how to write a ux research proposal

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How to write a ux research plan that actually works: 7-step tutorial, saviour egbe, august 29, 2023.

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 template.

This template contains sections for:

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

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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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How to create an effective UX research plan (2024)

Last updated

23 January 2024

Reviewed by

Miroslav Damyanov

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.

• 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 Write a UX Proposal

Did you know that a great UX proposal can solidify client relationships and facilitate project management? Here’s how you write a UX proposal that will help you manage projects, and strengthen client relationships.

A UX proposal is a document that outlines a UX, app or web design project. It should note what the problem is – what the client wants – and how a solution will be developed digitally. The proposal sets an expectation of work, what will get done, and the timeline for milestones and launch. It is the guiding document for the project that developer/designer and client agree on before work starts so that everyone is on the same page.

If you are working without a UX proposal, you might want to make a change to that process right away.

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The reason a new project exists is to solve a problem. Those problems can be varied – dislike of a current interface, need for a website or app where there is not one, change in products or services, new branding, and the list goes on.

The beginning of a UX proposal should state the reason for the project – this keeps everyone focused on the reason for the work – and goals of the result. This doesn’t have to be an in-depth examination of the project. A statement of the objective and goals can be a couple of sentences that capture the project in a nutshell.

If any user research, testing or interviews need to be conducted to get to the root of a more complex design problem this is the place to note that’s part of the scope of the plan (or not) and how that information could be gathered and used to shape the goals moving forward. (The Interaction Design Foundation has a great guide on how to create a user research plan if you need help there.)

This section might also include a little background information about the client or needs as they pertain to the project and scope of work.

Project Development

This is the part of the proposal clients really like to see, but don’t pack it with so much UX jargon that they don’t understand the idea of the work. Instead, provide a breakdown of the intended scope of work and recommended services you can provide.

This is where you explain what the project will look like from a client perspective. Are you building a new website or tweaking an existing app? Are there add-ons or other products or services that can help the project meet client expectations.

Most proposals include several phases of work so that the client has an idea of what you are doing – this can be particularly important during phases of the project when there’s not a lot for the client to see. Phases of work often include discovery and information gathering, wireframing or design development, technical or coding development and testing and implementation. Each phase might contain a few items that note exactly what is happening or what that phase includes.

Timeline and Milestones

How long will the project last and when can the client expect to see certain milestones? Outline this information in the UX proposal. (It can save you a lot of headaches later and will help keep everyone on task.)

Each project phase should come with an estimate of time. Such as Phase 1 will last 2 weeks; Phase 2 will last 1 week, and so on. Make sure to note whether phases are consecutive, run concurrently or overlap. (You may include some or all of these options.)

Finally, note key milestones that the client can see to finish each phase. When should they expect to see a wireframe or design mockup? This might not be a date on the calendar, but rather a number of days or weeks from the project kickoff.

Clients like to see tangible results. Build in plenty of small milestones along the way to show the progress of the project. It’s a good way to connect visually and make sure the UX is heading in the right direction as well as help the client feel like the project is a priority for you and moving forward according to plan.

Final Deliverables

Include a section in the UX proposal that outlines everything the client should expect to receive when the project is complete. The list of deliverables can be as simple as a revision to a page or complete website design or as complicated as a series of items.

The best list out there when it comes to UX deliverables is from Nick Babich , editor of UX Planet. This checklist outlines the most common deliverables from UX designers with more resources for additional reading if you need it.

Finally, the UX proposal should include expected costs so that clients can include pricing in their budgets.

The pricing section should include a breakdown of costs (if there are multiple line items that the client can opt in and out of.)

This section should also include payment deadlines based on the timeline of the project. This is very important for projects with multiple billing deadlines (common for larger jobs which often start with a deposit).

Tips for Writing the Proposal

A good UX proposal should be thorough enough that the client knows exactly what to expect and when but short and simple enough that it can be read in one sitting and used as a reference guide. Overwhelmingly long UX proposals aren’t read and end up creating questions, not answering them.

To ensure that you are writing a proposal that clients will read, keep the following tips in mind:

• Keep the proposal short
• Use an outline/bullet format with heading and subheadings
• Include all the basic sections as well as your contact information in the document
• While you can use a template, customize each proposal for the client with relevant facts (here are examples to think about from Prospero and Adriana Rippel )
• Ask questions that need answering if necessary; don’t make assumptions
• Create a design that is polished and professional and provide a digital and printed copies
• Include next steps for the client (if necessary)

A UX proposal isn’t a flashy part of the job, but it is a necessary element of doing great work. It can help build trust and the foundation for a client relationship, set expectations and even help keep you on task.

It’s also a bit of a contract that outlines the scope of a UX project and what you and the client are working on, when it should be done and what the final project looks like. When executed well a project will fall within the bounds of the UX proposal, so that everyone knows exactly what is happening (and when) as a project comes together.

The User Research and Insights Tool for Design and Product Teams

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

UX Research Plan Template

Create a strong business case for UX research and streamline your process with the UX research plan template.

Trusted by 65M+ users and leading companies

About the UX Research Plan Template

A UX research plan, also known as a user research plan, is a brief reference document that outlines your research project’s goals, key contributors, important dates, and timelines.

Think of your research plan as a UX-focused  kick-off document  for your project. The plan offers an overview of the research initiative, encourages well-defined and agreed-upon goals, and acts as a written guarantee that the research will meet these goals.

What is a UX research plan?

When conducting usability testing or user research with a goal in mind, researchers need to plan. UX researchers often present their findings to stakeholders, like product managers, developers, marketers, and executives, to act on those results.

You should present your UX research plan in plain language with a single document. Keep your findings clear, collaborative, easily accessed, and digestible to get buy-in for your research and your team’s next steps.

A user research plan typically has up to seven segments:

Project background: Reasons for the study and internal stakeholders involved.

Research goals and objectives: What your teams want to learn, or their ideal research outcome.

Research participants: Who they are and how they’ll be recruited.

Method: How you conducted research, and any other information about how the research will be conducted.

Guides: An interview guide or cheat sheet of instructions and questions to follow during the session.

Duration: A rough timeline of how long the research will take and when the team can review the report.

Other helpful information: Additional resources for your team, such as previous studies, scripts, or results, can inform this new round of research.

Research plans keep your team focused on outcomes rather than getting lost in the details or changing the research goal midway through the project. By the end of the project, UX researchers should feel confident that their questions were answered and presented in both the plan and actual research.

When to use UX research plans

UX research plans are useful for teams who need to decide on  questions such as:

What do our customers need? Who is our target persona?

Does the proposed or current design work well for our customers? How can we make it better?

Planning UX research also gives researchers an opportunity to:

Decide what works for your stakeholders, especially the questions they’re trying to answer.

Engage stakeholders and keep them invested in your research results.

Clarify your ideas, problems to be solved, and research approaches.

Treat your research plan as a blueprint for aligning expectations, asking for feedback, or generating enthusiasm and support for increasing the value of user research in your organization.

Create your own UX research plan template

Making your own UX research plans is easy, and Miro is the perfect tool to create and share them. Get started by selecting the UX research plan template, then take the following steps to make one of your own.

Give your team or stakeholders a quick project introduction.  You can hop on a video chat with up to 25 team members and remind everyone what you’re trying to achieve. Remember that research proves its value when it satisfies a single objective rather than many. If you seem to have lots of different goals or objectives, avoid overreaching and start fresh: what’s the one customer problem and business problem you’re trying to solve?

Define the user and business problems your research needs to solve.  The default sticky notes are simply for inspiration — feel free to edit each of these to fix your own context. If you want your team to focus on this area instead of skipping ahead, you can select the “problem” frame and  click the “hide frame” (closed eye) icon  that appears in the frame’s menu.

Define your research goals.  Ask your team to brainstorm their top three research goals or priorities. Remember that the best research sessions are chasing a single objective, so out of the two to three you note down, ask your team to vote for their preferences. Try  Miro’s Voting Plugin  to help your team reach a decision.

Draft your research questions.  Pick three to five questions with your team or stakeholders that are most important to your research. Aim for no more than 10. The more focused your questions, the more focused your research will be.

Link to useful supporting information as needed.  Keep this plan to the point in order to get buy-in. For stakeholders who need more detail, there may be other useful data to link to. If you have previous UX research results or relevant studies, link to them on your Miro Board. You can also import survey data, embed  tables and charts , or link sticky notes  to external sources .

Dive even deeper into how to conduct UX research – and see examples – in our expert guide to  user research .

Why should you use the UX Research Template?

Centralized planning: Centralize your UX research plans in one shared space. This ensures that all relevant information, including research objectives, methodologies, and timelines, is easily accessible in one place, reducing the risk of scattered or lost documentation.

Collaborative research: Multiple stakeholders, including designers, researchers, and product managers, can collaborate on your UX research plan template simultaneously, fostering a more inclusive and collaborative approach to research planning.

Visual representation of research steps: Create diagrams, flowcharts, and visual representations of the research process. This visual mapping helps teams better understand the sequence of research activities, identify dependencies, and effectively communicate the overall research strategy.

Iterative refinement: Provide feedback, comments, and suggestions directly on the UX research plan template. Promote continuous improvement, allowing the team to refine the research plan based on insights and changing project requirements.

Integration with user flows and personas: Integrate with other templates, such as user flows and persona maps. By connecting these elements, teams can create a holistic view of the user experience journey. This integration helps align research activities with the overall UX strategy and ensures a more cohesive and user-centric product design.

How can I ensure that a UX Research Plan remains effective?

Regularly review and update the research plan as project requirements evolve. It's crucial to stay flexible and adapt the plan based on the findings and changing project needs.

Get started with this template right now.

Low-fidelity Wireframes Template

Works best for:.

Desk Research, Product Management, Wireframes

When you’re designing a site or building an app, the early stages should be BIG — seeing the big picture and communicating the big idea. Low fidelity wireframes empower you to see it and do it. These rough layouts (think of them as the digital version of a sketch on a napkin) help your teams and project stakeholders quickly determine if a design meeting meets your users’ needs. Our template lets you easily use wireframes during meetings or workshops, presentations, and critique sessions.

Blue Ocean 4 Actions Framework Template

Leadership, Decision Making, Strategic Planning

For entrepreneurs, so much comes down to new users—how to attract them, impress them, and convert them to loyal customers. This template, designed by the authors of Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant, will help you maximize value for you and your customers alike. Using the template’s four steps (divided into easy columns), you’ll easily evaluate your products in more innovative ways and make sure money is being spent in areas that really matter.

Cisco Data Network Diagram Template

Software Development, Diagrams

Cisco offers data center and access networking solutions built for scale with industry-leading automation, programmability, and real-time visibility. The Cisco Data Network Diagram uses Cisco elements to show the network design of Cisco Data Networks visually.

