User Research & Discovery Markdown Templates
Observational inquiry notes, semi-structured customer interviews, usability test protocols, and heuristic audits.
Every template is crafted in standard UTF-8 Markdown with YAML frontmatter, Obsidian-compatible callouts, task lists, and bidirectional wikilinks. Download individually or copy straight into your local Mac vault.
Semi-Structured User Research Interview
Conduct deep generative user research, extract mental models, map workflows, and capture verbatim customer quotes.
Moderated Usability Testing Protocol
Structure moderated user testing sessions, track task completion rates, log usability friction, and calculate SUS scores.
Nielsen-Norman Heuristic Usability Audit
Audit web and desktop interfaces against the 10 Nielsen-Norman usability heuristics, grade defect severities, and prescribe UX fixes.
Customer Journey & Pain Point Synthesis
Map customer lifecycle phases, visualize emotional highs and lows, identify drop-off barriers, and design intervention moments.
Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) Interview Matrix
Uncover why customers 'hire' or 'fire' software tools using the JTBD timeline, the Four Forces of progress, and habit switches.
Longitudinal Diary Study Logbook
Collect longitudinal user experiences over multi-week periods, capture contextual habits, and analyze behavioral shifts.
Information Architecture Card Sorting Synthesis
Analyze open and closed card sorting studies, calculate cluster dendrograms, and optimize website information architecture.
Competitive Product UX Benchmark Teardown
Benchmark competitor user interfaces, audit interaction patterns, identify usability blind spots, and find product moats.
Field Ethnography & Contextual Inquiry
Conduct in-situ contextual inquiry, observe real physical working environments, track artifact usage, and uncover tacit habits.
Design Critique & Variant Evaluation
Facilitate structured design critiques, compare UI variants, evaluate typography and tokens, and log actionable design decisions.
Concept Testing Feedback Record
Capture user reactions, desirability scores, comprehension hurdles, and feature trade-offs during early product concept tests.
Tree Testing Navigation Record
Evaluate information architecture findability, menu hierarchies, task completion paths, and mental models in Markdown.
Accessibility Usability Audit Record
Record screen reader navigation, focus order barriers, color contrast compliance, and assistive tech user feedback.
Unmoderated Usability Study Synthesis
Synthesize asynchronous usability test sessions, aggregate task success metrics, and isolate usability friction points.
Card Sort Affinity Matrix Record
Group conceptual cards into intuitive categories, analyze mental model clustering, and resolve navigational ambiguity.
Voice of Customer Sentiment Record
Track verbatim customer feedback quotes, sentiment trends, feature requests, and pain points across customer cohorts.
User Onboarding Friction Audit
Map first-run user friction, time-to-value milestones, drop-off triggers, and cognitive load hurdles in plain Markdown.
Prototype Walkthrough Feedback Record
Document live interactive prototype walkthroughs, micro-interaction feedback, affordance failures, and UI edge cases.
Service Blueprint Session Record
Map front-stage user touchpoints against back-stage operational workflows, support processes, and technical integrations.
Stakeholder Research Readout Record
Translate generative research findings into strategic business recommendations, persona highlights, and product roadmaps.
First-Click Usability Testing
Evaluate user navigation choices, click intent, task success rates, and information architecture paths in local Markdown.
Design System Component Audit
Audit component parity, accessibility states, token usage, and variant consistency across UI libraries in Markdown.
Longitudinal Cohort Study Log
Track participant retention, behavior shifts, habit formation, and recurring feedback across multi-week studies in Markdown.
UX Benchmarking Scorecard
Measure standardized usability metrics including SUS, UMUX-Lite, SEQ, and task completion times in local Markdown.
Microcopy & UX Content Audit
Evaluate button labels, error states, empty screens, tooltips, and modal confirmations for clarity and tone in Markdown.
Contextual Inquiry Field Protocol
Conduct in-situ field research, observing user environments, workarounds, interruptions, and physical artifacts in Markdown.
User Persona Validation Matrix
Validate hypothetical customer personas against empirical research data, behavioral evidence, and pain points in Markdown.
Cognitive Walkthrough Review
Inspect user task flows against Wharton's four cognitive walkthrough questions to discover usability flaws in Markdown.
Kano Model Feature Prioritization
Classify candidate product features into Must-Be, Performance, Attractive, and Indifferent tiers in local Markdown.
Mixed-Methods Triangulation Log
Synthesize qualitative interviews, quantitative telemetry, and usability tests into validated product insights in Markdown.
Longitudinal Diary Study Synthesis
Multi-week diary study synthesis template analyzing habit formation, daily friction points, and retention curves in Markdown.
Cross-Cultural Usability Audit
Internationalization and localization usability audit template evaluating multi-language typography, reading direction, and culture in Markdown.
Contextual Inquiry Field Log
On-site contextual inquiry template recording environmental interruptions, artifact ecosystems, and work habits in Markdown.
Why use plain Markdown for research & ux?
Most modern software teams and researchers store operational records inside walled gardens: cloud wiki software, SaaS meeting notetakers, or proprietary databases. When vendor pricing increases or platforms sunset features, retrieving historical context requires painful manual migration.
By anchoring your research & ux workflow in sovereign, local Markdown files on macOS, your notes remain portable across decades. You can open them in Obsidian, search them using standard Unix command-line utilities, index them with local SQLite FTS5, and parse them with on-device LLMs without transferring confidential intelligence over the internet.
[[WikiLinks]], and GitHub-style task checkboxes work out-of-the-box.Explore other template categories
Store research & ux in your sovereign Mac vault.
Free during the private beta. Apple silicon Macs, macOS 14 or later.