Custom User Research Services
We are a nimble UX research agency that specializes in qualitative methods and remote collaboration. Our consultants draw from a diverse toolkit to address your team’s research questions and goals, including:
- Audience research: journey mapping, personas, and user interviews
- Early-stage product/strategy research: market validation and concept testing
- Information architecture and navigation research
- Usability testing, content testing, and UX audits of prototypes or live systems
- End-to-end design thinking engagements, from observation to prototyping to testing
Recent User Research Projects
Multi-Method Research for McDonald’s
Large-scale UX research in 2021 to generate insights for a new McDonald’s initiative. 70+ moderated usability sessions plus 12 heuristic reviews of digital platforms.
Card Sort for United Nations
Card sort and first-click testing for a 2,500-person agency within the UN System. 12 moderated plus 105 unmoderated sessions. Informed the IA for a new HR portal.
Personas for Herman Miller
10 contextual interviews with customers of HM’s Design Within Reach furniture brand. Then a 1-day persona-building workshop at their HQ in Michigan.
Tree Testing for Nu Skin
Tested 3 navigation variations for Nu Skin’s main website, running participants through 14 findability tasks. Small-scale moderated testing plus 150 quantitative sessions.
Content Testing for GEICO
Content testing of the current digital claims flow plus prototypes. Drove research-backed changes to link/button text, form field labels and other microcopy.
Heuristic Evaluations for Epsilon
Partnered with this agency to conduct UX audits for a top 20 global pharma company. Analyzed 2 consumer sites and 1 B2B site. Prioritized 50+ recommendations.
UX Evaluation & Training for BI
A 3-phase UX evaluation of BI’s enterprise software: 1) current state field study with 3 site visits, 2) prototype testing with 3 user groups, and 3) UX training for 50 developers.
Buyer Journey Research for PenFed
In-depth interviews with 10 recent home buyers about their journeys. Defined 11 key home-buying steps and identified pain points and highlights.
In-Home Research for Tonal
In-home interview and observation sessions with Tonal home gym customers in 4 cities. Followed by a 2-day workshop to create personas and journey maps.
“I thought the interview set-up, organization, and deliverables were all fantastic!”
Our Typical Process
While our consultants customize each project, many of our UX research projects follow a variation of this 5-step approach.
Plan
We get up to speed and align on your project goals, audiences and KPIs.
Report
We deliver a summary report with all findings, solution ideas and recordings.
Workshop
We facilitate a 1-day remote workshop with research observation, analysis, and ideation.
Recruit
We conduct a rigorous recruiting and screening process to find representative users.
Research
We moderate 1:1 research sessions, and often supplement this with quantitative research.
“Working with Marketade has been an amazing experience. I highly recommended them to anyone!”
Helping Teams Across the U.S. & Beyond
A mostly-remote process in normal times
As a fully-remote, distributed team since day one, our firm has embraced remote UX research and a virtual project process for over 10 years. In normal times, we visit our clients for 1 or 2 days during a typical user research project — to facilitate a research analysis workshop. This mostly-remote process has allowed our small consulting team to work with organizations in just about every major city in the U.S. It also means we can recruit research participants from across the U.S.
A 100%-remote process during the pandemic
Before the pandemic, we led about 50% of our user research workshops remotely. Especially for projects with distributed teams or quick turnarounds, remote workshops are a great option. During the pandemic, we’ve switched to 100% remote workshops and a fully-remote process. With the help of tools like Miro and various remote collaboration hacks, we’ve found more and more ways to facilitate super-productive virtual workshops.
Within the U.S., we have user research clients or team members in these cities:
Eastern U.S.
- New York City
- Washington DC
- Philadelphia
- Boston
- Detroit
- Atlanta
- Miami
- Orlando
- Charlotte
- Raleigh/Durham
- Charlottesville
Central U.S.
- Chicago
- Minneapolis
- Milwaukee
- Austin
- Dallas
- Houston
Mountain U.S.
- Denver
- Boulder
- Phoenix
- Salt Lake City
Pacific U.S.
- San Francisco
- Los Angeles
- San Jose
- San Diego
- Las Vegas
- Portland
- Seattle
“Settled matters we would otherwise debate endlessly”
We've Led User Research & Training at:
