We have recently published an article about the advantages of remote vs. in-person user research studies. In the article, we argued how each methodology might affect the results of our study if we don’t prepare it carefully and pay special attention to the biases that might arise from each methodology.
It’s also important to remember that not all user research techniques can be used in both modes. Some are specific to remote mode and others are only available for in-person studies. In the following table, you can see the list of techniques, their availability and a list of tools that our team of user researchers regularly use for remote studies.
User Research Techniques and Tools
| TECHNIQUE | DEFINITION | IN-PERSON | REMOTE | TOOLS |
| Survey | Common method to find quantitative data | ✅ | ✅ | Survey Gizmo |
| True intent Studies | Technique that usually asks users about their experience during a real visit to an app or website, with the idea of getting better usability metrics and detecting improvements | ❌ | ✅ | UserZoom |
| Focus Group | Quantitative method that is normally used to evaluate opinions, feelings and attitudes of a group of participants. | ✅ | ✅ | Zoom |
| In-depth Interviews | Qualitative technique that’ s used to hear personal experiences, opinions, attitudes and perceptions of the participants | ✅ | ✅ | Zoom |
| Ethnographic Studies | Qualitative techniques that usually combines observation and interviews to analyze the users behaviour in a context of real use to understand their behaviour. | ✅ | .❌ | |
| User Diaries | It is used to collect qualitative information about the users’ behaviour, actions and experiences through a specific period, por example for a hiring process of an insurance for a vehicle. Users must document in a diary all the interactions with the process or experience being analyzed. | ❌ | ✅ | La gran mayoría de herramientas de encuestas online |
| Card Sorting | Users organize and group elements of a web according to their mental models, which helps us design an information architecture and optimized hierarchy of our website. | ✅ | ✅ | Optimal Sort |
| Tree Testing | Technique in which users are required to look for elements in a content tree that represents the information architecture of a real website. This helps us to verify if the organization, content and hierarchy are defined correctly from the participant’s mental models. | ✅ | ✅ | Optimal sort |
| Design Sprint | Ideation methodology to solve business problems in 5 days or phases. | ✅ | ✅ | Miro |
| User Testing | Real users are observed interacting with the product or service to identify the problems that can be found to be used, understand why and to look for solutions. | ✅ | ✅ | Lookback |
It is key to dedicate some time to try the tools for each technique. This way, you will easily be able to choose among them for each specific project or need and ensure you obtain the desired data and results. The tools in this table are the ones we regularly use in TeaCup Lab for Remote User Research projects. However, we strongly recommend you to look for the tool that best suits your project’s needs and goals. Luckily, there are more and more tools every year.
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