Stop chasing trends, start following users
Editor’s note: Mary Kay Evans is the chief GTM officer at Alida.
While UX may be one of the newest disciplines, it was never meant to be overly complicated. Success doesn’t require jumping through endless hoops. Too many companies get lost in their own product jargon and internal language, forgetting that real value comes from understanding why users engage with their product – not just telling them how they should use it. The key to success is simple: Feedback from real users. It doesn't need to be more complicated than that.
Of course, the market will always see trends as new ways to engage with audiences, the rise of AI or changing media consumption habits. But none of that matters if the users you’re researching aren’t your users. Gone are the days of relying on “professional test takers” who gamify the process of research. Why settle for feedback from people who may know nothing about your brand, when you can gather insights from users who are genuinely passionate about your product?
This year, the focus should go back to the UX basic: Real users = real impact. Once you learn to extract meaningful insights from the right users and feed that knowledge back into your product iteration process, proving the value of your research strategy becomes effortless. That’s when the real magic happens.
Here are the top three priorities I am seeing across UX teams that would highly benefit from the ability to connect with real users.
Speed: Using tools and community to gather insights
Everyone wants to accomplish tasks faster and with more precision. In today’s world, we are lucky to have a plethora of amazing tools at our fingertips to help streamline our daily processes and while UX teams should absolutely take advantage of the rise of AI and tech advancements, the power of real users cannot be underestimated. When a UX team prioritizes the use of their community, they can have direct access to rich insights from their own verified users. This removes the need for third-party samples and the often lengthier research process that goes along with it.
Proving ROI to decision makers
For years, proving value has been top of mind for UX teams. We know that testing and validating products with real users is important, but sometimes, proving the value to stakeholders and leadership can be challenging. Successfully showcasing your ROI is all about storytelling that includes metrics that actually resonate with your leadership.
Just like with any discipline, it can be easy to get stuck inside your own internal jargon, forgetting that those who are making the decisions might better understand the impact of your work when it is represented within their own metrics and business outcomes. Learning to tell your UX story to stakeholders in a way that resonates with their bottom line is essential to proving ROI. Additionally, using testimonials from real users is far more impactful than a handful of data points from a third-party sample.
Custom research and relationship building
We’ve never been further away from a one-size-fits-all model for user experience. Two individuals from the very same household could be using your product in completely different ways across a multitude of touchpoints. Understanding these layers of complexity within the user experience requires a much more custom research design. By using a community of your own users, researchers can create far more unique data collection activities which meet their users exactly where they are.
While general population samples offer a way to gather insights from a broader pool of respondents, it’s the process of relationship-building that drives truly impactful findings. In recent years, we’ve adapted language such as “participant” or “panelist” when referring to users, making the process of research far more transactional than it’s ever been. Ultimately, moving away from relationship building is actively harming the quality of insights.
By intentionally engaging your most engaged users and integrating their voices into the research process, you not only deepen your understanding of their needs, but also amplify the potential impact on your product strategy as well as your entire organization, leading to more effective outcomes. Following your real users will be the most important trend to follow in 2025.