research proposal for ux design

• How to Create a UX Research Plan in 6 Steps (with Example)

Master the essentials of UX research planning with a clear, six-step guide and practical example.

Conducting research without a UX research plan is like forging a sword blindfolded.

Poor jokes aside, research without a plan is a recipe for disaster. It eats away at resources, costing companies precious time and money. More importantly, it can cause you to move in the wrong direction. This puts a below-par product in the user’s hands that doesn’t address their needs.

With the complexity and scale of research studies, you’re missing a step if you don’t plan properly. So, we thought we’d address this with a comprehensive guide.

Here are our two cents on creating a UX research plan. Explore the benefits of creating a plan and how to create one from scratch.

Thank us later.

What is a UX Research Plan?

A UX research plan is a structured document that outlines individual research projects. A living document, it establishes clear goals and a defined scope of a study. It details various dimensions such as tactics, methodology, timelines, and resource constraints.

UX research plans serve as roadmaps — acting as a reference point and keeping teams on track.

Initially, plans establish the purpose of the study. This aligns stakeholders with the project goals. Throughout the research process, the plans focus everyone’s attention on strategic objectives. Once research is complete, they answer key questions from the beginning of a project.

A well-crafted research plan is essential for conducting effective research.

Key Benefits of Developing a UX Research Plan

If research is exploratory, why create a plan in the first place?

Plans define and aggregate research objectives and initiatives. The more detailed a research plan, the lower the likelihood of overlooking any information. Establishing an action plan increases the efficiency and accuracy of UX research work.

Here are some benefits of having a well-crafted UX research plan:

Defines Problem

Drafting a plan helps clarify the research problem:

What question are you trying to answer? What are the project goals? What do you want to accomplish?

Establish the questions that the research will help address. Outlining study expectations at the outset provides clarity. It gives everyone specific and measurable goals to work towards. Charting the success of initiatives allows researchers to track and improve results.

Aligns Stakeholders

Good research planning involves collaboration with cross-functional teams. Together with key stakeholders, researchers establish company-wide questions that need answering. Drafting a research plan for UX keeps everyone aligned on project objectives.

Involve them in the process of addressing stakeholder needs. By engaging in initiatives, they become more invested in research outcomes. UX research plans help strengthen stakeholder buy-in and align everyone with company strategy.

Optimizes Workflow

Defining goals helps add structure and streamlines the research process. Teams use the plan to identify which research and data collection methods to use. Setting clear objectives allows teams to follow a structured and sequential approach.

UX research plans set realistic expectations around project timelines and deliverables. Teams focus on making informed decisions to achieve research goals. With a solid plan in place, everyone stays in the loop.

Saves Resources

Planning UX research enables efficient allocation of time, money, and manpower. Outlining achievable goals ensures resources aren’t wasted. Plans allow everyone to leverage the company’s existing research. This helps teams avoid silos and duplicative efforts.

Conducting research with a proper plan helps identify potential roadblocks and issues early on. Pivoting design efforts early on in the build is far less expensive. This minimizes development time and production costs. In the long run, organizations save precious resources with a research plan.

How to Choose the Right UX Research Methods

To understand more about their users, researchers collect two different types of data:

• Behavioral . Measures how users interact with and navigate through a product.
• Attitudinal. Understand how users feel and why (while they’re immersed in a product).

Data collected can either be qualitative or quantitative. Remember, combine qualitative and quantitative research to understand the context behind user actions. Learn when to use quantitative vs. qualitative research .

It’s essential to determine your needs before choosing the correct study methodology. Any research methods you choose depend on:

• Initial research question. What do you want to find out about your customers? Are you looking for feedback on a design? Or trying to understand user needs?
• Stage of product development. Generative studies such as interviews help collect deep user feedback. This helps while brainstorming new products. Testing a final prototype is more evaluative . Usability testing helps researchers identify bugs. Researchers examine how users navigate through an app.
• Product use context. Where and how is research conducted? Will you observe users in their own environment or a controlled one (lab)? Will they carry out specific tasks? Or regular use?
• Resource constraints. Establish the scope and budget of the study. Is it a small or large-scale study? What resources will you need? What tools can you use (free or paid)?
• Timelines. How much time can you afford for research efforts? When do you need certain deliverables?

Use the graphic below to identify the method that best suits your study:

How to Create a UX Research Plan

Research studies help uncover user needs, preferences, motivations, and frustrations. UX research plans must answer a study’s who, what, when, why, and how . 

Follow our 6-step process to create a bulletproof UX research plan:

Step 1: Define Research Purpose & Goals

Research begins with a question. Clearly document the underlying reason for carrying out a project. Establish WHAT you’re trying to accomplish with research. Clarify the problem statement:

What challenges are you trying to solve for customers? What is the end goal?

Establish the purpose of a study specifically and objectively. Establish a clear scope of work with objectives and deliverables to ensure focused effort. Define specific targets for research initiatives. This helps avoid confusion later when people inevitably have more questions.

It’s important to align research objectives with broader business goals. Why conduct a particular study? What decision-making will this research inform? What business goals does it help achieve?

This answers the WHY you’re conducting research in the first place.

Step 2: Gather Stakeholder Requirements

How do you translate research objectives into business goals?

Research influences various departments, such as product, design, development, sales, and customer success. Involve these stakeholders early on in the planning process. Brainstorm with them to understand their questions and pain points.

It’s vital to gather stakeholder requirements. Given the project constraints, try to align these requirements with the proposed study. You won’t answer all their questions, but establishing a scope draws a line in the sand. How do stakeholders benefit from a study’s success?

Engaging with them helps gain stakeholder buy-in and enables you to deliver the right insights to the right people.

This addresses one-half of the WHO the research serves. It’s also important to establish who is responsible for conducting research.

Step 3: Choose a Research Method

This answers the HOW of it all. How will you answer the research questions?

Will you capture user behavior or attitudes and emotions? Will the data collected be quantitative or qualitative? A mix of both?

Based on your research goals, you have many methods to choose from. Use the diagram above to choose the right research methodology. Include a brief that details your reason for choosing a particular method.

What tools will you use?

Review your budget and the resources available for the study. Considering these factors, choose a tool best suited for research needs today and tomorrow .

Speaking of tools, why not give Marvin a spin ? A research repository that houses all your quantitative and qualitative data. Deeply analyze and understand more about the user experience. Need we say any more?

Step 4: Identify the Research Participants

Another important member of the WHO. And we’re not talking about the 60’s British rock band.

It’s your target demographic.

Who are they? What type of participants will you recruit? What characteristics are you looking for? Select participants based on demographic and psychographic factors. Also based on habits and behavioral patterns. This ensures diversity and inclusivity in your research group.

How will you recruit, screen, and compensate participants?

It’s important to use different sources to gather them. Start with your existing customers and use various channels such as email, social media or a recruitment platform. This acts as a failsafe if one channel produces low quality results.

Our friends at User Interviews have a robust and wide participant pool to choose from. Learn why they conduct continuous research with their customers.

Step 5: Establish Timelines & Allocate Resources

Timelines answer the WHEN behind a research study.

A study’s duration depends on the methodology of choice, number of participants needed, and the amount of data required. It’s also affected by the complexity of the research process.

Establish timelines for research projects. Create a schedule and set deadlines for project deliverables. Consider the time required to plan the study, recruit participants, and collect and analyze data.

Allocate resources to a study based on the availability of:

• Finances. How much money is available? What tools will you need?
• Manpower. How many team members will work on the research? Assign them tasks. Outline detailed study protocol and logistics. Include action plans to decide the next steps.

Step 6: Determine How to Analyze & Present Research Findings

Consider whether the project has met the plan’s objectives. Document the entire process. Include methodology, roadblocks encountered and study details. This overview helps inform future research at the company.

Share your findings across the organization. Revisit the WHO — how do findings affect key stakeholders and the target audience? What are the benefits of research findings? What departments can use this information?

Decide how to analyze and present your findings to different stakeholders. Demonstrate how insights will inform product development and design. Provide recommendations to act on insights upon study completion.

A quick word on assumptions — every project has its own. Identify and document the assumptions you’ve made in the research process. Reconcile these assumptions with findings to provide context for your research results.

UX Research Plan Example

A good UX research plan must include the following:

• Title. Name your project so people across the organization can easily identify it.
• Date. When did the project begin?
• Author(s) . Who’s in charge of the project? This may be multiple people. Include their contact information so readers can get in touch.
• Stakeholder Information. Which stakeholders need consulting? Include a point of contact from different teams to understand and establish their needs. 
• Project Background. Akin to an executive summary, this section includes two to three sentences on why the project is being conducted.
• Project Goal. Sums up the objective of the project in one sentence. Define metrics to measure success.
• Research Question(s). What questions will the research answer? Listing them down helps identify data collection and analysis methods.
• Research Methods. Which research methods will you use? Use our diagram above to determine which methodology suits the study best.
• Participant Information. Define the target audience for your study. Include the sample size along with demographic and psychographic information.
• Risks & Assumptions. What assumptions have you made during research? What are the inherent risks? List them all out. Be exhaustive.
• Deliverables. Establish deadlines for key deliverables. Add milestones to track project progress.
• Timelines. When does the project start and end? Estimate how long each part of the study will take.
• Budget. How much money is available for the study? Estimate overall costs to prioritize activities.

Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t know where to begin? Marvin’s here to help! 

UX Research Plan Template

Here’s a UX research plan template to get you started.

NOTE : Remember to replace this fictional information with actual data!

Best Practices for Conducting Effective UX Research

Effective UX research ensures that products address user needs. Leveraging the research, designers and developers can create easy and delightful-to-use products. 

Employ these best practices to get the most out of your research plan (and therefore research):

• Maintain a user-centric focus. To truly understand your customers, you must develop user empathy . It’s critical for designing products that they love using. Identify various user groups and personas – consult experts and naive users. What are their goals?
• Data-driven decision making. Don’t rely on gut feel – harness the power of user research to inform product decisions. Use a variety of methods and tools to collect quantitative and qualitative data. Paint a well-rounded picture of the user experience.
• Use soft launches. Pilot studies and interviews on a smaller scale to understand how they work. An important way to get feedback about your research process and make improvements or eradicate bias.
• Stay adaptable. Don’t set and then forget. Research is an ongoing practice. Continually iterate your research process. Gain better customer insights over time to refine the user experience.
• Communicate! How do you translate user needs into product choices that stakeholders understand? UX industry experts stress the importance of learning the language of business .

Make sure research applications quickly disseminate information on communication tools like Slack. Broadcast your findings across the organization with Marvin. Learn more about Marvin’s integrations .

5 Common Mistakes Every UX Researcher Should Avoid

No research study is straightforward. It’s a complex craft, requiring you to adapt to twists and turns along the way. 

Avoid these common pitfalls when planning your UX research:

• Focusing on features, not outcomes. This is the opposite of user-centricity. When researchers become enthralled with adding new features, they lose sight of what the user really needs. What problems do these new features solve?
• Not setting specific goals. It’s not enough to say you want to understand more about your users. Being vague in your objectives leads to inaccurate and unusable results. Identify specifically what you’re after. Be clear in your questioning to get the right answers that inform business strategy.
• Failure to deal with bias. Every study has bias. Leading questions or confirmation bias can skew data and results. Testing research processes helps identify and mitigate bias. It’s important to acknowledge and document any inherent biases in your approach.
• Minimal stakeholder involvement. Failing to include stakeholders in research leads to poor buy-in. Without being actively involved, they can’t contribute their questions and insights to the process. Stakeholders are a great source of user information. Moreover, they have requirements from user research that need addressing.
• Ignoring context. Researchers can over rely on quantitative data. As a result, they ignore valuable qualitative information about the user experience. Collect qualitative data to understand user preferences better. Test in natural environments to collect real-world data.

Commit any of these research faux pas, and the product suffers. And we haven’t even mentioned the poor end users.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Let’s address any lingering questions you may have about research plans:

Can I Use a Tool to Develop an Effective UX Research Plan?

You certainly can!

A UX research plan is a living document. You merely need an editable document that facilitates collaboration among stakeholders. It can be ‘view-only’ for non-contributors. A document platform that literally keeps everyone on the same page with research initiatives.

We recommend smaller teams begin with Google Docs or similar platforms. Work your way up to using complex and purpose-built research tools.

UX research tools like Marvin allow you to create helpful discussion guides. Add questions to the guide and navigate your interviews with ease. Generate insights with the one keystroke. Moreover, Marvin lets you create comprehensive interactive documents with video, audio, and text.

