There are various methods and tools suggested by scholars and practitioners, few of them useful for design and user research are explained below:

1. User Interviews 

2. Focus Group 

3. Card Sorting 

4. Ethnography – Contextual Enquiry 

5. Shadowing 

6. Survey

User Interview

The interview process is one of the most common and powerful ways to understand people. It can be considered the foundation for many of the methods designers use. The interview is a method for discovering facts and opinions held by potential users of the system being designed.

The predominant form of interviewing is face-to-face and one-to-one. The interview can be organized around a set of structured questions, follow a more open format through semi structured questions or be unstructured with no prior questions.

It is important to prepare oneself much prior to the actual interview sessions. To be ready with a right questioner, which can help get the best insight about them.

Focus Group 

A focus group is a moderated discussion that typically involves 5 to 10 participants and chaired by an impartial moderator. Its aim is to solicit focused feedback on specific issues or design ideas, giving designers first-hand experience of user reaction. Through a focus group, one can learn about user’s attitudes, beliefs, desires, and reactions to concepts. Focus groups are a traditional market research technique. In a typical focus group, participants talk. During the focus group users tell about their experiences or expectations but the moderator doesn‘t get to verify or observe these experiences.

Card Sorting 

Card sorting is a research method used to understand the way that the intended users of a website naturally organize or think about different types of information or content. It‘s also a method service teams can use to sort and arrange. Card Sorting can be conducted in a variety of circumstances using various means – one-on-one, during workshops, by mail, or electronically.

Card sorting is very popular among researchers as this is an easy way to get user input and validation very early on in a project without requiring a lot of initial preparation. It is the simple technique that‘s easy for participants and clients to understand. It‘s relatively inexpensive and easily demonstrates its value. Online card sorting lets you reach many participants, in diverse locations, in a very short period of time.

Ethnographic Research 

Ethnography is a social research technique based on studying people‘s behavior in everyday contexts, rather than under controlled conditions (such as a conference room in a focus group testing center). Ethnographic techniques focus on informal conversation and observing the subjects in their environments, instead of on questionnaires or set lists of topics. This approach will allow you to be efficient while unearthing the true attitudes and behaviors of users, as opposed to merely gathering statistics.

In design research, the ethnographic approaches to participant interaction clarify complex human needs, behaviors, and perspectives. Field immersions unearth contextual and environmental factors that shape user experience. Rigorous, old fashioned desk research and expert consultation support the fieldwork. It is important to know that a good design research doesn‘t always end with good data.

Contextual Enquiries 

In a contextual enquiry, one watches and listens as the user works. They don't usually give the user tasks or scenarios. To understand what a user is doing or thinking they ask questions as the user navigates the site. The results are usually qualitative, observed data, rather than quantitative, measured data.

Shadowing 

Shadowing is observing people in context. It is important that the people one is observing are not aware of the same since that might lead to change in their natural behavior. It allows the researcher and designer to develop design insights through observation and shared experience with users.

Survey 

Surveys, which are also called questionnaires, are one of the key ways to gather quantitative data for analysis. Surveys rely on asking the same question in the same way to a large number of people, and obtaining a lot of responses. These responses are then analyzed using statistical techniques to obtain information that can be generalized about the whole population.