Overview

This guide exists to help State of Maryland employees conduct user research that places the needs of Marylanders first. Whether you are building a new product or looking to improve something that already exists, speaking directly with users is one of the best ways to evaluate whether your project is on track for success.

How to use this guide

If you are new or less experienced conducting research, we encourage you to use this guide, step-by-step. We provide templates and best practices to walk you through the research process. If you have any questions about the terms we use, see Key terms for common definitions.

If you’re doing this as part of an MITDP Launchpad, please reach out. We may be able to connect you to a vendor who can support this work.

If you are an experienced researcher, use this guide as it serves you. There is a list of MITDP-recommended templates at the end of the guide; we encourage you to use them in your research.

Core requirements for user research in Maryland

Any research effort led by our teams is not just about collecting data; it is about connecting with the people we serve to understand their needs and build deeper trust in government over time. Participants must be treated with respect as individuals and as experts in their own lived experiences, not just subjects to be studied.

What this means in practice:

• Prioritize the safety and mental well-being of participants over the speed of the project.
• Consider accessibility challenges in how we plan and conduct user research.
• Compensate participants for their time.
• Safeguard and protect personally identifiable information (PII).
• Actively seek out voices that have been historically marginalized or underserved.

The user research process

In the sections below, we’ve detailed the steps of the planning and conducting user research in alignment with these core requirements.

1. Create a research plan
2. Recruit participants
3. Write an interview guide
4. Test your interview guide
5. Conduct user interviews
6. Synthesize research into findings
7. Report on findings

User research vs UAT

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) isn't user research and can’t replace it. User research happens early and helps the team understand users’ needs and behaviors. Meanwhile, UAT happens near the end of the process and focuses on checking to make sure the product functions and meets the original requirements. Use this guide to learn how to conduct ethical, inclusive, and effective user research.

Step 1: Create a research plan

Goal: I need a research plan in order to define clear goals and methodology for my study.

The first step in conducting effective User Research is creating a plan. If your project is an MITDP, we encourage you to use this research plan template to get started, which is adapted from the 18F UX Guide.

Set your research goals

What are the most important things to learn during your study? For example, if your interviews are part of filling out an MITDP Launchpad, you’ll want to make sure that your goals capture the areas of the Primary User Groups worksheet.

Determine your primary user groups

Identify who uses your service. You’ll want to get more specific than “state employees” and "the public.” Organize groups based on how they use the service and what they need to accomplish. For example, a service offering residential building permits might have user groups for “Homeowners,” “Contractors,” “Permit Reviewers,” and “Onsite Inspectors.”

Prioritize which users to interview

On a given user research effort, you probably won’t have time to interview all of your potential users (especially if your service supports millions of Marylanders!). For our MITDPs, you’ll need to conduct interviews with at least three people in each of your primary user groups.

Determine methodology

When conducting discovery research, MITDPs will often find user interviews to be a good starting point. Interviews help to uncover users’ needs, behaviors, pain points, and motivations. User interviews are useful if your team is still exploring a problem space.

However, if your goal is to evaluate how well a product or design works, you may consider usability testing. Your design could be anything from a concept to a Figma prototype or flow in production. With a usability test, you observe participants as they complete tasks with your product to identify where the experience works well and where users struggle.

Our guide will offer two interview guide templates– one for user interviews and one for usability testing. If you are an MITDP and still have questions about the best way forward, contact us for more support.

Determine format and location

There is no “ideal” format or location for conducting user research interviews, as this is highly dependent on the people in the user group that you’re looking to connect with. Here are three options to consider:

1. Remote / Videoconference, scheduled sessions: In many cases, conducting user research virtually via a videoconference such as Google Meet, Zoom, or Microsoft Teams can be the most accessible and economical method to conducting an interview, as it allows for the participant, facilitator, and notetaker to each work from their preferred location.

2. On-site/ in-person, scheduled sessions: In the case that your participants live and/or work near a common location, conducting user research interviews on-site can allow for a higher bandwidth of connection during the session. This can be particularly helpful when conducting user research at a person’s workplace, which can provide the facilitator and notetaker with an understanding of the environmental factors related to completing different types of tasks.

3. On-site/ in-person, unscheduled sessions: In the case that your participants live and/or work near a common location, you can set up space for ad-hoc / unscheduled user research interviews, where participants can sign up on-site to participate during the same day. For some user groups, this can be an effective way to shorten the timeframe between recruiting participants and conducting interviews.