Project Charter Template

Project Management, Documentation, Strategic Planning

Project managers rely on project charters as a source of truth for the details of a project. Project charters explain the core objectives, scope, team members and more involved in a project. For an organized project management, charters can be useful to align everyone around a shared understanding of the objectives, strategies and deliverables for a project of any scope. This template ensures that you document all aspects of a project so all stakeholders are informed and on the same page. Always know where your project is going, its purpose, and its scope.

Proto Persona Template

UX, UX Research, Product Design

The Proto Persona Template is tailored to capture the essence of hypothetical user segments. It encapsulates key attributes such as user needs, behaviors, and potential pain points. One of its standout benefits is its ability to foster empathy. By visualizing and understanding these preliminary user profiles, design and strategy teams can tap into a deeper connection with their target audience, ensuring that solutions resonate authentically and address genuine needs.

iPhone App Template

UX Design, Desk Research, Wireframes

Incredible percentages of smartphone users worldwide have chosen iPhones (including some of your existing and potential customers), and those users simply love their apps. But designing and creating an iPhone app from scratch can be one seriously daunting, effort-intensive task. Not here — this template makes it easy. You’ll be able to customize designs, create interactive protocols, share with your collaborators, iterate as a team, and ultimately develop an iPhone app your customers will love.

How To Write A UX Design Proposal in 10 Steps

When we think about UX design, we can say that it’s primarily a creative job. UX designers need to use their imagination, design skills , and inventiveness to create the best solutions for their clients and clients’ users. But, there’s more to UX design than pure creative work. 

UX designers also need to negotiate, pitch offers, reach out to clients and communicate professionally. And for most of them, this is the trickiest part.

Writing a UX design proposal is one of the things UX designers struggle with. But, you don’t need to have outstanding writing skills or go through business training to write yours like a professional. 

All you need to do is understand the essential goal of UX design proposals and follow the ultimate guide we’re sharing below.

Here’s everything you need to know to nail each UX design proposal from now on.

Table of Contents

What is a UX design Proposal?

Whether you’re just a beginner UX designer , or an experienced one, you need to fully understand what a UX design proposal is supposed to be. 

That’s why we’ll define it and break it down to help you gain a better understanding. 

A UX design proposal is a written outline or plan of the upcoming UX design proposal that explains the problems and solutions of the project and the tools and strategies to be applied.

Simply put, a UX design proposal answers these burning questions:

• What is the main objective of this project?
• What are the problems the client is facing?
• How are we going to solve those problems? 
• What methods and design tools will we be using?

A UX design proposal is, thus, an overview of what the designer has to offer to the client and a pre-agreement document that is supposed to encourage the client to hire them.

Why Do You Need a UX Design Proposal?

You may feel like writing a UX design proposal would be a waste of time, and you can discuss all of these matters with your client live. But, we need to beg the differ.

Here are the benefits of having a well-written UX design to pitch to clients:

• you have a written trace of your offer, so the client can’t mess around with you on prices later on
• the client feels safe knowing precisely what they’ll get from you
• you’re creating a plan of the project, which makes it easier for you to complete it later on
• you’re showing off your professionalism to the clients
• you’re able to stand out from the rest of the UX designers who are applying for the same project

A great UX design proposal is essential for better communication with your clients from day one and successful project completion.

When Do You Need a UX Design Proposal?

There should be no minor or major projects for you. Each client matters the same and should be treated the same.

That means you need a UX design proposal for every potential collaboration and project ahead of you. 

How to Write a UX Design Proposal?

Hopefully, you’re now fully aware of the benefits that a successfully written UX design proposal could bring you. 

All that’s left is for you to learn the steps to writing a great UX design proposal for each new project.

Here’s our ultimate guide on how to write a UX design proposal.

1 – Gather Information

It takes some preparation and groundwork to help you write your UX design proposal. The initial step in the design process is to gather all the information about the upcoming project to understand better what to offer and how to help your client.

So, set up a meeting with your client, either live or via video call, and discuss all the relevant project information you need.

Make sure this conversation is:

• highly informative
• valuable for both parties

Don’t get caught up in chit chat and prepare a list of questions you need to be answered. 

Take notes as you go, and try getting your client to specify what they want and expect from you. This is the first and crucial step in the process of writing a brilliant UX design proposal.

2 – Define the Issue

Now that you know what your client wants, you need to present it properly in the UX design proposal. Start from the very essence, which is the problem your client is experiencing.

Your client needs to see that you:

• carefully listened to what they told you
• managed to define a specific issue and problem 

It’s possible that your clients will be confused or unable to define the problem themselves. So, you need to do it in your UX design proposal.

This problem statement needs to be based not only on your conversation with the client but also on:

• additional research you did of their products, apps, or website
• the conversation you had with some of their users
• the conversation you had with their employees

Use all the resources you have to define their problem as precisely as possible.

3 – Set & Prioritise Objectives

The problem is defined, and now you need to show your client you know how to solve it. The next step in writing your UX design proposal is defining the objective. 

Some projects can have more than one objective, so you’ll need to prioritise them and list them in a logical order.

So, here’s what to do:

• define the main objective of the project
• define the minor objectives that follow or support the main one
• describe each one, listing them according to priority
• tell the client of the tools, strategies, or  UX design trends  you’ll use to achieve each objective  

For each objective, be careful to use the kind of language your client will understand. Tell them about the outcome of achieving each objective and the importance of taking the project one step at a time.

This will help the client visualise the result and understand the hard work you need to invest in making it all happen. If they understand the complexity of the project, they appreciate you more.

4 – Create User Personas

To make your UX design work, you need to understand who are the people who’ll be interacting with the said product, service, or system. 

Your client has probably shared information about their target audience and the people they want to reach. But, it would help if you addressed this aspect from a designer’s perspective. 

It would help if you created user personas.

User personas are:

• different types of people who’ll be using this product or service
• fictional presentations through a set of characteristics, habits, and assumed behaviour

To make this section more plausible, you can even create user stories that explain what each user persona expects from your prospective client. 

This way, the client will connect the problem they’re facing and the solution you’re offering – seen through the eyes of the user personas.

5 – Provide Data

You can’t expect your client to take your word and trust you blindly. It’s always a better idea to show them what you based your proposal on and how you’ve come up with the solutions you’re offering.

It would help if you showed them how to conduct and use  data analytics for user experience  improvement. 

So, provide new data that show what led to making the specific decisions about this project. 

Conduct mini research of the clients’ industry, niche, competitors, and current place on the market. If this is too time-consuming or complicated, find professional help from writing experts. 

I always find someone to  write my research paper for me  and then present the result to the client. 

The important thing is, you show them your UX design proposal is backed up with facts and the latest data you’ve gathered.

6 – Timeline

One of the worst things that UX designers face during a project is the constant pressure of finishing the project as soon as possible. And, if there’s no initial agreement of the precise deadline, this can happen to you too.

So, your UX design proposal should cover all aspects of the timeline you’ll be following to complete the project.

That includes:

• different stages of the project, e.g. research, sketching, creating prototypes, testing, etc.
• deadlines for each of the stages
• project completion date

Don’t try to wow a client by creating highly tight timelines. Instead, explain why you need the time to complete each stage and deliver the expected results properly.

7 – The Budget

Talking money is another obligatory part of your communication with clients, and a UX design proposal gives you a chance to do it right.

Some UX designers mistake simply stating what the total sum they ask for the project, which can drive clients away is.

Because your clients want to know they spent their money wisely and need more information about why your design services cost as much as they do.

So, for the budget section of your UX design proposal, you need to elaborate on the offer you’re making. That can include:

• creating several offers that include or exclude certain services
• specifying the prices each of your services cost
• proposing to charge by the hour and assuming how many hours you’ll need to complete the project

Add details and layers to this section to show your client exactly why your services cost as much as they do. 

8 – Discuss Limitations

If you think that certain limitations might appear during the project, approach them in the proposal. 

Anticipating problems and explaining them to the client will show them you’re ready to avoid different bumps in the road.

The limitations can change how you deliver the results, alter the timeline, or even influence the budget. So, discuss them in the proposal and offer solutions to prevent them or solve them if they occur.

9 – Summarise Deliverables

You can say that you’ve covered all the aspects of your UX design project. 

All that’s left is for you to give your client one final reminder or summary of what you’re offering and what they’ll get from you.

This final chapter will make sure you end the proposal on a solid note, and your prospective client is reminded of:

• the exact services you’ll provide
• the results they’ll see after the project is finished
• the benefits of this project for their business, brand, and users

Summarise the deliverables as if you’re making a final promise to the client to make sure you seal the deal successfully. 

10 – Check Accuracy

As a professional, you need to make sure the written communication between you and the client is spotless. This is especially the case with an official document as important as the UX design proposal.

So, check your accuracy before you send it to the client. Proofread your UX design proposal to remove:

• grammar mistakes
• spelling mistakes or typos
• punctuation mistakes

Also, check if your tone and voice are consistent, and you’re showing your  brand consistency  to the client.

You don’t want anything to take your clients’ attention away from the proposal’s goal and the offer you’re trying to make. So, don’t ever send the proposal to the client before you analyse it and proofread for accuracy.

Final Thoughts

Writing a UX design proposal is something every UX designer should learn how to do.

It needs to become a part of your approach when negotiating with clients and presenting your skills and expertise. 

The great thing about writing UX design proposals is that you’ll see just how simple and easy it is after you write a couple of them successfully.

So, use our ultimate UX design proposal guide to start practising or writing your first successful UX design proposals. 

Hopefully, it’ll help you show your clients just how professional, reliable, and worthy UX designer you are.

Stuart Crawford

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How to create a UX research plan

Steven Carr

The concept of research planning can be met with mixed emotions. Some may say that planning delays action. However, a good plan should really do the opposite by providing a clear guide for action and deliverables. In this post, we’ll detail how a well-conceived UX research plan will help streamline your research and foster understanding and engagement from all stakeholders involved.

What is a UX research plan?

A UX research plan can take many forms. It can be a document, spreadsheet, set of slides, or anything else you can imagine as long as it acts as an overview for kicking off the project.

While a UX research plan doesn’t have to be a formal document, it shouldn’t only live in the mind of a single person. Consolidating ideas, milestones, and deliverables together in one, accessible place allows for a guided conversation that has major benefits on the outcomes of a set of research.

What are the benefits of building a UX research plan?

When it comes to user research, it may seem daunting to be too prescriptive when building your UX research plan. After all, how can you account for everything a user might need, say, or want? Nonetheless, it’s important to try, because making progress on your goals is rarely made through random activity. And, there’s nothing wrong with making adjustments as you go. 

Even when faced with uncertainty—often compounded by the everchanging world we live in—effective planning facilitates progress.

The benefits of a UX research plan are numerous, but some include:

• Fosters alignment : Rarely does UX research involve a single stakeholder. With a written UX research plan, you can ensure that all team members involved are on the same page, marching toward agreed-upon goals. Not to mention, a plan allows you to spot conflicting interests before you’re too far down the line.
• Engages stakeholders : An effective UX research plan ensures stakeholders are properly engaged with the study and its results. Without a written plan, there’s a greater chance that stakeholders won’t feel invested and may become observers of the research rather than active participants.
• Ensures UX goals are achieved : A UX research plan should clearly map desired outcomes as well as mileposts to define progress. These provide a standard for assessing how the plan is progressing and if adjustments need to be made to keep the plan on track.

