Measuring Research Impact: The Essential Resource Guide
If anyone asks me today, what habit(s) a researcher needs to develop, I will honestly tell them to know how to measure the impact of their work. I know it’s easier said than done. But treat it like a skill that needs to be developed. Fortunately, there are plenty of resources (free as well paid) to learn that nowadays.
But before that, we need to define what we mean by impact. Ideally, the research/design leadership in your org should do this. They should define what does research impact mean for its researchers and the company. For me, impact is equivalent to creating value. The value derived from each research studied should be tracked and documented.
However, that’s also the most tricky part because insights take time to be implemented and do not have direct co-relation with the results sometimes. By then, the researcher has usually moved on to other projects. Sadly, it ends up on your relationship with the stakeholders and the time and inclination they have to dig out the numbers and other qualitative influence made, for you. It is even more difficult with foundational/generative research where impact is usually qualitative and layered, and if your org is low research maturity, it can really be upto your negotiation and communication skills!
Sharing some pre-made templates and frameworks for measuring impact made by research leaders from around the world. This will help you develop your own framework that suits your needs, or may be borrow one of these if they fit in your requirements.
So, talk to your research and/or design leader, primarily the person the research team reports to, to work on a framework for measuring impact of the research that is been happening.
Resources
- Framework by Sprig: https://sprig.com/blog/framework-for-demonstrating-research-impact
- Impact Mapping by Neuri Consulting: https://www.impactmapping.org/intro-resources.html
- Tracking Research Impact by Kanishk Shukla: https://medium.com/alaskaair-guestdigitaldesign/capturing-impact-of-day-to-day-ux-research-activities-on-teams-part-1-891a5c25c45f
- Framework by Caitilin Sullivan: https://uxdesign.cc/tracking-the-impact-of-ux-research-a-framework-9e8b8f51599b
- How to track impact by Lizzi Burnam: https://www.userinterviews.com/blog/how-to-track-the-impact-of-ux-research
- List of UXR statistics by Lizzi Burnam: https://www.userinterviews.com/blog/how-to-track-the-impact-of-ux-research
- Quant and Qual Metrics for UXD and UXR: https://www.designative.info/2021/08/04/need-for-quantifying-and-qualifying-strategy/
- Three Levels of UXR Impact by Tao Dong: https://uxdesign.cc/three-levels-of-ux-research-impact-174768b7f4ef
- Framework by Maze: https://maze.co/blog/ux-research-impact/?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social-media&utm_campaign=ux-research-impact-blog
- Framework by Jake Bhurghardt: https://medium.com/integrating-research/mapping-research-impact-in-product-development-2bc8448d01c2
