Defining goals, objectives, and hypotheses

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• Step 1 - Start thinking of a problem
• Step 2 - Start populating ‘Questions we need answers to’
• Step 3 - Fill out the hypothesis
• Step 4 - State the goal(s) for the research
• Step 5 - Create research objectives

Conducting user research takes a significant amount of preparation before you even begin asking users anything. However, the time you spend creating alignment and developing a research plan pays off tremendously because it keeps you on track as you carry out your research.

Starting with a good question and the right question will ensure you end up with a useful answer. A good research question is specific, actionable, and practical. That means:

• It’s possible to answer the question using the techniques and methods available to you.
• It’s possible but not guaranteed that you can arrive at an answer with a sufficient degree of confidence to base decisions on what you’ve learned.

Only after you have identified your research question(s) can you select the best way to answer the question (for example, which research method to use.

As the figure below shows, there are 5 main steps to creating research hypothesis, goals, and objectives.

Step 1 - Start thinking of a problem

• Ask yourself:
  • What current beliefs do you have about the user?
  • What organizational or other barriers do you need to be mindful of?
  • What are the business objectives for the project?
  • What questions does the research need to answer?
  • What are we trying to learn?
  • What must the research achieve?
  • Does any prior research exist?
    • What did prior research tell us?

Start thinking of a problem	Questions we need answers to	Hypothesis	Goal	Objectives
Let’s imagine that a hotel chain has noticed they have had a lower number of bookings in the last few quarters, but they are unsure why.

Step 2 - Start populating ‘Questions we need answers to’

• This is meant to be a brain dump of all the answers you came up with from step 1.
• These aren't the questions you'll directly ask users - you'll get to that step later as you fill out your discussion guide.

Start thinking of a problem	Questions we need answers to	Hypothesis	Goal	Objectives
Let’s imagine that a hotel chain has noticed they have had a lower number of bookings in the last few quarters, but they are unsure why.	Are people not booking because they don’t like the hotels we have? Do we have issues with the website or app? Are our prices too high? Are we missing hotel amenities that customers are looking for?

Step 3 - Fill out the hypothesis

• The research hypothesis is simply the assumption you have about the product/feature/experience.

• Read more about how to write a strong hypothesis.

• Use the questions you listed in step 2 to guide you.

Start thinking of a problem	Questions we need answers to	Hypothesis	Goal	Objectives
Let’s imagine that a hotel chain has noticed they have had a lower number of bookings in the last few quarters, but they are unsure why.	Are people not booking because they don’t like the hotels we have? Do we have issues with the website or app? Are our prices too high? Are we missing hotel amenities that customers are looking for?	We believe that by improving the experience of selecting and deciding which of our hotels to stay at for users of our website will result in an increased number of hotel bookings.

Step 4 - State the goal(s) for the research

• Goals need to be specific enough so you’ll know when you’ve reached an answer, practical in that you could answer them within the scope of a study, and actionable in that you could act on your findings once you’ve completed your research study.
• The goal is the central question that has to be answered by the research findings.
• Always start goals using a verb such as identify, understand, learn, gauge, etc.
• Limit the number of goals you define per project. Try to learn one or two things very well. This will help you connect your research to a design outcome and emerge with a clear understanding of one aspect of user behavior.

Start thinking of a problem	Questions we need answers to	Hypothesis	Goal	Objectives
Let’s imagine that a hotel chain has noticed they have had a lower number of bookings in the last few quarters, but they are unsure why.	Are people not booking because they don’t like the hotels we have? Do we have issues with the website or app? Are our prices too high? Are we missing hotel amenities that customers are looking for?	We believe that by improving the experience of selecting and deciding which of our hotels to stay at for users of our website will result in an increased number of hotel bookings.	Understand how people make their travel plans.

Step 5 - Create research objectives

• A well written list of research objectives:
  • Delineate and align with the goal of the project.
  • Define the overall high-level approach and the questions you might ask.
  • Dictate the most suitable methods and tools at your disposal.
  • Determine the outcomes you will get from the study.
  • Need to be high level, but specific enough that research can provide a concise answer for each.
• Create no more than 4 objectives per research effort. If you try to achieve more than 4 objectives in one study, you are doing too much, as each objective will represent up to a dozen questions/tasks in your discussion guide.
• Review the list of the ‘Questions we need answers to’ and identify the themes you see there. Reference the 'Hypothesis' and the 'Goal(s)' you have previously written.

Start thinking of a problem	Questions we need answers to	Hypothesis	Goal	Objectives
Let’s imagine that a hotel chain has noticed they have had a lower number of bookings in the last few quarters, but they are unsure why.	Are people not booking because they don’t like the hotels we have? Do we have issues with the website or app? Are our prices too high? Are we missing hotel amenities that customers are looking for?	We believe that by improving the experience of selecting and deciding which of our hotels to stay at for users of our website will result in an increased number of hotel bookings.	Understand how people make their travel plans.	Identify ways people start planning their travel and the tools they use. Understand what elements make it easy for people to plan travel and what elements make it difficult.

The chart below shows the relationship between your research goal and the tasks and questions you will ask your participants in usability tests.

This chart shows the relationship between your research goal and the interview questions you will ask your participants in user interviews.

As you can see, the more objectives you start out with, the more questions you will need to ask and the longer your research session will be. It's a good rule of thumb to not have the user session last longer than 1 hour. Our typical research sessions at GitLab last 30-45 minutes.