Research Topic Brainstorm Template
Align research goals, cluster ideas, and debrief with stakeholders.
About the Research Topic Brainstorm Template
Before you can sign off on your UX research plan, you need to know you’re asking the right research questions. A research topic brainstorm with your team can ease navigating the different stages of the design process, from discovery to testing.
Whether you’re doing stakeholder interviews or user group outreach, you should focus on the right topics and ask questions that generate useful insights. To ensure that you understand your customers and translate that knowledge into intelligent and inspiring design solutions, first brainstorm with your team what (or who) is worth researching.
What is a Research Topic Brainstorm
Research topic brainstorming helps you generate questions for stakeholder or user interviews based on topics like partnership opportunities or first-time experience.
Ideally, brainstorming questions worth asking during user research activities can help you clarify:
Your user research objectives: What questions are you trying to answer? What do you need to know at this point in the design process?
Your user research hypotheses: What do you already know? What are your assumptions? What do you think you understand about your user’s behavior, and potential solutions you can fulfill based on unmet needs?
Your user research methods of choice: How will you fill in your knowledge gaps? Based on the resources available, what methods will you choose?
Use these three steps to turn your brainstorming session into a repository of questions. Aim for 3-5 prioritized research questions in your UX research plan document.
When to use Research Topic Brainstorms
Research topic brainstorming happens in the early stages of user research and enables you to build a foundation, generate inspiration and ideas, and evaluate design choices to better serve user needs.
A research topic brainstorm can help UX researchers:
Frame questions in the “5 Ws and H” structure (who, what, when, where, why, how), so your team can generate a variety of insightful questions (but remember to keep your research objective specific!).
Prioritize questions needing to be answered right away and those that can be more valuable later on.
Externalize hypotheses to minimize external bias (such as client or team influence).
Choose the right research methods to fulfill your objectives.
Use your early hypothesis to demonstrate and compare what you actually discovered during research.
Create your own Research Topic Brainstorm
Making your own research topic brainstorms is easy. Miro is the perfect tool to create and share them. Get started by selecting the Research Topic Brainstorm Template, then take the following steps to make one of your own.
Define key research areas. Do you want to look at new opportunities for partnering with other business areas? Improve your app’s onboarding flow for new users? Pick 1-4 key topics your team thinks are worth exploring.
Brainstorm questions relevant to each research topic. Aim for quantity first, then prioritize for quality and impact. Keep criticism aside. Also, this part of your research brainstorming should be timebound (try the Countdown Timer) and tied back to your business goals and user needs.
Identify research or knowledge gaps. Based on what you’ve just brainstormed, what’s missing? What don’t you already know? Record these missing elements on sticky notes as well.
Ask relevant stakeholders or team members for feedback. Invite collaborators onto your Miro Board using a preferred method (like sharing public links to invitations to edit via Slack or email).
Add your preferred research questions to your UX research plan. Your prioritized research questions form an important segment on your UX research plan – copy over the sticky notes and update your research plan accordingly.
Get started with this template right now.
Empathy Map by Invoke
Works best for:
Market Research, Research & Design
The Empathy Map template is perfect for understanding user behavior and motivations. It helps teams capture insights into what users think, feel, and do, ensuring your designs meet their needs. Ideal for UX and product teams.
AI-Enhanced Empathy Map
Works best for:
Market Research, Research & Design
AI Enhanced Empathy Map combines traditional empathy mapping with AI insights. This innovative template helps you gather and analyze user data, leading to more accurate and personalized user experiences. Ideal for product development teams using AI.
Job Map Template
Works best for:
Design, Desk Research, Mapping
Want to truly understand your consumers’ mindset? Take a look at things from their perspective — by identifying the “jobs” they need to accomplish and exploring what would make them “hire” or “fire” a product or service like yours. Ideal for UX researchers, job mapping is a staged process that gives you that POV by breaking the “jobs” down step by step, so you can ultimately offer something unique, useful, and different from your competitors. This template makes it easy to create a detailed, comprehensive job map.
Good, Bad, Ideas, Action, Kudos Retrospective
Works best for:
Retrospectives, Meetings, Agile Methodology
The Good, Bad, Ideas, Action, Kudos Retrospective template offers a structured approach to retrospectives by categorizing feedback into five key areas: good, bad, ideas, action items, and kudos (appreciations). It provides elements for team members to share their thoughts, suggestions, and acknowledgments. This template enables teams to reflect on past performance, generate actionable insights, and celebrate achievements. By promoting inclusivity and constructive feedback, the Good, Bad, Ideas, Action, Kudos Retrospective empowers teams to foster collaboration, drive continuous improvement, and strengthen team dynamics effectively.
Proto Persona Template
Works best for:
UX, UX Research, Product Design
The Proto Persona Template is tailored to capture the essence of hypothetical user segments. It encapsulates key attributes such as user needs, behaviors, and potential pain points. One of its standout benefits is its ability to foster empathy. By visualizing and understanding these preliminary user profiles, design and strategy teams can tap into a deeper connection with their target audience, ensuring that solutions resonate authentically and address genuine needs.
Fishbone Diagram by Dave Westgarth
Works best for:
Fishbone diagram
Identify and solve problems effectively with the Fishbone Diagram by Dave Westgarth. This template helps you break down complex issues into root causes, enabling a thorough analysis and targeted solutions. Use it for quality control, process improvement, and troubleshooting in various industries. Ideal for teams focused on continuous improvement and problem-solving.