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In need of an extra reminder that user research and UX is amazing and important work? We’ve assembled over 70 of our favorite user research quotes that cover everything from the joys of research to convincing stakeholders about the importance of UX research.
This list includes UX quotes about:
User research in a nutshell
The benefits of user research and insights
Advice from UXR industry leaders and experts
The joys of doing research
Convincing stakeholders that research is the key to success
Quotes about user research in a nutshell
User research is complex, and it’s difficult to summarize this field of work in just a few words. Here are some quotes to help you describe what doing research is like.👇
1. “You do research because you want to have impact. […] If you don’t have high-quality participants, that’s kind of a non-starter […] If you're not talking to the right people, it's really hard to make the right decisions.”
2. “Researchers are secretly journalists, [...] kind of in denial because a huge part of your job as a researcher is to get comfortable with figuring out the lead and the headline.”
When you need a reminder of the benefits of user research and insights
When you’re feeling lost in the weeds of doing user research, it’s helpful to remember the end goals and benefits of the work you’re doing. Here are some quotes for when you need an extra boost of motivation.👇
17. “Usability is like love. You have to care, you have to listen, and you have to be willing to change. You’ll make mistakes along the way, but that’s where growth and forgiveness come in.”
18. “Usability is about setting up a tent, relighting a furnace to heat a home, trying to figure out a tax form, or driving an unfamiliar rental car. Usability impacts everyone, every day. It cuts across cultures, age, gender, and economic class.”
19. “In an increasingly technological world, designing products with real people in mind helps us make sure that technology integrates in our lives in a human way. It’s a voice of reason, arguing that products and technology can support and even enrich our fundamental humanity.”
There are some lessons you can only learn through experience. And if you’re just starting out with UX research, the best thing to do is to get advice from the experts. Here are some wise words and advice from top UX research industry leaders. 👇
23. “Pay attention to what users do, not what they say.”
35. “Want your users to fall in love with your designs? Fall in love with your users.”
– Dana Chisnell, Senior Fellow, Project Redesign @ NCoC.org and Design Lead at California Office of Digital Innovation
36. “The big difference between good and bad designers is how they handle people struggling with their design. Technology serves humans. Humans do not serve technology.”
37. “When we do a lot of user research, it's easy to feel confident… But if you do user research well, you will always find something that is surprising. No matter how much research we do, no matter how much time we spend with our customers, we can't completely know them. And I feel like the goal of user research should be to find those moments.”
– Teresa Torres, Product Discovery Coach and Founder of Producttalk.org
38. “When we’re doing research for business, we don’t have to have the rigor of academic research. We’re not trying to publish academic papers on this. We’re trying to make a good business decision.”
44. “As a user researcher, you will often be looked upon to explain why and also how to fix [users’ problems]. The best researchers understand how to make recommendations based on data.”
When you want to learn about the joys of doing research
Research is complicated, but so rewarding. See what other researchers have to say about why doing user research is fulfilling for them.👇
52. “Those little moments, when participants express a sense of relief, joy and even excitement. There is nothing more rewarding in our field than seeing work improve the lives of others.”
53. “I get to discover what no one else in the company knows. I get to learn something new every day and build something to help them achieve their goals.”
55. “User research turns a work problem into a personal problem. It’s one thing to think your work might make a difference, and it’s another to see the impact it can have on another person’s life. User research puts people to the center of attention where they’ve always belonged.”
56. The power of statistics and the clean lines of quantitative research appealed to me, but I fell in love with the richness and depth of qualitative research.”
57. “At the end of the day I feel like we're really just lucky to be in this field. It's fun, it's dynamic, you get to work with people and really learn all the time, every day. You just can't ever assume you know all the things because you just never do. That's just the human factor, it’s real. Learning from our customers and being able to serve them, it really is meaningful, so I love being in this industry.”
– Susan Rice, Head of Product Design and Research at Toast
58. “At the end of the day I feel like we're really just lucky to be in this field. It's fun, it's dynamic, you get to work with people and really learn all the time, every day. You just can't ever assume you know all the things because you just never do. That's just the human factor, it’s real. Learning from our customers and being able to serve them, it really is meaningful, so I love being in this industry.”
– Susan Rice, Head of Product Design and Research at Toast
59. “Listening to people talk about super techie stuff that we build in such simple everyday language. Very humbling. Puts things in perspective and keeps you grounded.”
60. “I wanna throw down and say two enthusiastic thumbs up for remote user testing. I think that it is a fantastic, super useful way to access populations that you would never have access to… When I have a day where I can talk to Mark, the guy who sells janitorial supplies in the Ozarks, that is my best day… Only because of this awesome job, that I get to talk to that guy and learn about his life and learn about his pain points… That to me, is just the best thing.”
64. “If you don’t talk to your customers, how will you know how to talk to your customers?”
– Will Evans, Head of Product Strategy Practice at Kuroshio Consulting
65. “[Experimentation is] not about delivering outcomes— it's about generating learnings that the organization can leverage effectively to deliver outcomes.”
67. “If you want a great site, you’ve got to test. After you’ve worked on a site for even a few weeks, you can’t see it freshly anymore. You know too much. The only way to find out if it really works is to test it.”
71. “What if we turned our empathy chops onto our teammates, producing reports that take their experience into account, just like we do for the people using our products?”
Deepen your understanding of user research with User Interviews
We can learn valuable lessons and advice from these UX research quotes, but sometimes, the hardest lessons are best learned through firsthand experience.
The first step to deepening your personal understanding of user research is to start talking to real participants. With User Interviews, you can recruit high-quality, niche participants in a matter of hours.
Content writer. Marketing enthusiast. INFJ. Inspired by humans and their stories. She spends ridiculous amounts of time on Duolingo and cooking new recipes.
