How to Do User Research on a Budget

Schedule 30-minute calls with 5–10 people who match your target customer. Ask them about their current workflow, what they've tried, what frustrates them. Don't mention your solution. Record with their permission.

This is the highest-signal method available to you. One good conversation is worth 100 survey responses because you hear tone, context, and the specific language people use — which you'll use verbatim in your copy.

Ask a user to share their screen and talk through what they're doing as they use your product. Don't guide them — just watch and listen. Tools: Google Meet, Loom, or Zoom (free tier).

The critical rule: do not help them when they get stuck. Their confusion is the data. Every moment of hesitation is a design problem you need to know about.

Post in communities where your target customer hangs out — specific subreddits, Slack groups, Discord servers, niche forums. Be specific about what you're looking for. "I'm building [X] for [Y] and would love 15 minutes of honest feedback from anyone who does [Z]" gets more responses than a generic product announcement.

The quality varies. But in tight-knit communities, you can get remarkably honest responses from people who have zero incentive to be nice to you.

Send a structured feedback brief to users after they try your product. Not "what do you think?" — a specific set of questions covering messaging, UX, value, and what they'd change. Written feedback scales better than calls and can be done async.

The key is structure. Unstructured written feedback produces noise. A template that forces reviewers to cover specific areas produces signal. HelpMarq is built around this principle — every review follows a template so you get complete coverage, not just what stood out.

Google Forms, Tally, Typeform free tier — all free. Surveys are fast to deploy and easy to analyse. The problem: they're terrible for discovering things you don't already know. Survey questions force people to choose from your options, not tell you what's actually on their mind.

Use surveys to quantify something you already know qualitatively. "How often does X happen?" is a good survey question. "What's your biggest problem?" is not.

Microsoft Clarity is free and unlimited. Hotjar has a free tier. These tools record user sessions, generate heatmaps, and show you exactly where people drop off. They answer "what" users do — but not "why." Always pair this with qualitative methods.

A heatmap showing nobody clicks your CTA doesn't tell you if it's because the copy is wrong, the positioning is wrong, or the offer isn't compelling. That requires a conversation.