How Do You Manage and Record Data During UX Research?

Companies collect terabytes of data from various customer touchpoints. So where does this data go?

You need a place to store, organize, access, and analyze all this data. A research repository houses user data. Collate your quantitative and qualitative data into Marvin for analysis. It integrates with applications that designers and researchers love.

You’ll also need a tool that’s capable of recording qualitative data. This includes data from focus groups, interviews, and other participant interactions.

UX research tools (such as Marvin) now record and transcribe all your video or audio calls. Generate a verbatim transcript in minutes. This allows researchers to focus on the task at hand.

Give Marvin a test drive today!

How Do You Integrate UX Research Insights into Design?

Here’s an easy action plan to turn UX research insights into design improvements:

• Collaborate with design and product teams. Discuss how to reflect research in design work.
• Translate insights into practical and actionable ones. e.g., “Users spend way too long trying to enter their personal information. How do we improve time on task?”
• Implement design changes.
• Test & iterate.

Planning is an essential first step of the UX research process.

UX research plans give research a purpose and direction — they clarify the goals of a study.

Plans facilitate the gathering of stakeholder requirements and inputs. Clearly outlining goals and objectives, they keep everyone aligned. In the long run, research plans save the company plenty of resources (money, manpower, and time).

They define problems and help generate actionable insights that inform product decisions. By integrating insights into design, companies create products that resonate with their users.

The importance of planning research isn’t lost on us. If you’re reading this far down, you’re likely in the same boat.

Happy planning!

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Krish Arora leverages his experience as a finance professional to turn data into insights. A passionate writer with a strong appreciation for language, Krish crafts compelling stories with numbers and words to elevate the practice of user research.

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What is UX Research: The Ultimate Guide for UX Researchers

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Essential elements of an effective UX research plan (examples + templates)

Conducting UX research without a plan is like moving to another country without knowing the language—confusing and exhausting.

To avoid wasting time and resources, it’s crucial to set achievable research goals and work on developing a research plan that’s clear, comprehensive, and aligned with your overarching business goals and research strategy.

A good UX research plan sets out the parameters for your research, and guides how you’ll gather insights to inform product development. In this chapter, we share a step-by-step guide to creating a research plan, including templates and tactics for you to try. You’ll also find expert tips from Paige Bennett, Senior User Research Manager at Affirm, and Sinéad Davis Cochrane, Research Manager at Workday.

What is a UX research plan?

A UX research plan—not to be confused with a UX research strategy or research design—is a plan to guide individual user experience (UX) research projects.

It's a living document that includes a detailed explanation of tactics, methods, timeline, scope, and task owners. It should be co-created and shared with key stakeholders, so everyone is familiar with the project plan, and product teams can meet strategic goals.

A UX research plan is different to a research strategy and research design in both its purpose and contents. Let’s take a look.

Research plan vs. research design vs. research strategy: What’s the difference?

While your UX research plan should be based on strategy, it’s not the same thing. Your UX strategy is a high-level document that contains goals, budget, vision, and expectations. Meanwhile, a plan is a detailed document explaining how the team will achieve those strategic goals. Research design is the form your research itself takes.

In short, a strategy is a guide, a plan is what drives action, and design is the action itself.

What are the benefits of using a UX research plan?

Conducting research without goals and parameters is aimless. A UX research plan is beneficial for your product, user, and business—by building a plan for conducting UX research, you can:

Streamline processes and add structure

Work toward specific, measurable goals, align and engage stakeholders, save time by avoiding rework.

The structure of a research plan allows you to set timelines, expectations, and task owners, so everyone on your team is aligned and empowered to make decisions. Since there’s no second guessing what to do next or which methods to use, you’ll find your process becomes simpler and more efficient. It’s also worth standardizing your process to turn your plan into a template that you can reuse for future projects.

When you set research goals based on strategy, you’ll find it easier to track your team’s progress and keep the project in scope, on time, and on budget. With a solid, strategy-based UX research plan you can also track metrics at different stages of the project and adjust future tactics to get better research findings.

“It’s important to make sure your stakeholders are on the same page with regards to scope, timeline, and goals before you start," explains Paige Bennett, Senior User Research Manager at Affirm. That's because, when stakeholders are aligned, they're much more likely to sign off on product changes that result from UX research.

A written plan is a collaborative way to involve stakeholders in your research and turn them into active participants rather than passive observers. As they get involved, they'll make useful contributions and get a better understanding of your goals.

A UX research plan helps you save time and money quite simply because it’s easier and less expensive to make design or prototype changes than it is to fix usability issues once the product is coded or fully launched. Additionally, having a plan gives your team direction, which means they won’t be conducting research and talking to users without motive, and you’ll be making better use of your resources. What’s more, when everyone is aligned on goals, they’re empowered to make informed decisions instead of waiting for their managers’ approval.

What should a UX research plan include?

In French cuisine, the concept of mise en place—putting in place—allows chefs to plan and set up their workspace with all the required ingredients before cooking. Think of your research plan like this—laying out the key steps you need to go through during research, to help you run a successful and more efficient study.

Here’s what you should include in a UX research plan:

• A brief reminder of the strategy and goals
• An outline of the research objectives
• The purpose of the plan and studies
• A short description of the target audience, sample size, scope, and demographics
• A detailed list of expectations including deliverables, timings, and type of results
• An overview of the test methods and a short explanation of why you chose them
• The test set up or guidelines to outline everything that needs to happen before the study: scenarios, screening questions, and duration of pilot tests
• Your test scripts, questions to ask, or samples to follow
• When and how you’ll present the results
• Cost estimations or requests to go over budget

Collect all UX research findings in one place

Use Maze to run quantitative and qualitative research, influence product design, and shape user-centered products.

How to create a UX research plan

Now we’ve talked through why you need a research plan, let’s get into the how. Here’s a short step-by-step guide on how to write a research plan that will drive results.

• Define the problem statement
• Get stakeholders’ buy-in
• Identify your objectives
• Choose the right research method
• Recruit participants
• Prepare the brief
• Establish the timeline
• Decide how you’ll present your findings

1. Define the problem statement

One of the most important purposes of a research plan is to identify what you’re trying to achieve with the research, and clarify the problem statement. For Paige Bennett , Senior User Research Manager at Affirm, this process begins by sitting together with stakeholders and looking at the problem space.

“We do an exercise called FOG, which stands for ‘Fact, Observation, Guess’, to identify large gaps in knowledge,” says Paige. “Evaluating what you know illuminates questions you still have, which then serves as the foundation of the UX research project.”

You can use different techniques to identify the problem statement, such as stakeholder interviews, team sessions, or analysis of customer feedback. The problem statement should explain what the project is about—helping to define the research scope with clear deliverables and objectives.

2. Identify your objectives

Research objectives need to align with the UX strategy and broader business goals, but you also need to define specific targets to achieve within the research itself—whether that’s understanding a specific problem, or measuring usability metrics . So, before you get into a room with your users and customers, “Think about the research objectives: what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what you expect from the UX research process ,” explains Sinéad Davis Cochrane , Research Manager at Workday.

Examples of research objectives might be:

• Learn at what times users interact with your product
• Understand why users return (or not) to your website/app
• Discover what competitor products your users are using
• Uncover any pain points or challenges users find when navigating with your product
• Gauge user interest in and prioritize potential new features

A valuable purpose of setting objectives is ensuring your project doesn't suffer from scope creep. This can happen when stakeholders see your research as an opportunity to ask any question. As a researcher , Sinéad believes your objectives can guide the type of research questions you ask and give your research more focus. Otherwise, anything and everything becomes a research question—which will confuse your findings and be overwhelming to manage.

Sinéad shares a list of questions you should ask yourself and the research team to help set objectives:

• What are you going to do with this information?
• What decisions is it going to inform?
• How are you going to leverage these insights?

Another useful exercise to help identify research objectives is by asking questions that help you get to the core of a problem. Ask these types of questions before starting the planning process:

• Who are the users you’re designing this for?
• What problems and needs do they have?
• What are the pain points of using the product?
• Why are they not using a product like yours?

3. Get stakeholders buy-in

It’s good practice to involve stakeholders at early stages of plan creation to get everyone on board. Sharing your UX research plan with relevant stakeholders means you can gather context, adjust based on comments, and gauge what’s truly important to them. When you present the research plan to key stakeholders, remember to align on the scope of research, and how and when you’ll get back to them with results.

Stakeholders usually have a unique vision of the product, and it’s crucial that you’re able to capture it early on—this doesn’t mean saying yes to everything, but listening to their ideas and having a conversation. Seeing the UX research plan as a living document makes it much easier to edit based on team comments. Plus, the more you listen to other ideas, the easier it will be to evangelize research and get stakeholder buy-in by helping them see the value behind it.

I expect my stakeholders to be participants, and I outline how I expect that to happen. That includes observing interviews, participating in synthesis exercises, or co-presenting research recommendations.

Paige Bennett , Senior User Research Manager at Affirm

4. Choose the right research method

Choose between the different UX research methods to capture different insights from users.

To define the research methods you’ll use, circle back to your research objectives, what stage of the product development process you’re in, and the constraints, resources, and timeline of the project. It’s good research practice to use a mix of different methods to get a more complete perspective of users’ struggles.

For example, if you’re at the start of the design process, a generative research method such as user interviews or field studies will help you generate new insights about the target audience. Or, if you need to evaluate how a new design performs with users, you can run usability tests to get actionable feedback.

It’s also good practice to mix methods that drive quantitative and qualitative results so you can understand context, and catch the user sentiment behind a metric. For instance, if during a remote usability test, you hear a user go ‘Ugh! Where’s the sign up button?’ you’ll get a broader perspective than if you were just reviewing the number of clicks on the same test task.

Examples of UX research methods to consider include:

• Five-second testing
• User interviews
• Field studies
• Card sorting
• Tree testing
• Focus groups
• Usability testing
• Diary studies
• Live website testing

Check out our top UX research templates . Use them as a shortcut to get started on your research.

5. Determine how to recruit participants

Every research plan should include information about the participants you need for your study, and how you’ll recruit them. To identify your perfect candidate, revisit your goals and the questions that need answering, then build a target user persona including key demographics and use cases. Consider the resources you have available already, by asking yourself:

• Do you have a user base you can tap into to collect customer insights ?
• Do you need to hire external participants?
• What’s your budget to recruit users?
• How many users do you need to interact with?

When selecting participants, make sure they represent all your target personas. If different types of people will be using a certain product, you need to make sure that the people you research represent these personas. This means not just being inclusive in your recruitment, but considering secondary personas—the people who may not be your target user base, but interact with your product incidentally.

You should also consider recruiting research participants to test the product on different devices. Paige explains: “If prior research has shown that behavior differs greatly between those who use a product on their phone versus their tablet, I need to better understand those differences—so I’m going to make sure my participants include people who have used a product on both devices.”

During this step, make sure to include information about the required number of participants, how you’ll get them to participate, and how much time you need per user. The main ways to recruit testers are:

• Using an online participant recruitment tool like Maze Panel
• Putting out physical or digital adverts in spaces that are relevant to your product and user
• Reaching out to existing users
• Using participants from previous research
• Recruiting directly from your website or app with a tool like In-Product Prompts

5.1. Determine how you’ll pay them

You should always reward your test participants for their time and insights. Not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because if they have an incentive they’re more likely to give you complete and insightful answers. If you’re hosting the studies in person, you’ll also need to cover your participants' travel expenses and secure a research space. Running remote moderated or unmoderated research is often considered to be less expensive and faster to complete.

If you’re testing an international audience, remember to check your proposed payment system works worldwide—this might be an Amazon gift card or prepaid Visa cards.

6. Prepare the brief

The next component of a research plan is to create a brief or guide for your research sessions. The kind of brief you need will vary depending on your research method, but for moderated methods like user interviews, field studies, or focus groups, you’ll need a detailed guide and script. The brief is there to remind you which questions to ask and keep the sessions on track.

Your script should cover:

• Introduction: A short message you’ll say to participants before the session begins. This works as a starting point for conversations and helps set the tone for the meeting. If you’re testing without a moderator, you should also include an introductory message to explain what the research is about and the type of answers they should give (in terms of length and specificity).
• Interview questions: Include your list of questions you’ll ask participants during the sessions. These could be examples to help guide the interviews, specific pre-planned questions, or test tasks you’ll ask participants to perform during unmoderated sessions.
• Outro message: Outline what you'll say at the end of the session, including the next steps, asking participants if they are open to future research, and thanking them for their time. This can be a form you share at the end of asynchronous sessions.

