Quantitative User Experience Research: Informing Product Decisions by Understanding Users at Scale

by Chris Chapman, Kerry Rodden

This book is your definitive guide to the rapidly growing role of Quantitative User Experience (Quant UX) Research in product development. The book provides an overview of the skills you need on the job, presents hands-on projects with reusable code, and shares advice on starting and developing a career. The book goes beyond basic skills to focus on what is unique to Quant UX. The authors are two of the most widely recognized practitioners in Quant UX research, and this book shares insights from their combined decades of experience.
Organizations today have more data about user needs and behaviors than ever before. With this large-scale data, Quant UX researchers work to understand usage patterns, measure the impact of design changes, and inform strategic decisions. In the Quant UX role, interdisciplinary researchers apply analytical skills to uncover user needs, inform engineering and design, answer strategic business questions, and optimize software and hardware products for human interaction. This book provides guidance around customer satisfaction surveys, understanding user behavior from log analysis, and the statistical methods that are commonly used to assess user outcomes.
What You Will Learn
Who This Book Is For
Practitioners and managers who seek a comprehensive guide to the new field of Quantitative User Experience Research. Readers will understand the Quant UX role, build research skills, find examples of hands-on code and analyses, learn about UX organizations and stakeholders, and receive advice on job interviews and career paths. Data scientists, social scientists, and other researchers will learn how their skills transfer to Quant UX, where they can help teams build better, more successful products.

396 pages, Paperback

Published June 1, 2023

Reviews

[Artem Ivanov · Rating 5 out of 5]

A foundational read for anyone serious about Quant UX Research

This book is not just "a good intro" — it's the bedrock of how modern quantitative user experience research (QuantUXR) can be approached, structured, and scaled. Chapman and Rodden don’t pretend to give the one true way; they’re open about offering a perspective built from years of practice. But that perspective is immensely valuable.

What makes this book so good is that it doesn’t stop at metrics. It gives you a roadmap: how to grow as a quant researcher, how to interact with stakeholders, how to build systems, how to hire and structure a team, and how to tie your work directly to product impact. Along the way, it introduces a number of clever, thoughtful methods for data analysis that go beyond the usual toolkit — things that are both practical and inspiring to try out.

I didn’t agree with every detail — and that’s fine. But I came away with a deeper, more systematic understanding of our craft.

And honestly, I’m just really glad this book exists. The fact that a book like this now exists means the field of QuantUXR is starting to stabilize, mature, and become more systematic. That’s an exciting milestone.

If you're working in UX at scale — especially at the intersection of product, data, and research — this book is an absolute must-read.

[Annas Jiwa Pratama]

Read most of it. Breezy, easy to understand, and the examples are simple enough to follow through (good thing they are in R!). Would've liked more details and technical discussions crammed into subsections or stand-alone boxes, instead of relegated to other textbooks or sources. But, overall the book delivers on persuading me on the whys of the methods discussed, and a very broad idea of the hows. The whys here are really emphasized, with plenty of judgments from the authors' own experiences, and the hows are also laden with non-technical, but very important details, such as "How would stakeholders likely misunderstand this method".

Considering getting the Chapman's R book as well.

[Norbert Boros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. I come from the classic human-centered design world, with a strong focus on qualitative research. I have been looking for a good way to integrate quantitative research methods for a long time, and this book helped me find the link. The book contains many technical details and examples - which were a bit heavy for me - but also has clever advice about design research in general. As a future design research leader, this book has provided me with a valuable resource to bring to my new role.

[angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

rare book that neither over-promises nor under-delivers. helpful for UXDs at orgs w/o formal research teams. skimmed the more tech-heavy stuff

[Moriah · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s just a little too mixed with stuff to feel like it gets a higher rating, but some good takeaways for quant ux.