- Focus Groups: groups of 3–12 participants are lead through a discussion about a set of topics, giving verbal and written feedback through discussion and exercises.

- Interviews: a researcher meets with participants one-on-one to discuss in depth what the participant thinks about the topic in question.

- Intercept Surveys: a survey that is triggered during the use of a site or application.

- Email Surveys: a survey in which participants are recruited from an email message.

- Customer Feedback: open-ended and/or close-ended information provided by a self-selected sample of users, often through a feedback link, button, form, or email.


Georgetown University

Augustana College (IL)

Summed up as what people say vs what people do.  Attitudinal measures (surveys, focus groups) capture stated beliefs of users, while behavioral measures (card sorting, usability tests, eye tracking) captures how users engage with a system while they are using it.  Field studies are the middle ground between these two approaches as they use both self-reported and usability data, where the researcher can take on an almost ethnographic role as observer and interviewer.  

Attitudinal vs Behavioral Dimension

https://www.nngroup.com/articles/which-ux-research-methods/

When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods

- Ethnographic Field Studies: researchers meet with and study participants in their natural environment, where they would most likely encounter the product or service in question.

- Participatory Design: participants are given design elements or creative materials to construct their ideal experience in a concrete way that expresses what matters to them most and why.

- Concept Testing: a researcher shares an approximation of a product or service that captures the key essence (the value proposition) of a new concept or product to determine if it meets the needs of the target audience; it can be done one-on-one or with larger numbers of participants, and either in person or online.

- Diary/Camera Studies: participants are given a mechanism (diary or camera) to record and describe aspects of their lives that are relevant to a product or service, or simply core to the target audience; diary studies are typically longitudinal and can only be done for data that is easily recorded by participants.

- Unmoderated UX Studies: a quantitative or qualitative and automated method that uses a specialized research tool to captures participant behaviors (through software installed on participant computers/browsers) and attitudes (through embedded survey questions), usually by giving participants goals or scenarios to accomplish with a site or prototype.

- True-Intent Studies: a method that asks random site visitors what their goal or intention is upon entering the site, measures their subsequent behavior, and asks whether they were successful in achieving their goal upon exiting the site.


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