Not once in the past 12 months I’ve heard the complaint that user research is too time-consuming and resource-heavy to justify the underwhelming results it produces. Meanwhile, what I frequently see is that fellow designers, PMs, and startup founders skip or simply don’t do properly what can solve this issue – desk research. Let’s explore how properly done desk research can save time and resources, and improve your actual user research.
Definition of Desk Research
The Cambridge dictionary defines desk research as “a type of market research that involves collecting and examining information that already exists and is easy to get, such as company records, published government reports, and information in newspapers, magazines, and on the internet.”
In my opinion, the word “market” may be a bit misleading as it makes it feel like desk research isn’t about designing better products and addressing user needs when in reality it is. Often, product teams limit desk research to examining competitors, but it’s also valuable for understanding your target audience.
“Talk to your users” is a well-known mantra for building a successful product. The famous Y Combinator has been promoting it for more than a decade. A quick search on “talk to your users Y Combinator” brings you a lot of educational materials, including this 2014 lecture from a course that Y Combinator taught at Stanford University.
But what if you can’t talk to users for some reason, are new to a product or domain, or don’t know where to start? Or if your company hasn’t yet integrated research into its processes? Desk research can help overcome some limitations.
Why Desk Research Gets Overlooked
I have a few hypotheses:
#1
UX and product management bootcamps have been putting an emphasis on user interviews for years. Consequently, their graduates see interviewing as the most important skill and research method and focus on it.
I understand this as Interviewing is indeed a complex skill. Besides, in my experience, almost everyone starting out in UX needs time to overcome shyness and get comfortable with the intensity of interviews. No wonder educators emphasize it. That said, interviews aren’t the only solution.
#2
Y Combinator’s constant advice to “talk to users” has influenced many in the startup world, leading to the assumption that interviews are the only essential research.
#3
Talking to users looks cooler. It seems to require more effort than desk research, making interviews feel like a more productive option. Especially if performative productivity is a part of a company’s work culture.
#4
Lack of skills to do desk research properly and lack of understanding what proper desk research is. Consequently, desk research may feel underwhelming. Mostly, these skills are acquired through university education but not through all university courses and programs. The other way is to learn them on your own.
Image credit: Nickelodeon.
What Desk Research Brings To the Table
It saves time
Desk research can sometimes provide enough insights to postpone or even skip user interviews entirely, saving time and effort. To be clear: interviews are still important, you just might not need them yet. Plus, when you do get to interviews, you’ll go in with better questions – less time wasted on surface-level stuff and more focus on what actually matters.
It sharpens comprehension
Desk research fast-tracks your comprehension of a new market, trend, industry, or audience. It sharpens your understanding of the context your product exists in, helps you prep better interviews, craft better surveys, and interpret analytics and emerging patterns more effectively.
It improves research design
If you go into an interview without some initial understanding of your users and their context, you risk asking shallow questions or chasing basic insights you could’ve uncovered in half an hour by performing basic internet search. Desk research helps you form your first hypotheses and makes your talking to users more productive.
It fills in the gaps
Users forget, confuse, or mix details. Interviewers miss follow-ups or run out of time. User interviews are imperfect and it’s totally fine. Desk research can reveal insights you wouldn’t catch by just talking to people.
Sources of Information for Desk Research
Support tickets
These are a goldmine of insights. Talk to your support team or look through their tickets yourself to uncover frictions in user experience. The support crew deal with your users’ problems every day and often know exactly where the product falls short. You can even encourage them to proactively share ideas for improving the product on a regular basis.
Product reviews
Product reviews go far beyond what users send you directly or leave in app stores. Look for feedback on YouTube, Reddit, X/Twitter, and, basically, anywhere people talk about their experiences. If you have a social media team, they can help you with that because, probably, they are monitoring social media regularly anyway. If your product isn’t live yet, study reviews of similar products. Learn from their missteps and successes before making your own.
Social media
Social platforms aren’t just for reviews. Use them as a window into the life of your target audience. Watch what they post, comment on, and complain about. Follow influencers and bloggers within your niche, if it makes sense. When working on an HR management SaaS platform as the lead designer, I encouraged my team to join HR communities on LinkedIn to learn more about our target users and recruit participants for upcoming interviews and usability testing.
Published research and analytics reports
These help you understand your industry and your target audience better. Look for studies, whitepapers, and reports relevant to your product.
Mass media
Media outlets can provide you with links to studies, expert insights, and real-life stories about your audience. When building a mobile app for parents, as the lead designer, I listed media outlets focused on parenting and assigned each designer on my team (myself included) a couple of outlets to explore and gather insights on specific topics, directly related to what our product was trying to solve. , we shared our findings with the group.
Skills Needed for Desk Research
Media literacy
It is a highly important skill to have in our day and age in general. For desk research, it’s a must-have. You’ll come across everything from personal blogs to government reports. You need to be able to assess the credibility of a source, distinguish between opinion and evidence, and spot red flags like clickbait headlines, outdated statistics, or obvious bias. Is the author an expert? Are the claims backed by data or just loud opinions? Can you trace the numbers to a real study?
Critical thinking
Mastering this skill means approaching your findings with a healthy dose of skepticism. Just because an article sounds convincing or a report is well-designed doesn’t mean it’s accurate.
Analytical skills
Analytical thinking is your ability to look at the bigger picture and connect ideas across multiple sources to develop a comprehensive understanding of your subject. Your job is to organize the information you’ve collected, identify patterns, and extract meaningful insights. Can you spot trends across multiple sources? Are there any correlations between data points that might tell you something important?
Does And Don’ts of Desk Research
- Do evaluate your sources of information.
- Don’t take any piece of information as a universal truth.
- Do use AI to analyze the information you are collecting.
- Don’t use AI to do your whole desk research for you.
