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.
HITS, Microsoft's internal human insight system: From research library to living body of knowledge
Summary
Imagine a workplace where every research request you receive takes into account what your organization already knows. Product teams have the answers to common UX questions at their fingertips, and finding insights has become second nature to everyone. You rarely wonder whether the insights you find are still true because other researchers are always adding new evidence that supports them. In this session we discuss HITS, the human insight library Microsoft uses internally to achieve these goals, and the culture we’ve been working to develop around its use.
Key Insights
-
•
Microsoft’s HITS indexes individual research observations and insights instead of entire reports for more precise and instantly accessible knowledge.
-
•
HITS supports durable knowledge by connecting research findings over time, preventing repeated studies on already known issues.
-
•
A layered knowledge model in HITS reflects raw data, information, knowledge, and wisdom to progressively synthesize research.
-
•
Every claim, insight, and recommendation in HITS has a unique URL, enabling traceable citations and easier collaboration.
-
•
HITS accommodates both tactical evaluative research and foundational generative research by linking discrete insights and enabling reference to richer narrative formats.
-
•
There’s a concept of insight durability and deprecation in HITS, allowing the community to peer review and track the lifespan of insight validity.
-
•
HITS is used across functions including researchers, designers, and product managers, balancing openness with content quality controls.
-
•
The search engine in HITS uses full-text search complemented with entity recognition, enabling flexible topic discovery with topic hubs.
-
•
The system fosters connection by tracking who publishes in specific research areas, supporting follow-ups and cross-team collaboration.
-
•
Building and maintaining HITS is resource intensive and requires cultural alignment, but custom solutions outperform generic content management tools at Microsoft’s scale.
Notable Quotes
"Don’t mistake motion for progress. Running many studies doesn’t mean you’re learning something new."
"HITS indexes individual insights, not just whole reports, so you can drill down into the actual claims behind evidence."
"Every claim and recommendation inside HITS has its own URL so partners can share and track knowledge."
"Our goal is to maintain a living body of knowledge that evolves organically as new research comes in."
"Researchers can publish directly without intermediation to avoid blocking knowledge sharing."
"Knowledge can be dangerous and misused, but democratizing access helps self-regulate by enabling fact checking."
"We treat foundational and tactical research differently, using more flexible structures where rigid reports don’t fit."
"The more people know about HITS, the more they want to use it, though some teams have cultural resistance."
"HITS is not a replacement for researchers but an augmentation to scale their expertise across the organization."
"We want to build more social features around insights to encourage community discussion and connection."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"The future of work is about making the user the hero—humans and machines working together."
Lavy Kumar Kat Temple Shan Sebastian Tara Jensen Jenn ChouFuture of Work
June 9, 2021
"It’s really been helpful that research supports design not just in discovery but also in validating that what we build meets customer expectations."
Andreas Huebner Amy Takata Craig BrookesWhat Is It Like To Be Part of The UX Team at Compass?
March 11, 2021
"Regular surveys showed teaching quality mattered 11%, but logistic regression revealed it actually represents 77% of the decision."
Ricardo MartinsUnlocking the power of advanced quantitative methods
March 12, 2025
"Satya Nadella’s leadership feels authentic—he puts empathy at the center of everything he does."
Monty HammontreeThe Future of UX Research
December 3, 2020
"The designers started to send notes of thank you to the ex members of the design ops team for making their life easier."
Benjamin RealShowing the Value of DesignOps by Not Having a DesignOps Team
October 21, 2020
"You can own the infrastructure that allows knowledge to flow but you can't actually own the knowledge itself."
Kate TowseyAsk Me Anything (AMA) with Kate Towsey
April 2, 2025
"Enterprise UX is still nascent—businesses worldwide are just beginning to figure out where UX fits."
Steve Portigal Chris Chapo Kelly Goto Christian RohrerDiscussion
May 13, 2015
"Lack of confidence caused by unlabeled or difficult controls often leads assistive tech users to give up on purchases."
Sam ProulxOnline Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience
March 28, 2023
"Screen reader users need semantic structure that graphical prototypes typically don’t have, like labeled headings, controls, tables, and landmarks."
Sam ProulxPrototype Reviews, People With Disabilities, and You
October 1, 2021
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
What additional materials come with the conference recordings in Rosenverse?
What does a successful healthcare UX career look like in terms of accumulating influence and aligning with clinical/business goals?
How did puzzles specifically help engineers collaborate more effectively in Feyi’s case study?