Determine your timeline

Conducting user research that is Ethical, Inclusive, and Effective can take time, but it’s often less challenging when you plan in advance! Here are a few estimates to keep in mind when creating a plan:

• Recruiting and selecting representative participants: At least one week in the case that your team has existing relationships within the populations that’s your recruiting. If you’re still building those relationships, this could require several weeks.

• Sessions: Usually around 45–60 minutes per session, with a minimum of 30 minutes of buffer time between each session. For some forms of usability research, this might be closer to 15 minutes.

• Analysis: For every hour of research, expect at least 2 hours for review and synthesis.

Step 2: Recruit participants

Goal: I need to recruit participants in order to gather insights from a representative audience.

For MITDP projects: We encourage you to recruit from the primary user groups outlined in the User Research Summary worksheet. We also provide a sample Digital Research Study Consent Form that you can use with your agency’s permission.

Once you’ve developed a research plan, it’s time to start to recruit participants. Finding people who fit your user groups can take time, so build in a week or two to fully recruit your study. It is wise to start early while you continue to work on the next research steps.

Screen for what you’re looking for

Identify the primary user groups that you would like to speak with in your study. Consider what experience or demographics you want to be sure to include. To ensure your study is inclusive, use Data USA to determine a sample that accurately represents the diversity of Maryland's population.

Create a "Screener" survey. Ask 5-10 behavioral questions ("When was the last time you visited a park?") rather than demographic ones ("Are you 18-24?"). Avoid leading questions.

Over-recruit your study

Over-recruiting helps protect your study and sets realistic expectations with stakeholders about potential no-shows. In most studies, it’s typical for a quarter of participants to miss their scheduled sessions.

To stay on track, plan to over-recruit. For example, if you need to speak with 9 people, recruit 11 to more realistically reach your goal. If your participants are part of a vulnerable population or are more likely to face barriers to participation, consider increasing the over-recruitment rate to 40–50%.

Find representative participants

Use a mix of recruitment approaches to create a more equitable and inclusive study. Digital recruitment can be faster, but it may exclude people who are not tech-savvy or who lack reliable access, so combining methods helps reach a broader range of participants.

• Community Organizations: Partner with libraries, non-profits, and community centers.
• Intercepts: Go where the users are (e.g., a DMV waiting room) and ask for 5 minutes (with permission).
• Newsletters: Add a research announcement in existing agency communications
• Social Media: Targeted posts on agency channels.
• Email: Reach out to potential participants using email addresses provided by the agency
• Website: Add a banner to your agency website with information about the study
• Recruiter: Hire a recruiting company to find and schedule participants on your behalf

Plan for accommodating physical, environmental, and situational disabilities
Your screening questions should include information about physical accessibility, which can help you know ahead of time if a participant has a recurring disability related to vision, hearing, or physical access. At the same time, a participant may experience environmental disabilities (eg, being in a loud space where it’s difficult to hear) or situational disabilities (eg, recovering from an eye appointment where their eyes were dilated) that might not have been identified in the screening criteria.
In many cases, your plans for accommodating participants with more permanent disabilities (eg, closed captioning, wheelchair access for in-person sessions) will also support participants experiencing environmental or situational disabilities. A key principle here is to be flexible, patient, and kind in adjusting the content of the interview based on what’s possible for the participant. Their safety and mental well-being comes first, and it’s ok and expected that not every interview will go exactly according to plan.
If your facilitator isn’t familiar with assistive technology, invite an accessibility specialist to join the interview to ensure the participant is comfortable and supported. Reach out to MITDP staff if you do not have access to an accessibility specialist and need support.

Plan for language accommodations
Your plan should include language accommodations to help participants feel most comfortable expressing their feedback. In Maryland, about 1 in 5 households speak a language other than English at home. Most of these homes speak Spanish. A smaller fraction speak Chinese, French, Amharic, or West African languages.

To conduct a more inclusive study, plan to communicate with people in the language they know best by asking participants which language they prefer to use.

How to Get Help

• Start with your team. Ask team members if they speak a language other than English and if they’re willing to translate.
• Use the Statewide Foreign Language Interpretation/ Translation Services. These services are typically available 24/7 though a state contract. You can get help in three main ways:

1. Over the phone: Call a service to get an interpreter on the line immediately.
2. In-person: Schedule a professional interpreter to meet you at a specific location.
3. Written documents: Have documents or forms translated into another language.

