Research Plan: Objectives, Questions, and Method on One Page
A UX research plan documents objectives, questions, method, participants, and schedule before you run a study. Learn what to include and how to write each part.
What is a plan for?
A plan forces you to decide before you investigate. Without one, sessions turn into improvised questions, and at the end nobody knows whether the findings answer anything. NN/g suggests the plan cover purpose and goals, participants, method and procedure, and related documents (NN/g: Research Plans).
The plan also aligns people. NN/g advises sharing it with relevant stakeholders to gain their buy-in, because it clarifies scope and sets expectations for what the research will learn. Doing so before recruiting prevents discovering, after the last session, that they wanted something else. And it leaves a record: if the study is repeated six months later, the plan makes it replicable.
What should it include?
User Interviews describes the minimum contents: research questions and goals, business goals, methodology, participants, schedule and logistics, and next steps. It says the plan should answer the who, what, when, why, and how (User Interviews: Create a user research plan).
A practical one-page version can have these sections:
- Context: two or three sentences on why you are researching. UXPin suggests including a problem statement.
- Objectives: what you want to learn. They should be specific and actionable.
- Research questions: five or six at most, grouped by theme.
- Method: interviews, usability tests, a survey, and so on, with the reason for each.
- Participants: inclusion and exclusion criteria, and sample size.
- Schedule and owners.
A useful rule is to check each section with one question: does this change how the study will run, or which decision it supports? If the answer is no, the section is unnecessary or should be shorter. A short plan that everyone remembers is worth more than a complete one nobody consults. For moderated studies, NN/g adds that the logistics section can list the date and time of each session and who facilitates it.
How do you write each part?
Objectives. They state the reason for the study. UXPin describes them as actionable and specific, with an example like “understand how users currently track their orders.” A well-written objective lets you say afterward whether it was met.
Research questions. User Interviews asks that they be specific, practical, and actionable, and that the goal be framed to investigate rather than to validate something already decided. The difference from the interview guide matters: the research question is for your team; the guide question is for the participant. If you mix them up, your interviews fill with questions nobody will use in the analysis.
Hypotheses. NN/g notes that the purpose section typically lists research questions, goals, or hypotheses. UXPin mentions them only in passing, as something research helps test before design. If your team already has a hypothesis, write it with its success criterion. If not, do not invent one just to look more formal.
Participant criteria. NN/g notes that these criteria form the basis of the screener, the questionnaire that filters who gets recruited. A common mistake is writing “users of the app” without saying how often they use it or which task they perform.
When is the plan ready?
A plan is ready when you can answer three questions without opening another document: which decision the study supports, what will happen in each session, and which criterion will tell you whether the objective was met. If any answer depends on “we’ll see,” the plan is not ready yet.
It also helps if it fits on one or two pages. If it grows beyond that, check whether you are mixing two studies into one: each needs its own participants and questions.
Illustrative example
Illustrative example: a team wants to know why customers abandon a product return. Their plan says: objective, understand at which step the user gives up when requesting a return; questions, what did they expect to find, and how long did it take them to understand the form; method, six interviews with a task test over screen share; participants, people who requested a return in the last 60 days, excluding those who contacted support. The schedule allows two weeks of recruiting and one of analysis. When the plan is shared, the operations manager adds a question about shipping costs that the team had not considered.
For sample size, check how many users you need. Before you start, research bias can turn a good plan into data that only confirms what you already believed. When you finish, research synthesis is the step that turns notes into decisions.
Common mistakes
- Writing twenty research questions and no priorities.
- Confusing the business goal with the research objective.
- Defining participants with phrases like “advanced users” and no measurable criterion.
- Describing the method so vaguely that nobody could repeat the study.
- Not updating the plan after the study, so the record no longer matches what was done.
What you can do tomorrow
- Write your next study on one page with the six sections above.
- Cut your research questions to five and mark which ones inform a concrete decision.
- Send the plan to one stakeholder and ask them to name a decision the study must support before you recruit.