stages of your project to ensure you're on the right track, i.e. before launch, during development, or even on your existing site to guide future enhancements.
4. Interviews and surveys: Listen to your users directly
Sometimes, the best way to understand your audience is to simply ask them.
Interviews and surveys are foundational tools in User Research, helping you learn more about your users’ demographics, motivations, preferences, and pain points.
- Interviews are ideal for deep, qualitative insights. They allow you to ask open-ended questions and explore topics in more detail, uncovering what users truly think and feel.
- Surveys are great for collecting data at scale. They can combine closed and open-ended questions to deliver both quantitative trends and qualitative feedback.
Together, these methods help you build a clear picture of your users, which can shape everything from product development to marketing strategy.
Drive better results with user testing and research-led decisions
Choosing the right User Research method depends on your goals, but the outcome is the same:
- More confident decisions
- Stronger digital experiences
- Better business outcomes.
When you truly understand your audience, everything else—design, content, structure—falls into place.
At ALYKA, we embed User Research into every digital project we take on. Get in touch with our expert team to learn how User Research services can inform your next digital project.