Compensate participants for their time

Compensating participants for their time is an essential part of conducting ethical, accessible, and inclusive research.

Norms for compensating participants include:

• Standard: Compensate users at a rate of a dollar per minute (e.g. 30 minutes= $30, one hour= $60)
• Method: Digital gift cards (generic Visa/Mastercard) are often the easiest for agencies to process.
• Internal: State employees won’t be compensated for their time while working. If you interview them outside of their core hours, check with your agency to see if they can be compensated.

Consent agreements

You must have a signed consent form before recording or starting. This is essential for protecting your participants’ rights– as well as your agency. It should state:

• Participation is voluntary.
• They can stop at any time.
• How the data will be used.

Here is an example of a Digital Research Study Consent Form you could use with your agency’s permission.

Considerations for Ethics, Accessibility, and Inclusion

• Ethics: Compensation prevents exploitation. We cannot expect low-income residents to take time off work to help us for free.
• Accessibility: Ensure your screener survey is screen-reader accessible. Offer to read the consent form aloud.
• Inclusion: If you only recruit via Twitter/X, you exclude those without digital access.

Step 3: Write an interview guide

Goal: I need an interview guide in order to ask consistent, relevant, and open-ended questions.

For MITDP projects: We encourage you to use this user interview guide template or usability test template for this step.

Your interview guide is at the heart of your user research effort. It consists of the structured questions, guidance on how to start and end the interview, and information about any artifacts or prototypes that you want the participants to engage with at different points in the conversation.

For a given project, it can sometimes help to have multiple Interview Guides, in the case that you want to ask different questions to participants in different User Groups. Members of your team might also refer to the Interview Guide as an “Interview Script,” “Discussion Guide,” “Moderator Guide,” or “Research Protocol.”

Start with prioritizing your goals for the interview

What are the most important things to learn from your time with the interview participant? For example, if your interviews are part of filling out an MITDP Launchpad, you’ll want to make sure that your questions address all of the areas of the Primary User Groups worksheet.

It can be helpful to brainstorm a long list of possible questions to get started, which you can then curate down to a smaller set for your interview guide.

What a good interview question looks like

1. It’s open-ended, meaning that it’s structured so that it’s not easily answered with “yes,” “no,” or an otherwise short answer
   This is important because you want to learn as much as possible from your interview participant, and short, factual answers won’t provide much context about the why behind their answer.
   Examples of open-ended questions include:

   • “How would you describe your occupation?” (even if you already know that they are a nurse)
   • “How did you first learn about building permits?” (instead of asking how long they’ve worked with building permits)

2. It’s not a leading question, meaning that it doesn’t attempt to lead the participant toward a preferred answer
   A classic example of a leading question is asking “how are you enjoying your food?” at a restaurant, where the words used in the question lead a recipient to try to respond with positive feedback even if they are not, in fact, enjoying the food. Leading questions limit your ability to get honest answers from participants, as user research participants tend to have a very human instinct to fit in with the expectations that you set for them.
   Examples of non-leading questions include:

   • “How would you describe this food?” (generic, doesn’t lead toward a positive or negative direction)
   • “How does this meal compare to other meals that you’ve had in the past year?” (generic, also provides a reference of quality compared to the participant’s other meals)
   • “What has been your experience in applying for building permits?” (instead of asking if they’ve had any difficulties in applying for building permits)
     • For this example with building permits, it could make sense to include a follow up question, such as “Have you experienced any difficulties?” to make sure to learn about any pain points. The key is to start with open-ended, non-leading questions so that you can get more context and nuance before digging into specifics.

3. It prioritizes behaviors over opinions
   The stated preferences of a test participant might be very different from what occurs in their daily life, so it’s helpful to prioritize questions about behavior over opinion. Learning that a research participant prefers to use a desktop computer is potentially useful, but what if the realities of their job make it so they’re using their phone for all tasks 95% of the time? Examples of behavioral questions include:

   • For the past three times you’ve applied for this permit, what websites, devices, processes, or physical locations were involved? (focuses on actual past behavior rather than hypothetical future behavior)
   • If you were allowed to change one thing about this process today in order to improve the experience, what would it be? (creates a sense of immediacy with a tangible opportunity to change one thing)

Be prepared to follow up

Although your interview guide is your anchor, you will often need to dig deeper with a follow-up question. Use open-ended prompts to avoid introducing bias into the interview. Phrases like, “Tell me a little bit more about that” or “What do you mean when you say ________” encourage participants to expand on short or vague answers.