Every organization is different, so the teams within them may be responsible for different business goals. This means that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to creating a UX research plan. 

In this section, we’ll provide an overview of steps to consider when creating your plan.

A well-oiled UX research plan should include:

• A clear problem statement
• Objectives for the research
• The research method(s) needed to execute the research
• An overview of the participants
• A test plan
• How you’ll present your findings

Let’s get started.

1. Craft a clear problem statement

As with most plans, you should start by clearly identifying and stating the problem that you’re trying to solve. A UX research plan is no different. Your problem statement should be clear, specific, and give enough detail that stakeholders understand what the research is trying to solve.

Problem statements don’t just stem from nowhere. Some great sources for inspiration might be your support team which deals with customer issues on a daily basis, customer reviews on your website, or feedback from social media. Understanding what data already exists—and what you still need to know—is a fantastic starting point for building a strong UX research plan. Let's take a closer look at some of the steps involved in creating a great  problem statement:

Defining the problem:

Begin by articulating the issue in a manner that is concise yet comprehensive. A well-crafted problem statement should communicate the essence of the issue succinctly, making it immediately apparent to all stakeholders what the research will address. It’s important that this statement avoids generalities and is rooted in specific user experiences or observed difficulties. For example, instead of saying "improve website navigation," specify "users are struggling to locate the search function on the homepage, which is impacting conversion rates."

Gathering preliminary data:

Before formalizing your problem statement, gather preliminary data to understand the context better. Chat to your customer support team to identify common complaints or challenges users face. Review customer feedback collected through surveys, feedback forms on your website, or direct interactions. Social media platforms can also be a goldmine of user opinions and issues, often providing raw, unfiltered feedback on what users like or struggle with regarding your product or service.

Analyzing existing data:

Analyze the data you’ve gathered to detect patterns or recurring themes. This analysis might reveal that users feel a particular feature is too complicated or that there are barriers to completing a purchase. Such insights help refine your problem statement by focusing on specific user challenges that your research needs to address.

Crafting a detailed problem statement:

With a clear understanding of user challenges, refine your problem statement to reflect these specifics. Ensure it encapsulates the user's perspective, focusing on their experiences and the difficulties they encounter. For instance, if users find an application form daunting due to its length and complexity, your problem statement could be, "Users are abandoning the application form because its length and complex questions create a perception that the process is tedious and time-consuming."

Communicating the significance:

Ensure your problem statement communicates why addressing this issue is crucial for the business or product. Link the problem directly to business outcomes, such as improved user satisfaction, increased sales, or reduced customer churn. This not only highlights the importance of the research but also aligns it with broader business goals, facilitating stakeholder buy-in.

Seeking feedback:

Once you have a draft, share it with key stakeholders—include team members from design, development, marketing, customer service etc. This will help provide new insights, validate the problem’s relevance, and make sure it resonates across all areas of the business. This feedback might prompt revisions that make the statement more inclusives and more robust.

Finalizing the problem statement:

Once you've used that feedback to refine your problem statement, you'll have a well-defined statement that will lead to powerful and useful reseaarch insights. 

Once you’ve put together your problem statement, it’s time to define your objectives.

2. Define your objectives

Think about defining your objectives as telling the story of what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and what you expect to learn from your  UX research . The objectives you set should be the driving force behind every task you assign and every question that you ask research participants.

This means it’s important to be specific. Setting clear objectives will help you define the project scope and the questions you have to ask participants to get the information you need. If the scope is too broad, anything and everything becomes a research question—which becomes overwhelming to manage.

If you like to think visually, consider this chart.

Avoiding the rabbit hole

A well-defined objective keeps you from falling into the rabbit hole of scope creep. Without specific targets, your project can easily grow unwieldy, trying to cover too much ground and diluting the impact of your findings. To avoid this, break down large goals into smaller, focused tasks that you can tackle effectively. For instance, if improving website navigation is your goal, you could focus specifically on enhancing the visibility of the main menu, reducing clicks to reach key content, or improving search functionality.

Using SMART goals

To make your objectives really work for you, frame them using the SMART criteria—Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Here’s how you might apply these to a UX project:

• Specific : Nail down exactly what you want to achieve. Instead of a broad "improve website usability," aim for something like "cut down the time it takes users to complete a purchase by 20%."
• Measurable : Set up ways to measure your success. You could track the average time it takes users to check out before and after you make site improvements.
• Achievable : Keep your objectives realistic, considering the resources and time you have. If user access is limited, opt for in-depth feedback from a smaller user group instead of surface-level input from many.
• Relevant : Tie your objectives to your broader business goals. If increasing online sales is the target, streamlining the checkout process is a no-brainer.
• Time-bound : Put deadlines on your goals to keep the project moving forward. Plan out when you'll conduct phases of research, analysis, and implementation.

Iterative review and adaptation

Objectives aren’t set in stone. As you dive into your research and start gathering data, be ready to tweak and refine your objectives based on what you learn. UX research is inherently iterative, and being flexible allows you to pivot as you uncover new insights or face unexpected challenges. Regularly revisiting your objectives ensures your research stays relevant and aligned with both user needs and business priorities.

By keeping your objectives clear and focused, you make sure that your UX research is effective, impactful, and tightly connected to enhancing user experience. This isn't just about sticking to a plan—it's about making the plan work hard for you, every step of the way.

Start with a problem statement, define the objectives you need to address the problem, then build out tasks and questions that will uncover the necessary information from your participants. 

Once you have a clear understanding of what your problem is and how you’re going to aim to solve it, you’ll need to choose the right research method for your plan. 

3. Selecting the right UX research method

Next, you'll have to choose the research method that will achieve your stated goals—based on the objectives you've already identified. Before we jump into individual research methods, or the tactics used for conducting UX research, there are big-picture questions that need to be addressed first. And that’s: What types of UX research are there?

We won’t dive too deep into this here, but here’s some additional reading that might help you understand the type of research you’ll need to conduct:

• Qualitative vs. quantitative research : Qualitative methods are all about the 'why' behind user behaviors, giving you insights through interviews, observations, and open-ended interactions. Quantitative methods crunch the numbers—you’ll get stats, percentages, and graphs that show what users are doing at scale.
• Attitudinal vs. behavioral research :  Are you looking to find out what users say they do or what they actually do? Attitudinal research focuses on opinions, preferences, and beliefs, often gathered through surveys or interviews. Behavioral research, on the other hand, observes the real actions users take, often in usability tests or through analytics.
• Generative vs. evaluation research : Starting fresh and need ideas? Generative research helps you understand problems and identify new opportunities, perfect when you’re at the drawing board. Evaluation research is your go-to when you’ve got something to test, checking if your designs are hitting the mark or missing it by a mile.

Choosing a method that fits

Now that you’ve got a lay of the land, it’s time to match your research method to your project goals. Here’s how you can ensure the method you pick will deliver the goods:

• Match the method to your objective : If your goal is to understand how users feel about a new feature, a survey might give you broad quantitative data, but in-depth interviews could unveil deeper insights about their feelings and reactions.
• Consider your resources : Some methods, like extensive field studies, can be resource-heavy. Have a think about what’s realistic in terms of time, budget, and available tools.
• Think about the outcome : What kind of data do you need at the end? Numbers that prove a point, or stories that give you direction? Choose a method that aligns with the kind of evidence that will best inform your design decisions.

Mix and match for best results

Often, no single method will tell the whole story. Consider using a mix of approaches to get both the depth and breadth of insights you need. For instance, you might start with a survey to get a general sense of user satisfaction and follow up with interviews to dive deeper into specific issues highlighted by the survey results.Once you understand the types of results you're trying to achieve, make sure that the research method you choose delivers the evidence you need to make informed decisions.

Related reading:  The UX research methodology guidebook

4. Select your participants

One of the most important factors that contribute to a successful UX research plan lies in choosing the right participants (and the right number of them). There’s some debate out there over how many participants you should include in UX research, and the right answer depends on what you’re trying to learn.

Figuring out the right number of participants Let’s unpack this a bit:

• The rule of five : Research shows that five test participants will  uncover 85% of a product’s usability issues . This is particularly handy when you’re looking to iron out kinks in a prototype or an existing product.
• Looking for trends? Go bigger : If your mission is to catch broader user trends or get data that you can really hang your hat on, you’ll need a bigger crowd. This means pulling in more folks to get that robust quantitative data that’ll make your stakeholders sit up and listen.

Selecting the right participants is more than just filling seats—it’s about ensuring that every voice you hear from can directly contribute to richer, more actionable insights. So take your time, think it through, and choose wisely to make your UX research as impactful as possible.

Ensuring a good fit

Finally, make sure they’re a good fit for what you’re trying to learn:

• Screen effectively : Develop screening surveys or questions that help you verify that potential participants really do match the profile you’re looking for.
• Keep it balanced : Try to maintain a balance in your participant group to avoid skewing your data. If you’re only hearing from one type of user, you might miss out on insights that could be critical for another segment of your audience.

Recruiting the right participants

Finding these people and convincing them to take part in your study is next on the agenda. Here are a few strategies:

• Leverage existing data : Start with what you know. Use your app’s analytics to identify users who fit your criteria, or sift through customer service logs to find people who’ve faced relevant issues.
• Consider your reach : Depending on your resources and the scale of your project, think about how you’ll reach out to these potential participants. Email blasts, social media calls, or leveraging a professional recruiting service can all be effective, depending on your needs and budget.

Matching participants to your target audience

But it’s not just about numbers. Who these people are matters a ton. Here’s how to get the right mix:

• Broad vs. specific : You’ve got two paths here. Either you go broad, casting a wide net to gather a diverse range of insights across a general demographic, which is great for more exploratory or generative research. Or, you get laser-focused, targeting a very specific group of users who represent your core audience or a particular user scenario. This approach is fantastic when your research goals are tightly defined.
• Align with your objectives : Circle back to what you’re aiming to learn. If your goal is to improve the check-out process for a shopping app, your best bet is to zero in on users who’ve abandoned their cart recently. That’s your goldmine for insights.

Defining who your participants should be will require you to go back to the goals you’ve set and the questions that need answering.

5. Build your test plan

There's a certain art to crafting a great test plan. Admittedly, it can take a bit of practice. From moderated  user interviews  to unmoderated usability tests to prototyping—test plans can take many different shapes and sizes. Lucky for you, our education and research teams have come together to build out this outstanding resource for building test plans.

Check out all of our articles on the UserTesting Knowledgebase for building a  test plan . 

6. Lock in a timeline

Establishing your research project’s timeline is an essential step in creating a UX research plan. Estimating how long the research project will take place and when the findings could be expected are necessary considerations in any project.

Even if not exact, determining an approximate timeline (e.g., 2-3 weeks) will enable you to manage stakeholders’ expectations of the process and the results.

