User Shadowing

Your constantly-updated definition of User Shadowing and collection of videos and articles
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What is User Shadowing?

User shadowing is a long-established research technique which has only recently come into the limelight and regular use within UX research environments. It is the process by which an observer shadows a research participant for a fixed period of time to better understand how the product or service is used in a natural environment. More recently, it has also begun to be adopted within businesses where internal services are being more closely examined for efficiency and fitness of purpose.

Literature on User Shadowing

Here’s the entire UX literature on User Shadowing by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about User Shadowing

Take a deep dive into User Shadowing with our course User Research – Methods and Best Practices .

How do you plan to design a product or service that your users will love, if you don't know what they want in the first place? As a user experience designer, you shouldn't leave it to chance to design something outstanding; you should make the effort to understand your users and build on that knowledge from the outset. User research is the way to do this, and it can therefore be thought of as the largest part of user experience design.

In fact, user research is often the first step of a UX design process—after all, you cannot begin to design a product or service without first understanding what your users want! As you gain the skills required, and learn about the best practices in user research, you’ll get first-hand knowledge of your users and be able to design the optimal product—one that’s truly relevant for your users and, subsequently, outperforms your competitors’.

This course will give you insights into the most essential qualitative research methods around and will teach you how to put them into practice in your design work. You’ll also have the opportunity to embark on three practical projects where you can apply what you’ve learned to carry out user research in the real world. You’ll learn details about how to plan user research projects and fit them into your own work processes in a way that maximizes the impact your research can have on your designs. On top of that, you’ll gain practice with different methods that will help you analyze the results of your research and communicate your findings to your clients and stakeholders—workshops, user journeys and personas, just to name a few!

By the end of the course, you’ll have not only a Course Certificate but also three case studies to add to your portfolio. And remember, a portfolio with engaging case studies is invaluable if you are looking to break into a career in UX design or user research!

We believe you should learn from the best, so we’ve gathered a team of experts to help teach this course alongside our own course instructors. That means you’ll meet a new instructor in each of the lessons on research methods who is an expert in their field—we hope you enjoy what they have in store for you!

All open-source articles on User Shadowing

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Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. (2016, June 4). What is User Shadowing?. Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF.

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