Be inclusive and trauma-informed

Your interview guide determines the tone, direction, activities, and outcomes of each interview. It’s important to reflect on this with a clear understanding of your responsibility as its author.

Here are a few areas to keep in mind:

1. Be aware that there will always be a power imbalance in a user interview
   As the facilitator, you’re in a position to direct the participant’s behavior over the course of the interview, which can sometimes be uncomfortable. To establish a more collaborative environment, it’s helpful to emphasize that the participant also has control, both in how they answer questions and how they manage their time. The following language can help mitigate this power imbalance:

   1. “This is not a test, and there are no right or wrong answers, we’re just looking forward to your thoughts on how it’s working”
   2. “Feel free to stop me at any time, either for questions or if there’s an area that you’d like to spend more time speaking about”
   3. “We can skip any question that you don’t want to answer, and it’s ok to stop at any time, whether to take a break or end the conversation. We appreciate getting any fraction of your time!”
   4. “If we end up stopping, you will still receive the full compensation amount for your time"

2. Avoid government jargon, acronyms, and overly-formal posturing
   A successful interview should feel like a compelling conversation, not an IRS audit or legal deposition. Take steps to introduce yourself as a friendly neighbor working on behalf of the state, which include some of the following:

   1. You shouldn’t assume that someone already understands how a government process works, but you also shouldn’t assume that they don’t! You can use your Interview Guide as a tool here, where an early question could be something like “how would you describe X government process to a friend?”
   2. If you agree with a participant that a process seems overly complicated or problematic, it’s ok to say so! Sharing some of your candid thoughts about things that could be improved can help participants feel comfortable sharing their thoughts as well. You’ll just want to keep it respectful and professional, and avoid leading the conversation with your personal opinions.
   3. Spell out all acronyms, even ones that seem obvious to you (like the name of your department)
   4. Dress just slightly more formally than your participants (eg, it’s ok to wear your more formal attire if you’re interviewing CEOs, but if you’re interviewing families who are attempting to access food stamps, business casual will probably feel more comfortable)

3. When working in areas that may involve significant trauma, take additional caution and care
   Some of our research involves areas that are more likely to relate to trauma, which is any event, or series of events, that an individual experiences as physically or emotionally harmful or life-threatening.
   If your interview guide is likely to include these areas, you’ll want to include the following:

   1. Curation down to what’s actually necessary: Only ask what is necessary to evaluate and improve the product or service.
   2. Content warnings: In your recruitment screener and initial emails, clearly state the themes you will cover (eg, "In this session, we will be looking at the application for emergency housing assistance. We will ask about your experience trying to upload documents during that process")
   3. Continuous consent: Before shifting to a sensitive topic, take steps to remind the participant that they can skip sections or stop the interview (eg, "I'd like to move on to talk about the appeals process. Are you comfortable discussing that right now?")

Step 4: Test your guide

Goal: I need to test my interview guide to make sure my questions are clear and effective.

Before conducting any interviews, you need to test out your interview guide. Testing can work best with someone who has a similar background and experience as the people in your user group but is comfortable giving you candid feedback about the interview guide. This could be another state employee, a community advocate, or someone in your personal circle who is open to help.

You may want to do multiple, smaller tests (which is encouraged!), but should prioritize at least one full-length test that should feel like a dress rehearsal for the real thing, where you use the same space, tools, and technology as you’ll use for your formal interviews.

Establish your team

For each user interview, you’ll have two primary roles:

• A facilitator, who leads the interview and is responsible for its tone, timing, the questions asked, and any adjustments to content based on how the interview proceeds.

• A notetaker, who is responsible for recording key insights, direct quotes, and other observations. While the facilitator needs to focus on timing and building rapport, the notetaker is able to focus on capturing what’s communicated in the interview. This is important even if you’re recording the interview or using a transcription service, as transcripts from recordings aren’t as effective at capturing what’s communicated in a conversation.

For a given user research effort, you might have multiple pairs of facilitators and notetakers in order to complete more interviews over the same amount of time. For larger efforts, you’ll likely have a user research coordinator or a delivery manager to oversee the coordination of staff and participants across interviews.

Content areas to pay attention to while testing

• Do the questions you’re asking make sense? Do answers come easily?

