What is product research?
Product research is the work of finding out what to build and whether what you built works. Interviews, observation, surveys, testing ideas before committing to them.
The term gets used for two other things it is not. Product research in e-commerce means finding items to sell. Research and development means building the technology. This page covers the product management sense.
Product research vs market research
Market research studies a market: size, segments, competitors, willingness to pay. It answers whether there is a business here and is usually done for a decision about strategy or investment.
Product research studies the people who will use the thing: what they are trying to do, where they get stuck, whether your solution helps. It answers what to build next week.
They get commissioned by different people for different decisions, and the mistake is using one to answer the other’s question. A market study will not tell you why onboarding fails.
Types of product research
- Generative. Open-ended, done before you have a solution. Interviews, observation, diary studies. Answers “what problem should we solve?”
- Evaluative. Done once you have something to show. Usability testing, concept tests, prototype reviews. Answers “does this work?”
- Continuous. Always running, through in-product feedback and support conversations. Answers “what changed?”
Teams over-invest in evaluative research because it has a clear output, and under-invest in generative research because it is uncomfortable to spend two weeks not knowing the answer.
Product research methods
Customer interviews. The highest-value method and the most commonly done badly. Ask what they did last time, not what they would do.
Observation. Watching someone work reveals workarounds they would never think to mention.
Surveys. Good for measuring how widespread something is once you know what to ask. Poor for discovering it.
In-product feedback. Continuous, unprompted, and the only method that reaches people who were never going to join a research call.
Support and sales conversations. Research that already happened and usually goes unread.
How Usersnap supports product research
The continuous half of research is where most of the volume is and where most teams have the least infrastructure. Widgets and micro-surveys collect while people work. Channels Data Ingestion pulls in customer calls, including Zoom recordings, and support conversations, so research that already happened is not lost. AI-powered automations group everything by topic and sentiment, and the AI User Interview Analysis template handles the synthesis step.
Product research FAQ
What is the difference between product research and market research?
Market research studies the market and answers whether a business exists. Product research studies users and answers what to build.
What are the main product research methods?
Interviews, observation, usability testing, surveys, and continuous in-product feedback. Interviews and observation carry the most information per hour spent.
What is the difference between product research and product discovery?
Product discovery is the wider practice of deciding what is worth building. Research is the set of methods you use inside it.
Keep research running instead of scheduling it. Start free with Usersnap, first 20 feedback items included, no card needed.
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