User Research

"You are not your user." — UX Research Axiom

TL;DR

Creates personas, empathy maps, and user journey maps from qualitative and quantitative research to ground product decisions in real user needs. Use this skill when starting a new product, redesigning an experience, or when the team is making assumptions about user behavior without evidence. [EXPLICIT]

Procedure

Step 1: Discover

• Define research objectives and key questions to answer
• Identify user segments and recruit representative participants
• Choose research methods: interviews, surveys, contextual inquiry, analytics review

Step 2: Analyze

• Synthesize research data using affinity diagrams and thematic analysis
• Build personas with demographics, goals, frustrations, and behavioral patterns
• Create empathy maps: what users Say, Think, Do, and Feel
• Map user journeys with touchpoints, emotions, pain points, and opportunities

Step 3: Execute

• Document 2-4 primary personas with photo, bio, goals, and pain points
• Create empathy maps for each persona capturing emotional and behavioral insights
• Build end-to-end user journey maps with stages, actions, and sentiment curves
• Identify "moments of truth" — critical touchpoints that determine satisfaction

Step 4: Validate

• Verify personas are based on research data, not stereotypes
• Confirm journey maps include both positive and negative emotional states
• Cross-check findings with quantitative analytics data
• Validate with stakeholders that personas represent target user segments

Quality Criteria

• Personas are research-backed with cited data sources
• Empathy maps capture all four quadrants (Say, Think, Do, Feel)
• User journeys cover the complete experience lifecycle
• Pain points are linked to specific improvement opportunities
• Evidence tags applied to all claims

Anti-Patterns

• Personas based on assumptions rather than research data
• Journey maps that only show the happy path
• Research theater: conducting research but ignoring findings

Related Skills

• requirements-engineering — translates user needs into specifications
• accessibility-design — ensures inclusive design for all users
• workshop-design — facilitates collaborative research synthesis

Usage

Example invocations:

• "/user-research" — Run the full user research workflow
• "user research on this project" — Apply to current context

Assumptions & Limits

• Assumes access to project artifacts (code, docs, configs) [EXPLICIT]
• Requires English-language output unless otherwise specified [EXPLICIT]
• Does not replace domain expert judgment for final decisions [EXPLICIT]

Edge Cases

Scenario	Handling
Empty or minimal input	Request clarification before proceeding
Conflicting requirements	Flag conflicts explicitly, propose resolution
Out-of-scope request	Redirect to appropriate skill or escalate