The Tool Desk
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To find out what customers actually want, start with what they are trying to do, how they handle it today, and where the experience breaks down. Ask about real situations, observe relevant tasks, and test proposed solutions against clear criteria. A positive reaction to an idea is a stated opinion—not proof that people need it or will use it.
Start with a decision, not a feature idea
Before recruiting participants, name the decision your team needs to make. You might need to choose which problem to solve, understand where a journey fails, determine whether a concept communicates its value, or find out whether a prototype supports a task.
List the assumptions behind that decision and turn them into research questions. Ask: “What do we need to know to make this decision, and what observation or account would change our mind?” Prioritize the uncertainties that matter most; a study is useful when its findings can inform an action. GOV.UK’s planning guidance recommends defining objectives, prioritizing questions, and revising them as understanding develops.
Choose a method that answers the question
No single method tells you everything customers want. Choose based on the question, the stage of the product, the people you need to reach, and the evidence the decision requires.
| Method | Best question for it | What it can show | Key limitation |
|---|---|---|---|
| In-depth interview | What are people’s circumstances, goals, and problems? | Detailed accounts, examples, and explanations | What people report is not automatically observed behavior or a measure of how common a pattern is. |
| Contextual observation | What do people do in their real environment, and what constrains them? | Behavior, sequence, surroundings, tools, and workarounds | Requires access to relevant settings and careful interpretation. |
| Qualitative usability test | Can a relevant user complete a representative task, and where do they struggle? | Observed task behavior and participants’ explanations | A small qualitative round can reveal issues; it does not estimate market demand or prevalence. |
| Survey | How common are reported attitudes or behaviors in a defined group? | Quantified responses | Wording, sampling, and response bias affect validity. |
| A/B test or benchmark | Which measured alternative performs better against a defined outcome? | Comparative behavioral metrics | Needs a suitable metric, traffic, and study design; it does not explain by itself why a pattern occurs. |
Interviews are useful for understanding context and problems; usability testing shows how people handle tasks with a product or prototype. Surveys and experiments can quantify patterns when designed and sampled appropriately. GOV.UK says these quantitative methods generally need hundreds of participants for clear findings, but the right sample depends on the question and population; that guidance is not a universal sample-size formula. See its method-planning advice.
Recruit people with relevant experience—and include varied needs
Recruit current or likely users whose circumstances connect to the question. For usability studies, UK government guidance suggests participants who may have been in a situation that would have led them to use the product in the last six months. This helps them draw on experience rather than speculate about a hypothetical future. Interview guidance and usability-testing guidance give further recruitment advice.
Include meaningful variation within the relevant audience. If the service serves a broad public, include disabled people and people who may need help using it. Plan accessible locations and sessions, and arrange interpreters or other support when needed. Research the whole journey, including relevant phone, postal, face-to-face, workplace, and digital routes—not only the screen your team owns. GOV.UK’s introduction to user research explains why research should account for people’s circumstances and the wider service.
Use sample recommendations as guidance, not guarantees
Official recommendations vary by method. The GOV.UK Service Manual’s planning guide, published in 2016 and updated 6 October 2026, gives 4–8 participants as a usual range for a round of experience mapping, contextual research, in-depth interviews, or usability testing. The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities’ 2020 qualitative usability guidance gives 5–6 participants for qualitative usability testing and says quantitative usability testing needs more. These are different, source-specific recommendations—not a universal “right” number or a guarantee of representativeness, saturation, statistical power, or business success. Recruit and segment for the actual decision and population.
Ask about real events, not hypothetical preferences
Prepare a discussion guide around the questions you need to answer. Explain the session, obtain informed consent, begin with general prompts, and let participants speak at their own pace. Use open, neutral questions such as “How do you…?”, “What are the different ways you…?” or “What do you think about…?” Then ask for a specific recent example: what happened, what the person did, and what followed.
Follow up with prompts such as “Can you tell me more about that?” or questions about who was involved, when it happened, and why. The GOV.UK interview guide advises researchers to “focus on stories and real examples – avoid generalities and talking about how things ‘should’ happen.” Read the full interview guidance.
Avoid steering participants toward your preferred solution or turning the conversation into a product pitch. A person who says an idea sounds good has shared an opinion; that answer alone does not establish a need, actual behavior, or demand.
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For usability testing, define a task and observable success criteria that fit the decision and the product’s stage. An early paper sketch may be enough to test whether a concept makes sense; a later-stage question may need a more complete prototype or live product. Give participants a clear task, let them work without excessive instruction, and record what they do as well as what they say.
Best Value
A facilitator and note-taker can help. Recordings may also help if participants consent and privacy arrangements allow. Remote sessions can be useful, but may make it harder to guide someone or understand exactly how they are using a prototype. Choose a format that suits the task, stage, access needs, and what you need to observe. The OHID guidance covers qualitative usability studies.
Usability evidence shows whether people can complete tasks or understand an experience in the tested setting. It does not, by itself, establish market size, purchase intent, or what all customers want.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Turn findings into decisions, then investigate what remains uncertain
Review observations with the team and connect them to prioritization and design decisions. Keep notes that distinguish what you observed from what you inferred, how confident you are, and what remains unknown. Share findings with the people who can act on them.
Research the service throughout development and after launch, rather than treating one round as a permanent answer. The GOV.UK Service Manual recommends ongoing small batches and suggests at least one round every two weeks for service teams. That is service-team guidance, not a required cadence for every organization. Run another focused round when a consequential uncertainty remains. Planning guidance and the user-research introduction describe this iterative approach.
Mistakes that lead to misleading answers
- Asking “Would you use this feature?” before understanding the problem and the workaround people use now.
- Recruiting convenient participants who do not resemble the intended users.
- Using leading or hypothetical questions, then treating positive answers as proof of demand.
- Testing a prototype that cannot answer the question, or coaching participants through the task.
- Using a small qualitative sample as a representative estimate or a guaranteed stopping point.
- Leaving out disabled people or those who need help, and missing barriers in the process.
- Running a large study before naming the decision, or collecting findings with no route into product planning.
- Treating one round as permanent truth instead of revisiting assumptions as the service and its users change.
For an overview of approaches, the GOV.UK Service Manual’s user research guidance index lists methods including contextual research.
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