Researching Ideation

Use Research to Inform Ideation

The Foundation of Research-Based Ideation

Thinking of ideas for your product design isn’t a random or mysterious process. The designs you create will be supported by research, feedback from user interviews, and learnings from observations. All designers have assumptions about users and what they think is important or challenging for those users. Often, these assumptions are based on the designer’s own needs and experiences. But, to come up with ideas for designs that meet users’ specific needs, your designs must be based on insights from actual user research, not assumptions.

Connecting Research Tools to Ideation

Our role as UX designers is to understand pain points and come up with ideas to solve them. The tools we use to expand our understanding of the people we’re designing for include empathy maps, personas, user stories, and user journey maps. A lot of planning and detail goes into using these tools effectively.

Empathy Maps in Ideation

Key Tool

An empathy map is an easily understood chart that explains everything designers have learned about a type of user.

Empathy maps help UX designers understand a user’s behavior when interacting with a product. Empathy maps focus on four main motivations of users:

What the user says
What the user thinks
What the user does
What the user feels

Empathy maps tap into our users’ minds and hearts to help us understand their thoughts and feelings in a given situation. The insights gathered from empathy maps allow us to come up with ideas for solutions that address the user’s problems and appeal to the user on a deeper level.

Personas Drive Design Focus

Personas are fictional users whose goals and characteristics represent the needs of a larger group of users.

As you’re ideating, it’s a good time to reference the personas you created to help you remember who you’re designing for. Ask yourself:

Are there any specific goals they want to achieve?
Are there any needs that you should design for in order to support the personas?

User Stories Prioritize Critical Needs

A user story is a fictional one-sentence story told from a persona’s point of view to inspire and inform design decisions. It introduces the user, lays out an obstacle, and states our ultimate goal.

The user story expands on the persona and deepens your understanding of a user group. A good user story can also inspire empathetic design decisions by making our approach user centered.

User Journey Maps Reveal Design Opportunities

A user journey is the series of experiences a user has as they interact with your product.

User journeys build off the personas and user stories you’ve already created. User journeys help you come up with ideas for designs that truly support the user’s needs and reduce their problems, or what we also like to call “pain points.”

How Research Informs Ideation Process

Creating Problem Statements

Together, empathy maps, personas, user stories, and user journey maps help us create a problem statement, or a clear description of a user’s needs that our design should address.

From Research to Solutions

After you empathize with users and define the problems they’re facing, you’re ready for the third stage in the design process: ideate. Your goal is to generate as many ideas as possible for potential solutions to the user problems you’ve identified.

Multiple Ideation Sessions

To do this effectively, you should:

Try multiple ideation techniques
Be prepared to have multiple ideation sessions
Push your creative boundaries
Think of new perspectives for your design approach
Remember that not all ideas have to be great - you won’t use them all

Real-World Application of Research-Informed Ideation

User Research Provides Direction

User research provides insights into:

How users behave
How users experience or think about a product
What users really need vs. what they say they need
Pain points and frustrations in current solutions
Opportunities for improvement and innovation

Research Findings Guide Ideas

Whether you conduct user research yourself or with the help of a designated UX researcher, your research findings will help you understand how to design your product based on what your users really need. As UX designers, we always keep users top of mind, so using findings from research can go a long way in informing the ideation process.

Avoiding Assumption-Based Design

Research-Based Design

Based on actual user insights, interviews, and observations. Leads to solutions that truly meet user needs.

Assumption-Based Design

Based on designer’s own experiences and preferences. Often misses the mark for actual users.

Continuous Research Integration

Research isn’t a one-time activity that happens before ideation. It should be an ongoing process that continues to inform and refine your ideas throughout the design process. This includes:

Pre-ideation research - Understanding users and defining problems
During ideation - Validating ideas against user needs and behaviors
Post-ideation research - Testing concepts and prototypes with users
Iterative research - Continuously gathering feedback to improve solutions

The most successful designs emerge when research findings are deeply integrated into every stage of the ideation process, ensuring that creative ideas are grounded in real user needs and validated through ongoing user feedback.