Let’s dive into how to effectively map out the time your research will take and when you can expect to roll out the findings.

Planning your research timeline

Here’s how you can approach it:

• Start with the end in mind : Think about when you need the results and work backward from there. Are there product development deadlines or marketing launches that your research needs to feed into? Pin these dates down first.
• Break it down : Segment your research into phases like planning, recruitment, execution, analysis, and presentation of findings. Assign realistic time frames to each phase based on the complexity of the tasks involved.

Be realistic and flexible

While it’s great to have a timeline, it’s also important to stay flexible:

• Allow for buffers : Research can be unpredictable. Participants might cancel, or you might stumble upon a vein of insights that requires deeper exploration. Build in buffer days to accommodate these uncertainties without throwing off your entire schedule.
• Continuous updates : Keep your stakeholders in the loop with regular updates. If timelines shift, communicate this early and clearly, explaining the reasons and the new expected dates.

Managing expectations

An accurate timeline helps in setting and managing expectations:

• Transparent scheduling : Share your timeline with everyone involved in the project. This transparency helps manage expectations and allows team members to align their schedules and responsibilities accordingly.
• Prepare for adjustments : Be prepared to adjust your timeline based on feedback from interim findings or logistical hiccups. This flexibility can be crucial for maintaining the quality and relevance of your research.

Locking in a timeline isn’t just about sticking to dates. It’s about creating a structured approach to your research that allows for informed planning, anticipates adjustments, and aligns with the broader goals of your project. By taking the time to map out each phase and communicate this effectively, you ensure that your UX research delivers valuable insights in a timely and efficient manner.

7. Present the results

Finally, determining how you’ll present the findings of your project from the start ensures they will be impactful and implemented across the organization. Setting this understanding from the beginning will also determine if all of your stakeholders have been properly identified. It can be frustrating to find out that you need to  present to an executive  halfway through a project.

Ultimately, for the purpose of your UX research plan, it’s important to choose a presentation medium that’s appropriate for your key stakeholders. Perhaps it’s a UX research report , a set of slides, or even a Jira ticket for your product team; the point is, you want to deliver the information to stakeholders in a way they’re comfortable with—and will be most receptive to.

Using a UX research plan template

So now you’ve built a UX research plan from scratch. While it may seem like an arduous process, we can assure you that it’s well worth your time. Being able to confidently embark on a project with clear deliverables, milestones, stakeholder buy-in, and a plan for presenting results is a major feat—one that will be recognized and appreciated by all of those involved.

Nevertheless, time is money. So once you’ve gone through an entire UX research project, we encourage you to hold a retrospective meeting to identify all the ways you could improve the process. Once you uncover what went well and what can be improved, turn your UX research plan into a template for you and your peers to leverage within your organization. 

Need some inspiration for your next UX research project? Check out our list of curated  test templates  to get you started.

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About the author(s).

Steven is a Marketing Content Strategist. When he’s not inserting oxford commas where they belong, you can find him shooting pool at a local dive or building killer playlists on Spotify.

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How to create a UX research plan

• Qualitative research
• Quantitative research
• User Experience

9 min read David Renwick

Summary: A detailed UX research plan helps you keep your overarching research goals in mind as you work through the logistics of a research project.

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of sitting down to interview one of your users , steering the conversation in interesting directions and taking note of valuable comments and insights. But, as every researcher knows, it’s also easy to get carried away. Sometimes, the very process of user research can be so engrossing that you forget the reason you’re there in the first place, or unexpected things that come up that can force you to change course or focus.

This is where a UX research plan comes into play. Taking the time to set up a detailed overview of your high-level research goals, team, budget and timeframe will give your research the best chance of succeeding. It’s also a good tool for fostering alignment – it can make sure everyone working on the project is clear on the objectives and timeframes. Over the course of your project, you can refer back to your plan – a single source of truth. After all, as Benjamin Franklin famously said: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”.

In this article, we’re going to take a look at the best way to put together a research plan.

Your research recipe for success

Any project needs a plan to be successful, and user research is no different. As we pointed out above, a solid plan will help to keep you focused and on track during your research – something that can understandably become quite tricky as you dive further down the research rabbit hole , pursuing interesting conversations during user interviews and running usability tests. Thought of another way, it’s really about accountability. Even if your initial goal is something quite broad like “find out what’s wrong with our website”, it’s important to have a plan that will help you to identify when you’ve actually discovered what’s wrong.

So what does a UX research plan look like? It’s basically a document that outlines the where, why, who, how and what of your research project.

It’s time to create your research plan! Here’s everything you need to consider when putting this plan together.

Make a list of your stakeholders

The first thing you need to do is work out who the stakeholders are on your project. These are the people who have a stake in your research and stand to benefit from the results. In those instances where you’ve been directed to carry out a piece of research you’ll likely know who these people are, but sometimes it can be a little tricky. Stakeholders could be C-level executives, your customer support team, sales people or product teams. If you’re working in an agency or you’re freelancing, these could be your clients.

Make a list of everyone you think needs to be consulted and then start setting up catch-up sessions to get their input. Having a list of stakeholders also makes it easy to deliver insights back to these people at the end of your research project, as well as identify any possible avenues for further research. This also helps you identify who to involve in your research (not just report findings back to).

Action: Make a list of all of your stakeholders.

Write your research questions

Before we get into timeframes and budgets you first need to determine your research questions, also known as your research objectives. These are the ‘why’ of your research. Why are you carrying out this research? What do you hope to achieve by doing all of this work? Your objectives should be informed by discussions with your stakeholders, as well as any other previous learnings you can uncover. Think of past customer support discussions and sales conversations with potential customers.

Here are a few examples of basic research questions to get you thinking. These questions should be actionable and specific, like the examples we’ve listed here:

• “How do people currently use the wishlist feature on our website?”
• “How do our current customers go about tracking their orders?”
• “How do people make a decision on which power company to use?”
• “What actions do our customers take when they’re thinking about buying a new TV?”

A good research question should be actionable in the sense that you can identify a clear way to attempt to answer it, and specific in that you’ll know when you’ve found the answer you’re looking for. It’s also important to keep in mind that your research questions are not the questions you ask during your research sessions – they should be broad enough that they allow you to formulate a list of tasks or questions to help understand the problem space.

Action: Create a list of possible research questions, then prioritize them after speaking with stakeholders.

What is your budget?

Your budget will play a role in how you conduct your research, and possibly the amount of data you’re able to gather.

Having a large budget will give you flexibility. You’ll be able to attract large numbers of participants, either by running paid recruitment campaigns on social media or using a dedicated participant recruitment service . A larger budget helps you target more people, but also target more specific people through dedicated participant services as well as recruitment agencies.

Note that more money doesn’t always equal better access to tools – e.g. if I work for a company that is super strict on security, I might not be able to use any tools at all. But it does make it easier to choose appropriate methods and that allow you to deliver quality insights. E.g. a big budget might allow you to travel, or do more in-person research which is otherwise quite expensive.

With a small budget, you’ll have to think carefully about how you’ll reward participants, as well as the number of participants you can test. You may also find that your budget limits the tools you can use for your testing. That said, you shouldn’t let your budget dictate your research. You just have to get creative!

Action: Work out what the budget is for your research project . It’s also good to map out several cheaper alternatives that you can pursue if required.

How long will your project take?

How long do you think your user research project will take? This is a necessary consideration, especially if you’ve got people who are expecting to see the results of your research. For example, your organization’s marketing team may be waiting for some of your exploratory research in order to build customer personas. Or, a product team may be waiting to see the results of your first- click test before developing a new signup page on your website.

It’s true that qualitative research often doesn’t have a clear end in the way that quantitative research does, for example as you identify new things to test and research. In this case, you may want to break up your research into different sub-projects and attach deadlines to each of them.

Action: Figure out how long your research project is likely to take. If you’re mixing qualitative and quantitative research , split your project timeframe into sub-projects to make assigning deadlines easier.

Understanding participant recruitment

Who you recruit for your research comes from your research questions. Who can best give you the answers you need? While you can often find participants by working with your customer support, sales and marketing teams, certain research questions may require you to look further afield.

The methods you use to carry out your research will also have a part to play in your participants, specifically in terms of the numbers required. For qualitative research methods like interviews and usability tests, you may find you’re able to gather enough useful data after speaking with 5 people. For quantitative methods like card sorts and tree tests, it’s best to have at least 30 participants. You can read more about participant numbers in this Nielsen Norman article .

At this stage of the research plan process, you’ll also want to write some screening questions. These are what you’ll use to identify potential participants by asking about their characteristics and experience.

Action: Define the participants you’ll need to include in your research project, and where you plan to source them. This may require going outside of your existing user base.

Which research methods will you use?

The research methods you use should be informed by your research questions. Some questions are best answered by quantitative research methods like surveys or A/B tests, with others by qualitative methods like contextual inquiries, user interviews and usability tests. You’ll also find that some questions are best answered by multiple methods, in what’s known as mixed methods research .

If you’re not sure which method to use, carefully consider your question. If we go back to one of our earlier research question examples: “How do our current customers go about tracking their orders?”, we’d want to test the navigation pathways.

If you’re not sure which method to use, it helps to carefully consider your research question. Let’s use one of our earlier examples: “Is it easy for users to check their order history in our iPhone app?” as en example. In this case, because we want to see how users move through our app, we need a method that’s suited to testing navigation pathways – like tree testing .

For the question: “What actions do our customers take when they’re thinking about buying a new TV?”, we’d want to take a different approach. Because this is more of an exploratory question, we’re probably best to carry out a round of user interviews and ask questions about their process for buying a TV.

Action: Before diving in and setting up a card sort, consider which method is best suited to answer your research question.

Develop your research protocol

A protocol is essentially a script for your user research. For the most part, it’s a list of the tasks and questions you want to cover in your in-person sessions. But, it doesn’t apply to all research types. For example, for a tree test, you might write your tasks, but this isn’t really a script or protocol.

Writing your protocol should start with actually thinking about what these questions will be and getting feedback on them, as well as:

• The tasks you want your participants to do (usability testing)
• How much time you’ve set aside for the session
• A script or description that you can use for every session
• Your process for recording the interviews, including how you’ll look after participant data.

Action: This is essentially a research plan within a research plan – it’s what you’d take to every session.

Happy researching!

Related UX plan reading

• What is mixed methods research? – Learn how a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research methods can set your research project up for success.
• How to encourage people to participate in your study – Attracting participants to your study can be a tough undertaking. We’ve got a few different approaches to help.
• Which comes first: card sorting or tree testing? – Card sorting, tree testing, which one should you use first? And why does it matter?
• How to write great questions for your research – Learn how you can craft effective questions for your next research project.
• 5 ways to increase user research in your organization – One of the best ways to get other teams and stakeholders on board with your own research projects is by helping to spread awareness of the benefits of user research.
• How to lead a UX team – With user-centered design continuing to grow in organizations across the globe, we’re going to need skilled UX leaders.
• How to benchmark your information architecture – Before embarking on any major information architecture projects, learn how you can benchmark your existing one.

