User Research
Actionable insights for confident product decisions.
Research at Thinkmill is not a detour from hitting product milestones. We take a pragmatic approach to ensure that findings are material to project outcomes and team empowerment. We collaborate across practices to create tailor-made research plans which are embedded within the delivery cadence, providing timely answers to the questions at hand.
We can help with
User interviews
Understanding who your users are and what motivates them is an important part of creating a great product. We can facilitate interviews with your users to gather valuable context on what’s driving them, where their pain points are, and how they see the current product landscape.
Usability testing
We observe users to understand how intuitive your product or service is, as they interact with it. One-on-one sessions are an effective way to connect with participants and gain insight into their perspectives and pain points, uncovering meaningful ways to improve your offering.
UX audit
Our UX experts have the necessary experience to evaluate your product or service, and identify the need for further research or product enhancements. Our analysis is informed by years of creating world-class digital experiences and the latest in UX best practice.
Tree testing
We can create an interactive representation of your app or site’s navigational hierarchy and prepare tasks where users are asked to locate specific items. Tree testing reveals problems with your information architecture and informs overall usability.
Prototyping
Fast-track the user experience conversation and de-risk your development efforts with a prototype that’s fit for purpose. Whether it’s a sketch on paper, a mock API, or an app your users can interact with – we can build it.
Building a research culture
We can help you foster and embed a culture of UX research into your organisation’s product development lifecycle. This will make it even easier to integrate research findings into future product decisions, building confidence and consensus within the team.
Research that helps you here and now
We understand that research findings need to be integrated back into the product development process quickly and effectively. That’s why we focus on delivering actionable research outcomes that can be directly and immediately translated into your project and team dynamic.
Our partnership with Meld Studios
For larger customer segmentation and user research initiatives, we partner with Meld Studios – an Australian-based consultancy that specialises in human-centred service design. Working together lets us cover all design bases including whether a product or service is desirable, viable, feasible and ethical.
A unique offering
Our partnership with Meld Studios brings together practitioners with differing and complementary skillsets to create the ideal multi-disciplinary team for the challenge. Together with Meld, we’ve helped government and private sector clients realise their UX ambitions, including a six-month research effort with the Australian Digital Health Agency.
Learn more about how we work together (opens in new window).
Our research experience
Reckon
In our 5+ year full-service partnership with Reckon we adopted an embedded research approach to inform design and product strategy across of a range of apps and features.
Vocal
We helped Vocal understand the evolving needs of their global audience and inform the platform’s future strategy with remotely facilitated evidence-based persona analysis.
APS
We helped APS better understand their accounting users, validate product intent, and build a better research culture with customer segmentation, usability testing, and research mentoring.
Enlitic
We conducted embedded research with Enlitic to understand the value of their pioneering AI tech and inform the roadmap with iterative UX testing.
OctantAI
We helped OctantAI discover the needs and motivations of their construction industry users, and establish a product vision through user research and prototyping.
Macquarie Bank
We helped Macquarie redesign a brand portal for 15,000 staff members with integrated user testing from wireframing through to final design and build.
Access Group
We performed a UX audit of Access Group’s three main cloud accounting products and provided actionable guidance for creating a more harmonious experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you’re having a hard time making smart product decisions, aren’t sure about what to work on next, or find yourself making big assumptions on what your users want and need, then you need user research.
We believe quality user research can solve a wide range of issues, and bring value and clarity to all levels of your organisation. Whether it's product teams not knowing which features to prioritise next, or an executive committee unsure whether to launch in a new market, user research can help. Talk to us today about your organisation’s big questions, and we can help determine whether user research can provide the answers.
User research methodologies can vary a lot. Truth be told, some approaches can be an impediment to meeting project goals on time.
At Thinkmill, we focus on actionable research that’s flexible, pragmatic, and compliments agile ways of working. Our research brings confidence and insights directly into existing project streams in days, not months. We’ve found that clients achieve their goals faster, reduce risk, and generate superior end results.
Our research findings are guaranteed to positively impact your project. Bugs and usability issues can be uncovered before your project goes live, saving you time, money, and reputation. Even if nothing big is uncovered, user research will bring confidence to your team and leadership. We are yet to conduct a round of user research that hasn’t uncovered findings that are actionable and transformative.
Thinkmill’s co-ordinated user research program helped us garner insights to build features that significantly impacted our ability to scale Vocal to what it is today.
Justin Maury
Chief Operating Officer, Vocal
Curious about the benefits of user research to your business?
Have a chat with Boris, Thinkmill’s co-founder and leader in UX design.
Contact us