It’s crucial you remember to ask participants for their consent. You should do this at the beginning of the test by asking if they’re okay with you recording the session. Use this space to lay out any compensation agreements as well. Then, ask again at the end of the session if they agree with you keeping the results and using the data for research purposes. If possible, explain exactly what you’ll do with their data. Double check and get your legal team’s sign-off on these forms.

7. Establish the timeline

Next in your plan, estimate how long the research project will take and when you should expect to review the findings. Even if not exact, determining an approximate timeline (e.g., two-three weeks) will enable you to manage stakeholders’ expectations of the process and results.

Many people believe UX research is a lengthy process, so they skip it. When you set up a timeline and get stakeholders aligned with it, you can debunk assumptions and put stakeholders’ minds at ease. Plus, if you’re using a product discovery tool like Maze, you can get answers to your tests within days.

8. Decide how you’ll present your findings

When it comes to sharing your findings with your team, presentation matters. You need to make a clear presentation and demonstrate how user insights will influence design and development. If you’ve conducted UX research in the past, share data that proves how implementing user insights has improved product adoption.

Examples of ways you can present your results include:

• A physical or digital PDF report with key statistics and takeaways
• An interactive online report of the individual research questions and their results
• A presentation explaining the results and your findings
• A digital whiteboard, like Miro, to display the results

In your plan, mention how you’ll share insights with the product team. For example, if you’re using Maze, you can start by emailing everyone the ready-to-share report and setting up a meeting with the team to identify how to bring those insights to life. This is key, because your research should be the guiding light for new products or updates, if you want to keep development user-centric. Taking care over how you present your findings will impact whether they’re taken seriously and implemented by other stakeholders.

Your UX research plan template: Free template + example

Whether you’re creating the plan yourself or delegating to your team, a clear UX research plan template cuts your prep time in half.

Find our customizable free UX research plan template here , and keep reading for a filled-in example.

Example: Improving user adoption of a project management tool called Flows

Now, let’s go through how to fill out this template and create a UX research plan with an example.

Executive summary:

Flows aims to increase user adoption and tool engagement by 30% within the next 12 months. Our B2B project management software has been on the market for 3 years and has 25,000 active users across various industries.

By researching the current product experience with existing users, we’ll learn what works and what doesn’t in order to make adjustments to the product and experience.

Research objectives:

Purpose of the plan and studies:.

The purpose is to gather actionable insights into user needs, behaviors, and challenges to inform updates that will drive increased adoption and engagement of 30% for the B2B project management tool within 12 months.

Target audience, sample size, scope, and demographics:

Expectations, deliverables, timings, and type of results:, research methodologies:.

*Some teams will take part in more than one research session.

Research analysis methods:

We are doing a mixed methods study.

User interviews are our primary method for gathering qualitative data, and will be analyzed using thematic analysis .

• Quantitative data will be pulled from usability tests to evaluate the effectiveness of our current design.
• Research set up and guidelines:
• Create baselines surveys to gauge current usage and pain points
• Develop interview/discussion guides and usability testing scenarios
• Pilot test materials with two teams
• User interviews: 60 mins, semi-structured; usability tests: 90 mins
• Findings will be presented in a research report for all stakeholders

Research scripts, questions, and samples:

User interview questions:

• What’s your experience with Flows?
• How does Flows fit into your workflow?
• What is your understanding of Flows’ features?
• What do you wish Flows could do that it currently doesn’t?

Usability test sample with Maze:

Cost estimations or budget requests/pricing:

Total estimated budget: $8,000

More free customizable templates for UX research

Whether you’re creating the plan yourself or are delegating this responsibility to your team, here are six research templates to get started:

• UX research plan template : This editable Miro research project plan example helps you brainstorm user and business-facing problems, objectives, and questions
• UX research brief : You need a clear brief before you conduct UX research—Milanote shares a template that will help you simplify the writing process
• User testing synthesis : Trello put together a sample board to organize user testing notes—you can use this as a guide, but change the titles to fit your UX research purposes
• Usability testing templates : At Maze, we’ve created multiple templates for conducting specific UX research methods—this list will help you create different remote usability tests
• Information architecture (IA) tests template : The way you organize the information in your website or app can improve or damage the user experience—use this template to run IA tests easily
• Feedback survey templates : Ask users anything through a survey, and use these templates to get creative and simplify creation

Everything you need to know about UX research plans

We all know that a robust plan is essential for conducting successful UX research. But, in case you want a quick refresher on what we’ve covered:

• Using a UX research strategy as a starting point will make your plan more likely to succeed
• Determine your research objectives before anything else
• Use a mix of qualitative and quantitative research methods
• Come up with clear personas so you can recruit and test a group of individuals that’s representative of your real end users
• Involve stakeholders from the beginning to get buy-in
• Be vocal about timelines, budget, and expected research findings
• Use the insights to power your product decisions and wow your users; building the solution they genuinely want and need

UX research can happen at any stage of the development lifecycle. When you build products with and for users, you need to include them continuously at various stages of the process.

It’s helpful to explore the need for continuous discovery in your UX research plan and look for a tool like Maze that simplifies the process for you. We’ll cover more about the different research methods and UX research tools in the upcoming chapters—ready to go?

Elevate your UX research workflow

Discover how Maze can streamline and operationalize your research plans to drive real product innovation while saving on costs.

Frequently asked questions

What’s the difference between a UX research plan and a UX research strategy?

The difference between a UX research plan and a UX research strategy is that they cover different levels of scope and detail. A UX research plan is a document that guides individual user experience (UX) research projects. UX research plans are shared documents that everyone on the product team can and should be familiar with. A UX research strategy, on the other hand, outlines the high-level goals, expectations, and demographics of the organization’s approach to research.

What should you include in a user research plan?

Here’s what to include in a user research plan:

• Problem statement
• Research objectives
• Research methods
• Participants' demographics
• Recruitment plan
• User research brief
• Expected timeline
• How to present findings

How do you write a research plan for UX design?

Creating a research plan for user experience (UX) requires a clear problem statement and objectives, choosing the right research method, recruiting participants and briefing them, and establishing a timeline for your project. You'll also need to plan how you'll analyze and present your findings.

How do you plan a UX research roadmap?

To plan a UX research roadmap, start by identifying key business goals and user needs. Align research activities with product milestones to ensure timely insights. Prioritize research methods—like surveys, interviews, and usability tests—based on the project phase and objectives. Set clear timelines and allocate resources accordingly. Regularly update stakeholders on progress and integrate feedback to refine the roadmap continuously.

Generative Research: Definition, Methods, and Examples

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Creating A User Research Plan (with Examples)

UX research helps to test hypothesis you have about users prior to design. Sadly, not every UX design project starts with user research, and that’s because it takes a lot of time to recruit participants, run UX research projects, and sumamrize findings.

Good research, nevertheless, ensures that your product team doesn’t build the wrong functionality that would cost you valuable resources and make you vulnerable to losing customers.

In this article, you’ll see how you can use UX research plan to get stakeholder’s buy-in and create research reports that’s full of valuable advice for product design. Let’s go.

At the end, when you have your research complete, launch the right tool for your design process. For that, try UXPin, an end-to-end design tool for interactive prototyping that brings design and product development together.

Designers can create a powerful prototypes, show them to product managers who can interact with the design instead of just looking at it. Then, they give the design to engineers who can get all the specs and some code to kickstart front-end design with.

Since with UXPin you work faster, you have ample time for UX research before UX design. Try it for free .

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What is a UX Research Plan?

A UX research plan helps to set expectations and document the essentials you need to communicate to stakeholders and clients. Your company needs a strong business case for every user research session, complete with research objectives, goals, methods, and logistical needs for the study.

UX Research Plan Elements

Every UX research plan should start with a solid outline. That’s where templates come in handy. They help you structure your UX research project in a way that team members and stakeholders see value in completing research process.

Master templates are the best way to create a successful and effective UX research plan. Using a template as a starting point makes planning and writing easier and helps you and your team stay focused on the who, what, why, and when of research. Read on for tips and examples for how you can build a user research plan that works.

UX Research Plan Background

The background section should offer your clients and stakeholders a few sentences on why you are creating a user research plan and what it will accomplish. It should orient readers to the needs and expectations behind the purpose of the study. It should also include a problem statement, which is the primary question you’re setting out to answer with your research findings. 

Example Background

The purpose of this study is to understand the major pain points users experience in using our website/app and how these contribute to issues such as cart abandonment, returned items, and low customer loyalty. 

We will be using usability testing to follow the user’s experience of our website/app and the obstacles they encounter leading up to the point of purchase. We will also be using generative research techniques to better understand the customer’s experience of our brand and the challenges and needs they face in making a purchase. 

UX Research Plan Objectives

Before getting into the nitty-gritty of your user research plan, you first want to focus on your research objectives. This step outlines the reasons you are conducting a UX research plan in the first place. Why are you carrying out this research? What are the end goals you have after completing all the work?

Seeking out answers to these questions should be a collaborative effort between you and your stakeholders. It’s also helpful to consider discussions and learnings from past clients and projects to create metrics for your UX research plan. 

Objectives and Success Metrics

Research objectives will be different for every project, but they should always be actionable and specific. 

Example Objectives

• Understand how users currently go about tracking orders on our website
• Understand what actions customers take when they consider buying a new [product we offer]
• Learn about competitor websites/apps customers are using to buy [product we offer]
• Evaluate pain points customers are experiencing in using our website/app

And here are some examples to help you determine the success of your UX research plan.

Example Success Metrics

• What information are we trying to collect about users?
• What scales/documents/statistics do we intend to create?
• What decisions will these materials help to make? 

UX Research Plan Methodology

This step should be a short and sweet description of the research methods you will use to answer the research objectives. It should include both secondary and primary methods. Generative methods, such as user interviews and open-ended questions, help uncover motivations or more general insights, while UX testing helps to evaluate the usability and experience of your product. 

Research Scope & Focus Areas

Clearly outlining the research scope and focus areas helps to facilitate efficient user research planning. The more you’re able to hone in on the specifics of what information you are wanting to collect, the less overwhelmed you will be in the process. It also helps avoid inundating your clients with unnecessary information. 

To keep research-focused, this section should include:

• 3-6 question topics (e.g. How do users spend their time on a website?)
• Design Focus Components, including interface qualities (e.g. Usability, Training, Efficiency, Satisfaction)
• Primary User Scenarios (e.g. Scenarios in which pain points are most problematic; scenarios you have the least information about, etc.)

Example Methodology

For this study, we’re conducting a 30-minute usability test to evaluate our user’s experience of our app/website. A secondary method will be to conduct one-on-one generative research interviews to better understand our customers and empathize with their needs. 

UX Research Plan Participant Profiles

Once you’ve defined objectives methodology and focus areas, it’s time to outline the participants you’ll need to get the required insights. Participant profiles help you determine who you want to recruit, or an approximation of your users, to optimize recruiting efforts. Here are a few examples of how to ensure you’ll get the best participants for your study. 

Define your target user by collaborating with internal stakeholders, marketing, sales, and customer support. With their help, you can create approximations about who your users are. This is a great starting point for finding the right participants for your study. 

Compare yourself to your competitors and create participant profiles based on their audiences. Recruiting people who use a competitor’s product can be an excellent way to glean insights into how to further improve your product. 

Outline a screening process. Participant profiles should include any relevant information concerning your target audience, including behaviors, needs, demographics, geography, etc. Including the right criteria will help you evaluate whether or not to include certain individuals in your user research plan. 

This Nielsen Norman article offers some great information about defining and recruiting the right participants for your study. 

UX Research Plan Timeline

This is optional, but many UX research plans include a timeline that offers clients and stakeholders a general overview of how long the research will take. It helps to set expectations for the final results as well as allowing you to create a schedule for research sessions, debriefing, follow-up, and deliverables. 

Timeline Example: 

Approximately 6-8 weeks for identifying objectives, creating participant profiles, recruitment, in-person meetings, qualitative research, and analysis. 

Try an End-to-End Design Solution

UX research plan templates are essential tools for executing a successful project. Having a master template helps you to remember what the process entails, communicate essential information to the right people, and stay on track throughout the user research plan.

UXPin, besides being a great prototyping tool, makes creating such research templates fast and easy. Especially since each project will be a little different and plans will need tweaking in terms of structure and content. Try UXPin for free .

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How to Write a UX Research Plan That Actually Works: 7-Step Tutorial

Learn how to create a UX research plan to get clarity on your research project & align with your stakeholders. This article talks about how to write a UX Research plan, with examples and templates you can leverage.

A UX research plan is like a map that will help you navigate the complexity of running a research project. It will help you define your goals, choose the right methods, and collect the data you need to make informed design decisions.

But UX research plans don't have to be boring. In fact, they can be quite funny. For example, one UX researcher I know has a section in his plan called " The Things That Make Me Cry ." This is where he lists all the things that he's learned about his users that make him sad, such as the fact that they often have to deal with frustrating interfaces or unhelpful customer service.

But the primary use of a research plan of course is to make  sure that your research is effective. So, while it’s helpful to have a sense of humor, you also need to be serious about your research.

In this article, we'll consider:

• What a UX research plan is and why it's important
• How to create a UX research plan 
• An example of a well-structured UX research plan and
• A template for a UX research plan you can use to get started

So, whether you're a UX newbie or a seasoned pro, read on for everything you need to know about UX research plans!

What is a UX Research Plan?

A UX research plan is a document that outlines the goals, methods, and timeline for your research. It's a roadmap that will help you stay on track and ensure that your research is productive.

A good UX research plan should include the following:

• A clear statement of the research goals: What do you hope to learn from your research? What are the specific questions you're trying to answer?
• A description of the target audience: Who are the people you're designing for? What are their needs and pain points?
• A selection of research methods: There are many different research methods available, so it's important to choose the ones that are right for your goals and target audience.
• A timeline and budget: How long will your research take? How much money will it cost?
• A plan for data analysis and presentation: How will you analyze your data and communicate the findings to others?

Why is a UX Research Plan Important?

A UX research plan is important for several reasons. It helps you:

• Stay focused and avoids wasting time and resources.
• Ensures that your research is relevant to the needs of your users.
• Get buy-in from stakeholders & align on the goals for the project.
• Provides a framework for organizing and analyzing your data.
• Helps you communicate the findings of your research to others.

How to Create a UX Research Plan

Creating a UX research plan is an important step in ensuring that your product or service is user-friendly and meets the needs of your target audience. Here are the essential steps to create a research plan that drives meaningful insights and successful user experiences:

Step 1: Alignment & Requirements Gathering

Research rarely will happen in a vacuum. Usually you are working with a team—product, engineering, design, for example. 

When the need for a research study arises, the first thing you want to do is meet with your team to understand the questions they're trying to answer.

Depending on how formally set up your research practice is, you may even want to supplement this step with a Research Request document where stakeholders can explain the key questions they'd like to answer, why they're important, and any constraints (budgets, timelines) they're working with.

Step 2: Define Your Goals

Once you've gathered your data, the next step is to clearly define & write out your goals. What do you hope to learn from your research? What specific questions are you trying to answer?

Here are some things to consider when framing your goals:

• What are the business objectives for your product or service? Are you trying to grow active users? Or reduce churn? What should the final results of this research project help you do?
• Who are your target users? These are the people you’d like to learn more about.
• What do you want to learn about their behavior and preferences? This will help you determine your research questions. Ideally the answers to these questions should also tie to your business goals so there’s a clear line between what you’re trying to learn and what that learning will do for the company.

Once you’ve thought about and drafted the answers to these questions, make sure to follow the below steps before starting interviews:

i. Assess Internal Data and Identify Research Needs

Before you start collecting new data, take some time to assess any existing data you have. This could include analytics, customer feedback, or previous research findings. This will help you identify any gaps in your knowledge and determine what areas need to be explored further.

Sometimes you’ll find you already have the answer to your research question in-house—saving you weeks of research effort and thousands of dollars of investment!

If you’re trying to build a repository to help you do this more effectively, check out this definitive guide on research repositories .

ii. Link Research Goals to Business Objectives

It's also important to link your research goals to the business objectives of your organization. This will help you justify the time and resources that will be required for your research. By demonstrating how your research will help you achieve your business goals, you'll be more likely to get the support you need.

As a bonus, once your research is complete, you can go back and track its impact against these business goals. This will help you build a case for your own work and the research practice at your company.

As you proceed through Step 1, keep in mind that your research goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART). This framework will help you ensure that your goals are well-defined and actionable.

Step 3: Identify Your Target Audience & Plan a Recruiting Strategy

Knowing your audience is essential for creating a UX research plan that delivers relevant and actionable insights. In this step, we'll talk about how to define your target audience and plan a recruiting strategy for this set of users.

The target audience you’re considering this research study may overlap with your standard target users, or you may want to speak with a subset of this group.

For instance, if you’re doing a research study on why users churn, speaking to a regular active user won’t help. You’ll need to define and recruit users who can actually answer your questions well—in this case it could be “users who have churned in the last 2 weeks”.

When defining the audience for this study, think about whether your target user falls in a specific category based on one of these characteristics:

• Demographics:   This includes basic characteristics, such as age, gender, location, and occupation.
• Behaviors and habits: Are you interested in users who have or have not conducted certain actions on your product? For research on how well your Slack integration works, you may want to speak to users who have already installed it, for example.  
• Needs and use cases: Sometimes one product can have multiple use cases. For example, a transcription product could be used by researchers, or journalists, or students trying to capture their class notes. Which use case or needs are relevant to your research study?  
• Payment type: In today’s world products may have free, freemium / trial, or paid users and each of these groups may behave differently. Think about whether you need one or all of these user types as part of your research.

Now that you know who you need to reach, you also need to think about how to reach them.

Recruiting, as we all know, is a major pain point for (most) researchers. There are some ways to speed it up though.

If you’re running research for a B2C product or an easy to find B2B cohort, you may want to turn to an external recruiting software like UserInterview.com or Respondent.io. There are also local agencies to help you find more local audiences in international markets. 

If you are trying to recruit via an external paid channel like this, make sure to budget it in your research plan. These channels are very quick to set up research calls with, but they do come with an added cost.

If you’re running research with a niche B2B audience or are defining your audience based on behaviour on your product (e.g., user who churned in the last 2 weeks), you may need to use internal recruiting methods. This means reaching out to your own users via email, intercom, or via your sales / support team.

If you are recruiting existing customers, make sure to budget in the time it takes to recruit these users. It may take a few days to weeks to gather the relevant user emails and schedule calls, although paid incentives for research help this move much faster.

If you are planning to recruit your own customers, use our Ultimate Guide to Recruiting Your Users for Interviews and Usability Tests . This article has templates for outreach, incentive payment options, and many tactical tips to help you streamline internal recruiting.

Remember, the accuracy and relevance of your research findings depend on the quality of your participants. Take the time to identify and engage users who genuinely reflect your intended audience. This will help you create a research plan that generates insights that drive impactful design decisions.

Step 4: Choose Your Research Methods

Choosing the right research methods is necessary for getting the most out of your UX research plan. Before kicking off your study, make sure to review the possible ways you can answer your research question as well as any constraints you face regarding time, money, or tooling.

If you’re not sure which methods exist, read through this article on UX Research Methods . This article provides an overview of the different methods, so you can choose the ones that are right for your project. It covers everything from usability testing to card sorting, and it includes practical advice on how to conduct each UX research method effectively.

When you’re actually selecting the right method out of the available options, here are the key questions you need to ask yourself: 

• Your research goals: What do you hope to learn from your research? The methods you choose should be aligned with your specific goals. For example, if you need to deeply understand user motivations, a user interview is much better fit than a survey.
• Quantitative vs. qualitative: Do you want to collect quantitative data (numbers and statistics) or qualitative insights (in-depth understanding)? Different methods are better suited for different types of data. If you need to know the percentage of users using Zoom vs GoogleMeet, a 5-person user interview won’t get you that data but a 100 person survey with a representative sample might.
• Resources and time: How much time and money do you have to spend on your research? Some methods are more time-consuming or expensive than others. For instance, an ethnographic study where you travel to see your users is obviously more expensive and time-consuming than a 30-minute remote user interview.

By considering these factors, you can choose a combination of research methods that will help you understand your users better.

Step 5: Define your timelines & budgets

Now that you know your target audience (and therefore recruiting method) and your research methods, you can define the timelines and budgets your stakeholders care about.

• Timelines: How long will it take to conduct your research? This will depend on the methods you choose, the number of participants you need to recruit, and the amount of data you need to collect. For example, user interviews can typically be conducted within a few weeks, but usability testing can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the number of participants and the complexity of the product or service being tested.
• Budgets: How much money will you need to conduct your research? This will depend on the methods you choose, the number of participants you need to recruit, and the cost of data collection and analysis. For example, user interviews can be conducted for a few hundred dollars, but usability testing can cost several thousand dollars, depending on the number of participants and the complexity of the product or service being tested.

Step 6: Identify your assumptions

Sometimes without realising it, our research study comes packaged with a set of assumptions about who users are and what they want.

Before kicking off your study, it’s important to identify these assumptions in writing and align on them with your team.

For instance, if you’re running research on how to improve a Slack integration, your in-built assumptions may be:

• Users already use this integration
• It’s worth improving this integration further

Once you’ve laid out these assumptions in advance of your research, you can check them against existing data and keep them in mind when you’re reviewing your research findings.

For example, if analytics data shows that no users use your Slack integration, it may call into question the research you’re running today or change the audience you speak to about it.

Instead of speaking to existing Slack integration users, your audience may need to be companies that have Slack but have not downloaded your Slack integration.

Your research questions may also shift from “Why do you use the Slack integration?” to “Why not? ”

In general, taking a moment to review research assumptions helps you be more aware of them throughout your research study.

Step 7: Define the research questions

This is a pivotal phase in the UX research process. It's when you define the questions that will guide your data collection efforts. These questions will be your compass, directing your research toward meaningful insights that drive product improvements.

Here are some tips for crafting and structuring your research questions:

• Make sure each question is aligned with your overall research objectives. This will ensure that your findings address the core goals of your project.
• Make your questions clear, concise, and specific. Ambiguity can lead to varied interpretations and muddy insights.
• Frame your questions from the user's perspective. Use language that aligns with your target audience to ensure your questions are relatable.
• Avoid leading questions. These are questions that nudge participants towards a particular response. Aim for neutrality to get real insights.
• Use a mix of open-ended and closed-ended questions. Open-ended questions allow participants to provide detailed responses, while closed-ended questions offer predefined answer choices.
• Structure your questions logically, moving from broader inquiries to more specific ones. This will help participants to follow your thought process.
• Limit the number of questions. You want to get comprehensive insights but don't want to overwhelm participants with too many questions.
• Cover the core areas relevant to your project. This could include user pain points, needs, preferences, expectations, and perceptions.
• Pilot-test your questions with a small group of participants. Their feedback can help you to identify unclear or misleading questions.
• Make sure your questions are relevant to the research methods you will be using. For example, usability testing may focus on task-oriented questions, while interviews explore broader experiences.

Here are some examples of well-defined research questions:

1. Usability testing:

• How easily can users navigate the Looppanel account setup process?
• What challenges do users face when uploading their recorded calls to Looppanel?
• How intuitive is the process of setting up Calendar integration on Looppanel?

2. Interviews:

• Can you describe a recent experience you had with the Looppanel customer support?
• What motivated you to sign up for Looppanel for your user research needs instead of other platforms?
• In your view, how does the platform assist in taking your user interview notes effectively?

By carefully defining your research questions, you can ensure that your data collection efforts are focused and meaningful. This will help you to gather the insights you need to improve your product or service and deliver a better experience to your users.

Step 8: Align with your team

Now that you’ve thought through the basics, it's essential to get buy-in from your team and stakeholders on the final plan.

A lot may have happened between your first requirement-gathering meeting and when your plan is finalized. Take the final plan to stakeholders and make sure they are aligned:

• The research question you’re going to answer
• How your study ties to business goals
• Which users you’ll be engaging with
• Which method you’ll be using
• What your timelines look like
• What your budget looks like (if applicable)

This step is really important because if there’s a lack of alignment between you and your key stakeholder, you may end up with findings nobody is going to act on.

Example UX Research Plan

Here is an example UX research plan for improving the onboarding experience of a mobile app. Use this example as a guide to help you create your own plan!

Psst… we also have a template below that you can copy and use!

Project Title: Research study to improve onboarding experience on DuoLingo 

Business Goal: We want to increase the activation rate of new users on the app.

