User Research and Usability Research: Two Essential Approaches within UX Research

The study of user experience rests on two distinct yet inseparable approaches:

• User Research, which explores upstream users’ needs, expectations, and behaviours.
  
  
• Usability Research, which verifies whether the designed solutions truly meet those needs in practice.
  
  

User Research reveals why and how users interact with a product or service.

It informs design by identifying motivations, barriers, and contexts of use. Its methods include interviews,

surveys, contextual inquiries, and focus groups, which conpare viewpoints and enrich the understanding of needs.

As a complement, Usability Research measures the quality of the experience delivered  — intuitiveness, accessibility, and journey flow.

It concretely validates that digital solutions, designed from expressed needs, work well in real use.

By articulating these two approaches, teams can both design relevant products and guarantee their effectiveness in practice.

Usability Research: Ensuring Interface Effectiveness and Seamlessness

A speciality of UXOP, Usability Research focuses on evaluating interfaces in real-world interaction.

It makes it possible to:

• Identify obstacles to efficiency: points of friction, misunderstandings, slowdowns, or unnecessary steps that hinder task completion
  
  
• Streamline user journeys
  
  
• Verify that the interface, features, and navigation are intuitive and aligned with needs identified upstream
  
  

Key methods for evaluating the user experience include:

Heuristic Analysis

Expert review based on recognised ergonomic principles (Nielsen’s 10 Heuristics, Bastien & Scapin criteria), enabling rapid detection of usability issues.

User Testing

Observing and analysing behaviour during specific tasks, in-lab or remote, to bring to light difficulties, errors, and points of friction.

Card Sorting

An effective method to optimise information architecture and validate content organisation.

Why Is Usability Research So Important?

While User Research sheds light on users’ needs, motivations, and contexts of use, Usability Research verifies the reality of interaction with the product.
Together, they help avoid the frequent gap between what users say they want and what they can actually use.

This complementarity turns user experience into a strategic asset, helping companies design relevant products, test them in real-world conditions, and ensure they deliver the expected performance.

Concretely, Usability Research makes it possible to:

• Understand users: go beyond assumptions by observing real behaviour with the interface
  

• Reduce costs: fixing a usability issue early is, on average, ten times less expensive than after launch
  
  
• Improve satisfaction: a smooth interface lowers frustration, boosts engagement, and strengthens loyalty
  
  
• Ensure competitiveness: in crowded markets, an optimised experience can differentiate a product and create a durable competitive advantage
  
  

By systematically integrating Usability Research into digital projects, companies secure their investments and maximise created value, leading to higher user productivity, fewer support requests, and measurable increases in conversion rates.

Expertise in Usability Research, Enhanced by a Strategic Partnership

UXOP is the only stakeholder in France exclusively dedicated to expert evaluation and optimisation of the user experience through Usability Research.

For other UX Research programs, notably User Research,  UXOP relies on its partner Toluna, a recognised specialist in quantitative and qualitative studies.

Toluna brings proven capabilities in large-scale panel recruitment, international data collection,

and advanced technology solutions for surveys, online focus groups, and longitudinal studies.

This expertise covers a broad spectrum of UX Research methods, ensuring statistical reliability and diverse participant profiles.

The complementarity between UXOP and Toluna thus offers companies end-to-end support, including the methodological depth of User Research, the operational precision of Usability Research, and evidence-based decisions  — to design effective, seamless, value-creating digital experiences.