Attitudinal vs. Behavioral User Research Methods

We know it’s shocking, but people often say one thing and do another. The disparity is usually unintentional, which is one of the reasons it’s so important to use UX research methods that collect both behavioral and attitudinal data. 

Attitudinal research methods rely on self-reported data. This means that they reflect people’s stated beliefs, perceptions, and expectations. This category includes things like interviews, surveys, focus groups, and card sorts—all of which ask study participants to tell researchers what they think.

The insights from attitudinal research methods are valuable, but they also need to be taken with a grain of salt. People sometimes fall short of telling you what they really think or are unable to fully articulate their perceptions. And even when they think they are telling you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it can turn out that their expectations don’t match up with reality. (This is because human beings are notoriously bad at accurately predicting their own behavior.)

Despite these cautions, attitudinal research methods can still be helpful as a way of uncovering a participant’s mental model, which can then be used to shape a design to better meet user expectations.

Behavioral research methods are based on direct observation as a study participant interacts with a prototype or finished product. Researchers often prefer these methods since they are able to deliver more reliable insights based on real-world scenarios. Research methods that study a user’s actual actions include things like eye tracking, A/B tests, tree tests, first-click tests, and also user analytics.

There are also a number of research methods—user interviews and task analysis, for example—that can produce either attitudinal or behavioral data. In any situation, best practices include collecting a variety of both attitudinal and behavioral data. 

Originally posted on UserInterviews.com

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