Generative Research: Definition, Methods, and Examples

This chapter explains what generative research means and zooms in on two generative methods you can use to collect meaningful data.

Generative research is a research method that “generates” a deep understanding of people’s motivations, pain points, behaviors, and more. The goal of generative research, also known as exploratory or discovery research, is to help you identify a problem statement, frame the relevant problem to be solved, and gather enough evidence to move forward confidently.

Generative research happens at the discovery phase of the user research process and usually takes place before the beginning of the design and product development process. Conducting generative research early will ensure you grasp the problem space well by studying people’s motivations, needs, and pain points.

Learning about the people you’re building for can also help you identify new opportunities for an existing product or improve the solution you’ve already created. Usually, when companies are trying to innovate, generative research is an effective way to discover new insights.

One way to generate new ideas is to bring the people you’re building for into the creation process. The research team at Dropbox explains why this is vital:

Generative research plays a crucial role in the design and product development process. Without a deeper understanding of your users and their motivations, you risk building a product that no one actually needs or will use.

Conducting generative research provides insights into your users' goals, needs, and behaviors and allows you to clearly define the problem you want to solve for your customers. This way, you can focus your efforts on designing solutions that solve relevant problems and add real value to your users.

Generative research methods such as interviews or field studies are used to discover new information about your users’ goals and motivations and better understand their behavior—in and outside the product. On the other hand, evaluative research methods such as usability testing are perfect for assessing a specific product solution to ensure it’s easy to use and works as intended.

Using both generative and evaluative UX research during the design process ensures the product you’re building addresses real needs, solves existing pain points, and does these in the most viable way. This continuous learning process uncovers new insights to help you create value for your customers.

To better understand the difference between the two, Erika Hall, co-founder of Mule Design Studio, recommends framing these two types of research as two distinct questions:

Now let's explore two generative research methods you can use to collect meaningful insights. We dive deeper into evaluative research methods in the next chapter.

A fundamental role of the user researcher is to bridge the gap between what users say and how they actually feel. Through generative research, you can uncover needs that your user has but isn’t usually articulating.

Two generative research techniques worth looking into are field studies and user interviews, both of which are essential in discovering new ideas and understanding people’s needs, motivations, and pain points.

Let’s look at these two generative research methods in detail and learn how you can use them to uncover new user insights.

Field studies are research activities that take place in the user’s environment rather than in your office or lab. Researchers meet with and study participants in their environment, where they would most likely interact with the product or service in question.

Observing people in their natural environment rather than bringing them into a lab setting allows you to gain real insight into their processes and see situations that can help you understand how the product fits their daily lives.

Paige Bennett, Design Research Manager at Dropbox, explains that field studies are all about the context an environment provides you. By familiarizing yourself with the context, you can better understand the subject you’re researching. She explains:

While people won’t just tell you their problems directly, you will detect patterns by observing the context in which people do an activity.

To get started with field studies, NNGroup recommends this four-step process to carry out a field study session:

User interviews are research activities that involve a moderation conversation between a researcher and a participant. Researchers ask users questions about a topic of interest to learn about that topic, discover specific problems, and find out opinions. By collecting this qualitative feedback, you can learn about the problems users encounter when using the product and identify the changes that need to happen.

During interviews, asking open-ended questions is critical to getting actionable insights and feedback. Create opportunities for the participants to share their stories, which will lead to the discovery of new ideas and insights.

Here are some examples of open-ended research questions that you can ask during user interviews:

When you’re faced with an unexplored problem space or want to identify new product opportunities, generative research can help you turn questions into actionable next steps.

In the next chapter, you will learn about evaluative research and the most common evaluative methods and zoom in on how you can employ these methods in your research projects.