How to enhance strategic outcomes with user research

By Mélanie Meng, Staff UX designer

We have all done research that ends up sitting on the shelf forgotten. But how can you avoid being a character in a never-ending story of running after people, trying to get them to change the ship’s course with the insights you’ve gathered? It is all too common for user research conclusions to arrive when decisions have already been made at the top. And we all know how difficult it is to change a decision once it has been made, even more so when it comes to product strategy. So, using user research, how can you step away from doing mostly tactical research on your product, and instead start with strategic research so you have an impact on strategy early on?

Having been part of the Design team at leboncoin for more than 7 years (currently as a Staff UX Designer), I have made my fair share of mistakes when it comes to user research. In the past, when I presented my findings to business stakeholders or department heads, I naively thought my insights would influence their strategic decisions. But it didn’t always go that way because sometimes I was too late with my results and sometimes I worked alone and didn’t stay in dialogue with the main stakeholders!

In this post, I’m going to share my best tips for how to make user research have an impact on top-level strategic decisions:

• I’ll start by showing you how to prove, as well as increase, the value of your user research.
• Then I’ll help you find ways to make user research a recurring process in your company’s activities so that it has an impact on strategic decisions.
• Lastly I’ll make sure you are addressing the right subjects during the process.

OK, that’s nice, but how do I start with my user research?

We all need to start somewhere, especially when research is not even something considered by the company. At leboncoin, we started user research by implementing evaluative tests like user tests, to show the value of talking to users. Then we tried to move it further up the decision process.

Like everything else, you first need to prove the impact this has on the company, even if it’s not immediately evident. Nobody will give you a budget for something they are not sure of. But there are opportunities that can be easily grasped: Here are some ideas for how to get things started on a smaller scale.

Looking for ideas

Start with the users

Identify your most important user group and evaluate what are their main pain points — “Your users are unhappy, so they may leave you.” It can prevent long-term churn among some user groups. For instance, people buying with delivery at leboncoin had to send money by mail before secured payment was available.

Establish who your potential users are — “You need to carry out research to know who to attract and how to attract them.” Especially if the company expands into new markets. For example, when leboncoin decided to become a real partner for renters and help them find the right tenants, we studied the actual experience to answer both parties’ pains and needs.

Be curious about other teams

Go beyond your scope and visit all the departments in your company. Locate the failures that they may have experienced and research the problem space with them.

Point out risks

Ask questions so that you can pinpoint the risks and the impact of unknown assumptions. Feedback can always be hard to hear, but there are ways of giving it properly — don’t come as the fact teller (never a good option, even in life in general).

A few tips to improve the effectiveness of your research

I have a few recommendations for how to be more effective that I learned the hard way by chasing the wrong insights or using the wrong methods. I also got lost in the middle of the mayhem, unsure if we had got the answers we wanted and wondering when enough research had been done.

What are your research questions?

A research study cannot succeed without research questions, so make sure you spend time brainstorming them. What are the questions you are asking yourselves as a team or as a stakeholder about your users?

What is the expected outcome of your study?

Based on those questions, figure out what is the expected output in order to get impactful and appealing insights. Don’t forget who your audience is, and adapt the outputs to them, using storytelling to convey the insights you’ve gleaned. Forget about those text-heavy presentations in 8 px font with endless bullet points — yup, been there, done that, and watched the audience quickly switch off.

What behavioral criteria do the users you are targeting have?

Don’t just rely on demographic criteria when recruiting users for your study, figure out the key behaviors of the target group you want to get data from. Ask yourself what makes these users unique? Why are we observing them? What behaviors are specific to this target group?

(Some tips on how to recruit and screen candidates)

What is the right methodology to get the insights you want?

Don’t forget ethnographic methods: Interviews are easy, but they can create bias because they rely heavily on participants’ memories.

What bias may I have?

Of course, figure out any biases you may have and try to mitigate them. Most designers suffer from confirmation bias, and I am no exception: When I am so sure of my beliefs, I sometimes find it hard to admit that I am wrong. Here is a list of existing cognitive biases one might encounter during user research: Overcoming Cognitive Bias in User Research.

I don’t have any budget for my research, what can I do with a smaller team?

There is always a guerrilla way of doing things (see Méthodes de design UX by Carine Lallemand, which has been updated with guerrilla alternatives, or read this article about guerrilla user tests and interviews). Also consider shadowing, which is a great easy-to-use method, especially for internal users.

How can I tell when I’ve done enough research?

Finally, use your research questions as a control to see if you have all the answers you need.

Now that I have the data, what should I do with it?

Your user research should result in a clear picture of the experience you want to give users, the gaps in their experience you want to fill. If stakeholders are really involved, you can also create together the vision (ability of being tangible), and the impacts you expect. Maybe include a designer in the team for maximum efficiency. Transforming insights into tangible solutions will help create the vision that will have an impact on the product vision.

When you start doing user research, especially strategic user research, you will also see that you’ll need to be patient — it takes time, a lot of it. Some people in the company will need to be convinced and some will still be skeptical, and that’s OK. I still come across skepticism, but the impact you can have is worth it (and you’ll learn so much too).