Project Goal(s) :

• Identify key drop-off points on the onboarding flow
• Identify why users are dropping off at these points

Target Users: People from the 15-40 age group in North America who have not used Duolingo before.

• MixPanel analytics data to identify existing drop-off points for users
• Usability testing with the think aloud protocol to understand why users are dropping off at those points

Timelines: The study will run for 4 weeks:

• Week 1: Analyzing existing analytics data & recruiting participants
• Week 2: Running usability tests
• Week 3: Analyzing results
• Week 4: Presenting findings

Budget (if applicable): Anticipated spend of $500 on recruiting.

Key Research Questions These are the research questions we’ll be gathering data on :

• At which point(s) in the onboarding process are users most likely to drop off?
• What are the common reasons users cite for discontinuing the onboarding process?
• How do users perceive the clarity of instructions during the initial setup stages?
• Are there any specific usability issues that lead users to abandon the onboarding flow?
• How do users' prior experiences with language learning apps impact their expectations of DuoLingo's onboarding?

UX Research Plan Template

We’ve also created a UX Research plan template you can use easily duplicate and use for your own work.

Click here to get Looppanel's UX Research Plan emplate.

This template contains sections for:

• Project Title
• Business Goals
• Project Goals
• Target Users
• Research Methods
• Timelines & Budgets
• Key Research Questions

Table of Contents

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How to Create a Solid UX Research Plan in 7 Steps

The importance of user experience is pivotal for your brand’s perception. Hence it is pretty evident that you seek a well-defined UX research plan before starting a project. The plan would ensure everyone is on the same page and clearly define the goals of your project. The idea behind user research is to examine how a system, service, or product is utilized by its users to learn more about their needs, behaviors, and goals. The research is helpful in designing and developing the product to improve its usability and user satisfaction. The plan will clarify that the design choices are based on user insights, resulting in services and products that meet user expectations. So objectives and deliverables should be sorted out before initiation. UX research also lets you learn about your target audience's preferences, requirements, and behaviors. This article will tell you how a well-defined research plan will benefit in better designing a project and what are the essential tips to create a solid user research plan. Let's dig in!

What is a UX Research Plan?

A research plan could be in document or spreadsheet form that serves as an overview and aids in initiating a project. It should be co-created and shared with essential stakeholders to ascertain that everyone on the product team knows what to expect. This means it shouldn't exist in just one person’s head but should be mutually constructed. Being employed at the research project's beginning means that such plans provide a clear-cut summary of the who, when, what, and why. This guarantees that your research remains connected to addressing the initial primary research questions.

What Benefits Can a User Research Plan Bring to Your Team?

The biggest question that arises while making UX research plans is considering perspectives. After all, how can you anticipate what users might require, say or desire? It's crucial to make an effort because random activity rarely results in progress toward your goals. Also, making changes as you proceed with your plan is okay.

Let's pinpoint some of the benefits a UX research plan provides

• Encourages Alignment Such plans are mutually orchestrated. The same objective is defined, and all stakeholders agree to follow procedures leading up to that objective. The plan also sorts issues related to conflicts of interest that could develop later during the project.
• Stakeholders involvement If the plan is unclear, stakeholders are more likely to lack motivation and behave as observers rather than engaged participants in the research. Hence an effective UX research plan can make stakeholders connect properly with the study and its findings.
• UX Goals Set are the Goals achieved A carefully crafted UX research plan will specify the desired results and the milestones that will be used to gauge progress. These serve as a benchmark for evaluating how the plan is developing and determining whether revisions are necessary to keep the plan on track.
• Increased Effectiveness A research plan will aid you in streamlining the procedure for conducting research and eliminate pointless or redundant efforts. This is done by keeping the precise research methodologies and activities to be carried out in check.

Now that you have checked out how an effective UX research plan has many benefits. Let us highlight the components that every UX research plan should have.

How can you tell when to begin a user research project?

Before indulging ourselves, get into the mechanics of making a plan for user research. It's crucial to think about when user research is most beneficial. Ensure you're devoting time to research where it will be most helpful. ‍ Let's discuss the conditions when UX research becomes a priority. It may be time to give UX research priority.

• You need more innovative concepts for features or other projects that address user needs.
• You recently launched a highly successful or unsuccessful product effort. Now you're still determining what lessons may be drawn from the event for further development.
• Your team is divided or needs more information regarding the most pressing user needs.
• When developing a new flow or feature, you might wonder what the perfect user experience would be

It might not be the time for UX research.

• You need more time to refine whatever product aspect you want to study.
• Your existing inquiries about your users are driven more by curiosity than desire.

Conducting user research makes sense if you have a valuable justification to complete the study and establish actionable insights. Let's assume you've given this some thought and are now prepared to begin. Here is the step-by-step guide to creating a solid UX research plan.

What Every UX Research Plan Should Include

“A problem well stated is the problem half solved.”

Highlighting the Problem statement at the beginning of your research plan would deem highly influential during the study. Along with the problem statement, the details of your objectives, technique, brief, and reporting should all be included in your strategy. In addition to assisting you as a researcher, a research plan helps stakeholders align and ensures everyone knows the project's timeframe, objectives, and scope. ‍ Researchers are ensured that they have an established path and structure for their investigations by including these crucial components in a UX research plan. The strategy acts as a road map, directing the research procedure and assisting in generating insightful data.

How to Write a UX Research Plan

There are only so many best ways to develop a UX research plan, as every company is unique. The teams performing in the company could be in charge of achieving various business objectives. ‍ We'll outline the steps to consider when designing your plan in this section.

• Presenting the problem statement.
• Objectives behind the study
• Research Techniques
• List of Participants
• Test Strategy
• Timeline of the procedures
• How will you be presenting your research?

Let's understand all these one by one.

Step 1: Presenting the Problem Statement

As with most plans, you should begin by stating the issue you're trying to tackle in as much detail as possible. The same applies to a UX research plan. Your problem statement must be precise, clear, and provide enough information to the stakeholders. In this way, they can comprehend the study's core issue. ‍ Problem statements do not appear out of thin air. Your customer service team, often dealing with client issues, your customer service team is an excellent place to seek inspiration. Building a solid UX research plan begins with knowing what data is available and what information is still needed. Once you are done presenting your problem statement, It's time to specify your objectives.

Step 2: Objectives behind the study

You will represent a much clearer picture if you define your objectives via

• What you’re doing
• Why you're doing
• What you hope to learn

Every task you give and question you pose to research participants should be motivated by your established objectives. This implies that “being specific” is crucial. You can specify the project scope and the questions you must pose to participants to gather the data you need by setting explicit objectives. Anything and everything becomes a research question if the scope is narrow enough, which is challenging to manage. Begin with a problem statement, and specify your objectives to achieve the goals. Then develop tasks and questions that will ask participants the right questions to elicit the correct information.

Step 3: Research Techniques

Based on the pre-determined objectives, the next step is to select the research methodology to help you reach your stated goals. Broad issues must be addressed before delving into particular research techniques or UX research strategies. What types of UX research are there, then? Although we won't go into great detail here, the following methods are widely used and accepted in research studies.

• Qualitative research methodology
• Quantitative research methodology

Brief difference between qualitative and quantitive research Although qualitative vs. quantitative research may seem intimidating, the ideas are simple. Whether you call it research or something else, most business professionals desire to learn about their customers. First and foremost, it is false to imply that qualitative and quantitative research are incompatible. Even though quantitative research is the approach that receives the most credit, the two complement one another. Together they can provide a more comprehensive understanding of a situation or problem. Both are important for gauging your customers' experiences.

Quantitative Study The process of gathering and interpreting numerical data is known as quantitative research. Presenting data as numbers seeks to identify trends and averages, make forecasts, examine causality, and extrapolate findings to larger groups. Crucially, quantitative research differs from qualitative research in that it uses numbers. This is thus because numbers and statistics are the results of quantitative studies.

Qualitative Study Qualitative data differs from quantitative data in that it focuses on the why and how of human behavior in a particular scenario. It is obtained by examining participants in their natural surroundings. It works particularly well for learning about people's beliefs, attitudes, and actions. At UserTesting, contributor observation and interviews are used to get qualitative data.

Step 4: List of Participants

The correct participants (and the appropriate number of them) are one of the most crucial components of a successful UX research plan. The number of participants you should include in your UX study is a topic of discussion. The best answer will depend on the questions you're seeking to answer. You'll require a larger sample size if you're looking for user trend information. This will assist you in establishing quantitative data so you can make a stronger argument to your stakeholders. In addition to participant count, you should consider how closely study participants should resemble your target audience. There are two schools of thought about selecting your participants. Either get super specific or go for a wider reach and general audience. There are, of course, instances in which one will be better suited to your research needs than the other. Hence, You must revisit your established objectives and unanswered questions to determine who your participants should be.

Step 5: Test Strategy

Making a fantastic test strategy requires a certain level of skill. Yes, it can take some getting used to. Test plans can come in various forms, from moderated user interviews to unmoderated usability tests to prototyping. You're in luck since our team has created a user-friendly course for creating test strategies. Benefits of Usability testing For the majority of businesses, user testing is always an essential phase. Following random ideas is preferable to having a solid usability test plan. With a project plan, you can save time and money on practical endeavors. You run the additional risk of releasing a product that needs to meet client demands or expectations. The benefits of developing a usability testing plan are as follows:

• It makes it simpler to incorporate UX testing. Your project team may benefit most from UX research if you know how and when to do it.
• It enables you to get the most out of user research. With thoughtfully organized UX testing, you will obtain the high-quality information required for the success of your project.
• It facilitates and expedites the analysis of UX data. You will find it simpler to analyze the data you gather if you are clear about the objectives you want to pursue.

Step 6: Timeline of the Procedures

Scheduling is essential to negate delays. Yes, making a UX research plan requires determining your study's schedule. Any project must consider the research project's duration and the anticipated release date of the results. Even if it isn't accurate, establishing an approximate schedule will help you control stakeholders' expectations of the procedure and the outcome. A timetable should be easy to create if study techniques and participant numbers have been chosen. How long ought should UX research last? The size of each project determines the duration. Our experience has shown that research often takes between one and five weeks. Think about the following elements while estimating:

• Time required for data collection and analysis
• the number of team members you can have participated in user interviews and other research activities
• time for recruitment
• Considering the human element. People might cancel or show up late for an interview.

Many researchers avoid setting deadlines or scheduling as it can become tricky. But developing a timeline to get a fist of things is always stressed upon.

Step 7: How will you be presenting your research?

The findings of your project will be compelling and implemented throughout the organization if you plan how you'll present them from the beginning. If you establish this understanding immediately, you will successfully engage stakeholders. Ultimately, it's crucial to pick a presentation format appropriate for your main stakeholders for the sake of your UX research plan. It doesn't matter if you communicate the information to stakeholders through a report, a slide deck, or a PowerPoint presentation. You would want to do it in a way that makes them feel at ease and encourages their openness.

Appendix in research plan (Optional)

In this section, you can list any other resources pertinent to your UX study. It might consist of the following:

• Exclusive document links
• Meeting summaries
• Stakeholder feedback

You can record anything that has been discussed before or throughout the UX research study in this section to preserve it all in one easily searchable location.

UX Research Plan should be Ethical

One thing that is integral to any UX research plan is ethical considerations. However, it is much too frequently forgotten in user research plans. When we ask specific individuals to interact with an app and share their experiences, should we pay extra attention to ethics? Whatever your stance, it is always preferable to go overboard regarding ethical considerations than not go far enough. Ethical considerations need to be kept in mind when conceiving the research plan.

• Obtain approval to record or film the procedure.
• Obtain consent to use the data for research (specifically stating if it is required for publication is required)
• Explain the entire UX research process to the participants.

It can be annoying, and many researchers believe it is unnecessary to explain the history of the study, the methodologies, and the study's objective to every participant. However, people must be aware of what they give and receive. Create a Research Participation Agreement (RPA) to secure the ethical issues and save time on justifications. The document is optional to be lengthy or written short.

Key Takeaways

Following these steps will ensure you in creating an effective UX research method. It's well worth your time, even though it may seem tedious. A significant accomplishment that will be recognized and valued by everyone involved. A robust research plan can ensure a solid research project, whether it actively directs your interviews or provides an active framework for organizing your thoughts. So, orchestrate an excellent research plan by signing up for UX courses today.

