Attitudinal vs Behavioral Research Methods

There are different types of user-experience research methods that are well suited for different situations.

Attitudinal research is used to understand or measure people’s stated beliefs. They gather qualitative insights into user’s feelings, thoughts, needs, attitudes, and motivations. It’s possible to gather powerful insights in the form of quotations and anecdotes.

Behavioral research methods aim to measure what users actually do, providing quantitative data about how users actually interact with your website.

These two types of research methods back up what users say with what they actually do.

Examples of Attitudinal research methods are surveys, traditional focus groups, ethnographic studies. The methods delve deeper into the “why” reasons.

Examples of Behavioral research methods are A/B testing, or tools like Google Analytics and Optimizely. Observing users interacting with the product is also considered behavioral. While these methods provide great quantitative insights, it is always open to our own interpretation, which is why it is always important to ask the users why.

Thus, using both methods will give the most rounded picture of our users. It will give us the quantitative evidence as well as the reasons why users made certain decisions or felt a certain way.