A field study is a qualitative research method in which you observe and talk to people directly in their familiar environment (at home, at the office, in a store, on the street), rather than bringing them into a laboratory or a focus group room. This approach is preferred because it allows researchers to observe authentic behavior in a natural environment, providing more valuable insights than simple answers to hypothetical scenarios.
The researcher or research team goes to the places where real users carry out their everyday activities and observes how they interact with a product, space, or process, often asking questions as the activity unfolds. A field study can include direct observation (simply watching what people do without intervening), contextual interviews (asking, “Why did you do that now?” at the moment the action takes place), or a combination of the two. Sessions can last anywhere from a few hours to several days, depending on how complex the behavior being studied is.
Field studies reveal things that people might not even remember or consider worth mentioning in a traditional interview, such as automatic habits, improvised solutions (“gambiarra”), obstacles in the physical environment, or moments of frustration that they have become so accustomed to that they no longer notice them. These studies can reveal how people think and react psychologically in different contexts.
In UX and product design, field studies often take place before the ideation and prototyping stages, helping the team understand the real context of use before designing a solution. They are particularly useful for products and services where the environment plays an important role, such as apps used while on the move, industrial equipment, and so on.
This research method can become quite costly and resource-intensive over time compared to an opinion survey or a focus group, and its findings can be difficult to generalize on a larger scale. However, it provides a high level of authenticity and depth.
