The Difference Between Market Research and Usability Research

Have you ever had that experience where you go someplace thinking you know something, only to come back realizing you were kind of clueless?  Well, I had that experience when I (and two colleagues) went to Texas in February to attend the Certified User Experience Professional Class .

The professor starting by saying, "Let's begin talking about usability by talking about what it's not."  Even though I thought I had a good hunch of what it was, my mind went completely blank.  I listened as Niall (one of my new favorite people called coders whose responsibilities pretty much eluded me before this course--and, let's be honest, often still does) rattled off about 7 different things that usability wasn't (while I started checking my binder cover to make sure I was even in the right room). It was during that first discussion when I learned  one of the many world changing pieces of wisdom I was going to come to delight in--

 Usability research is not the same as market research.  

1. Traditional marketing research methods often gleans some information ABOUT the customer and often comes through what the customer tells us.
2. Usability research, on the other hand is aimed at uncovering how something is USED, the behavior and motivations of the customer and gleans this by looking at a holistic view of the customers experience (so not just what the customer tells us, but also by watching what they do).  It's almost like a "360 view" of the customers experience.

As we've begun doing site visits, we're learning about the different tasks that are part of the teachers and students process of using our materials. This research is aimed at usability---trying to understand how they are trying to use our resources.

The research project John talked about in our meeting this morning was about market research where we are asking the customer about different types of information such as what product they use, a particular decision they made ---BUT HERE's THE KEY---not necessarily about how they are trying to use a resource. 

While we could have asked that question, here is where we would need to determine, based on what we are trying to learn, what methods do we need to look at employing---market research methods or usability methods?

So, now, as project teams or any team begins to talk about learning from the customer, our starting point can be a little different based on what we've learned.  We can ask, "Are we trying to learn information ABOUT the customer or insight into BEHAVIOR and what the customer is trying to accomplish?".  Both usability research methods and traditional marketing methods are valid and give us ways to discover great information.

The key is understanding what kind of information we are after. 


For more information, check out this link for a fabulous contrast between market research and usability research: 
 http://ripul.blogspot.com/2008/06/market-research-vs-usability-testing.html