Now that the company gets why user research is important, how can I make it a recurring process?

After trying and experimenting with lots of different studies to prove the impact of user research, I started to have some other problems. At first I would use a lot of scope in these studies and work with lots of different stakeholders, and then I moved on to conducting some research on my own without including the main stakeholders, because I thought, “They get it now, right? They’ll welcome my results like holy scriptures.”

When I presented my findings, the responses I got were: “Why are we having this meeting? We’re not even sure this is the direction we want to go”; “I don’t understand, who asked for this study?”; or, “The numbers say this, so we are going to continue this way.” Or the immensely popular, “We already knew this.” It became clear that either we weren’t launching the study at the right time (too late or too early) or we weren’t including the stakeholders enough, which only resulted in mistrust.

Find the appropriate process

In order to find the proper process, you need to solve this problem: How can we make sure the insights are welcomed at the right time?

What are the problems/opportunities we want to tackle as a company/group of squads?

Your research will be more effective if you identify in advance the topics where you’ll be able to make a difference. Which people will be able to share any problems/opportunities with you? What is the best way to get in touch with them regularly?

When is strategy decided?

In your organization, when are business problems and goals identified? Identify this and you’ll be able to evaluate when to plan your research and when to share your insights. Should it be 2 months before the team works on discoveries? Should it be in January when the product vision is updated? It should never be when the features are being developed (that’s exactly when people will say to you: “It’s too late now, we’ve invested developer time.” That happened to me a lot).

Which means you will need to find the right person who will be able to regularly give you the answers to these questions and establish a process to make it more permanent.

Who should be contacted?

In order to identify the right people to contact, especially for long-term problems, you need to understand what the current process is between the business stakeholders and product people. Maybe you have already identified the right people thanks to previous studies you’ve carried out.

If not, sit down with the product people to make sure you properly comprehend the process. You could even push it a little further and meet the stakeholders. It will help you understand how they work together. In my case it was the UX Director of course, but also the Product Director of my scope and a few times the Chief Product Officer. By understanding the process, you will know where to insert yourself, at which step, and who your best intermediaries are.

And then communicate, communicate, communicate

Build a strong relationship

Get in touch with the stakeholders you identified and advocate for user research. As soon as they talk about a problem or opportunity, figure out what the research questions are, plan for a study, and market it to the stakeholders. Talk about it again and again. It takes time, the usefulness of it needs to permeate, and then build a real relationship.

I know it can feel tedious to have to prove your point: It should be obvious that talking to users is important. But I was wrong about this too — it’s easy to be empathetic with users, but we often fail to be with our coworkers. Prove you are all on the same team by understanding their objectives.

Business acumen: An underrated skill

Talking the same language will help: At the end of the day, it’s all about how we can all make our business grow or how we can save money. Translate the value you can add with business metrics. Make the stakeholders understand that you will be able to help solve their business problem with user research.

Reach an agreement on the project outputs and deadlines with the stakeholders and engage with them throughout the process by exchanging views regularly.

How to avoid tackling the wrong subject during user research

As I said before, having knowledge about the business is key to converting tactical research into research that can have an impact on strategic decisions. Being able to contextualize and explain what your work will be able to do for your company is how you will move the needle. You should start your research from a broader perspective and work your way down to the specifics of the users. It’s always tempting to go directly to the methods, feel comfortable just following the process, and end up only doing interviews with superficial questions. We’ve all done it, especially in the beginning — by following the process, you’ll end up with the perfect solution, right? Not necessarily.

Get to the bottom of the story and get the why. Why is this a problem for the company/product/team? Why should we tackle this problem now? Who are we targeting? Why them?

From a broader perspective …

Start with a stakeholder interview and try to collect as much information as possible about the market and positioning of the company:

• What is the state of the market?
• As a company, where are we situated in this market?
• Who are we targeting? Why?
• What is our ultimate goal?
• Is it a defensive or offensive strategy (based on a SWOT analysis)?
• Who are the competitors? Why?
• What revenue line is at stake? (Or is it a new revenue stream?)
• What business outcome are you trying to achieve?
• Has any previous research been done (either market or user research)?

… to the specifics of the users

Then understand the specificity of the target: How can we actually better serve their needs and solve their problems (regarding our product or in order to compete with another solution)?

What are you waiting for? Go and experiment!

There is no silver bullet — it is a long-term endeavor, but you have the right mindset for it! Like the design mindset, start small, prove the impact, and iterate. When you meet challenges, find solutions, be creative.

You’ll be able to establish stronger foundations and processes when you have a good relationship with the right stakeholders. The day someone comes back to you and actually briefs you for a research, before starting their plan, that’s when you’ll know you’ve made progress on your path to evangelization!

But never lose sight of what you’re trying to achieve: Making sure the user research you carry out has the impact expected. This can be done by tackling the right subjects.

In conclusion, I would say this: You can look at all the theories about research you want, but getting experience is what will help you the most. I would say that my best advice is to leave your comfort zone and just try. You will fail — I still do — and it can be scary, but you will definitely learn.