Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

Building a Rapid Research Program

Thursday, May 18, 2023 • Enterprise Community
Share the love for this talk
Building a Rapid Research Program
Speakers: Feleesha Sterling
Link:

Summary

Design teams are often faced with lack of research resources that can lead to bottlenecks in execution, an ever growing backlog of research questions or worse releasing products without sufficient research. This can lead to rework and expensive development costs. A rapid research program is a tactical, flexible framework that helps teams build better products by executing on more research faster. This model requires aligning resources to operationalize the process and reduce the overhead and time of standard research processes like recruiting.

Key Insights

  • Rapid research is primarily useful for quick, tactical, or evaluative UX design questions that require fast feedback to unblock product decisions.

  • Rapid research programs benefit from clear processes, recurring and predictable cadences, and defined roles like moderators, recruiters, and note takers.

  • Rapid research is not suited for large, exploratory foundational research questions or scenarios where answers generate more questions without time to iterate.

  • Stakeholder support—especially from product teams and designers—is critical for the success and integration of rapid research into product workflows.

  • Three common rapid research models are: short and focused (single topic, single moderator), multi moderator (multiple moderators per topic), and multi topic (one moderator covering multiple topics).

  • The multi-topic model with one moderator handling several topics per session is effective for scaling across multiple teams and maintaining tight coordination.

  • Research operations support, especially in recruiting participants, is essential to running rapid research efficiently at scale.

  • Rapid research programs can connect dots across teams by sharing findings, reducing redundant work, and contributing insights to foundational research.

  • Documentation and socializing research findings in accessible formats and channels are crucial, especially in fully remote setups.

  • Rapid research is a complement—not a replacement—for other UX research methods, enhancing agility but still relying on other types of deeper research.

Notable Quotes

"Rapid research is a flexible framework for quickly executing UX research for fast and often tactical or evaluative design decisions."

"You wanna do rapid research when the feedback or the findings is gonna be focused and impactful."

"Rapid research is really great if you wanna promote research within your organization, but it’s not supposed to be the only thing you do."

"Stakeholder support is pretty important because if people on your team just don’t have time, they’re not gonna be able to commit to their roles."

"Having a predictable cadence makes it way more useful for teams to contribute and benefit from rapid research."

"The advantage of having one moderator is I work with all the teams pretty much and can connect the dots across products."

"Rapid research programs enable designers to submit research questions and feel empowered to participate actively in the research process."

"If rapid research findings create more questions but you don’t have time to address them, it’s probably not the right method."

"We ended up doing an average of five labs per quarter covering 12 to 15 research questions, which helped avoid design delays."

"Rapid research is going quickly; you get a lot of information fast, but the analysis isn’t as deep as other methods."

Ask the Rosenbot
Dianne Que
Real Talk: Proving Value through a Scrappy Playbook
2019 • DesignOps Summit 2019
Gold
Sam Ladner
How Research Can Drive Strategic Foresight
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Kwabena Opoku
Methodological toolkit for unique research impact
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Aaron Stienstra
Leveraging Civic Design to Advance Equity and Rebuild Trust in the US Federal Government
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Mike Oren
Design Research Strategy & Strategic Design Research
2022 • Advancing Research Community
Adam Cutler
Discussion
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Jenny Price
From Tradition to Transformation: Unlocking Startup Agility in a Legacy Enterprise
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Corey Nelson
Layoffs
2022 • Advancing Research Community
Dave Gray
Group Activity: Making Sense of DesignOps
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Jeff Ephraim Bander
Eye Tracking Gamechanger: Why Smartphone Eye Tracking will Revolutionize Your UX Research
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Ned Dwyer
The Future of DesignOps is Tool Consolidation
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Erin May
Distributed, Democratized, Decentralized: Finding a Research Model to Support Your Org
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Sarah Flamion
Complex Problem? Add Clarity by Combining Research and Systems Thinking
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Sam Proulx
Online Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Jemma Ahmed
Theme 2 Intro
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold

More Videos

Taylor Jennings

"Having a place for people to self-serve insights is really big, so they don’t ask us to repeat research."

Taylor Jennings Joe Nelson Alex Knoll

Repository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research

March 9, 2022

Nicole Aleong

"Anticipation involves preparatory actions to manage uncertainty about future conditions."

Nicole Aleong

Future Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology

March 26, 2024

Jeff Gothelf

"The innovation studio bakes in strategic vision, leadership, funding, and ownership."

Jeff Gothelf

Innovation Studios: the Engines of Enterprise Experimentation

May 14, 2015

Saara Kamppari-Miller

"Meeting designers where they spend their time, like integrating accessibility plugins into Figma, is the most effective way to make progress."

Saara Kamppari-Miller

DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility

May 26, 2022

Tess Dixon

"You can’t make your team happy, no one can ever make anyone else happy ever, ever."

Tess Dixon

C'mon Get Happy

September 29, 2021

Liam Thurston

"All your team wants to do is win at career Bingo or career Snakes and Ladders, hopefully more ladders."

Liam Thurston

Why Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It

June 10, 2022

Ian Swinson

"If you’re amazing at your job but no one listens to your research or design, does it really have impact?"

Ian Swinson

Designing and Driving UX Careers

June 8, 2016

Leisa Reichelt

"Context is really super important not only for design and research but for how you design organizations and ways of working."

Leisa Reichelt

Opening Keynote: Operating in Context

November 7, 2018

Rachael Greene

"A product designer said I can now see glaring inconsistencies before I got my head around design system patterns."

Rachael Greene Alison Davis

Building a Design Ops Practice that Really Works (Most of the Time)

October 2, 2025