Brugerrecherche

Brugerrecherche, a Danish term for user research, refers to the systematic study of users and their interaction with a product, service, or system to inform design decisions. It combines qualitative and quantitative approaches to uncover users' needs, goals, behaviors, and pain points.

The main aim of brugerrecherche is to understand who the users are and how they use the product in real contexts, enabling teams to validate concepts, prioritize requirements, and improve usability and satisfaction throughout the product life cycle. It supports product discovery, development, and evaluation by translating user insights into actionable design decisions.

Common methods include interviews, surveys, usability testing, field studies, ethnography, diary studies, card sorting, and analytics. Methods can be formative, exploring user needs and concepts, or evaluative, assessing existing designs and interactions. Researchers select methods based on questions, context, and resources.

Process and outputs typically involve planning, recruiting participants, collecting and analyzing data, and synthesizing findings into deliverables such as user requirements, personas, journey maps, task analyses, and usability metrics (for example task success rate, time on task, error rate, and the System Usability Scale).

Ethics and data handling are important considerations: informed consent, privacy protection, anonymization, and attention to bias and inclusivity. Findings should be reported responsibly to support clear, evidence-based decisions while protecting participants.

Collaboration and roles often place brugerrecherche within UX teams, conducted by researchers or mixed teams of researchers, designers, and product managers. Insights inform design decisions, roadmaps, and evaluation criteria, contributing to more user-centered products and services.