Deciphering UX

Unsplash / Alvaro Reyes

Unsplash / Alvaro Reyes

In the February Quirk’s, researcher Susan Fader discusses the overlap (and divide) between user experience researchers (UX) and traditional market researchers.

Fader argues a lack of trust exists between the two areas of research. UX can feel that they are the champions of the consumer, while believing that marketers and market research are merely interested in selling as much product as they can.

Another divide centers on terminology.  It’s often an “IDI” in market research speak, but a “one-on-one”  in the UX world.  “Client side” people are called “in-house”  by UX.  UX also has very precise terms that outsiders can easily conflate – e.g. the difference between usability testing, user testing, and user research. 

These seem like trifling differences, but such things build walls between people. All of this led one researcher to create a crowdsourced “UX Lex” so that someone who comes to the UX world can understand what people are talking about.

Some companies are taking steps to bridge these divides. Panasonic has combined market research, UX research, and data science into a single insights function, which helps them contextualize information and solve challenges in a comprehensive manner. Traditionally, many firms have treated UX as a specialty separate from its market research function.

As one person in the article notes, “This distrust between UX and market research is a missed opportunity to learn from the history of market research, which has been around for 75 years … lot of expertise and learning with very sophisticated tools and services that can help UX research incredibly.”

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