4 things to consider when starting a research project

• Who your audience is

It’s important to understand who your product or brand is for to ensure you are collecting responses from the appropriate people. Without thorough knowledge of your target market, your research may be wasted by obtaining participants who would never use or buy your product in the first place. If you’re not sure who your audience is, then research can also help with that. By running a segmentation study, the key demographics that have been established as being good for your product can be uncovered. 

• Being clear about your design goals

Are you looking to give your established brand a fresh and modern new look? Have you developed a new product and want to ensure it promotes itself as a healthy option? Whatever your design goal is, having a really clear idea of how you want your product or brand to be perceived will enable your research to be focused on this and you can be confident the designs are meeting your key targets. 

• What your budget and deadlines are

In an ideal world, there would be endless time and budget available to conduct the most thorough and extensive research possible; however, we know that isn’t always the case. Time is often the most crucial factor, with deadlines often looming in the not too distant future. At Mindlab, we strive to provide you with the most time efficient and cost effective solutions for your research, with the average turnaround from project sign-off to final report being around 4-5 weeks. If your timeline and/or budget is even more restricted than this for any number of reasons, then have no fear as there are also other options, such as our new Mindlab Lite offering which can take you from brief to report in as little as 2 weeks!

• What stage in the design process you want to test

We know that developing new designs takes time and often comes with a lot of back and forth with the design agencies you’re working with, and you may be wondering when the best time to start putting these designs out for research really is. We believe there are many benefits to testing the designs early and perhaps even in two phases. With early testing, you can make changes to the design with confidence and with evidence that particular optimisations will help you reach your design goals. Without early testing, you are just guessing and a lot more work may go into tweaking the designs than necessary.