Level of Research Required in Web Apps

It depends on the problem the user faces and their circumstances.

By research, we understand the time spent by the user on solving the problem faced. Someone with no experience with the problem might have to spend more time than someone with experience. Someone with a high performance in using computers, the Internet and problem-solving might quickly identify what they need to research. Still, someone without these attributes might require a lot of research.

Not all research done by the user should be included in the question. The user should carefully choose what to include to communicate the problem and what was tried effectively and in a way that makes the question attractive to make people interested in answering effectively.

Common Asker Pitfalls

Most of the traffic to Web Apps comes through Google. A Web Apps question was likely shown in the search results, and somehow, the user decided to post a question. Some of these users make pitfalls that I have seen occur repeatedly.

Ignore the Ask Question page guidance

Despite what is said in the modal dialog and the Ask Question page guidance, some users post a plea for help rather than a "practical, detailed question" as referred to in the Web Apps tour.

Let's use the most recent question as an example

How to Detach a Video From a YouTube Playlist

I use YouTube playlists to bookmark videos so I can return to them later. For example, I might have a "Science" playlist for science videos. This lets me find the videos easily if I'm discussing a related topic later with someone. However, when I open a video from a playlist, the playlist remains present on the page. I wish the playlist to go away, so I could easily copy the link to that particular video, not the entire playlist. Is there a "detach" button or menu option somewhere that would let me easily detach a video?

As you can see, the OP hasn't mentioned any research done.

Use useless phrases to claim research

Some users think that including phrases like "I have search google and find nothing" is enough to show "research effort". That is just chit-chat that is not providing any value. Something that might be helpful will be briefly describing how the user tried to use Google, DuckDuckGo, or any other web search engine, including a few examples of search queries and a few examples of results explaining why they don't meet the OP's needs.

Ignoring the web app onboarding, getting started, resources for beginners, user interface options and user help.

All the Web apps pointed to massive user base like Google, Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) has simple user interfaces. Some of them have onboarding tutorials to show the users how to start using the basic features and learn about the other features. They all have options or links to access the help center and resources for end users. They should not be ignored as they help the user learn the terms used in the web app, like tweet in X, which is essential to research effectively.

There is no sense in repeating what is on the Web app user interfaces, help center and end-user resources.

Using Web apps as a learning-in-public online notebook

Learning in public is an individual approach to using the Internet to share their development process, hoping to get valuable contributions from friends and strangers. In general terms, it implies making public posts of thoughts and improving them as the thought is being enriched by relations with other thoughts and, in some cases, with research notes.

The problem with using this approach to post a new question in Web Apps is that the new question does not include any research. If they aren't updated they might eventually be automatically deleted if they don't get upvotes / answers or if the people with the vote-to-delete privilege think that the post is not worthy of being kept.

Showing have searched the Help Center

It depends on the problem the user faces and the user's expertise. Most questions asking "Is it possible x?" should be reworded to "How to do x" and include what was found in the help center and why it doesn't meet the user's needs. If nothing was found, the user should describe how the research was done, i.e., mention the help center search and a few examples of the search queries used.

Questions about problems related to the expert use of a tool don't require showing that OP has searched the help center if they are experts on the Web app. This is shown by what is being asked and how it is asked. However, the asker should be aware that the question review could be done by moderators who are not experts on the web app. So, it might be wise to include a brief explanation of the question's complexity or how, being an expert, the OP is still stuck. In most cases, describing what was tried is enough to clarify this.