Published on July 15, 2020

David Renwick

David is Optimal Workshop's Content Strategist and Editor of CRUX. You can usually find him alongside one of the office dogs 🐕 (Bella, Bowie, Frida, Tana or Steezy). Connect with him on LinkedIn.

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What is UX Research: The Ultimate Guide for UX Researchers

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How to write and present actionable UX research reports

Regardless of how thorough or valuable your user research is, it quickly becomes meaningless if you’re unable to succinctly put it together and present it in a digestible UX research report.

UX research reporting is a skill just as valuable as being able to conduct the research in the first place. It lets you showcase methodology and findings of your research, and ensure a product’s user experience delivers with the first iteration.

Luckily, how to write and present UX research reports is something you can learn. What’s more, this chapter will guide you through it (and provide free templates for your UX report).

What is a UX research report?

A user research report is an easy-to-digest summary of a user research project that aims to update product stakeholders on results, inform product decisions with user data, and harmoniously guide a product build or iteration.

Once upon a time, UX research reporting was a cumbersome, dreaded box to tick. It was notorious for resulting in unnavigable reports that product teams would rather leave at the bottom of their inbox than try to consume.

The word 'report' conjures images of lengthy word documents, a PDF one-pager, or hour-long presentation with an occasional GIF—but a research report doesn't have to mean that.

Kevin Rapley , Senior User Researcher at Justice Digital, explains a UX report as being “about arming our teammates with data that allows them to decide on the direction of a product or service.”

A useful UX report includes:

• The research goals and research process
• Research questions the report is hoping to answer
• A recap of the UX research plan
• What UX research methods were used and why
• Quantitative and qualitative data sets and conclusions
• Key insights & actionable takeaways
• An expanded data appendix

Why do you need a user research report?

Product teams need a user research report to reflect on research activities and accurately guide a product’s scope with key insights. A UX research report helps sort information, defend research, and affirm (or disprove) a hypothesis. No matter how well-organized your research repository is, sometimes simply having the research results available is not enough. A succinct report will align entire teams in one sitting by presenting findings in a unique way.

In short, a research report helps to:

• Positively influence UX design
• Make sense of data sets and explain complicated graphs or other quantitative research results
• Provide actionable recommendations on next steps
• Summarize key findings, so they can be translated into every role and responsibility of the product team

Where UX research enables product teams to understand the user, prove or disprove hypotheses, and prioritize and generate ideas, a UX research report ensures the user is at the center of every product decision. Presenting that UX report then aligns team members on goals and priorities, and provides authentic user insights to inform every product decision.

We’ve covered what a research report is , but what is it not ? A UX research report is not a static, one-time document that your team reads once. It’s an ongoing reference point; the guardrails and guiding insights that guarantees the entire build stays on track.

How to write an effective UX research report: the essential elements

No matter how you choose to present your research study, there are a few elements that every report needs to include for it to be both useful and effective. Let’s look at how to create a report.

Introduction

Your introduction should lay out your research goals, plan, and scope. It should cover your product team’s pain points, and give a clear study overview. You need to answer what you did and why. The introduction can go on to include sales support data and competitive product analysis that inspired or guided this research project.

It’s a good idea to set up how this research helps to support and answer related company goals, team-level goals, and product-dev goals: so all stakeholders know it’s got something for them.

You can include questions from your UX research strategy you had originally hoped to answer, even if your results have gone on to answer other questions as well. Now’s also a good time to introduce research stakeholders: your fellow research team members.

As a secondary step to your introduction, ensure you’re including the approach you took to your UX research process : i.e. what research methods you used, as well as participant profiles and your user personas .

Don’t feel you need to spend too much time on this, says Charlie Herbozo Vidal , Senior User Experience Researcher at CVS Health. “As researchers, it’s not uncommon to dwell on the methodology for longer than needed. While interrogating methods might be valuable to other researchers, business partners might be disengaged by them.”

Ultimately, while methodology is important, it’s the results that most people are here for.

Key findings

This is where you get people on the edge of their seats! Give an overview of your findings, before breaking them down into more detail. Remind your audience ‘what we thought’ vs. what you actually learned.

Artifacts to use are:

• User personas built
• Insights from customer interviews
• User journey maps
• Prototype testing
• Storyboards
• Feedback & satisfaction reports

At the end of this section, and continuing throughout your presentation, you can pepper relevant atomic research nuggets.

Make sure you champion the user's needs throughout, and make special notes of 'offhand' comments users make. Often, it's the random comments that provide the most insight—they must not be forgotten about when writing the report.

Jack Dyer , Designer at Interactive Schools

Summarize your quantitative and qualitative research , and how they’ll both impact your product design and growth. Lay out opportunities versus risks, good-to-knows versus must-knows. Here you’ll want to convey the impact of each suggested step, roadmap designs, and figure out the long and short-term project scope. A few things to cover in your next steps are:

• Long and short-term goals
• ICE framework (Impact, confidence, ease)
• Roles and responsibilities for each task
• A timeline of events and project map
• A request for resources
• Desired outcomes

No matter how you’re presenting your research, be it asynchronously or not, you’ll need to include a Q&A. These can be subjective (based on what you think your team is likely to ask), pre-collected ahead of the presentation, answered live, or an opportunity to build an FAQ later.

What’s important is to acknowledge and be open to receiving questions. After all, questions are a positive thing—it means people are actually listening!

It’s easy to overlook the appendix after putting together a detailed report, but all that glorious research data needs to be accounted for and referenced clearly. Plus, you never know to what extent your team will want to dive into it. Your appendix is also where you’ll want to include secondary research that didn’t make the cut but backs up your research.

9 Ways to present UX research findings

UX research reporting will look a little different depending on your internal personas and organizational culture. First, ask yourself: who is your audience? Who needs to see the report, and who will benefit from seeing it? This will help determine how to present your user research report.

A few things to consider:

• Are you working with internal or external stakeholders? Tool limitation and file-sharing will differ for both.
• Are you working with an in-office, fully-remote, or hybrid team?
• Are you sitting in the same time zone or not?
• What are the knowledge levels like within your team?
• How does your team communicate daily/weekly/monthly?
• Are there any predetermined knowledge bases or tools your team is comfortable with?

The most common players across a UX team that need to understand your UX research report are:

• Product Designers (UX/UI)
• Fellow Product Researchers
• UX/UI Writers

However , it doesn’t stop at your product decision-making team. More often than not, there will be other stakeholders that can benefit from your research presentation. Your marketing, finance, sales, and even C-suite executives will massively benefit from your findings too. If you can tailor versions of your report or provide key summaries for each collective, even better!

Psst 👉 This is much easier to do when you have a research team that can host stakeholder interviews ahead of your research process.

Now, let’s get into the report formats to consider:

1. Workshops: for real-time, collaborative reports

First up, workshops. Workshops are a unique way of keeping your report interactive and engaging. They can be held remotely or in-person, but are almost impossible to hold asynchronously—so time zones are a big factor here.

You’ll also want to consider workshopping tools if you’re hosting digitally—a few to consider are: Miro, Mural, FigJam, and Gather.

A plus with workshops is that your stakeholders will actively have a say early on in the product development process , allowing you to foster more diverse inputs, minimize research bias you may have accumulated in your summaries, and build a sense of responsibility for the product’s success early on.

A negative of workshops is that they can be culprits to in-the-room or bandwagon bias. People are quick to ride on the coattails of a strong conclusion, without fully understanding or trialing another (less popular) conclusion or suggestion.

2. Slack channels: for an asynchronous and interactive research repository

Slack is a great option (especially if you’re already using it) if your research team needs to deliver insights to a fully-distributed collection of stakeholders. Slack tends to be the go-to channel for startups and creative companies, and there’s some key features you can tap into:

• Canvas: Store files, images, videos, and more in one place
• Huddles: Jump on a quick chat to fill in any gaps
• Clips: Post audio, video, or screen-sharing clips
• Connect: Team up with freelancers and agencies working on the project with you
• Workflow: Build drag-and-drop processes from your findings
• Knowledge sharing: Tag your data accordingly so it's easy to find later

3. Knowledge bases: for self-serve UX research reports

Knowledge bases can be a great home for your research presentation, and work especially well for distributed teams working across different time zones.

However your team is set up, research repositories are incredibly valuable. Sharing your report in a centralized location, regardless of the other ways you distribute findings, can democratize research , showcase the impact of your work, and disseminate valuable insights throughout your entire organization.

Keep in mind that knowledge bases can be tough to navigate if poorly organized or tagged. If you’re storing your UX research report in a knowledge base, ensure you provide clear instructions on how someone can find it, and how to navigate through the report itself.

If you have the time, run a card sorting test with an internal focus group to see how you can logically sort your research for those who are going to be looking for it.

4. Presentations / slide decks: great for the PAS framework

Live presentations tend to be the most impactful, but do risk being short-lived if you don’t have a follow-up plan for after your presentation.

While they’re great for sharing metrics and visuals, and can provide a beautiful overview of your research project, presentations can be a little one-sided. This one-way presentation style can prevent collaboration and innovation from the rest of the team. Consider how you can make your presentation interactive or engaging, whether it’s taking questions throughout or doing a ‘choose your own adventure’ session and asking people which sections they want to review first.

Kevin Rapley , Senior User Researcher at Justice Digital, recommends presenting slides using the PAS framework:

• Problem: State the problem you set out to overcome
• Agitate: Detail the impact or opportunity missed by not meeting the problem
• Solution: Offer a route forward from the research findings and insights, the next steps, and likely outcomes by solving the problem

Kevin explains that the PAS framework cuts to the detail people are invested in: “Stakeholders want to know the path forward: Are we on the right track to build this service? Have we uncovered user engagement or uptake issues? Have we learned that our assumptions are incorrect and we now have a better understanding of user needs? Presenting slides in this way delivers what’s needed.”

5. Written reports: for direct and simple sharing

If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. A written report is probably the idea that jumped to the front of your mind when you read the title of this chapter. For many, this may seem like the ‘OG’ of UX reports.

These types of reports often come as a PDF or a word document, making them static, reluctant to change, and resulting in low engagement or re-reads. Delivering a written report via email also means you can’t guarantee your audience is going to read it. On the other hand, written reports can be incredibly detailed, scanable for different stakeholders, and include all kinds of results from visual data to qualitative findings.

For many teams this method still works, especially if you’re trying to communicate findings to a distributed, asynchronous team. Written UX reports enable people to go through things in their own time—and come back to it when they need to.

6. Atomic research nuggets: to eliminate ‘bad research memory’

Deriving from an atom—the smallest unit of matter—atomic UX research nuggets are minute and succinct conclusions from data points. They’re always aligned and tagged with a product direction. Formalized by Tomer Sharon and Daniel Pidcock , it’s described as “the concept of breaking UX research down into its constituent parts”:

Experiments: “We did this…” Facts: “…and we found out this…” Insights: “…which makes us think this…” Conclusions: “…so we’ll do that.”

