What is a Researcher for Purpose Doing at OutSystems?
Before I joined OutSystems as part of the User Experience Research team, my work as a researcher and designer focused on impacting ‘real-world’ environments, from industrial cities in Italy to remote communities in Mozambique.
My purpose was — and has always been — to spot opportunities and problems. In my previous life, that meant traveling around the world, getting close to (and occasionally living with) a specific group of people, and collecting data about their work, their lives, and their cultural attitudes. With some targeted individuals, we even co-created solutions to match their needs and expectations.
I have been lucky enough to meet some of the most fascinating cultures and people on Earth because this kind of work is strongly tied to social or developmental organizations. So it may have come as a bit of a surprise to some people when I joined OutSystems, a software company that has little to do with remote communities in far-flung corners of the world.
Ethnographic Research for Digital Experiences
Actually, what a User Experience Research team does in a software company isn’t that different from what I was doing in those remote communities. Trust me: we may not live with OutSystems users, but we are getting closer and closer to them.
We regularly meet with our stakeholders (users, teams, clients, and partners) and apply multiple participatory research methodologies to better understand them. What does this mean? It means our research emphasizes participation and action, and as part of this approach, a method I have always been a big fan of is creating field diaries.
I first realized the full potential of written and photo diaries in Ethiopia and Mozambique, where efforts by entities to help people often fail due to the lack of on-the-ground knowledge about the communities in which they operate. In fact, projects and products can fall short of their original intent and design because of cultural beliefs or different priorities.
For instance, a classic example is mosquito nets being distributed to fight malaria, only to have the inhabitants of coastal regions use the nets for fishing, as this is a higher economic priority.
Capturing a Community
To address this, we implemented written and photo diaries so that people could clearly express what is important in their everyday lives, which in turn allowed us to identify community changes, whether big or small.
As an example, one of our agroforestry stakeholders was generating a substantial amount of new employment in rural areas, and not all changes were positive. The diaries allowed us to identify and avoid major conflicts between locals and the company, perform program course corrections, reduce downtime, and rationalize production, as well as spot further business opportunities.
Moreover, we provided research participants with cameras to capture everyday life through community photography. Frame by frame, they captured unconventional scenarios that outsiders would never be able to witness, from witch doctor rituals, household routines, and traditional dances to farming practices.
Field Diaries at OutSystems
Back then, field diaries helped us address the question: “What happens when the company arrives?” Now, at OutSystems, we use the same method to address a different question: “What happens when users develop with our platform?”
Instead of receiving handwritten diaries and photos, we receive digital journals and screenshots from our users about their experience. Then, we further explore their needs, concerns, and improvement suggestions in talks. Users also provide feedback proactively in the OutSystems Community, and I very much appreciate reading their amazing suggestions in a collaborative space called OutSystems Ideas. Not every suggestion is brought to life, but the engineering team considers each proposal.
So, it’s all about establishing proximity with our users and asking the right questions. In fact, a very important responsibility of our User Experience Research Team is to enable product teams to perform good research that will allow OutSystems to make reliable fact-based decisions.
As you can see here, User Experience Researchers play an essential role in supporting decision-making processes. There is a different challenge to solve almost every day, new teams to support, and exciting things to learn! The fast-paced environment allows me to work at both strategic and operational levels.
At OutSystems, our research is of course business-oriented, but for me, the beauty of it is to realize the great impact we are having on people’s lives.
Only by getting close to users did I begin to understand exactly how OutSystems is helping people. I see their eyes light up when they talk about how their lives changed for the better after becoming an OutSystems developer and integrating it in their work. Here’s what they had to say:
I didn’t like my job because it was always the same routine, nothing new to learn and no problems to solve. I wanted to change my career path but I didn’t want to go back to the university and study for another five years. So, I learned to develop with OutSystems to have exciting professional challenges and solve problems every day!” — Former mechanical engineer
“We are creating a business platform and timing is a big issue! In this new project we have limited technical people, and writing in traditional code would take too long (…) So, we switched to OutSystems and accelerated the process. (…) Now I can finally implement my ideas, quickly!” — Python developer and entrepreneur
“I couldn’t find a job in my area and now I’m a developer!” — Former social assistant
Research for Purpose at OutSystems
So there you have it. Not only do the research methodologies share common aspects, with our team increasingly embracing an approach in which we want to deeply understand the reality of our users, but we also want them to be part of our solutions.
But more importantly for me, I see how OutSystems can change people’s lives for the better. More and more people who were struggling to implement their ideas, or were frustrated with their career paths, adopted OutSystems and found an unforeseen passion. I can quite confidently say that User Experience Research at OutSystems is research for purpose, and I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.
