What can you do when you have no access to users?

Research methods to fill the gap

Research methods to fill the gap

Photo by Suad Kamardeen on Unsplash

I’ve recently had 3 separate conversations about user-less research and what we as UX Designers can do when we just can’t get access to users. The following is a synthesis of those conversations.

Why would you ‘not be able’ to do research with users?

As much as the industry loves to say “if you’re not talking to users, you’re not doing UX work”, there are times, projects and scenarios where you simply can’t do it.

Reasons can include:

• Users are hard to access — Maybe they are few in number, too busy, unable to travel or join an internet connection, or have accessibility needs you can’t accomodate no matter how hard you try

• Users are too expensive to recruit — I once recruited barristers. When you’re paying £1000+ incentive alone, you have to plan on very small samples and tight budgets for everything else

• Your company won’t let you — This is the most annoying one, but some employers or stakeholders just won’t pay for or give you the time needed to run interviews or tests.

In all these cases it is frustrating for the competent UXer, but there are other things we can do. First, let’s acknowledge that it’s super frustrating, and not (usually) the fault of the practitioner in question. Unlike the shouties of Linkedin — let’s not get judgey.

Why is this such a problem?

The reason you need to test your product with users, or interview your users rather than relying on third party or generic marketing research is because you are usually trying to understand something more specific —

How does THIS user behave while doing THIS task on THIS platform with THIS brand.

It can therefore be a big stretch to apply general market research to a specific scenario, and extremely risky to make up and ship a design solution without having that understanding.

It’s also stressful to the practitioner and wider UX team. By not talking to users, you are not performing one of your main roles as a UXer. You may therefore get career FOMO when you hear, read about or talk to other practitioners who are doing tons of research.

Newsflash: you can do other things than talk to users

Other research methods are available

Getting face time with users is important. And I am never going to suggest that we shouldn’t fight tooth-and-nail to do it at all times.

However. Rather than lose the will to live fighting a fight you can never win, it can be better for your mental health in the short term to seek another outlet. Don’t bang your head repeatedly against the same wall — go around it.

Don’t bang your head repeatedly against the same wall — go around it.

Go and find any other information you can about how your target audience lives, thinks, speaks and behaves. In fact, if you are working on a CX project or multichannel journey that transcends a single digital product then this kind of wider research activity is essential.

Layering multiple sources of insight and different lenses onto the problem can help you build a deeper view of your users and help you plan for the day when you do get to talk to them.

Here are some of the lenses you can use:

Online (desk) research

Desk research gets a bad rep, but the clever use of a search engine can generate interesting insights and help you form hypotheses about your users, if you’re looking in the right places.