Amplifying the impact of user research by embracing repository tools
We all know that humans are creatures of habit. We struggle to change our ways of working and patterns of thought.
People who work in research disciplines are often particularly susceptible to this struggle.
I suspect it has to do with the fact that professional researchers are employing methods that are tried and true, and we know that tinkering with methods can compromise the quality of findings.
But even as individuals, I’ve found a lot of research-minded folks struggle with change. We rely on templates and consistency. We struggle with ambiguity (our whole job is to de-ambiguate, after all).
Over the last few years, though, I’ve witnessed (and participated in) an evolution of user research practices, brought about in large part by research repositories like EnjoyHQ and Dovetail.
While at the core, these tools aren’t changing the way we execute research (you plan the test, collect the data, analyze, and report findings), they are still pretty difficult for old-school researchers like myself to wrap our heads around:
- Wait, I don’t use word docs and powerpoints to document the project anymore?
- We have to apply tags to our data? How’s that work?
- Once I’ve put tags on the data, how do I see the patterns?
- How do I build the final deliverable?
- How do I share the research, without overwhelming my stakeholders?
I remember being intimidated the first time I saw a research repository platform for myself. An enterprise-wide research ops team from another department had provisioned it, and they were rolling it out to teams across the organization, including mine.
The training session was clunky. They threw around words like “taxonomy” and “governance” and showed us how to create a project with a bunch of random text and data sets, expecting us to use our imagination about what it would all look like when it was our own research.
It didn’t work.
I left the training and decided I was gonna do my work the way I’d always done it until someone forced me to use the repository.
No one ever did.
In fact, my then-manager was convinced no one else would want to use the tool, either.
I wish I could go back and tell my boss and myself what idiots we were being.
Fast forward a few years to 2023. I was establishing my own UX Research practice on a new, rapidly-growing team.
Me and other insights-gathering teams (digital strategy, site experimentation, etc.) were producing helpful research artifacts, but not everyone knew about them. There were new team members every month, and people were being assigned and shuffled to new product areas left and right.
We had customer knowledge that could save those team members time and energy and get them up to speed on what we know about the experience they’re responsible for…if they knew where to look.
But of course, they didn’t. And half their bosses were new, so they didn’t know either.
That’s when we started looking around for a repository tool — a single point of access that could surface up the most relevant research possible across our different data gathering techniques.
We vetted 5 possible options, figured out our must-haves, chose a vendor, and pitched the purchase to leadership.
A few months later, we had a big, empty repository to fill.
I’ll admit; our initial training for the repository tool was still clunky AF.
I left the first call with the vendor wondering if we’d made a giant, five-figure mistake. I worried that I’d steered my experimentation and strategy partners into a tool that wouldn’t actually deliver what they’d promised.
I set up a second onboarding session, and met with a consultant. I walked through their online training materials. Everything was so confusing, and I really struggled to see how the decisions I was making would impact the way that our broader stakeholders got into the repository and found the answers they needed.
But I couldn’t walk away and shrug it off this time. I was the one who’d advocated for this tool, and I was gonna have to embrace it, whether I was ready or not.
So I dove in.
I took a real project and went through the steps, using the new repository tool as best I could. I blundered my way through tagging and analysis. My first in-repository summary was as basic as a pumpkin spice latte.
I showed my team what I’d done, and encouraged them to give it a try when they kicked off their next project.
To my utter amazement, they actually did.
That was 4 months ago, and I can’t believe the impact it’s had.
Now, I have to be honest: we have an exceptional UX Research team. Everyone’s been in the field for at least 8 years and worked for 2–3 different companies before landing here.
They are a surprisingly upbeat and proactive bunch that don’t need much hand-holding and genuinely love learning about customers.
But we are spread quite thin across our product org, and taking the time to adopt a new research tool is no fun. Still, they found time in their calendars to upload their previous work into the platform, and then they started using the platform to set up their next projects.
With our fellow insights teams, we made the big announcement that the platform was the new one-stop shop for research. We put an intro video on the home page so stakeholders could take a quick tour. We started sharing research artifacts directly from the repository.
That’s when the magic started to happen.
Within 3 months of rolling out our repository, we had over 150 account members — dozens of which are from other teams around our org. That’s collaboration on a scale we’ve never had before, and means we’ll reduce the possibility of duplicative work.
Every week we get new requests to add more team members, and those team members are able to get up to speed on past research in a matter of days.
We’re also able to see which insights get the most views, and by whom — so we know who our champions are and who we still need to bring to the table.
The tool is sprinkled with AI analysis and summary capabilities, which means we’re able to highlight themes and catalog them in record time, with video clips and other source data that our readers can dive into for more detail if they want.
And best of all, we’re seeing our work being shared and referenced. Teams who are working on major initiatives are coming to the table with decks explaining what they want to accomplish, and they’re referencing research straight from our repository as a rationale for their decisions — which means our research is having an impact instead of sitting on a shelf collecting dust!
So if you’re a researcher who’s on the fence about new technology in your field, here’s my advice: don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it. Don’t poke around and half-ass the trial, either; commit to using the tool for a full project or two, and share what you’re seeing and learning with your peers or colleagues.
If you’re a leader trying to get a team to embrace change, consider leading the way by being the first one to change. It removes some of the new-and-scary mentality from your team members, and positions you as someone open to innovating for the betterment of your team.
And finally, if you’re considering a research repository tool, all I can say is: fight for it. It’s going to be hard to recognize its value out of the gate, and you might not start to see the benefits for a few months. But if you commit, and if you bring your team members and stakeholders along for the ride, it can seriously amplify the impact your team’s research can have on future decisions.