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How to create an effective UX research plan (2024)

Last updated

23 January 2024

Reviewed by

Miroslav Damyanov

Short on time? Get an AI generated summary of this article instead

You wouldn’t build a home without a solid architectural plan. The plan ensures what you create fits the brief and will delight future residents. The same level of planning is needed when it comes to research.

Think of your research plan as the building blocks of your UX research , helping to streamline the process, firm up your goals, and ensure the results are reliable and actionable.

Let’s take a look at what a UX research plan is, and how to create one.

• What is a UX research plan?

A UX research plan outlines the research problem, objectives, strategies, participant profiles, budget, timeline, and methodology. It serves as a guide for researchers, designers, and project managers to understand the scope of the project and carry it out efficiently.

There’s no one format for UX research plans––they may be compiled into a slideshow, a simple document, or a more comprehensive report. The important thing is not the format, but that the plan covers all the essential elements of the research your team will perform.

In some cases, a UX research plan could also be required to secure funding or approval for the project.

• What's the difference between a research plan and research design?

A research plan and research design are two related, but distinct concepts. A research plan includes a summary of the intended research design.

Research plan

This outlines the goals, methodology, and strategies of the research. The research plan is typically compiled into a document or slideshow.

A research plan outlines the goals of the project while providing an overall structure.

Research design

This is the specific method by which the research will be conducted. It includes the UX research methodologies and tools that will be used to conduct the research, the sampling size, and the data collection process .

The focus of research design is to decide which research techniques will be used, how the information will be gathered, and how the analysis will be conducted.

• What are the benefits of using a UX research plan?

Having a solid foundation, or specific outline, for any UX research you wish to conduct can make the process much faster, more accurate, and more specific.

The UX research plan helps teams to firm up their goals, set clear research questions , decide on the research methods they’ll use––ones that will be most effective––and consider how the results will be analyzed. This process allows teams to consider contingencies and differing methods, and to make adjustments accordingly.

An effective research plan can also save organizations money by providing a clear path to success, highlighting potential challenges, and helping a team gather all the elements for success.

Some key benefits of research plans include:

Problem definition: having a research plan helps you clarify the problem you’re solving. A well-defined problem statement can firm up the focus and direction of the research, outlining specific issues and challenges you’ll look to address.

Goal clarity: all research projects should begin with clear goals. This ensures your research is relevant, useful, and measurable for your team’s needs. Creating a UX research plan can help you not only create goals but also consider if they are feasible and relevant for the business and the user.

Stakeholder alignment: creating a detailed UX research plan can help align all key stakeholders. This guides everyone toward the same goal, provides clarity for objectives, ensures teams don’t work in silos, and helps the whole organization work together to improve the customers’ user experience . It can also be useful to collect questions and requirements from stakeholders to keep them engaged with the research.

Method choices: through the process of defining the UX research goals, strategies, and data-collection process, it can be simpler to see the right research method for your project. Potential issues or roadblocks will become clear, allowing your research to be conducted more effectively.

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• What should a UX research plan include?

While there is no one way to create a UX research plan, the most effective plans include a few core elements.

Some of the most essential aspects of a UX research plan include:

Challenges: identify challenges that users and the business may encounter. These may be fluctuations in revenue, friction in the user experience, insufficient information, or issues related to customer service. Addressing these challenges ensures the research aligns with the pertinent issues from user and business perspectives.

Research questions: pinpoint the specific questions that will be asked during the project to check they align with the overall project goals.

Methodology: note the UX research methods that will be used during the project. These should also be relevant to the overall goals and challenges.

Timeline: clarify timings so teams won’t complete research that’s too big for the budget or time available. Timings will impact what can be researched and even the results.

Participant selection : as part of UX research, usually participants are required to answer questions or complete exercises. Choosing the right number of relevant participants can be challenging. Having a plan in place for this can streamline that part of the process and prevent teams from getting bogged down by delays.

Data-collection methods: make sure your team knows how the data will be collected and analyzed. Having this as part of your plan can ensure the data collection aligns with the project goals and access to your team’s resources.

Budget: include your research budget to help you allocate resources, estimate overall costs, and prioritize activities. A clear budget will support the approval process, aid in risk management, and increase accountability for teams.

Ethical considerations : ethics are important in any research, whether or not it involves humans. UX studies typically involve participants, so it’s important to consider a range of critical factors. Personal privacy, potential for harm, and persuasion are just a few areas to be aware of.

Risk: all projects have the potential for risk. Considering what those risks are before the project starts can help the team consider potential contingencies.

• How to create a UX research plan

Creating a UX research plan doesn’t have to be intimidating. By following a framework and including essential elements, you’ll streamline the research process and reduce work down the line.

Let’s look at some best-practice steps.

1. Define the challenge 

UX research seeks to understand the pain points, wants, and needs of your customers so you can develop better products and services. Before beginning UX research, you need to understand what challenge you are looking to understand, and solve, for your business and customers. Here are three examples:

We seek to uncover the root causes behind the significant drop-off rates at the shopping cart, aiming to identify user behaviors and potential barriers to retention.

Our focus is on understanding and evaluating the factors influencing user behavior to transition from free to paying platform members, aiming to optimize our conversion rate.

Our current challenge is to identify functionalities and features for our B2B fitness coaching app that will drive conversion and revenue.

Before diving in, it’s important to know what the challenge is, and therefore, what the UX research will be focused on.

2. Set your goals 

Once the challenge is clear, it’s essential to set your specific goals for the research. The goals you set at the start will define the entire project, so this aspect is worth spending time on.

There may be several areas that your team would like to research, but, for the best results, keep things simple. Set a small number of goals that relate to the core challenge. You can order your goals by priority to select the most essential ones for your project.

An example of a goal could be:

To decrease shopping cart drop-off rates by 25% by identifying and solving the challenges our customers experience.

3. Select your research method 

Based on the goals you’ve set, choose a relevant research method. With many research methods to choose from–– customer interviews , focus groups , user testing , A/B testing, surveys , diary studies , analytics, and more––choosing the right method is important.

First, consider whether quantitative or qualitative research (or a mixed approach) will be most helpful for your project. Then select a method that aligns with your project objectives.

To discover why users are abandoning their shopping cart, for example, a range of methods may be relevant. These include:

User testing: users could be tasked with adding items to a shopping cart and completing a purchase while being observed by researchers. This may reveal moments of friction or difficulty in the checkout process.

Surveys: users could also be asked to provide feedback immediately after using the shopping cart. This would help researchers gain insights into customers’ feelings and frustrations directly after interacting with the product.

Heatmaps: some tools show where users are clicking and using their cursor. This can help identify areas where users pause, suggesting they are challenging or confusing.

A/B testing: presenting users with two different options for the shopping cart could help teams refine what elements, design features, and interfaces work better for conversion.

4. Identify participant sources

Once you’ve chosen your method or methods, determine how you’ll select participants. Don’t select them merely based on demographic factors; also focus on key behavioral patterns. This can be a challenging aspect of UX research, and it’s helpful to include it in your UX research plan to make the process more efficient.

Your current customers can be an ideal source of participants. Other ways to attract participants include reaching out to recruitment research agencies, putting a callout on social media, sending an email to customers, or using incentives. Pop-up surveys on your website and app could also prove useful.

5. Run a test

At this stage, it’s helpful to run a test of your plan methodology to check it works effectively. That could mean having a team member try out your survey or trialing a usability test within the team to spot any issues.

By running a test, and ironing out any issues that may arise, you’re more likely to have fewer challenges when conducting the actual research.

6. Analyze the data

Deciding how the data will be collected and analyzed––including how those results will be shared with the broader team, is an essential aspect of a UX research plan.

Keep in mind that the data you collect and analyze should link back to your goals and the overall challenge your team is looking to solve.

• Tips for your UX research plan

To save time and make your UX plan as effective as possible, here are some best-practice tips:

Set clear goals: to get the best results from your research and ensure your UX research plan is comprehensive and effective, insist on clarity in your goals. Clear goals lead to cohesion among stakeholders, useful results, and addressing of business and customer challenges.

Understand your target market: your UX research should speak to your target market, solving their problems. Deeply understanding your market will direct you to the right type of research to keep delivering better products and services.

Set out an accurate timeline: to keep your project on track and ensure you have the appropriate resources to complete it, an accurate timeline is essential. The timeline should be well thought out, taking into account potential roadblocks and challenges.

Allow for flexibility: as you conduct the research, you may discover unexpected data or new insights. Some degree of flexibility in a UX plan, and your timeline, can be useful to allow for these potential diversions.

• Examples of a good UX research plan

To help you get started with your UX research plan, we’ve created this UX research plan template for your next project.

Feel free to use this as a guide, adding or removing elements as you see fit.

This example covers a UX team wanting to boost resubscriptions for their dog-sitting app.

50% of users are not renewing their app subscription.

To understand why some users are not renewing their app subscriptions and use this information to increase app resubscribes by 20%.

Research questions

What areas of the app are causing friction for users?

What aspects of the app provide the most value?

How can the app be streamlined for a boosted user experience?

How do user preferences and expectations align with the current offerings of the app, and are there opportunities for adjustments to better meet user needs?

How does the app compare to competitors in terms of subscription models, features, and overall user satisfaction ?

Methodology

Surveys: conduct surveys with a relevant number of participants [the number you survey will depend on the population size, confidence level, and margin of error you are willing to have] who have just failed to renew their app subscription. Understand from these users what areas of the app caused the most friction and where more value could be added.

Usability testing: perform usability testing with a representative user sample to identify any usability issues that might be contributing to the drop in subscription renewals. Observe users interacting with the app and gather feedback on the user interface , navigation, and overall user experience.

Analytics: assess the analytics of customers who decide not to renew their subscriptions against those who do. Look for any differences in demographics, the way they use the app, and more.

Participants

[Choose existing or recent customers as participants so their insights are relevant to the project.]

Week 1: establish participants

Week 2–3: perform surveys and usability tests

Week 4: gather key analytics

Week 5: perform analysis

Week 6: collate and share results

Stakeholders and responsibilities

[Identify key stakeholders including project managers, product owner, vice president (VP) of product, researchers, UX managers, designers, data engineers, and more.]

Risks and mitigation

Some potential risks include:

Low participant turnout: ensure a sufficient number of participants complete the survey so that the results are valid. The use of incentives may be necessary to boost completion rates.

Data challenges: there may be challenges when collating customer analytics. To ensure this is seamless, use a platform where all data can be housed in one place. And use an experienced engineer who can solve challenges if they arise.

Success metrics

Deeply understand what customers value in the app and what areas cause friction

Use the information gathered to make changes to the app to provide more value and less friction

Increase app resubscriptions by 20%

• What's next after your user research plan?

Rather than diving straight into the research once your plan is in place, make sure your team validates your research plan. This will help you yield the results you are hoping for.

The plan should engage the relevant stakeholders to get them on board. Some research plans may also need to be approved by a funding body before further steps are taken.

Once all relevant parties are in agreement, the next step is to get started in line with the agreed timeline.

• An effective UX research plan

Good pre-planning helps your UX research meet your goals and pleases your customers.

While it might be tempting to jump into UX research, having a solid plan in place will ensure you take the necessary steps at the right time, you won’t overlook key aspects of research, and all stakeholders are aligned before the research begins.

Ultimately, a good plan can help your team perform effective UX research that benefits those who matter the most––your customers.

What are the key questions for UX research?

The questions you ask in UX research will be unique to your project goals and objectives. Some example UX research questions include:

User questions:  

What are our user’s demographics?

What problems do people seek to solve with our app?

What are our user’s key pain points ?

Satisfaction:

How satisfied are our users with our product offering?

Would our users recommend us to a friend?

Efficiency:

Are our products providing efficiency?

Are our products giving a streamlined user experience?

What is a good UX research process?

A beneficial UX research process is one that ultimately improves the product experience for users. Typically, the process includes:

A specific challenge: rather than researching too generally, understand the challenge or challenges the research is looking to understand better.

Clear goals: have clarity in your UX research goals, otherwise the data will not necessarily benefit the end user.

Relevant methodology: the right research method, which aligns with the goals and overall challenge, will ensure you gather relevant data.

Deep analysis: once you have amassed your data, analyze it to ensure insights can be found and acted upon.

What are the 5 stages of UX research?

There are five core steps in UX research:

Setting goals

Selecting participants

Choosing a relevant research method

Data analysis

Reporting on and sharing the results with stakeholders

How do you plan a UX research roadmap?

A UX research roadmap helps to keep a team on track when working toward the overarching goals and objectives.

