How to get your team involved in User Research

User research has the greatest impact when it isn’t facilitated by the researchers or user experience teams alone. Involving the designers and developers in various research activities allows you to open up the problem space. It allows team members to examine the problem with various lenses and come up with different solutions by giving individuals a platform to voice their opinions and collectively come up with a solution.

When your entire team is involved in testing, everyone learns about the users and their needs. This helps drive both the design of the product and the team’s engagement with the project due to a shared sense of ownership.

Some ways to include your team in testing:

• Include them in the planning phase of the research process. That way everyone can share their assumptions and contribute their questions to the discussion guide.
• Have them participate in the live research by leading the session, or playing the role of note taker
• Have them view the session remotely by setting up a webcam so they can see/hear the participant
• For those team members who weren’t able to observe the session, create a short, actionable project report that outlines your learnings and next steps
• Run a workshop with your team at the conclusion of your project where you discuss learnings and next steps, and determine responsibilities for acting on them.

When you get your whole team involved in user testing you’re able to produce more robust and meaningful products because everyone is able to view the product through your users’ eyes a bit more.

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