Atomic research nuggets help to fight ‘bad research memory’—the idea that knowledge gets lost or forgotten amid the depths of a larger report. These nuggets are accessible, usable, and searchable. They can be delivered (or accessed) throughout an entire product build, serving as North Stars for micro goals. Research nuggets can be a firm reminder your team is, or isn’t, taking the right action.

7. Pre-recorded video: for better knowledge retention

People retain 90% of the information they receive via video versus text. There’s no question that, for many, video is a better way of onboarding and remembering information. At the same time, it can be easier to share information via video if your UX researchers aren’t the most confident of writers.

Although pre-recorded video is an easy way to share a UX research report with a team, as with other formats on this list, you’ll need to ensure people actually watch it.

Loom can be a great screen-sharing video recording tool. Some of their features and paid plans will enable you to see who from your team has watched your video, as well as spark conversation and engagement opportunities throughout the video. Alternatively, you can share the video as a watch-along during a synchronous meeting and discuss afterwards, while still sharing the video with those who can’t attend live.

8. Case studies: for sticky storytelling

Case studies aren’t just for winning potential customers. At their very core, case studies are put together to convince someone of something due to a real-life story. This is why they can be great if your UX research report needs to convince a diverse or largely cautious selection of stakeholders.

What’s more, case studies tend to rely on storytelling tactics and a strong narrative to get their point across. They can pull from user personas to further a point and make it more relatable for your design team. Muhammad Ahmad , UX Designer at VentureDive, shares the value presenting reports as case studies holds:

“Case studies show how you think. As a UX Researcher or Designer, how you percieve problems and what framework you use to evaluate them matters a lot. Your case studies are supposed to show just that.”

9. Maze reports: for all-in-one research and reporting

Automate your reporting with Maze. Maze automatically generates a report for each test you run, turning it into an easy-to-navigate dashboard. Add comments to generate conversation, highlight key responses and generate usability scores for your prototype testing .

If you’re working with moderated research, Maze AI can speed up the reporting process with automated sentiment tagging, project naming, and even generating summaries and identifying critical learnings from user interviews . So you can sit back, and let Maze take care of the data processing.

When you’re happy with your report, generate a custom link that you can share with your team, and further internal and external stakeholders.

Using Maze reports will enable you to share:

• Introduction and mission slides
• An analysis of each UX research method: From card sorting to live website testing
• In-depth breakdowns of research data
• Overviews of the report metrics: From misclicks to bounce rates and time-on-screen
• A usability score

These reports will also allow you to download CSV files of your data, and customzie filters and views to bring your stakeholders the numbers they need, fast. Your team will be able to collaborate in a comments section and let AI identify key themes and takeaways if you’re struggling to spot them.

Overall, UX research tools with in-built reporting are a great way to translate and share all of your research into visual data sets that can be digested by the rest of the team in a few clicks.

7 UX research report templates

There are some fantastic research report templates to help get you started on your journey. Here are some of our favorites to help you better present those deliverables, key learnings, and everything in between.

Maze: Usability testing report

Hosted on Pitch, this report template is clear, simple, and follows a lot of the design and framework best practices shared in this chapter.

Access the template here

Aadil Khan: UXR report with examples

A straightforward report template is designed by Aadil Khan , UX Researcher at IBM, who says: “I made this template based on tons of mentoring calls I’ve been in with people looking to land UXR jobs where we discuss how to present UXR case studies during interviews and such. Oftentimes their case studies were too lengthy and lacked some sort of narrative structure to make it easier to present.”

EaTemp: Key findings report

A beautifully-designed template hosted on Figma. Get access to personas, empathy maps, and card sorting. All colors, fonts, and shapes are customizable.

Miro: Research repository template

Build a centralized research hub on Miro. Connect your team in a few clicks and allow them to collaborate with this free template. Note: you’ll need to sign up for a (free) Miro account.

Furquan Ahmad: UX research report template

A sleek and vibrant presentation, this template was created by Furquan Ahmad , Product Designer at Meta, “to help people focus their energy and time on the insights they're providing rather than worry about what the presentation will look like. I'm always shocked at how many people have benefited from the community.”

Estefanía Montaña Buitrago: Atomic UX research canvas

Beautifully designed on FigJam, this canvas by Estefanía Montaña Buitrago , UX Designer at Globant, has been used by over 7,000 people and now comes with several useful remixes too.

Muhammad Ahmad: UX research kit

Muhammad Ahmad , UX Designer at VentureDive, shared this minimalistic template. Here you’ll get 60+ customizable templates in both light and dark modes. There’s a free version, or a (paid) premium version which may be worth the investment for you.

Best practices for writing an effective UX research report

The functionality of your research report will come down to how you write it. Sitting down and being faced with copious amounts of data can make UX reporting feel like a daunting task—here’s some techniques and tips to help you along the way.

Take a leaf from your UX design book with user-friendly copy

No matter the format, you want your UX report to be as accessible and skim-able as possible for your audience. It’s a good idea to mimic some of the same mentalities you would use in UX design.

Gestalt grouping principles are good to consider for UX report writing. Think similarity , proximity , and common-region for grouping relevant information.

Similarly, UI design principles such as the figure-ground and focal point will help direct your readers’ eyes to the most important information first, as well as make for a more accessible read.

Lastly, Gestalt’s continuity principle is a great one to apply to your UX report. Readers naturally follow patterns for easier flows in information, so if you’re including stylistic elements like bolding, italics, asides, indenting, or something else, ensure these run consistently throughout your report.

At the same time, think about the structure, layout, and formatting of your written report. Are you leaving enough negative space for your reader to process information? These are especially important for readers with dyslexia, but will generally lift your readability on the whole:

• Is all of your copy aligned left?
• Is your font choice clear with a good amount of spacing between letters and words?
• Are you bolding important words and sentences rather than underlining them?
• Are you peppering your report with enough headings and subheadings?

Release oxytocin: Follow storytelling tactics

A Forbes article reported that “immersive storytelling releases the empathy-related chemical oxytocin in our brains.” If you’re not familiar with oxytocin, it’s known as a natural ‘feel-good’ chemical, promoting feelings of trust and attachment.

Why else do you think case studies are so effective? They rely on storytelling: they have characters, plots, beginnings, endings, peaks, and pits. User research reports that mimic storytelling threads and tactics are more likely to create sticky data points, as well as hold your readers’ attention throughout. This is why the PAS framework works so well, but whatever format your report takes, bear in mind a story-like structure with a beginning, middle, and end.

Ask your editor to edit your research presentation with the three Cs in mind

Clear , Concise , Compelling . These core principles exist everywhere the written word does, but it can be hard to spot them when editing your own work. Just because something is clear, concise, and compelling for you, doesn’t mean it is for someone else—ask a colleague to read your report (or, better yet—a content editor).

Failing that, if you don’t have access to an editor or are in a time crunch, here are some tools to help you edit your own work.

• Grammarly: Good for catching those little typos and grammatical errors
• Hemingway Editor: Gives a readability score and helps to simplify sentences

Consider your reader, and rethink the jargon

Tailoring your report to meet the needs and knowledge level of each stakeholder is a balancing act. Many will tell you to avoid jargon, acronyms, and technical language at all costs. But, that’s not always the case. Sometimes, using industry jargon is the most direct way of getting your point across, and if you know your reader understands it, go for it.

However, keep in mind that if your report is going to other teams: sales, C-suite, finance, etc, then you may need to find alternative terms that aren’t department-specific—or provide a glossary or acronym dictionary within the report.

Muhammad shares more: “Typically UX folks (or even product folks) are not that well-equipped with research terminologies. So giving them the summary of the research in plain language is the approach that works best for me.”

Wrapping up how to present user research findings

There you have it, a complete guide on how you can write and present your user experience research in a way that everyone can benefit from it.

Remember, be conscious of your audience, your format, and your language. Different stakeholders and team cultures require different reporting styles, it’s up to you to curate the information into a report that delivers the insights you’ve uncovered.

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Written by Jessica Fender

30 August, 2021

As a UX designer, you need to have great communication with the clients and stakeholders of the projects you’re handling. Whether you’re working on a website, mobile app, or a service, you and the clients must be on the same page. Why? Because you need to understand exactly what they need, and they need to be assured you’ll do a great job. To communicate all of this efficiently, and have written evidence of your agreement, you should always write a UX design proposal.

Yes, writing proposals may not be your strongest asset, and this task may seem intimidating. But, it’s crucial for the success of your future UX design projects. So, keep reading to learn about UX design proposals and how to write them with ease.

What is a UX Design Proposal?

Before you start writing one, you need to understand what a UX design proposal is.

Let’s define it first:

A UX design proposal is a written document that summarizes how a UX designer plans on handling a project and meeting the client’s needs.

Simply put, a UX design proposal is written by the UX designer to show the client how they see the project, what are the objectives, and how they’re going to reach them.

This document also serves the purpose of making sure both the UX designer and the client are on the same page. There are no surprises or unexpected moments during their collaboration since everything is clearly stated in the UX design proposal.

Why Write a UX Design Proposal?

Apart from what we’ve covered above, writing a UX design proposal comes with additional benefits. Here’s why you should always write a UX design proposal, for every future project:

• it helps you create a strategy for project realization
• it guides you through the project later on
• it removes ambiguity and misunderstandings
• it shows the client how professional and skilled you are
• it convinces the client to hire you

So, a UX design proposal is not a convenience but a necessity. Now, let’s go to the writing part.

How to Write a UX Design Proposal?

If you’ve never written a UX design proposal, or you have but weren’t happy with how it turned out, it’s time to learn. Here’s our ultimate guide on how to write a UX design proposal.

Just follow each step of the process.

1.       Talking to the Client

The preparation part of writing a UX design proposal is communicating with the client . You can’t start writing before you understand what they want and what they expect from you.

So, schedule a meeting with your client and discuss all the details of the upcoming project. Ask questions, take notes, and try to fully understand the client’s perspective.

2.       Problem Statement

Your UX design proposal should start with a clearly written problem statement.

A problem statement describes:

• what problems is the client/user facing
• what are the main causes of this problem
• what are the consequences of this problem

Here, you’re defining what the client explained in your initial conversation. You’re showing them you understand their needs and are fully prepared to remove the problem.

When writing this section, try to use your client’s exact words to help them relate to your proposal from the beginning.

3.       Setting Objectives

Now that the problem is defined, you’ll move on to setting objectives for the project. In other words, you’ll answer the following question:

What do we want to achieve with this project?

The objectives you set are the most important part of the UX design proposal, both for you and your client. They define:

• the solution you’re offering
• the results the client can expect from you
• the benefits of your proposed solution

So, this section is meant to show the client how your UX design will help them overcome the issues they’re facing, improve their business, offer something better for their users , and achieve their goals.

Be careful not to use too much technical vocabulary. This can confuse the clients and damage the persuasive effect of the UX design proposal.

Instead, write naturally, using the vocabulary they’ll instantly understand.