When creating a UX research roadmap, it’s helpful to:

Establish the strategy: that’s the challenge you’re looking to solve and the goals you’ve set.

Choose an effective tool: a tool for tracking the entire project—not just timings, but all the key steps—can save time and act as a source of truth for all parties to reference.

Define key check-in points: to keep a team on track and working toward the key goals, it’s essential to have check-ins. This will help establish progress across different members of the team and provide a chance to change tack if needed.

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How to Create a UX Research Plan [Free Template Inside]

Benjamin Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail”. While Benjamin Franklin wasn’t talking about UX research, the statement applies. 

Many researchers fail to plan because they assume they understand user research well enough to create a budget, timeline, process, and more. They conveniently forget that planning is the cornerstone of a successful project and expertise is never enough to see anything through. 

Creating a UX research plan allows you to leverage multiple perspectives from project stakeholders and teammates.  Stakeholders can help you understand where techniques might not work, timelines may be too tight, or budget insufficient to execute a research project. 

Research planning prevents surprises that may come up along the way. It reduces cost and helps you determine how each step of the UX research will be executed to ensure success.

In this guide, we’ll lead you through the steps of creating a UX research plan. You’ll also get a free template so you can create your first research plan immediately.

What Is UX Research?

UX research is the study of user interaction to obtain insights that improve the design process. UX researchers study a group of target users to collect and analyze data that leads to user-friendly products. 

The primary goal of UX research is to build products for the end-user based on real data not what you think the user wants. When you conduct UX research, you can give your audience the best solutions because you know what they need.

As a UX researcher, you could begin with qualitative research methods to collect data and understand the user’s needs and motivation. Next, you use quantitative measures such as usability testing to test your hypothesis and results.

What Is a UX Research Plan?

A UX research plan is a document that sets expectations and highlights the most important information you need to communicate with stakeholders in a research project. It is usually a collaboration between all stakeholders to ensure it meets the goals and objectives you’ve laid out.

A user research plan acts as a starting point to help you write easily and keep your team focused on the who, what, why, and when of a UX research project.

What Are the Benefits of Planning User Research?

Show Project Sponsors and Senior Executives the ROI of Your Research

In most scenarios, project sponsors do not care about the process or the user research techniques you choose. They want to know what your research will achieve and how much it will cost to execute. A brief research plan lays out the objective of the research and how it will benefit product design.

Engage Stakeholders

A written research plan is also a great way to engage stakeholders and ensure they’re involved with the research project and the results. You’ll also be leveraging the experience of team members who’ve conducted similar research in the past.

Keeps You Accountable

When you write something down, it looks different from what you pictured in your head. It eliminates the risk of missing steps in the process, going above budget, or losing sight of your research objectives. Think of a research plan as a list of checkpoints to make sure you’ve achieved each goal in your research.

Easier to Plug Holes in Your Process

A research plan helps you to learn what works or doesn’t work and questions you need to be asking. As you write down your plan and process, you can find holes and improve your research plan. It makes it easier to focus and prepare for the study.

How to Create a User Research Plan? 

1. Write the Background of the Research

The background section should be brief. Tell stakeholders and clients about the recent history of the project, why you’re conducting the research, and what you’re going to accomplish. In a few sentences (no more than five lines of text), everyone should understand the purpose of the study.

The background section should also include the problem statement. A few ways to identify the problem statement include interviews with stakeholders, a deep analysis of the current data, or team sessions to brainstorm.

2. What Are the Objectives of the Research?

You must have an objective before getting in a room with users. The research objective drives all the research questions you’ll be asking participants during the user interview process.

Why are you conducting user research? What problems do you hope to solve? What is the end goal after completing the research?

Getting answers to these questions should be a collaborative effort between stakeholders and team members involved in the project.

3. Define Stakeholders

Who are the stakeholders that will benefit from the results? Research project stakeholders could be employees in sales, customer support, C-level executives, or product teams.

When you’ve listed everyone you think should be involved, set up a meeting to brainstorm ideas and collect input. It’s easier to deliver the right insights when you’re involving the right stakeholders in your project.

4 . Study Existing Solutions

Have any studies been done on this topic in the past? Perhaps your competitors or in-house teammates have published previous findings that will work as the basis of your research? The answers will help you determine where to begin.

If your team uses Aurelius as a research repository , you’ll be able to easily search through past research projects to quickly find information and make Cross-Project Insights and recommendations from past research with your current project.

5. Recruit Participants

After defining the problem and objectives, it’s time to create a participant profile. Choosing the right participants is one of the most crucial parts of a project. 

When creating participant profiles start with characteristics such as occupation, age group, geography, and level of engagement with the product. Next, determine the number of participants to recruit for each UX research method. 

We advise internal collaboration with all stakeholders such as sales, marketing, and customer support teams to brainstorm a hypothesis on who your ideal user is. Analyze your competitors to see what type of users they have in their audience.

If you have a database, consider looking inwards to customers who already know your product. If you don’t, use a research recruitment platform to find participants. 

When recruiting externally, use a screener to hone in on your ideal participant. Is there a particular behavior you’re looking for? A qualifying action they must have taken within a specific timeframe? Do they need to be a certain age? Screeners ensure you’re bringing in the right users for your research.

6. Establish KPIs and Metrics of Success

How will success be determined?  What criteria will you use to check milestone achievements? Examples of success metrics include:

• Time on task
• Specific information about the user 
• Decisions that the collected data will help you make 
• Statistics you intend to create

7. Outline Scope and Focus of Research

Outlining the focus areas leads to efficient research planning. The deeper you’re able to hone in on the specific information you want to collect from the research, the more clarity you’ll have. 

8. Write Research Questions

This is the section where you’ll write down the research questions to ask during user interviews. Start by examining what you already know about the problem such as insights from previous research . Find the knowledge gaps and create questions to answer them.

When brainstorming research questions, it’s important to determine if the goal is to create a new design or to fix an existing design. 

If your objective is to build the right design, then your questions will focus on observing user behavior and leveraging mental models.

If the goal is to fix an existing design, then you’ll ask questions about usability to improve the current design. Whatever the goal is, aim for open-ended questions.

Here’s a comprehensive list of questions to ask when conducting UX research interviews

9. Determine Your Budget 

Budget plays a role in the amount of data you gather and how you conduct research. More budget equals flexibility to outsource to a dedicated recruitment service, run paid campaigns to attract more people, or even increase the incentives for participants.

More money also makes it easier to choose the right UX research methods that translate into quality insight. Conversely, with a small budget, you have to think of ways to stretch your funds such as using zoom over in-person meetings, limiting the number of research participants, or choosing inexpensive research techniques.

10. Establish Project Timeline

Having a timeline for executing the research plan lets stakeholders and clients know how long the research will take. There might be different expectations between what you think the timeline should be versus the client’s expectation. 

When establishing a timeline consider the following:

• The scale of the project
• The time needed to collect data for research analysis
• Time for recruiting research participants
• Number of teammates to engage in research activities
• Unforeseen circumstances such as participants showing up late or needing to reschedule for another day

11. Develop Research Protocols

The research protocol is a list of questions and tasks you’ll cover during in-person sessions. It also includes a list of research methods you’ve chosen. 

A common practice is to write down the opening and closing statement of your UX interview. It begins with an explanation of the product, research objectives, and how long each interview session will take. In the end, you thank the participant for their time and answer any questions they might have.

Make sure you get feedback from stakeholders on the research questions as well as the following:

• The duration of each session
• Tasks each research participant will complete during usability testing
• A script to guide each session
• How to record interviews and protect participant data

12. Determine the Research Methods

In this section, you’ll discuss the UX research methods you’ll use during the research and explain why you’ve chosen these techniques.

While there are dozens of research methods to choose from, your choices should be informed by your research questions. Some, like A/B tests and surveys, are suited for quantitative research while others like user interviews and contextual inquiries work best for qualitative research . 

Learn more about how to choose a UX research method plus options to choose from during user research

13. Choose UX Research Tools 

Similar to research protocols, the research tools you choose should be based on your research objectives and questions.

When choosing UX research tools, consider the following:

• Are you recruiting participants internally from your database or externally?
• Is it going to be a usability test?
• Will you conduct interviews via video conferencing?
• How will you store and analyze research data ?
• Are you going to A/B test certain elements for conversion?
• Will you conduct surveys to collect mass feedback?

There are different tools that fulfill each of these objectives. For example, you can recruit participants from platforms like User Interviews and Userbrain . You can build a research repository to store data and get insights with Aurelius . Tools like Optimizely and Crazy Egg are great for A/B testing.

Get a comprehensive list of UX research tools to complete each stage of the research process in this article

14. Draw Insights and Present your Research Findings

This is the final stage when creating a UX research plan. The insights will be determined by the goals of the research. Is the goal to improve an existing product or create a new product? Which stakeholders will need access to the result?

Make sure you document your process and include details about setbacks you faced along the way, methodologies used, and session materials. This way, your team can have an overview to look back on when conducting the next research project.

To get insight from your research data, use Aurelius to analyze dozens of notes, audio/video recordings as well as spreadsheets.

Create a new project in Aurelius, import your data from anywhere, find information quickly with Tags, search for patterns with Keywords, highlight major findings with Key Insights and make suggestions with Recommendations.

Aurelius turns your recommendations and key insights into shareable reports that you can customize as you like. You can share or present your research findings via email, a PDF, or a live link to your report.

Learn More About How Aurelius Can Help You Improve the Research Process 

Asides from having a plan of action for research issues, you must have a plan for working with research participants. 

A few things to do during the first interaction with research participants include:

• Inform users about the background of the research and what they’re signing up for
• Tell them how you plan to store their data
• Ask for permission to record the process
• Ask for permission to use their data for research purposes only
• Share details about the UX research process
• Tell them the methods you’re using to collect data 

If you feel like it’s too much information, remember that it’s better to overshare than to not give sufficient information.

Use a Template to Streamline UX Research Planning

Templates help you create research plans quickly. Think of it as a starting point for your research project. It includes all the essential elements you need to conduct research and communicate your findings.

Go ahead and download our free UX research plan template. Then, use the tips above to fill out the template.

Download our free UX research plan template

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Write A UX Proposal: How-To Guide

By Steven Douglas

User Experience design is big business , and there is money to be made. In fact, Andrew Kucheriavy reports in Forbes that on average, the return on investment for user experience is 9,900%. In layperson’s terms, that is a hundred dollars return on every dollar invested.

To achieve numbers like that, UX and UI designers need to deliver consistently excellent user experiences. That is where UX proposals come in. A UX proposal can help bolster the argument for user experience design and give stakeholders an understanding of a project and its scope.

If you want design-driven innovation , get used to writing UX proposals. A good proposal takes time to create and should not be rushed.

In this post, the Justinmind team will go over what UX proposal is and how you can start writing your own.

What is a UX proposal?

UX designs are rarely if ever, created on a whim. Any good designer will tell you that their decisions rely heavily on in-depth research and investigation. Even the smallest change to a UI element on a website or in a mobile app can cost thousands , if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Understanding this, it is clear that UX proposals have a firm place in the design process. But what is a UX proposal?

A UX proposal is an outline or plan of a proposed change to the UX design of a mobile app, website or product. A proposal outlines a problem and presents a solution

It is the UX designer’s job to articulate that problem-solution relationship in a proposal and offer the route to overcoming the problem in the best way possible.

A change can be anything from tweaking the position of UI elements or an overhaul of your product page.

When it comes to a brief, being brief is best.

Why Write a UX Proposal?

While a UX proposal at first glance may seem like a daunting undertaking, it is vital for both designer and stakeholder to be on the same page, understanding the same problems. A proposal acts as a reference for everybody involved in the project as well as the scope of the said project.

A UX proposal is useful because it sets expectations before a project starts, by defining in clear terms what will happen during the UX design process.

Despite UX design ‘s high ROI, its benefits are still not universally acknowledged . When it comes to selling your proposal, highlighting the benefits can help you get the green light. Some benefits of a UX proposal include:

• Better products
• Streamlined workflow
• Insight discovery

It is not uncommon to hear designers and clients alike use the term design brief when referring to a UX proposal. The terms are interchangeable so use whichever phrase you feel most comfortable with. We will refer to it as a UX proposal here.

When to Write a UX Proposal

UX and UI designers love to identify problems and offer practical solutions, but before you start getting stuck into your UX proposal, it is a good idea to first speak with your client before embarking on a proposal.