• Do you have enough time to get through all of the questions? Do you need to adjust their quantity or structure to make better use of the time?

• Did any question feel awkward or get a response that wasn’t useful?

• Based on the content of the responses, did you cover all of your objectives for the interview?

Technical area to pay attention to while testing:

• Do your tools work as expected? Were you able to access the videoconferencing tools on the device that your participants will be using?

• If in a physical space, is your environment quiet and comfortable for your participant?

Step 5: Conduct user interviews

I need to conduct user interviews in order to understand my participants' experiences directly.

Document sessions

You will need to document sessions so you can return to them later and analyze the data for research findings. Recording an interview is an effective way to ensure you’ve accurately captured your participant’s opinions and experiences. However, it’s essential to ask for permission from your participant before recording. If they don’t consent, rely on your notetaker.

How to store information

• Store recordings and notes on secure, state-approved servers (e.g., Google Drive Enterprise or SharePoint).
• Limit access to only the immediate project team.
• Delete recordings after a set period (e.g., 6 months or 1 year) as defined in your consent form.

Step 6: Synthesize research into findings

Goal: I need to synthesize data in order to identify patterns and turn information into insight.

Once you have completed your research sessions, it is time to analyze your session notes and debrief for patterns. While it’s tempting to rely on your memory for what stood out from the sessions, this can lead to bias, such as:

• Confirmation bias: Tendency to prefer or seek out information that confirms existing beliefs about a product or user
• Implicit bias: Unconscious stereotypes and biases that shape how researchers interpret information depending on the participant’s identity
• Recency bias: Over-reporting patterns observed in most recent sessions and underrepresenting learnings from earlier sessions

Avoid bias in synthesis

Conduct balanced, equitable synthesis by developing a structured synthesis plan. This could include activities such as documenting assumptions up front, involving multiple researchers, or coding all data thematically to look for trends across sessions. Disaggregating data by demographics is an equitable way to see if certain groups of users are experiencing unique user needs.

How to synthesize data

For research synthesis, collect and combine all your user interview data into one place. Go through each response, grouping by similar answer type or theme. You can use a tool like Miro or Mural to group stickies, or tag within a document. Your resulting groupings will help you identify insights that stand out in the data.

Step 7: Communicate findings

Goal: I need to report findings in order to communicate learnings and drive action.

For MITDP projects: We encourage you to use our journey map template as one way to report your findings.

Once you’ve completed synthesis, you should be able to confidently develop journey maps and findings about your users and their experience navigating a service or product. Your report may include background, your research goals and methods, and then a deep dive into key findings. Most importantly, regardless of format, your research report should rigorously identify and advocate for the needs of your user.

Types of presentations

• Research Summary: A high-level list of key findings from the study
• Detailed Insights: A double-click into each finding, detailing context and outcomes
• Highlight Reel: 2-minute video compilation of users struggling (powerful for convincing leadership).
• Journey Map: Visualizing the user's emotional high and low points.

Prioritizing findings

Before reporting out, prioritize your findings so your stakeholders understand your most important learnings.

Consider evaluating each of your findings by severity, frequency, and impact on overall goal.

• Severity: How serious the problem is for the user
• Frequency: How often an issue occurs
• Impact on goal: How much the issue affects the user’s ability to achieve their goal.

Review each of your findings and determine their priority:

• High Priority: A severe issue that blocks or significantly harms task completion and affects multiple users
• Medium Priority: A recurring issue that creates friction but still allows users to complete their task
• Low priority: A minor issue that appears infrequently and doesn’t meaningfully impact task success

This is just one way to prioritize findings. The goal is to point out the greatest opportunities for action so your team can implement learnings efficiently.

Manage data privacy and anonymity

• Never share raw data (un-anonymized spreadsheets) with stakeholders who don't need it.
• Tie every insight back to a recommendation.

How this supports Ethics, Accessibility, and Inclusion

• Ethics: Honest reporting involves sharing the "bad news" about a product, not just the compliments.
• Accessibility: Ensure slide decks have high contrast and alt-text.
• Inclusion: Bring the user's voice into the room where decisions are made.

Ways to report that protect privacy

• Pseudonyms: Use "Participant A" or fake names.
• Blurring: If showing video clips, blur faces or backgrounds if they reveal location.
• Aggregation: "3 out of 5 users struggled with X" protects individuals better than singling one person out.

