user-research
anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins
Plan, conduct, and synthesize user research to understand your users' needs, behaviors, and motivations.
What is user-research?
This skill helps you design and execute user research studies—from interviews and usability tests to surveys and diary studies. Use it when you need to gather qualitative or quantitative insights about your users, validate assumptions, or inform product decisions.
- Plan research studies with clear objectives, methods, timelines, and participant criteria
- Create structured interview guides with warm-up, context, deep dive, reaction, and wrap-up sections
- Design usability tests, surveys, card sorting exercises, and diary studies
- Conduct affinity mapping and thematic analysis to identify patterns in research data
- Synthesize findings into actionable insights using frameworks like impact/effort matrices and journey mapping
- Generate research deliverables including plans, guides, synthesis reports, and highlight reels
How to install user-research
npx skills add https://github.com/anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins --skill user-researchHow to use user-research
- 1.Describe your research goal (e.g., understand why users abandon checkout)
- 2.Specify your target user group and any constraints (timeline, budget, access)
- 3.Request a research plan, interview guide, survey design, or analysis framework based on your needs
- 4.Review and refine the generated content with your team
- 5.Execute the research following the provided structure and guidance
- 6.Use the synthesis framework to analyze your findings and extract actionable insights
Use cases
- Planning a user interview study to understand customer pain points before redesigning a feature
- Creating a usability test to evaluate whether users can complete a critical task in your product
- Designing a survey to quantify user preferences across a large audience
- Conducting a diary study to understand how users interact with your product over time in their natural environment
- Synthesizing research findings into recommendations for the product roadmap
- Product managers validating user needs and prioritizing features
- UX researchers planning and executing research studies
- Designers gathering user feedback before and after design iterations
- Founders and entrepreneurs understanding their target market
- Teams making data-informed product decisions
user-research FAQ
It depends on your method. User interviews and usability tests typically need 5-8 participants for deep insights. Surveys require 100+ for statistical validity. Card sorting needs 15-30, and diary studies work with 10-15 participants over time.
Timeline varies by method: interviews and usability tests take 1-4 weeks, surveys 1-2 weeks, card sorting 1 week, diary studies 2-8 weeks, and A/B testing 1-4 weeks depending on traffic and statistical significance needed.
User interviews explore needs, motivations, and workflows through open-ended conversation (5-8 participants, 2-4 weeks). Usability testing evaluates how well users can complete specific tasks with a design or prototype (5-8 participants, 1-2 weeks).
Use affinity mapping to group observations into themes, impact/effort matrices to prioritize findings, journey mapping to visualize the user experience, and jobs-to-be-done framework to understand what users need your product to accomplish.
A synthesis report should include identified themes and patterns, key insights about user needs and behaviors, actionable recommendations for product decisions, supporting quotes and observations, and a highlight reel of the most compelling findings.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins.
name: user-research description: Plan, conduct, and synthesize user research. Trigger with "user research plan", "interview guide", "usability test", "survey design", "research questions", or when the user needs help with any aspect of understanding their users through research.
User Research
Help plan, execute, and synthesize user research studies.
Research Methods
| Method | Best For | Sample Size | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| User interviews | Deep understanding of needs and motivations | 5-8 | 2-4 weeks |
| Usability testing | Evaluating a specific design or flow | 5-8 | 1-2 weeks |
| Surveys | Quantifying attitudes and preferences | 100+ | 1-2 weeks |
| Card sorting | Information architecture decisions | 15-30 | 1 week |
| Diary studies | Understanding behavior over time | 10-15 | 2-8 weeks |
| A/B testing | Comparing specific design choices | Statistical significance | 1-4 weeks |
Interview Guide Structure
- Warm-up (5 min): Build rapport, explain the session
- Context (10 min): Understand their current workflow
- Deep dive (20 min): Explore the specific topic
- Reaction (10 min): Show concepts or prototypes
- Wrap-up (5 min): Anything we missed? Thank them.
Analysis Framework
- Affinity mapping: Group observations into themes
- Impact/effort matrix: Prioritize findings
- Journey mapping: Visualize the user experience over time
- Jobs to be done: Understand what users are hiring your product to do
Deliverables
- Research plan (objectives, methods, timeline, participants)
- Interview guide (questions, probes, activities)
- Synthesis report (themes, insights, recommendations)
- Highlight reel (key quotes and observations)
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