Skip to content
Design Academy My progress

Stage 2 · Core · Beginner

UX research and problem definition

Learn what people need, test your assumptions and define the right problem before designing.

  • 13 lessons
  • about 7 h 5 min of reading and practice
  • all written
Start this course

Progress is saved in this browser.

About this stage

Most failed products did not fail because of bad visuals. They solved a problem nobody had, or solved the right problem for the wrong people. Research is how designers find out what is actually going on before committing time and money.

This stage teaches lightweight, ethical research you can run on your own: writing research questions, interviewing people, synthesising notes into themes, and turning findings into problem statements and success metrics.

Before this stage Stage 0: Orientation and design foundations

Learning outcomes

  • Separate assumptions from evidence and turn them into research questions.
  • Plan and run a short, ethical user interview without leading the participant.
  • Synthesise notes into themes with affinity mapping, and avoid over-claiming.
  • Write problem statements, opportunity statements and measurable success criteria.
  • Choose between interviews, surveys, desk research and analytics for a given question.

Lessons

  1. Understanding users and business goals

    Why both matter, and how to find the overlap where good products live.

    Reading 30 min

  2. Research questions and assumptions

    Writing questions that research can actually answer.

    Reading 30 min

  3. Desk research and competitive analysis

    Learning from what already exists before talking to anyone.

    Reading 35 min

  4. User interviews and ethical research practice

    Recruiting, consent, scripts, follow-up questions and staying neutral.

    Reading 45 min

  5. Surveys: when they help and when they do not

    Good survey questions, sample bias, and why surveys cannot tell you why.

    Reading 30 min

  6. Qualitative versus quantitative research

    What each kind of evidence can and cannot tell you.

    Reading 25 min

  7. Affinity mapping and thematic analysis

    Turning a wall of notes into themes and insights you can defend.

    Reading 40 min

  8. Personas: useful applications and common pitfalls

    Evidence-based personas versus fictional stereotypes.

    Reading 30 min

  9. Jobs to Be Done

    Describing what people are trying to get done, independent of your product.

    Reading 30 min

  10. Empathy maps and user journey maps

    Mapping what people think, feel and do across an experience.

    Reading 40 min

  11. Problem statements and opportunity statements

    Framing the problem so the team agrees on what they are solving.

    Reading 30 min

  12. Hypotheses, assumptions and prioritisation

    Ranking what to test first by risk and impact.

    Reading 30 min

  13. Defining success metrics

    Choosing measures that show whether a design actually helped.

    Reading 30 min