In sales, door-to-door salespeople will make their way through neighbourhoods to try and get people to buy their products. This first interaction is used to qualify leads and present products.

Then later down the line, another salesperson will usually come and close the sale. This is the traditional sales process condensed.

UX designers , in their way, have to qualify leads with their stakeholders before embarking on a proposal, which would lead to a close. A pitch, if you will.

The best time to write a UX design proposal is after you have whetted the appetite of your stakeholders – that is how you get buy-in for UX . In a meeting, at a cafe, or over dinner – where you explain the problem to them is not as important as the how .

If you want to start the conversation with stakeholders on good footing, try creating a Typeform so that onboarding is more successful. A Typeform is particularly useful if you are unable to meet in person.

Outline the problem in a clear and concise way. Offer the solution and, this is vital, explain how the solution is a benefit to them and the overall business goals.

According to Susan Farrell at Nielsen Norman Group, collaborating early with stakeholders like this can help prevent design problems and increase visibility for UX design .

To go back to the sales analogy, let us say our salesperson is selling double-glazed windows. Remember that people respond to benefits, not features. The customer does not necessarily care that the windows are double-glazed (a feature). But they will care that their heating bill will be reduced by 30% (a benefit).

When stakeholders understand the benefits, they will be more likely to come on board with your UX proposal. Whitney Hess believes that we should vow to serve our stakeholders with the same compassion and commitment as our users .

How to Write a UX Proposal

After you have got the go-ahead from key stakeholders, it is time to start crafting that all important proposal.

Any proposal will need to have a project name, date and details of who are the stakeholders involved.

Let us go over the steps which will show you how to write a UX proposal.

Define the problem

Here is where you state what is preventing you from reaching your goals. Defining the problem involves identifying the causes of the problem so that you can solve it.

Richard Olomo, a UX designer at Booking.com, writes that the definition stage helps us to string together atomised ideas for better insights .

Your problem statement should come out of an understanding of business objectives, the context of product use and user goals . When you know this information, you will be able to deliver business value with your proposed solutions.

To get that information, you will have to involve those who are affected by the problem with the following methods:

• Experimentation
• Observed events

A good tip is to maintain easy to understand language and avoid jargon when you write your problem statement .

When talking to key stakeholders, especially during the initial stages of your proposal, Jeffrey Zeldman suggests neutral listening to avoid the desire of solving problems and instead listen and truly hear what your stakeholders are saying. Stakeholders are people too , after all.

There are services available which can help you create a proposal. Services like PandaDoc are excellent if you want a drag and drop interface. The beauty of apps like PandaDoc is that you can include cost and margin calculations and payment deadlines.

Provide background information

Why is this proposal necessary? In this part of the UX proposal, you will outline what led to this plan. Feel free to discuss the history of the project. Maybe you have come across similar issues in the past. Here is where you will address that.

Understand your goals and expected outcomes

Your goals should not be a shopping list of items. In just a few sentences, you should succinctly outline the goals for the proposal. If you find that you have many goals, then you might need to create more than one proposal. Staying focused on just a couple of issues at a time can prevent everyone from being overwhelmed and create a better workflow.

For example: the goal of this UX design proposal is to create and implement a new design for the sign-up landing page to drive up conversions.

It does not need to be more complicated than that. In fact, the simpler, the better.

Propose deliverables

After you have explained the problem and helped stakeholders understand it, it is time to provide the solution by outlining the deliverables necessary to be successful. Most UX design projects involve research, design and then validation so keep this in mind when thinking about deliverables.

Try not to be vague at this stage. Something like “improve overall UX” can take many meanings depending on the reader. That is where KPIs and metrics come in useful.

Defining your deliverables will depend on the project at hand, but if we carry on our example from above your deliverables might involve:

• Carrying out a competitor analysis
• Creating personas
• Capturing UX requirements
• Wireframing
• Creating an interactive prototype
• User testing

Nick Babich has created a complete list of UX deliverables to help you out.

If your UX proposal involves a big overhaul, like a website redesign, do not be afraid to break down the deliverables into stages or phases so that the scope of the work is less momentous. If you break down the project timelines will be easier to estimate. Getting key team players involved in this process is vital considering 82% of UX professionals collaborate with other team members on deliverables they produce.

Likewise, if you are carrying out research, do not forget that you will need to undertake a separate research plan .

Assumptions

Assumptions are just events that are expected to occur during the project life cycle – often without any proof or evidence, hence the name assumptions .

You need to make assumptions about the project to be able to progress. Since you cannot have all the information at your disposal before you begin a project, making assumptions helps the process get off the ground and offers a loose but changeable structure.

An assumption could be something like: the prototyping development phase will be limited to 4 weeks and will include up to 4 revisions or research will be carried out every Friday, when the UX researcher is available, for 3 weeks .

Of course, your assumptions are subject to change, but that is okay because assumptions are not set in stone. Rikke Dam suggests even challenging your assumptions for better ideation and innovation .

What is the expected timeline and budget?

Be generous with your time. Giving yourself tight deadlines can lead to stress and poor work. If you are generous and realistic with how the project will pan out, it can help avoid any misunderstandings along the way.

If you know that there are parts of the project which are out of your hands or rely on external forces, do not neglect to mention that.

Consider using a Gantt chart . Gantt charts help illustrate the timeline of a project, can keep you on top of deadlines and are useful for highlighting milestones. They are simple, easy to read charts which break down the structure of projects and are a visual aid to project planning and scheduling.

When it comes to the budget, Quote Roller can help you. It is full of pricing features and can calculate your profit margins as well as apply discounts and even lets prospective clients comment to avoid dreaded back and forth. A neat feature of Quote Roller is that clients can pick items on an à la carte basis.

Good UX design can bring profit to the business. That much is known. Getting stakeholders on board is a different kettle of fish. A well-defined and thought out UX proposal can give UX designers the buy-in, influence and control they need to deliver a successful user experience.

Want to learn more?

Are you interested in the managerial and strategic aspects of UX? The online course on UX Management and Strategy can teach you the necessary skills on the subject and earn you an industry-recognized course certificate to advance your career. If, on the other hand, you want to brush up on the basics of UX and Usability, the online course on User Experience might be a better fit for you (or another design topic ). Good luck on your learning journey!

About Steven Douglas

Steven Douglas is Marketing Content Editor at Justinmind , a prototyping tool that allows you to prototype web and mobile apps so you can visualize and test your software solution before writing a single line of code. When he’s not in the middle of a deadline, he can be found hiking with his dog Fig or on the badminton court.

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UX Proposal: The Complete Guide To Writing A Successful One

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Home » Blog » UX Proposal: The Complete Guide To Writing A Successful One

Whether you’re  working on a website , network, product or service, the user experience you provide is one of the most important considerations you need to be thinking about – including the design experience . This post talks about writing a UX proposal.

A UX proposal is the process and plan of how to change, upgrade, or improve the said experience.

Within a successful proposal, everybody involved in the project will be able to know exactly what’s going on, and all departments  can effectively cross-communicate  to ensure that everything is carried out and processed efficiently and to the highest quality with minimal risk of mistake.

Even this alone shows the importance of a successful UX proposal, by how exactly do you go about doing this? Today, we’re going to explore everything you need to know about writing a comprehensive UX proposal, providing you with a complete guide to make sure you get it right the first time.

When is a UX Proposal Required?

Typically, a UX proposal will be used to address a problem or to improve a certain feature that ultimately enhances the user’s final experience. For example, you may have a navigation bar on your website, or a switch on one of your products.

However, once you’ve identified a problem and plan to take a chance, make sure you don’t jump straight into writing a proposal. Firstly, you’ll want to make sure everyone’s on board, the idea is cleared with the appropriate people and managers, and the business conditions are right in terms of time and money.

Writing a proposal can be a time-consuming venture when done properly, so you’ll want to make sure you’re not wasting your time writing a proposal that doesn’t need to be written. When you’ve identified a problem and been given the green light, then you can start writing.

Defining the Purpose

The first thing you want to when writing your proposal is to make sure that the final outcome is clearly defined. This is so everybody involved in the project is on the same page, and there’s no doubt about why the project is happening and what the end goal is.

“In some cases, you may need to research this to see whether there’s a problem. If you’re testing your website, you may need to interview testers and users to see whether there’s a problem in the first place, or you may need to run experiments, such as A/B testing,” — Mary Gooch, a designer at  Boomessays .

Research & Details

Once the issue has been identified, and your goals are clearly set, it’s always a good idea to add this information to the beginning of your proposal. This way, if someone new is to join the project in the future and needs to understand where the problem has arisen from, they can simply refer to this section.

Structuring Your Proposal

Next, before you jump into the actual writing and adding the details of your proposal, you’ll want to think about how you’re going to structure your proposal. Doing this early will save you time later on since you won’t have to keep moving things around.

For this, make sure every section is broken down into a clearly-labeled area where anybody will be able to find what they’re looking for with ease. Working in chronological order is a fair way to approach this, but it’s completely up to you.

As an example, you may follow this structure;

      1. Contents

      2. Introduction

      3. Goals of the project

      4. History of the proposed element of change

      5. The process

      6. Departmental information

      7. The final project

      8. Admin process

      9. Deadlines & Budget

      10. Notes

Of course, what you include in your structure will solely depend on what your proposal is and what you set out to achieve, and you may like to add and take things away as you see fit. You’ll also want to make sure your proposal is accurate now and as you write it.

Here are some writing tools that can help you create a successful UX proposal;

• State of Writing  /  My Writing Way

These two online resources are ideal for researching grammar and making sure your knowledge is up to date.

• Essayroo  /  Elite Assignment Help

Use these online proofreading tools to make sure your content is error-free, as reviewed by  Australian Reviewer .

• Via Writing  /  Simple Grad

These are two writing blogs that you can read for information on how to improve your writing skills and technique.

• Academized  /  UKWritings

These two online tools are ideal for editing your UX proposal, guaranteeing a high level of readability.

• Writing Populist  /  Let’s Go and Learn

Use these online writing guides to improve your writing skills for a more comprehensive UX proposal.

Highlight the End Goal

Perhaps you’re improving a feature on your website with the aim of boosting sales or allowing people to navigate your website easier which will hopefully improve the amount of time people are going to stay on your website.

Whatever it is you’re trying to achieve, you need to ensure this is outlined in your proposal. This is important since you’ll need to be able to track the success of your project to ensure it was a success, the desired outcome was met, and you can evaluate the process to improve it next time.

Explaining the Final Product(s)

While you want to be able to track the end goal of the project to see what benefits the improvement will make to your business, product, or service, you will obviously also need to highlight the actual changes you’re going to be implemented on a physical level.

This section should include what the UX element is going to change, what each department or team member needs to be produced, and what steps need to be taken in order to fulfill these changes and improvements.

The more detail you can include in this section, the more beneficial your proposal will be since there’s such little room for error. However, this will only be the case if you make sure that each department is present and providing input into this section.

Generating Assumptions

The assumptions section of your proposal is perhaps one of the most important yet remains one of the vaguest. This area details situations and events that could occur during the duration of the project, but there’s no proof that it will do so, although it’s simply keeping you prepared for the worst-case scenario.

“An example of a good assumption could be that you will be testing your prototype changes for four weeks and this will be limited to four weeks. In this time, you will have space for a maximum of five revisions over the course of three weeks,” — Taylor Mendes, a tech writer for  Big Assignments .

Of course, it may take six revisions to get your prototype to where you want it to be, hence why this is an assumption. These, however, are still necessary since you’ll need to budget for time and cost, and you’ll need to be able to set goals for people to stick to, so everything is completed in a timely manner.

This is also necessary for helping you track the progress of the project, so you know you’re on time and whereabouts everything is. It’s important to set up accurate and slightly challenging assumptions so everything can move at pace but don’t make the tasks impossible that the project is bound to fail.

Setting Deadlines & Budgets

With everything else in mind considered, you should now be able to accurately estimate and set deadlines for each stage of the project, as well as being able to estimate the budget. You’re going to want to be strict within this section, but as mentioned above, it’s important not to set your deadline too short or your budget too low that the project is guaranteed to fail.

Once this is set, be sure to proofread and check through your proposal to ensure everything is correct. When completed, you’ll have a successful UX proposal ready at your service!

This article is a guest post from Grace Carter. Grace is a tech editor at OX Essays  and  A ustralianHelp  websites. She curates blog content, manages online presentations and works on UX improvement. Additionally, Grace develops online courses on business writing at  Paper Fellows academic service.

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