Design Research

User research skills for designers: personas, empathy maps, journey maps, interview scripts, usability testing, card sorting, behavioural analytics, and reconciling data with research.

Skills (14)

• affinity-diagram — Cluster many qualitative data points into themes and insight statements. Use when synthesising across multiple sessions or sources. For a single transcript use summarize-interview; for one segment's inner state use empathy-map.
• behavioural-analytics — Read funnels, retention curves, and event data as a designer — separating a design problem from a tracking artefact. Use when handed product data you did not design and asked why people drop off. For choosing what to measure, use metrics-definition (ux-strategy); for running a controlled test, use a-b-test-design (prototyping-testing).
• card-sort-analysis — Analyse open or closed card sort results into a proposed grouping and label set. Use after running a sort study. For turning that evidence into a full structure, use information-architecture (ux-strategy).
• diary-study-plan — Design a diary study — prompts, cadence, duration, participant criteria, and analysis frame. Use when behaviour unfolds over days or weeks. For a single-session study, use usability-test-plan.
• empathy-map — Build a Says, Thinks, Does, Feels map for one user or segment. Use when sharing user understanding quickly. For a composite archetype with goals and behaviours use user-persona; for cross-session themes use affinity-diagram.
• interview-script — Write a structured interview guide — warm-up, core exploration, and wrap-up. Use before running interviews. For analysing what comes back, use summarize-interview.
• jobs-to-be-done — Map functional, emotional, and social jobs with outcome expectations. Use when reframing decisions around motivation rather than features. For who the user is, use user-persona.
• journey-map — Map one persona's end-to-end experience with stages, touchpoints, emotions, and pain points. Use when improving an existing experience. For the multi-channel ecosystem use experience-map (ux-strategy); for screen-level paths use user-flow-diagram (prototyping-testing).
• qual-quant-triangulation — Reconcile what the numbers say with what users say, and design the study that settles it rather than restates it. Use when behavioural data and research findings point different ways. For reading the data on its own, use behavioural-analytics; for synthesising interviews on their own, use affinity-diagram.
• research-repository — Build a repository that makes findings findable, reusable, and cumulative across teams. Use when the same research keeps getting redone. For synthesising one study, use affinity-diagram.
• summarize-interview — Turn one interview transcript into themes, supporting quotes, and action items. Use immediately after a session. For synthesising many sessions at once, use affinity-diagram.
• survey-design — Design unbiased survey instruments — question wording, scales, and sampling — to measure attitudes at scale. Use when you need quantitative breadth. For behavioural experiments, use a-b-test-design (prototyping-testing).

Commands (4)

• /discover — Run a full user research cycle — persona creation, empathy mapping, and journey mapping for a product or feature.
• /interview — Prepare an interview script or summarize an interview transcript into structured insights.