User research in different organizations
Why do some companies invest in data and research teams, while others barely acknowledge the need for it?
What inspired me to think about it was a Montreal UX research meetup “How tech companies used mixed user research methods?”.
The room in Breather HQ was filled with UX people. Many were standing for the whole 3 hours to listen to the UX research experts from Breather, Shopify, and Herman Miller. There were plenty of insights and inspirations, but it left me with a feeling that many of the topics discussed have a little to do with the day-to-day reality of the startup world.
It is just recently that startups started to understand the need for usability research and job requirements for UX designers began to reflect that. But in reality of the startup world, user research remains a small part of a designer day job. Another challenge is that many designers have little experience in the research field and are coming from a visual design background. It is not for the lack of interest in the subject, as a room packed full of UX practitioners proves. I believe the reason why we marginalize user research is, that its role is connected company’s development phase. Ultimately this is translated to the UX designer or researcher “day job.” and its unique challenges.
1. An early stage startup
User research as a nice to have addition to the design mix
A startup is an organization in search of product-market fit. That means speed and growth are the factors defining its narrative. Every day a startup reality is simply about staying alive until either product-market fit or a new funding happens. In such reality “shipping the product” is valued above all. The result: user research plays a minor role before product release. User research learnings are mostly based on users’ feedback. Such feedback could be understood as a usability study or an analysis of the usage statistics. Especially the latter approach is preferred as an ultimate market test for the product and its concept. As both ex-founder and UX designer, I have seen this mechanism from both sides of the table.
Often research in startups is focused only on actionable usability testings preferably using quantitative methods. It is a dangerous practice — drawing long-term product conclusions based on too small data samples.
At same time explorative qualitative research methods are not valued. Focusing only on quantitative results means that startups are missing out on what Dalia El-Shimy from Shopify called “thick data” — the result of qualitative user research. You can learn more about the concept here.
How to convince decision makers at startups to pay more attention to user research, especially the qualitative kind? I believe that when it becomes a part of an ongoing process, user research in startups could be embraced and valued. So instead of proposing that expensive, one-off ethnographic study, I’d rather introduce decision makers to “3 users every Thursday rule” as an ongoing, interview-based process.
It is worth to invest in user research even before considering working on a particular product. With the help of UX researchers hired in the ideation phase, potential startup founders can better explore insights that will help them build their MVPs.
2. Company post product-market fit
User research as a valuable part of a development cycle
So you made it! Your company has reached product-market fit. Congratulations. Surely everything will work out now. As long as all those factors you can’t control (new competition/technology changes/ users/ market trends/ external circumstances) will work in your favor, right?
This is when companies realize the importance of user research as a part of the product development cycle. The most visible sign of such approach is hiring user experience researchers to help make decisions on what problem to focus on and what to build next to keep the company on a positive growth trajectory. A wrong decision because something got overlooked, could become a costly one. Few companies can afford a multimillion dollar failed project without going out of business. The doom of Nokia is the scenario everybody is afraid off.
Therefore user research becomes a tool to help companies stay on the top of their games and help avoid shipping new features or products in the dark. Compared to early stage startups, these organizations seem like a place where user research is valued, but they too have their challenges.
Dalia El-Shimy presentation included a lot of behind the scenes problems that Shopify’s user research team faces. The biggest one seemed to be Shopify’s scale. With over 2000 employees, but only 15 user researchers, Shopify research team is one resource that remains difficult to scale. Not every product team will have the chance to work with a UX researcher. Not always the researchers will be able to engage with their peers and present the results of their work.
So instead of focusing on scaling the team, Shopify’s user researchers more often get their colleagues involved in the research by asking them to conduct research on their own.
One such example was an on-going program of store visits, which allows team members to experience first-hand what the challenges for store owners and their clients are through a simplified shadowing technique.
By involving the other team members in research, it became possible to scale “user research” as a mindset across the company, even with limited resources.
Another challenge for Shopify research team is a familiar one to anybody with a research background. You put together a presentation of the conducted research. Now how do you get others to read it? Dalia shared a hack that I found very insightful. Create an executive summary of the results and leave them in one place that potential readers may find time to read i.e.: company’s kitchen.
3. An Established company (read: not a startup)
Research driven everything
Early on in my career, I worked as a brand strategist for major brands. I learned what those companies like Mars (producer of Whiskas, Pedigree Pal, Snickers, and M&Ms) or Mercedes-Benz have in common is how often research is the driving factor behind a long-term product strategy. Extensive, long-term research processes are pretty standard. Sometimes several of them are run simultaneously covering the whole spectrum of the product: from R&D to branding and advertising. Pretty much everything is analyzed in details to uncover new insights or to help discover new areas for further discovery.
Another speaker from the meetup described a similar approach. Professor Fabienne Munch, who for years was running Herman Miller research team, talked about how this famous furniture producer has centered its innovation process around research projects. In essence, it consists of a research process, that can even run for years and becomes the inspiration behind the design itself. Unlike many furniture companies, research is at the heart of the organization and is always conducted by the internal team.
What such companies have in common is a traditionally established market, a physical product, and a well-tested business model. The search for product-market fit is a non-existing problem. Those organizations
and their vast financial resources can afford a lengthy research process.
User research is getting a lot of attention inside those organizations because it helps them overcome limitations of their innovation cycle.
The new product development cost is very high compared to software. So if we compare this to tech companies with their “shipping as a feature” mindset, traditional companies like Herman Miller want to make sure they invest in shipping the right product.
Traditional product companies may be more focused on research than tech companies, but the duration of their innovation cycle means few apply their findings to new products. Shorter product development cycle in technology for design and research practitioners means they can bring their research findings to life faster. Personally, I find it more satisfying when I can see the result of my research work applied to the product and that can only be possible in faster innovation cycle tech companies offer.
What are your thoughts on user research and its place in different organizations?