How this supports Ethics, Accessibility, and Inclusion

• Ethics: Protects users from identity theft or social stigma associated with using certain government services.
• Inclusion: Undocumented residents or vulnerable populations will not participate if they fear their data will be shared with enforcement agencies.

Appendix

Key Terms

• User Research: The work of understanding the needs, interests, and perspectives of the people who use a product or service.
• User Research Interviews: A form of user research that involves structured conversations with individual persons who are users of a product or service.
• Usability Testing: A form of user research that involves asking a person to use a product or service in order to evaluate its usability and effectiveness. Usability testing can take place as part of a broader User Research Interview.
• Participant: A person who participates in user research.
• PII (Personally Identifiable Information): Any data that could potentially identify a specific individual (e.g., name, SSN, address, employer).
• Informed Consent: The process of ensuring that an individual understands what they are agreeing to as a user research participant, how their data will be used, and that they can stop at any time.
• Compensation / Incentives: A form of compensation for incentivizing participation in user research, such as a payment or gift card. At the State of Maryland, the primary purpose of user research incentives is to compensate participants for their time spent supporting our user research efforts.
• Screener: A set of questions (often sent out as a survey) used to qualify potential participants for a given user research engagement based on specific criteria.

Levels of User Research Maturity

Sizes / Maturity Levels

• Nascent: No budget, developers "guessing" what users want.
• Just Getting Started: One designer doing "guerilla" testing (informal).
• Midrange: One designer who runs occasional research to inform feature development (formal but infrequent)
• Expert: Dedicated UX Researchers, regular testing cadence, integrated into project sprints.

What to do if you don’t have a full-time researcher

• Designate a Lead: Assign one person to launch a research effort. Use this guide to support the process.
• Start Small: Let your primary user groups be your guide on who you need to talk to and what you need to cover. Stick with 1-2 key research goals and use them to inform your discussion guide.
• Use Scripts: Rely on templates to ensure consistency and support comparison of responses across interviews.
• Hire an Expert: See “Contract Vehicles/Recommended Firms” below for how to get started.

Where to go for support

• Reach out to MDDS for guidance on current accessibility standards and potential internal communities of practice.

How this supports Ethics, Accessibility, and Inclusion

• Ethics: Acknowledging your maturity level prevents over-promising results.
• Inclusion: Even a "team of one" can prioritize inclusive recruiting.

Contract Vehicles / Recommended Firms

If you need to hire external help, look for firms that specialize in Civic Tech and Service Delivery.

• Criteria for selection: Ask vendors to show examples of how they recruited hard-to-reach populations and how they handled accessibility testing with users who have disabilities.
• Contract Vehicles: Check with Maryland DoIT Procurement for:
  • CATS+ (Consulting and Technical Services): For staffing support.
  • Small Business Reserve (SBR): Many boutique UX firms are SBRs.

How this supports Ethics, Accessibility, and Inclusion

• Ethics: Hiring qualified professionals ensures tax dollars are spent on valid research methods.
• Inclusion: SBR vehicles often allow you to hire minority-owned firms that may have better access to diverse user bases.

Recommended Tools

Note: Always check with your agency IT regarding approved software.

• Video Conferencing: Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams (Must allow for closed captioning).
• Scheduling: Google calendar, Calendly.
• Analysis: Miro or Mural (For clustering sticky notes), Trello.
• Transcription: Otter.ai or Rev (Verify security compliance regarding PII).

How this supports Ethics, Accessibility, and Inclusion

• Accessibility: Zoom/Teams have built-in captioning which is essential for deaf or hard-of-hearing participants.
• Inclusion: Mobile-friendly tools allow users without computers to participate via phone.

MITDP-Recommended Templates

Research Step	Template	Purpose
Documentation of all steps	User Research Summary	Use this to document your plan before you start and your findings after you finish.
Step 1: Create a research plan	Research Plan	Use this to develop a plan for the research you are about to conduct
Step 2: Recruit participants	Digital Research Study Consent Form	Use this form to consent from each of your participants to protect their rights before any user session
Step 3: Write an interview guide	User interview guide Usability testing guide	Use this to build out a script to use in all of your user interviews or usability testing
Step 5: Conduct user interviews	Notetaking guide (Optional example)	Use this guide to document your sessions
Step 7: Report study findings	Journey Map	Use this to visualize each of your user group’s end-to-end journeys
Step 7: Report study findings	Primary User Groups	Use this to document deeper understanding of your primary user groups post research