Generative vs Evaluative Research: When, How, and Why to Use Them
Whiteboards, two-way mirrors, and tiresome academic papers. User experience research doesn’t have to be this way – and for the most part, it isn’t!
Regardless of your preconceptions, it’s important to understand the types of inquiry that can be used throughout the lifecycle of a digital product. You can only choose the right tools for the job when you know what’s available in your toolkit, after all.
Most people know the difference between qualitative and quantitative methodologies, but there are also deeper levels to consider. Both generative and evaluative methods can support the user-centered design lifecycle and they each have their benefits which you’ll learn here.
Why You Should Understand Different Types of Research
Organizations often pursue answers at such a pace that it becomes easy to lose sight of the problems they’re trying to solve. When this happens, it becomes harder to deliver the return on investment that a product or system was meant to provide.
The most successful projects blossom from a deep understanding of the challenges they are set up to solve. It’s easy to lose track of your wider goals whether you’re seeking to improve specific processes or embarking on a wider journey of digital transformation.
The right research can help you to focus by taking a step back to consider the problems you’re working around. The products and systems you create should be built for the people who use them. To do that you must gain insight into both the needs of those users and the contexts in which your creations will be used.
Consequences of Using the Wrong Tools
Research is the starting point for the best-informed digital strategies, but it isn’t a magic bullet for all business problems. Not all forms of investigation provide the answers needed for each issue, and pursuing the wrong lines of inquiry can be an expensive distraction.
It’s therefore important to be purposeful and specific. That can only be achieved by utilizing the methodologies and outputs a given approach provides. The trick is to choose a tool that’s specific to the challenges you want to overcome. Better awareness of the possible forms of UX research can help you to focus your efforts and get more out of the process.
With this in mind, understanding the use cases and differences between generative and evaluative investigations is a great place to start.
Generative Research Explained
Generative research can help you to develop innovative ideas and bring the people you’re building into the creation process. It goes by many names: discovery, foundational, and exploratory inquiries, but perhaps it’s best described as investigational thinking.
This form of discovery delves into the what, why, how, when, and where of a problem. It can help you to get to grips with the target audience you’re catering to and allows you to learn more about them to identify opportunities, solutions, and areas for innovation.
Generative research is best deployed when you know there’s an issue to address but don’t quite know what it is. It’s a way to produce a solution to a problem that you don’t fully understand yet and is most helpful before you’ve even started to create anything.
How it works: Collaborating closely with users to discover their opinions and perceptions while mapping out the environment a product will live in. User journey mapping, stakeholder interviews, persona development, and focus groups are all viable generative UX research methods.
Ask: What problem do we need to solve? How can we solve it?
Use it when: you need to understand a problem and identify what a solution must do to secure tangible benefits and adoption.
Evaluative Research Explained
You’ll want to use evaluative research to test an existing solution to determine whether it addresses a specific problem. It can also help to measure the potential impact of innovation while giving users an opportunity to address the features they want or need for adoption. This research is an essential part of the iterative design process, and is widely known as usability testing.
When evaluating the effectiveness of your work, the process starts with a specific hypothesis. The result should clearly prove or disprove this theory, and can inform your future efforts to refine and perfect a product.
These inquiries should first be made at an early stage with a low-fidelity prototype of a potential solution. The earlier in the design process these tests are completed, the sooner you can act on the results and avoid failure. The results can indicate how to optimize the project to reduce costs and improve ROI.
How it works: As is often the case, it involves working closely with users. Rather than exploring the problem more broadly, you’ll be evaluating its effectiveness in achieving the desired result. User interviews, observations, and focus groups can all be used to establish how a solution works in practice.
Ask: How well (or poorly) does the solution work? Can it be improved?
Use it when: you have generated solutions and need to review their performance to sharpen and enhance the project.
The Right Research for Every Project
In many cases, research is best applied iteratively. There is a time and a place for each approach, and knowing when to use generative or evaluative methods can make it easier to unlock the benefits of both.
Daito can assist with a full range of research methodologies, but it’s the nature of our business that we bring into our client work. As a holistic partner, we provide support throughout the full design lifecycle from discovering an issue to rolling out a solution and beyond.
This encompasses everything from conducting user interviews to mapping out working environments, assisting with tools to analyze data, and testing the answers we generate. Our hybrid approach often spans both generative and evaluative methodologies helping clients to work iteratively to identify and solve the challenges they face.
Knowledge and insight are essential ingredients for success in any digital transformation project. With our help, you can gain both at the opportune moment.