Capturing Deep Insights
Summary
This session is focused on developing an understanding of how knowledge repositories can lead to deep insights in businesses large and small. It will explore the problem space and present strategies for overcoming those problems. Some example problems knowledge repositories can solve are: missing out on valuable information that can be useful across the company due to silos; repeating research that has been conducted already and inconsistency in research reporting.
Key Insights
-
•
Longitudinal research like diary studies reveals how user experience evolves over time with a product.
-
•
Knowledge repositories enable connecting research findings across different methodologies for richer insights.
-
•
Bridging seemingly unrelated domains, like insurance quoting and buying plane tickets, uncovers valuable user experience parallels.
-
•
Sharing research findings across company silos promotes empathy, innovation, and reduces duplicated effort.
-
•
A multi-level taxonomy system with label, tag, and property-value layers is essential for organizing and retrieving nuanced insights.
-
•
Consistent report structures across different research types facilitate easier consumption and cross-study comparison.
-
•
Knowledge repositories accelerate employee onboarding by allowing deep exploration of products, personas, and features.
-
•
Serendipity in innovation can be enabled by exploring relationships uncovered in well-structured knowledge repositories.
-
•
Research ops roles are critical for maintaining taxonomy governance and keeping knowledge repositories relevant and usable.
-
•
Pilot success factors include ease of data ingestion, search/filter functionality, and clarity of report delivery to stakeholders.
Notable Quotes
"You can capture deep insights by looking at how users’ experiences change as they become familiar with a tool over time."
"Knowledge repositories help you connect different research findings across studies, products, and even different companies."
"Bridging those silos within a company is really important because there’s so much wisdom locked in different groups."
"A taxonomy system is basically a way to tag different findings and reports so you can find relationships later."
"Tags shouldn’t change very often; there should be governance to keep things consistent and relevant."
"Stakeholders can do their own searching at a high-level label level, while researchers dive deeper into nuanced tags."
"We found a lot of points of confusion where tools don’t really align, causing frustration for end users."
"Having leadership involved early with demos and feedback helps smooth the path to adopting a knowledge repository tool."
"Research ops is definitely a role that handles managing the knowledge repository and taxonomy governance."
"Serendipity happens when you explore across different journeys, personas, and contexts in the knowledge repository."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Sometimes leaders focus so much on scanning the river they’re not observing the surroundings—the banks tell you if the river is deep or shallow."
John CutlerOxbows, Rivers, and Estuaries: How to navigate the currents of change (without burning out)
December 3, 2024
"Reviewing decisions out loud held everyone accountable and made it harder for Jeff to forget or change his mind."
Darian DavisLessons from a Toxic Work Relationship
January 8, 2024
"Kristen wrote the book Design of Orgs for Design Orgs and her experience partly informed this canvas."
Dave GrayGroup Activity: Making Sense of DesignOps
November 7, 2017
"Quality is value to some person who matters."
John CutlerThe Alignment Trap
November 29, 2023
"Providing alternative content is often a kinder gesture than any lengthy alternative text could be."
Abby CovertStuck? Diagrams Help
October 27, 2022
"Assume positive intent from their point of view — they’re trying to have a good day, not work against you."
Mark InterranteCollaboration Flows in Product Development
June 9, 2017
"Afrofuturism shows us the future must reckon with the past and center difference and diversity."
Devon PowersImagining Better Futures
March 9, 2022
"Bring your research team as note takers and facilitators—they make excellent collaborators and help build feedback loops."
Prayag NarulaHow to Empower Your Designers to Do Good Research – And Why You Want To
June 10, 2022
"Skills are like onboarding material for the model; you write them as simple markdown files that describe workflows or tools."
Peter Van DijckHands on AI #3: Claude Code for UX people
October 22, 2025
