Democracy or Tyranny in UX Research… Is there a Middle Ground?

In the industry, the democratization of UX Research typically refers to the systematic expansion of UX Research skills to individuals without prior formal training in the discipline. Between data from experts like McKinsey that correlate user experience to revenue and frameworks like Silicon Valley Product Group that require product managers to engage and experiment with users multiple times per week, companies are getting the message: avoid listening to your users at your peril.

In reality, however, this increased demand for UX research has outpaced the bandwidth of most research teams. Additionally, product stakeholders want to meet directly with users to build empathy and identify unmet needs and critical pain points that might lead to new product opportunities. In response, several organizations (including Microsoft and Atlassian) have crafted formal training programs for non-researchers and are providing varying degrees of operational support for PwDR activities. (PwDR = “People who Do Research” — a handy term coined by Kate Towsey that refers to all the people in an organization engaged in user research activities.)

Such a democratization of the role of UX research has led some practitioners to express concern over whether such efforts dilute the unique skillset and value of our profession. More pragmatically, the research teams who are providing operational support for such expanded efforts run the risk of drowning under their own weight. Organizations with mature ResearchOps are finding themselves responsible for providing training and consultation, participant recruiting and scheduling, tooling support, privacy regulation compliance, and insight sharing for hundreds of their PwDR colleagues.

Now that we’ve seen the pendulum has swung from one extreme to the other, is it possible to develop a user research and engagement model that allows teams to derive the benefits of each approach? Based on our experiences, we’ve found that the following best practices allowed us to find a successful middle ground:

1. Establish a clear definition of what UX Research is (and is not) in your organization, including the unique value proposition of the UX Research team.
2. Create a democratization model that allows for different “levels” of engagement with users.
3. For each level of engagement within the model, define the operational processes, roles, and responsibilities.

A critical factor in delivering on these is an effective ResearchOps team and a good operations strategy.

I’ll be presenting on this topic next month at UXInsight, so if you’re interested in learning more about how we identified and implemented these best practices get your tickets or if you’ve already got your ticket, I look forward to seeing you there!