User Research — Why are we still questioning its relevance?
User Research has been around for more than 100 years. Research existed long before the digital age, before the day of startups and the gig economy, and before conversations about getting a seat at the table. For example, we can look at the second industrial revolution. During the manufacturing age, a lot of product research and design occurred by observing how people moved in a particular space and conducted their work. As a result, Betterer efficient systems were engineered around it.
In today's world, we are surrounded by products and experiences designed for us. Today, a sleek, "beautiful" experience isn't enough. Everything from apps to home appliances to advertisements of e-commerce has a team of designers and researchers working hard to give us the best experience and capture our attention. User research helps teams to understand the world as it is and design around that understanding.
So with all the history of user research, including psychology, ethnography and academia, to build on user research, why do teams and companies/stakeholders still question its relevance?
There have been multiple points in my career where I had to convince or beg stakeholders to get buy-in for research or conduct specific research projects. And often, my role was not just about being the user's voice but also trying to evangelise research and be a negotiator. So I have been thinking about this question for a long time now. I have stated my hypotheses to answer the question below, but I would love your thoughts on the same.
No formal User Research degree
Getting an HCI/Design degree or a PhD is the shortest path to being a user researcher. However, four years of a bachelor’s degree or two years of a master’s degree isn’t enough time to learn everything needed to conduct valid research execution, analysis and sensemaking. PhD programs equip people in academic research but not in user research. Research in academia is far more rigorous than in industry. The goal of conducting user research in a product-based environment is to help teams develop and ship products. Product-based user research leads to informing teams of issues, product strategy, and design implementation, exposing teams to user behaviour and sentiment, and influencing the overall product as well as the org strategy. We apply rigour in user research, but the kind of rigour is highly influenced by the context of the product and what questions are being asked.
I can infer from my experience that research is a set of skills learnt and developed at work. Further, I know a lot of strong UXRs who didn’t take either of the conventional paths. Some have degrees but in unrelated fields. Others have their bachelor’s degrees in design. They may have even taken an online course or a boot camp, but they all eventually made their way to the careers they have today.
I definitely feel there is merit in having folks come in from different backgrounds. Different backgrounds lead to different perspectives in interpreting data, leading to more robust insights. However, this possesses an interesting problem in making user research a universal field. On the one hand, academic training is not suitable for the industry; on the other formal education is not necessary to get into the field. However, the lack of a formal degree in user research affects its credibility in some way and also is a hurdle for recruiting entry-level researchers.
Very few tech giants have initiated programs to upskill individuals that are interested in user research. Having an associate product manager program is an industry practice. How about having an associate user researcher program? Can an AUXR program help individuals switch into UXR careers and teach them the rigour and standard practices to upskill them? I feel having an AUXR program will not only help the company but the UXR industry in general. Not only will it provide guidance to entry-level researchers, but it will also help the user research field grow and scale simultaneously.
Research ROI
Research is often valued by the impact that is generated by the research. However, there is no universal definition or formulae for calculating impact. In some companies, research impact is just providing a deliverable that often is a research report. In many, research impact is defined by the number of insights being picked up by stakeholders, the design changes influenced by feedback, and sometimes measured by conversion and addition of research to PRDs. In very few companies, research defines the product strategy as well as the org direction.
All the above are valid, but the research impact is so much more than mere design changes. My colleague, Anjana Srikrishnan, created a framework that elaborates on all the various kinds of impact researchers bring. Apart from research aiding better understanding of users, helping in decision making and being prepared, it also helps our stakeholders be aware of our users and the market. Research also brings a change in the attitude of the stakeholders about the users and an increase in empathy. Further, research can also influence cultural change in the org to be more user-centric by impacting the values, attitudes and beliefs. Research can also help individuals and groups better cope with changes that might otherwise have a negative impact. And finally, research also contributes to cost savings, or avoiding loss and increases in revenue, profits or funding.
With the research function’s impact being so much more significant, why are we limiting the impact to mere numbers? Can we even quantify these impacts, such as attitude & culture change? What about research impact when stakeholders are unwilling to incorporate user feedback? Can we create a universal impact tracker?
Research is a black box
Many fantastic researchers have written about getting stakeholders’ buy-in for research and involving stakeholders throughout the process. And yes, I feel we all have worked towards setting stakeholder-friendly processes, having open channels to encourage communication, creating consumable reports and helping products succeed. Some of us have even gone ahead and obliterated the black box. But even after all this, we question, is this enough?
I completely agree with every point researchers have written. Start small and show value along the way. Build trust….. and eventually, your executives and stakeholders will see the value. But, I wonder if this was the same for our product and engineering counterparts? Did they also struggle to get a seat at the table? And if so, how did they do it?
So does this mean we stop doing what we are? Of course not. There is a lot of goodness in the practices that we have set so far. But let us start thinking about what is the future of research. Should UXRs be expected to keep evangelising research to get a say on what they should do, or should we move to a more strategic position in organisations? Instead of our counterparts driving us, how can we drive them? How can we be part of the process than an afterthought? How can we influence the OKRs than vice versa?
