Research Topic Brainstorm Template
Align research goals, cluster ideas, and debrief with stakeholders.
Trusted by 65M+ users and leading companies
About the Research Topic Brainstorm Template
Before you can sign off on your UX research plan, you need to know you’re asking the right research questions. A research topic brainstorm with your team can ease navigating the different stages of the design process, from discovery to testing.
Whether you’re doing stakeholder interviews or user group outreach, you should focus on the right topics and ask questions that generate useful insights. To ensure that you understand your customers and translate that knowledge into intelligent and inspiring design solutions, first brainstorm with your team what (or who) is worth researching.
What is a Research Topic Brainstorm
Research topic brainstorming helps you generate questions for stakeholder or user interviews based on topics like partnership opportunities or first-time experience.
Ideally, brainstorming questions worth asking during user research activities can help you clarify:
Your user research objectives: What questions are you trying to answer? What do you need to know at this point in the design process?
Your user research hypotheses: What do you already know? What are your assumptions? What do you think you understand about your user’s behavior, and potential solutions you can fulfill based on unmet needs?
Your user research methods of choice: How will you fill in your knowledge gaps? Based on the resources available, what methods will you choose?
Use these three steps to turn your brainstorming session into a repository of questions. Aim for 3-5 prioritized research questions in your UX research plan document.
When to use Research Topic Brainstorms
Research topic brainstorming happens in the early stages of user research and enables you to build a foundation, generate inspiration and ideas, and evaluate design choices to better serve user needs.
A research topic brainstorm can help UX researchers:
Frame questions in the “5 Ws and H” structure (who, what, when, where, why, how), so your team can generate a variety of insightful questions (but remember to keep your research objective specific!).
Prioritize questions needing to be answered right away and those that can be more valuable later on.
Externalize hypotheses to minimize external bias (such as client or team influence).
Choose the right research methods to fulfill your objectives.
Use your early hypothesis to demonstrate and compare what you actually discovered during research.
Create your own Research Topic Brainstorm
Making your own research topic brainstorms is easy. Miro is the perfect tool to create and share them. Get started by selecting the Research Topic Brainstorm Template, then take the following steps to make one of your own.
Define key research areas. Do you want to look at new opportunities for partnering with other business areas? Improve your app’s onboarding flow for new users? Pick 1-4 key topics your team thinks are worth exploring.
Brainstorm questions relevant to each research topic. Aim for quantity first, then prioritize for quality and impact. Keep criticism aside. Also, this part of your research brainstorming should be timebound (try the Countdown Timer) and tied back to your business goals and user needs.
Identify research or knowledge gaps. Based on what you’ve just brainstormed, what’s missing? What don’t you already know? Record these missing elements on sticky notes as well.
Ask relevant stakeholders or team members for feedback. Invite collaborators onto your Miro Board using a preferred method (like sharing public links to invitations to edit via Slack or email).
Add your preferred research questions to your UX research plan. Your prioritized research questions form an important segment on your UX research plan – copy over the sticky notes and update your research plan accordingly.
Get started with this template right now.
Semantic Map Template
Works best for:
Brainstorming
The Semantic Map Template is a helpful tool that helps teams efficiently process and structure complex information. Its intuitive design promotes shared understanding, allowing multiple users to contribute and refine ideas simultaneously. This collaborative approach streamlines brainstorming sessions and creates a synergistic environment where collective intelligence thrives. By visually mapping out concepts and their interconnections, the template ensures that every team member is on the same page, which improves group dynamics and leads to more cohesive and comprehensive outcomes. The Semantic Map Template is a valuable tool for team-based project management and learning, thanks to its ability to foster collaboration and enhance productivity.
Product Vision Statement
Works best for:
Product Management, Planning
The Product Vision Statement template helps product teams articulate clear and inspiring visions for product development. By defining long-term goals, market aspirations, and customer value propositions, this template aligns teams around a shared vision for success. With sections for outlining strategic objectives, guiding principles, and success metrics, it provides clarity and direction for product development efforts. This template serves as a compass for product teams, guiding them towards meaningful outcomes and driving innovation and growth.
UML Diagram Template
Works best for:
Diagrams, Software Development
Originally used as a modeling language in software engineering, UML has become a popular approach to application structures and documenting software. UML stands for Unified Modeling Language, and you can use it to model business processes and workflows. Like flowcharts, UML diagrams can provide your organization with a standardized method of mapping out step-by-step processes. They allow your team to easily view the relationships between systems and tasks. UML diagrams are an effective tool that can help you bring new employees up to speed, create documentation, organize your workplace and team, and streamline your projects.
Epic & Feature Roadmap Planning
Epic & Feature Roadmap Planning template facilitates the breakdown of large-scale initiatives into manageable features and tasks. It helps teams prioritize development efforts based on business impact and strategic objectives. By visualizing the relationship between epics and features, teams can effectively plan releases and ensure alignment with overall project goals and timelines.
Customer Journey Map Template
Works best for:
Ideation, Mapping, Product Management
A customer journey map (CJM) is a visual representation of your customer’s experience. It allows you to capture the path that a customer follows when they buy a product, sign up for a service, or otherwise interact with your site. Most maps include a specific persona, outlines their customer experience from beginning to end, and captures the potential emotional highs and lows of interacting with the product or service. Use this template to easily create customer journey maps for projects of all kinds.
SAFe Program Template
Works best for:
Agile Methodology, Diagrams, Agile Workflows
Many organizations use the Agile model, but even companies that don’t rigorously adhere to all Agile standards have adopted Agile tools and methods like Program Increment (PI) Planning. Even if you’re not participating in a formal PI session, a program board can be a great way to establish communication across teams and stakeholders, align development objectives with business goals, clarify dependencies, and foster cross-functional collaboration. The board provides much-needed structure to planning sessions, yet is adaptable enough to accommodate brainstorming and alignment meetings.