Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Summary
Perhaps no word is more likely to get researchers agitated than “democratization.” The debate about democratization is vigorous, though verging on pointless: it’s here and unlikely to be dialed back. And other research functions are talking to customers, running surveys, and conducting A/B testing. In this community workshop, we take a step back and take a broader look at the field of insight. With viewpoints honed in data analytics, market research, and user research, our panelists discuss how democratization has been made to work effectively in their fields for quite some time, and what we can do to imagine a future beyond the debate. Attend all of our Advancing Research community workshops Each free virtual workshop is made up of panelists who will share short provocations on engaging ideas to discuss as a group, as well as a leader in our field to moderate. If you're looking for discussions that challenge the status quo and can truly advance research, look no further than our workshop series. (P.S. We’ll be drawing most of our Advancing Research 2025 conference speakers from those who present at upcoming workshops—so tune in for a sneak peek of what's to come from #AR2025!) August 7, 11am-12pm EDT Watch Video Theme 2: Collaboration Learning from market research, data science, customer experience, and more August 21, 4-5pm EDT Watch Video Theme 3: Communication Innovative techniques for making your voice heard September 4, 11am-12pm EDT Watch Video Theme 4: Methods Expanding the UXR toolkit beyond interviews September 18, 4-5pm EDT Watch Video Theme 5: Artificial Intelligence Passionate defenses, reasoned critiques, and practical application October 2, 11am-12pm EDT Watch Video Theme 6: Junctures for UXR Possible futures and the critical decisions to move us forward October 16, 4-5pm EDT Watch Video Theme 7: Open Call Propose ideas that don’t match our other workshops’ themes
Key Insights
-
•
Democratization requires intentional programs with education, guardrails, and oversight to avoid research anarchy.
-
•
Data democratization needs both access to accurate data and the ability to generate trusted insights.
-
•
Scaling research democratization demands dedicated roles or teams to provide hands-on guidance and support.
-
•
Defining shared success criteria and KPIs aligned with customer needs is essential to scale experimentation and insight activities.
-
•
Cultural and psychological safety are critical to allow researchers to accept that stakeholders may have deeper context or expertise.
-
•
Technology-enabled guardrails help enforce quality and consistency in democratized research, especially in market research.
-
•
All data has imperfections, so understanding provenance and using frameworks for interpreting data is key to maintaining trust.
-
•
Democratization should extend beyond interviews to a wider variety of research methodologies to truly empower stakeholders.
-
•
Power in insight teams should be shared and seen as facilitation rather than control, promoting distributed knowledge ownership.
-
•
Investment, top-down leadership buy-in, and bottom-up enthusiasm are all needed to make democratization successful and sustainable.
Notable Quotes
"Democratization is not research anarchy where anybody can talk to any customer for any reason with no oversight."
"If you miss any one of access, accuracy, insight generation, and engagement, it’s not truly democratization."
"You need well-defined frameworks and guardrails for experimentation success to prevent chaos across teams."
"Knowledge multiplies the more it’s shared, it’s not a zero-sum game where someone loses power."
"All data has bias, problems, and limitations; there is no perfectly clean data, only varying degrees of quality."
"Stakeholder interviews shouldn’t be the only thing democratized—there’s a whole breadth of methodologies to consider."
"It is part of your role to say no, enforce guardrails, and stop people pleasing when democratizing research."
"Without shared organizational goals and customer-focused OKRs, democratization efforts fragment and fail to scale."
"Holding on too tightly to insights and controlling data flows can make research teams irrelevant."
"Doing democratization properly takes dedicated investment; it can’t just be one bullet on a job description."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"A 101 conversation over coffee yields better insights than written reviews in 360 assessments."
Adam Cutler Karen Pascoe Ian Swinson Susan WorthmanDiscussion
June 8, 2016
"Knowing your subject matter as a UX leader is just as important as knowing your craft."
Peter MerholzThe Trials and Tribulations of Directors of UX (Videoconference)
July 13, 2023
"Governance is about decision making, not workflow processes."
Lisa WelchmanCleaning Up Our Mess: Digital Governance for Designers
June 14, 2018
"The solutions are out there; we just need the will to implement them."
Vincent BrathwaiteOpener: Past, Present, and Future—Closing the Racial Divide in Design Teams
October 22, 2020
"Psychological safety was far and away the key ingredient for teams being effective."
Brenna FallonLearning Over Outcomes
October 24, 2019
"Working from home during the pandemic is hard because it’s fun only when you can actually leave your home."
Tricia WangSpatial Collapse: Designing for Emergent Culture
January 8, 2024
"Research should be done the same way products are built, with stakeholders as your users."
Edgar Anzaldua MorenoUsing Research to Determine Unique Value Proposition
March 11, 2021
"We want to build teams with diverse skill sets so we can create a full picture during the knowledge creation phase."
Designing Systems at Scale
November 7, 2018
"Randomization is magic — it evenly distributes confounds so the only difference affecting results is your change."
Erin WeigelGet Your Whole Team Testing to Design for Impact
July 24, 2024
