This information was taken from the following site. It contains tons more info however.

https://www.toptal.com/designers/user-research/guide-to-ux-research-methods

Card Sorting
Best Practices

 Limit the number of cards. It is tempting to want the participant to sort "ALL" of your content,
but be mindful of participant fatigue. We would recommend 30 to 40 at the absolute outside,
especially for an open sort.
 If possible, randomize the order of presentation so that each piece of content has a chance to be
sorted earlier in the session.
 Provide the participants with an estimate of how long the card sort will take before beginning
the session to help them better gauge the required time and effort.
 Consider the benefits of requiring participants to complete your sort. For an open sort, if
possible consider requiring them to sort the cards, but perhaps not to label them, since that
might be the more challenging part of the task, providing you have limited your items as
suggested.
 Consider an open sort as part 1 and a closed sort as part 2 of your process. One allows you to
learn what goes together, while 2 allows you to really test out your labels to see if they are
intuitive to your participants.

First Click Testing

Best Practices

 When designing a first click test, consider the following:

 Thoroughly pilot prior to testing to assure that note takers/data loggers are comfortable with
both the optimal path and documenting click by click navigation.
 It would be best not to tell the participant they are taking part in First-click testing. This may
seem obvious, but it may be worth mentioning.
 Consider starting each task from the home or base screen for this test – thus limiting the
number of possible wrong turns the participant might make on subsequent tasks.

Conducting Focus Groups

When conducting a focus group:

 Decide on the range of topics you would like to cover before the session
 Pretest questions to ensure they are clear and logical
 Develop open-ended questions to encourage discussion
 Arrange questions in a way that flows naturally
 Hire a skilled moderator to facilitate the discussion
 Create a script so the moderator knows what to ask and which topics to cover
 Allow the moderator to change the order of questions and topics to keep the discussion flowing
smoothly
 Plan to spend about two hours with the group
  Tape the sessions
 Have one or more note takers to ensure everything is captured

Heuristic Analysis
How to Run an Effective Heuristic Analysis
Preparation is key to running the analysis well. Following an established set of steps ensures that a
heuristic analysis will run efficiently and yield maximum results. Here’s a heuristic analysis checklist:

 Define the scope.

 Know the business requirements and demographic of the end-users.
 Decide on which reporting tools and heuristics to use.
 Evaluate the experience and identify usability issues.
 Analyze, aggregate, and present the results.

Individual Interviews
Best Practices
When you conduct an Individual Interview, consider:

 What you want to learn and then selecting representative participants to talk to
 Writing an interview protocol for the interviewer to follow. The protocol includes questions and
probes to use for follow-up
 Hiring a skilled interviewer who knows how to make interviewees feel more comfortable, asks
questions in a neutral manner, listens well, and knows when and how to probe for more details
 Getting permission to tape the sessions and have one or more note takers

Parallel Design
Best Practices
When getting ready to exercise parallel design in your project, you should:

 Define which layouts to address

 Clarify the expectations regarding fidelity of the designs
 If using a team approach, be sure your teams have equivalent skills
 Establish the evaluation criteria
 Once reviewed, designs should each be reviewed and then there should be time set aside to
combine elements of each design into a final concept.

Online Surveys
Best Practices

Before creating an online survey, you should identify:

  Your purpose
 Where you will find respondents
 The software you will be using
 How you will collect the data and any limitations to information collection
 Who will analyze the data?

Once you outline those basics you need to consider the following:

 Keep your surveys as brief as possible

 Provide the participant with an estimate of completion time up front, as well as something that
indicates their progress
 Include a mix of open-ended questions—in which users complete the answer—and closed
questions
 Ask if a respondent is willing to answer more in-depth questions in a follow-up survey or
interview