Do your questions pass the sniff test?

Good UX research questions pass sniff tests. Ask yourself the following to see how your questions measure up and where or how they can be improved:

Are the research questions:

• Focused on people problems?

• Specific (well-defined)?

• Concise?

• Free of jargon and acronyms?

• Solution agnostic?

• Actionable?

• Ethical?

• Answerable via user research?

• Complex enough to explore (not have a simple answer)?

• Right sized (not too big and not too small)?

• Tied to your organizations key metrics, OKRs or other goals

• Pass the “who cares” test?

Will the research questions:

• Uncover how the product, service or experience can be improved?

And/Or -

• Help us learn more about people's mental models, behaviors or attitudes?

• Improve our understanding of our selves, our competition, a landscape, or other related business experience?

If you cannot answer YES to all of the top questions and at least one of the bottom questions, you likely have more work to do with your stakeholders to arrive at a better UXR question (set).

I'm compiling a checklist for my Ask Like A pro students and would love feedback! What else would you add to this list to help people evaluate whether they have a good UX research question?