---
title: "Research and evidence"
description: "Audits, inventories, card sorts. Finding out what is true instead of guessing confidently."
canonical: "https://contentlexicon.com/categories/research-and-evidence"
---

# Research and evidence

Audits, inventories, card sorts. Finding out what is true instead of guessing confidently.

- [A/B testing](https://contentlexicon.com/a-b-testing): A way to compare two or more live variants with users, useful when the question is specific and the measure actually matters.
- [Audience segmentation](https://contentlexicon.com/audience-segmentation): Dividing an audience into useful groups so content can meet different needs, behaviours or contexts.
- [Card sorting](https://contentlexicon.com/card-sorting): A research method where people group and label items to reveal how they think about them.
- [Competitor analysis](https://contentlexicon.com/competitor-analysis): A review of similar organisations and useful comparators to understand the field, find gaps and identify practices to emulate.
- [Content ecosystem map](https://contentlexicon.com/content-ecosystem-map): A picture of where content lives and how it travels between those places.
- [Content health check](https://contentlexicon.com/content-health-check): A recurring, criteria-based assessment of how well content serves its purpose and what needs attention.
- [Content inventory](https://contentlexicon.com/content-inventory): A structured list of the content you have and the basic facts about each item.
- [Design thinking](https://contentlexicon.com/design-thinking): A problem-solving approach that uses empathy, exploration, prototyping and testing to create better services, products or content.
- [Gap analysis](https://contentlexicon.com/gap-analysis): A comparison between what exists now and what should exist, so the missing parts can be found.
- [KPIs](https://contentlexicon.com/kpis): Key performance indicators: the measures used to judge whether content is achieving what it needs to achieve.
- [Persona](https://contentlexicon.com/persona): A research-based representation of a group of people with shared goals, behaviour or needs.
- [Stakeholder mapping](https://contentlexicon.com/stakeholder-mapping): Identifying the people and groups who affect, approve, use or care about a piece of content work.
- [User needs](https://contentlexicon.com/user-needs): What people need to know, do or understand, established through evidence and used to decide what content should exist.
- [User testing](https://contentlexicon.com/user-testing): Watching or listening to real users try to use content or a service, so the team can learn what works and what fails.