4.       Breaking it Down

Now that the main objectives are defined, and you know what the result should be, you need to break this down a bit and help the client see what your UX strategy is going to be.

To do this, you should break down the project into minor deliverables that will lead to the final result you’ve set. These deliverables are actually:

• different stages of the project
• minor goals for each stage

So, you’ll explain to the client how the UX design project will go down, and in what order will you be handling different tasks that are ahead of you.

This is beneficial for two reasons:

• the client knows what to expect for as long as the project is active
• the client gets insight into how much work you have to do and will understand your pricing better

So, divide your project into stages and explain them all to the client.

5.       Timeline

The timeline of the project is important for both parties.

The client wants assurance that you’ll deliver the results as per agreement. And, you don’t want them to rush you or pressure you into finishing the project ASAP.

So, think about the amount of time you need for:

• preparing everything and starting the project
• each stage of the project
• delivering the final result

Create a timeline and include it in your proposal, with precise dates and details.

Also, note that you should mark a period necessary for the client to revise the project, so you could add the final changes and polish the design to make sure the client is fully satisfied.

6.       Budget

When you’re working on an agreement with your client, you should always define the budget. The client needs to know precisely how much are your services going to cost.

But, don’t just write the final price without providing some details to as why it costs as much.

Here’s what you can do to make the budget section more client-friendly:

• make more than one offer, defining what each one includes and how much each costs
• divide the project into separate services you’re offering, write the price for each service and then add it all up

Try adding some details and options for the client to consider. This will make it easier for them to accept your offer.

7.       Edit & Proofread

Finally, you have to make sure that the UX design proposal is a reflection of your professionalism. You can’t allow for any mistakes or weak spots in this document.

So, before calling it a day, always edit and proofread your copy. If you want a professional to help you, PaperHelp is a writing service that can do it for you. You can also use different online proofreading tools and grammar checkers.

The important thing is there are no typos, grammar mistakes, or poor selection of vocabulary. Your UX design proposal needs to be polished to perfection.

Final Thoughts

A UX design proposal is a valuable document that helps designers close the deal with their clients, and secure stable, healthy communication. It’s a valuable agreement that defines the projects and makes them easier to complete.

Hopefully, our ultimate guide on how to write a UX design proposal helped you understand just how simple it can be. Follow our instructions to write all your future proposals, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.

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How UX/UI Designers Should Write a Design Proposal?

The humble design proposal is, perhaps, the most crucial text a UX/UI designer will ever write. This document outlines your specific approach to the client’s design brief — what you plan to do and how you plan to do it. If successful, your proposal will become part of the contract you sign with the client. It all starts with the first word you type. 

Many designers struggle with proposals, and for good reason. What should you say? How should you say it? It’s tough. This guide tells you how to create an incredible proposal that lands you your next design job. So read on for more and check out UXPin’s blog for further insights for designers like you.

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What Is a Design Proposal?

A design proposal is a document you send to clients (and sometimes stakeholders) that sets out your ideas for a specific design project . It’s not a resume. Or a cover letter. And each proposal should be unique to the project you are applying for. Prospective clients typically ask several designers to submit proposals at once and then compare these documents to determine the best person (or team) for the job. 

Some clients might receive hundreds of proposals from designers, so you need yours to stand out from the crowd and not end up in the Trash folder.

What to include in your design proposal

There’s no set list of rules for what to include in your document, but here are some of the most common things you’ll find in design proposals: 

• Your approach to the project. How will you prototype? How will you design? How will you meet the client’s needs (as outlined in the brief)?
• A brief bio. Your design history. Your credentials. Your skills. List the most important stuff. Sell yourself. 
• Contact information. Don’t forget your phone number, email address, and a link to your website. 
• Timeline. How long will it take you to complete the project? Are you working alone? Or with a team?
• Software/equipment. What tools will you use?
• Deliverables. How will you deliver the project?
• Testimonials from clients you have worked for

Pro-tip: Include your design budget in the proposal. It’s up to you. Some designers discuss financials later. 

Your design proposal doesn’t have to be lengthy. Perhaps a page or two. You need just the right information to capture the client’s attention and convince everyone you are the right person for the project. You can detail the whats, whens, and hows of the project in your user research plan .

Benefits of a Design Proposal

• Address the client’s needs and pain points
• Showcase your skills and experience
• Solve a design-related problem
• Communicate your passion for the project
• You could land a dream design job with one document
• Introduce awkward topics like payments and deadlines
• Use your design skills when creating your proposal (see below)

How to create a design proposal for UX/UI projects

Here are the most important things to consider when creating a design proposal for UX/UI projects.

Adapt your tone and style to the client

As a designer, you know how to engage with different audiences and demographics, so think of the proposal through this same paradigm. Research the company and choose the right language and style based on its values and culture.

Use more formal language for a long-standing financial company , for example. Or adopt a casual approach when approaching a start-up in Brooklyn. This way, you can impress even the most difficult clients .

Still not sure about how to approach the proposal? Discuss it with the rest of your design team and figure out the most appropriate solution.

Think about design all the time

Few designers pay attention to design when creating proposals and consider this document another formality. Take a fresh approach and view your proposal as an innovative way to showcase your design flair.

Think about the fonts, images, logos, color schemes, shapes, contrast, and other design and graphical elements to include in your proposal. Don’t clutter the document, but include elements that highlight your value as a designer. 

Prove your worth

There’s no space in your proposal to be modest. Clients want you to get straight to the point: Tell the world why you’re the best designer for the project. If you have the right skills, list them.

If you won an award for your last project, talk about it. In an ever-competitive UX design marketplace, prove your worth. It might feel uncomfortable, but you could land the biggest and best job of your career. 

Write Your Design Proposal Now

Spend some time on your proposal because it could change your career. Clients want to see your experience, motivations, and ideas in one document, and with competition so fierce, you need to write a document that demands attention.

Impress clients even more by coupling your proposal with a user research plan that details the specifics of the design project. UXPin has user research plan templates that speed up the process. 

Access templates for the most important documents in design with UXPin, the design and prototyping tool for UX/UI professionals worldwide. Start your free trial .

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• Vitaly Friedman
• May 7, 2024

How To Run UX Research Without Access To Users

• UX Research , User Experience , Design
• Share on Twitter ,  LinkedIn

About The Author

Vitaly Friedman loves beautiful content and doesn’t like to give in easily. When he is not writing, he’s most probably running front-end & UX … More about Vitaly ↬

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UX research without users isn’t research . We can shape design ideas with bias, assumptions, guesstimates, and even synthetic users , but it’s anything but UX research. Yet some of us might find ourselves in situations where we literally don’t have access to users — because of legal constraints, high costs, or perhaps users just don’t exist yet. What do we do then?

Luckily, there are some workarounds that help us better understand pain points and issues that users might have when using our products. This holds true even when stakeholders can’t give us time or resources to run actual research, or strict NDAs or privacy regulations prevent us from speaking to users.

Let’s explore how we can make UX research work when there is no or only limited access to users — and what we can do to make a strong case for UX research .

This article is part of our ongoing series on design patterns . It’s also an upcoming part of the 10h-video library on Smart Interface Design Patterns  🍣 and the upcoming live UX training as well. Use code BIRDIE to save 15% off.

Find Colleagues Who Are The Closest To Your Customers

When you don’t have access to users, I always try to establish a connection with colleagues who are the closest to our customers . Connect with people in the organization who speak with customers regularly, especially people in sales, customer success , support, and QA. Ultimately, you could convey your questions indirectly via them.

As Paul Adams noted , there has never been more overlap between designers and salespeople than today. Since many products are subscription-based, sales teams need to maintain relationships with customers over time. This requires a profound understanding of user needs — and meeting these needs well over time to keep retention and increase loyalty.

That’s where research comes in — and that’s exactly where the overlap between UX and sales comes in. In fact, it’s not surprising to find UX researchers sitting within marketing teams under the disguise of Customer Success teams, so whenever you can befriend colleagues from sales and Customer Success teams.

Gaining Insights Without Direct Access To Users

If you can’t get users to come to you, perhaps you could go where they are. You could ask to silently observe and shadow them at their workplace. You could listen in to customer calls and interview call center staff to uncover pain points that users have when interacting with your product. Analytics , CRM reports, and call center logs are also a great opportunity to gain valuable insights, and Google Trends can help you find product-related search queries .

To learn more about potential issues and user frustrations, also turn to search logs, Jira backlogs, and support tickets. Study reviews, discussions, and comments for your or your competitor’s product, and take a look at TrustPilot and app stores to map key themes and user sentiment. Or get active yourself and recruit users via tools like UserTesting, Maze, or UserInterviews.

These techniques won’t always work, but they can help you get off the ground. Beware of drawing big conclusions from very little research, though. You need multiple sources to reduce the impact of assumptions and biases — at a very minimum, you need five users to discover patterns .

Making A Strong Case For UX Research

Ironically, as H Locke noted , the stakeholders who can’t give you time or resources to talk to users often are the first to demand evidence to support your design work. Tap into it and explain what you need. Research doesn’t have to be time-consuming or expensive; ask for a small but steady commitment to gather evidence. Explain that you don’t need much to get started: 5 users × 30 minutes once a month might already be enough to make a positive change.

Sometimes, the reason why companies are reluctant to grant access to users is simply the lack of trust . They don’t want to disturb relationships with big clients, which are carefully maintained by the customer success team. They might feel that research is merely a technical detail that clients shouldn’t be bothered with.

Typically, if you work in B2B or enterprise, you won’t have direct access to users. This might be due to strict NDAs or privacy regulations , or perhaps the user group is very difficult to recruit (e.g., lawyers or doctors).

Show that you care about that relationship. Show the value that your work brings. Explain that design without research is merely guesswork and that designing without enough research is inherently flawed.

Once your impact becomes visible, it will be so much easier to gain access to users that seemed almost impossible initially.

Key Takeaways

• Ask for reasons for no access to users: there might be none.
• Find colleagues who are the closest to your customers.
• Make friends with sales , customer success, support, QA.
• Convey your questions indirectly via your colleagues.
• If you can’t get users to come to you, go where they are.
• Ask to observe or shadow customers at their workplace.
• Listen in to customer calls and interview call center staff .
• Gather insights from search logs, Jira backlog, and support tickets .
• Map key themes and user sentiment on TrustPilot, AppStore, etc.
• Recruit users via UserTesting, Maze, UserInterviews , etc.
• Ask for small but steady commitments: 5 users × 30 mins, 1× month .
• Avoid ad-hoc research: set up regular check-ins and timelines .

Useful Resources

• The End Of Navel Gazing , by Paul Adams
• UX Research Cheat Sheet , by Susan Farrell
• Overcoming Limited Access To Users in UX Research , by Debbie Levitt
• What Can You Do When You Have No Access To Users? , by H Locke
• UX Research When You Can’t Talk To Users , by Chris Myhill
• How To Conduct UX Research Without Users , by Mariia Kasym
• User Research When You Can’t Talk to Your Users , by Jon Peterson

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How to Write a Research Proposal in Google Docs

Ever wonder “ why ” something happens or “ how ” to fix a problem that keeps popping up? Maybe you have a wild “what if” idea. Those are awesome questions that can lead to amazing discoveries! A research proposal is your key to unlocking those answers and making a real difference.

