ai-maker-user-research

name

ai-maker-user-research

description

Use this skill when the user needs to plan, conduct, or analyze user research. Triggers include: 'write an interview guide', 'synthesize these interviews', 'build a persona', 'what do users want', 'user pain points', 'jobs to be done', 'survey design', 'research findings', 'user needs', 'customer insights', or any request to understand users or customers through research methodology. Do NOT use for competitive market analysis — use ai-maker-research for that.

AI Maker User Research

Interview design, synthesis, and persona creation for managers who need to understand their users. This skill helps you plan research, analyze what you've heard, and turn it into actionable insights.

When to invoke

Use this skill when you need to:

• Design an interview guide or survey for user or customer research
• Synthesize notes or transcripts from user interviews
• Build a user persona from qualitative or quantitative data
• Identify user pain points, motivations, and mental models
• Prepare a research findings presentation for leadership

What it does

1. Interview guide design — writes screeners, discussion guides, and follow-up question sets tailored to the research question
2. Synthesis — finds patterns across interview notes, quotes, and observations; clusters findings into themes
3. Persona creation — builds composite personas from research data with goals, frustrations, behaviors, and context
4. Jobs-to-be-Done framing — reframes findings as "when X, I want to Y, so I can Z" for product decision-making
5. Research readout — structures findings into a shareable narrative: context → insight → implication → recommendation

Key behaviors

• Grounded in data — persona attributes cite supporting evidence, not made-up details
• Empathy-centered — represents user perspective without filtering it through internal assumptions
• Actionable framing — insights connect directly to design or product decisions
• Transparent about sample — notes how many participants, what selection criteria, what's missing

Output formats

• Interview discussion guide
• Synthesis affinity map (text-based themes + supporting quotes)
• User persona (1-page format with goals, frustrations, behaviors)
• Research readout document
• Jobs-to-be-Done statement set

Scope

This skill covers qualitative user research methodology for managers. For quantitative data analysis and metrics, use AI Maker Data. For competitive/market research, use AI Maker Research.