Doing user research before and during development helps inform your choices about strategy (what to build) as well as tactics (how to build it)-- and it doesn't have to slow down your development process . In fact some rapidly executed research can speed up your time to market by reducing the need to refactor late in a project.
This presentation includes practical information to help product owners and developers quickly get inside the heads of their users, validate product ideas and improve the usability of their software at warp speed. The talk included tips and techniques for recruiting research participants, shadowing and interviewing users effectively, getting valuable feedback on product concepts and information architecture, and rapidly iterating on the user interface to improve usability. They discussed remote testing tools that help teams evaluate if users can successfully achieve their goals with their designs, and reviewed best practices collecting feedback from users after launch.