Think of it like this: You’re a detective on a case. Google Docs is your super cool notepad to plan your investigation. This guide will show you how to use it, step-by-step, to write a killer research proposal.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• How to grab people’s attention with a super interesting intro (think detective laying out the clues!)
• What to write in each part of your proposal (no need for fancy research jargon here!)
• How to use Google Docs’ awesome features to keep yourself organized and work with others (sharing is caring!).

So, put on your detective hat, open Google Docs, and let’s turn your question into a mind-blowing research proposal!

Table of Content

What is a Research Proposal?

Ph.d. research proposals, free research proposal templates by google docs, tips for a strong research proposal, faqs – writing a research proposal in google docs.

A research proposal is a blueprint for a research project . Writing a research proposal involves outlining your objectives , methodology, and expected outcomes . A research proposal includes Research Questions, background and significance, Literature review, methodology, Timeline, budget, and Expected outcomes. The purpose of making a research proposal is to convince others of the importance of the project. By using Google Docs , you can easily make any research proposal while collaborating with others.

• Your proposal should contain at least the following elements in the list of Ph.D. Research Proposal,
• A provisional title for the Proposal.
• A key question, hypothesis, or broad topic for further investigation.
• An outline of the key aims of the research proposal.
• A brief outline of key literature in the area.

Google Docs is a platform where it provides a variety of free templates in many fields. Anybody can check and edit the templates according to their need. Here are some of the free templates provided below for your reference where you can edit accordingly and make your research proposal differently.

Research Proposal Free Template 1

To Download this template Click here

Research Proposal Free Template 2

To Download this template Click Here

Research Proposal Free Template 3

Writing a research proposal in Google Docs is an easy process. Here’s a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Sign in to Google Docs

Go to Google Docs and sign in to your Google account. If you don’t have one, you’ll need to create one.

Step 2: Create a New Document

Click on the “+” (New) button to create a new document. You can choose a blank document or use a template if available.

Step 3: Set Up Your Document

Set up your document according to the guidelines provided by your institution or the requirements of your research proposal. This includes formatting your title page, adding headings, and adjusting margins.

Step 4: Structure Your Proposal

Use headings (e.g., Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology) to organize your proposal into sections. You can easily add headings by selecting the text and choosing a heading style from the toolbar.

Step 5: Write Your Proposal

Start writing your proposal under each section heading. Google Docs provides a familiar word processing environment with basic formatting tools like bold, italic, and bullet points.

Step 6: Collaborate with Others

If you’re working with collaborators or seeking feedback, you can easily share your document with others. Click on the “Share” button in the top right corner, enter the email addresses of the people you want to share with and choose their permission level (e.g., edit, comment, view).

Step 7: Review and Edit

Once you’ve completed your proposal, review it carefully for any errors or inconsistencies. You can use the spelling and grammar check tools to help you proofread your document.

Step 8: Finalize Your Proposal

Make any final adjustments and ensure that your proposal meets all the requirements. Double-check formatting, headings, and citations before submitting.

Step 9: Save and Share

Google Docs automatically saves your work as you go, but it’s a good idea to save a final copy to your Google Drive or download it as a PDF or Word document. Share the final version with your advisor or colleagues as needed.

By following these steps, you can effectively write a research proposal using Google Docs and take advantage of its collaboration features and convenience.

• Put a precise objective and research question that your proposal aims to address.
• Ensure your proposal addresses a significant problem or gap in knowledge within your field.
• Conduct a Literature Review of existing research to provide context and support for your proposal.
• Outline the methods and techniques clearly that you’ll use to conduct your research.
• Highlight the potential impact and contributions of your research.
• Provide a realistic timeline for completing your project work.
• Clearly outline the budget needed for your research.

Writing a research proposal in Google Docs offers many benefits for researchers. The platform’s collaborative features enable teamwork, allowing multiple contributors to edit and provide feedback in real time. Google Docs’ auto-save function ensures that your work is constantly backed up, reducing the risk of data loss. By learning Google Docs’ features, researchers can turn up the proposal writing process and enhance their productivity. Therefore, utilizing Google Docs for making research proposals is an efficient and effective approach, motivating researchers to collaborate, create, and communicate their ideas easily.

Does Google Docs have a proposal template?

Yes, Google Docs offers many proposal templates. Open Google Docs, click on the Template Gallery, and search for “proposal” and you’ll get to see many of them. Then, select a template that suits your needs and customize it for your research proposal.

How do I write a research proposal for Google?

Use Google Docs to create a new document, structure it with sections such as Introduction, Literature Review, Methodology, Results, Conclusion, and References, and collaborate with others by sharing the document.

What is the format of writing a research proposal?

The format of writing a research proposal typically includes, Title Page Abstract Introduction Literature Review Methodology Results and Discussion Conclusion References

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EDUC802: Educational Research Design

Main content, module 4: how to review literature, develop questions, and write a proposal.

• First Page |<<
• Previous Page <

Introduction

[MUSIC PLAYING]

MATTHEW T. MCCRUDDEN: OK. In this chapter, the focus is on how to review the literature and to develop good research questions. So the basic idea here is that you want to see what's been done previously in an area and that will help inform the types of questions that you ask. And those two features are very important because if previous work has been done, you want to benefit from that. Because we mentioned earlier, that research is incremental, and so if we can draw upon previous literature, that can inform our current thinking.

And when we have good research questions, that can set our research study in the right direction. If we have a poorly phrased research question, it becomes difficult to answer that question. So in this chapter, we'll talk about how do we draw upon existing resources to inform our thinking about conducting future research? And then how do we frame those studies using effective research questions that can be addressed with the methods that we have at our disposal?

MATTHEW T. MCCRUDDEN: This chapter, the topic is "How to Write a Research Proposal." So it introduces, what exactly is a research proposal? Why do we have that, and then, what are the components?

And when you think broadly about a research proposal, think of it as a plan of action. It's telling you, you're laying out specifically what you're going to do in order to conduct a study. And so this chapter talks about what, are the elements that you include in a research proposal as you go through the planning process prior to conducting a study?

At the completion of this module, you will be able to:

• Accurately identify, define, and apply key terms and concepts related to literature reviews, research questions, and research proposals.
• Identify components of a research article.
• Draft components of your research proposal for this course.
• Reflect and apply key concepts to your personal research interests.
• Summarize and evaluate components of a qualitative research article.

Complete the learning activities by the due dates listed in the Course Schedule for Module 4.

• Readings and Videos
• Reading Questions
• Article Review (Qualitative)

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What Are The Sections Of A Research Proposal?

L earning the structure of a research proposal can be helpful while writing one. Research proposal writing services often emphasize the importance of breaking down your proposal into clear sections to ensure clarity and coherence. Typically, a research proposal comprises several key components.

A research proposal is like a roadmap for a study, outlining its purpose, methods, and expected outcomes. Typically, it consists of several key sections. Firstly, there's the introduction, which introduces the research topic and explains its importance. Then comes the literature review, where existing research relevant to the study is discussed. 

After that, the methodology section outlines how the research will be conducted, including the tools and techniques used. Next, the proposal includes a section on anticipated results and their significance. Lastly, there's often a section on the timeline and budget, detailing when and how resources will be allocated. This article will cover the sections of writing research proposal . 

Main Features of a Research Proposal

To write research proposal, it's important to cover key elements. Look for the best research proposal writing services to ensure your proposal includes all vital aspects.

Introduction

Literature review, methodology.

Research Proposal title should be to the point but informative that clearly tell what the research is about. Avoid using too long titles and extra information in it. Choose the best title for your research proposal that is relevant to your project.

A good proposal title should contain the following

• Eye catching words to grab the attention of the reader
• Positive language toward the reader

Titles should be similar to your research questions or thesis statements.

The abstract is like a snapshot of your research proposal, or a brief summary giving a intro what your study is all about. It gives the basic fundamental about your topic so they can understand the importance of the proposal. It sums up the main points: the problem you're tackling, what you aim to achieve, how you plan to do it, and what you expect to find. 

A strong abstract attracts the reader and grabs their interest in your proposal and its importance. This is the chance to make an excellent first impression and encourage readers to check out more of your research.

The introduction is the main point of the research proposal. It introduces the audience to the story by explaining the background and reasons behind your research. It highlights the main question or problem you're addressing and explains why it's important. By the end of the introduction, the reader should understand what you're studying, why it's significant, and what you hope to achieve. This section is crucial because it sets the stage for the rest of your proposal, helping the reader understand the context and purpose of your research.

The literature review acts as a map that shows the present state of information in your area of research. Here, you will be giving a summary and review of previous studies, concepts, and results related to the topic you chose. This makes it less difficult for you to see the larger context and figure out how your research fits in. In addition to underlining the importance of your work, an effective review of the literature highlights undiscovered areas and recommends places where future study may have an impact.

In the methodology section, you explain how you'll conduct your research. This includes describing the type of research you'll do, like whether it's qualitative or quantitative. You also talk about how you'll collect data, whether through surveys, interviews, or experiments. 

It's important to explain your sampling strategy, which is how you'll select participants or data points. This ensures that your sample is representative of the population you're studying. 

Additionally, you'll detail how you'll analyze the data once you've collected it. This could involve statistical tests, thematic analysis, or other methods depending on your research design. 

Clarity and feasibility are key in this section. You want to make sure that your methods are clear and that you'll be able to actually carry them out. This helps ensure that your findings will be valid and reliable.

Your research proposal's schedule section acts as a sort of road map, detailing the actions you'll comply with to finish the project. It provides the timetable for gathering information, research, and distribution of findings. Having a clear period shows off your excellent ability to manage time but also gives people trust that your study will be finished on time. It improves the trust people have in your proposal. Having an extensive timetable helps you stay on target and complete your education in an appropriate length of time, much like when you create milestones for yourself. This part of your proposal is important because it displays that you have calculated the length of time of each study part, which will help you plan carefully and make sure you succeed in finishing your project on time.

In the budget section, you list all the money you'll need for your research. This covers things like buying equipment, getting materials, paying participants, and any staff you might need. By explaining why you need each expense, you show exactly how you plan to spend the money. This transparency helps funding agencies understand why your study is worth investing in, making it more likely they'll support your research.

You must list all of the sources that you included in your research proposal in the references section. This list follows to an APA or MLA format, which makes it easier for readers to find exactly which sources you used. To maintain the academic standard and show regard for the efforts of other researchers, it is important that you use references that are right and reliable. This section acknowledges the works of earlier researchers whose work you have found useful in your research.

A good research proposal has important sections that show why your study is important, how it can be done, and how reliable it is. Whether you need money or permission for your research, knowing these sections well is key to making a strong proposal. With help from trusted research proposal writing services in the UK , new researchers can get expert advice on writing proposals, making it easier for them to succeed.

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