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.
How Zapier Uses ‘All Hands Research’ to Increase Exposure to Users
Summary
If you want to improve your product’s user experience, you need to show your team what it’s like for real people to use your product. It’s a simple concept, but many companies struggle to do this consistently. Zapier recently launched an initiative that simplifies this exposure to users. ‘All Hands Research ride-alongs’ are open UX research sessions where anyone at Zapier can observe users interacting with the product and hear their feedback. Zapier has seen PMs, designers, marketers, executives and more join these sessions and apply learnings to their everyday work. More importantly, they keep coming back for more!
Key Insights
-
•
Zapier’s All Hands Support encourages all employees to spend time on customer support to maintain user awareness.
-
•
As Zapier grew, increasingly technical support tickets reduced participation from non-technical roles.
-
•
All Hands Research ride alongs provide a richer user exposure experience than watching recordings by enabling real-time interaction.
-
•
A lightweight, 45-minute UXR 101 training helps non-research employees overcome intimidation and join sessions comfortably.
-
•
Automating the session discovery and joining process via Slack and Zapier drastically reduces friction for employees.
-
•
Lookback tool provides separate participant and observer views, reducing anxiety for observers and distractions for users.
-
•
Simplifying communication and reducing information overload is critical to encourage participation.
-
•
Not all employees want to join research; respecting preferences is important for cultural acceptance.
-
•
Ride alongs foster cross-department connections and improve shared understanding of user problems.
-
•
Tracking participation and learnings weekly helps measure engagement, but measuring impact on decisions remains a long-term goal.
Notable Quotes
"The value of real exposure holds true in UX, it’s replaceable and helps you understand real user problems."
"User research can sound intimidating, so our first step was to make it simpler and more approachable."
"We wanted a great participant experience no matter how many observers are on the call."
"Some people said I don’t think I’m qualified enough to observe research sessions despite training."
"The ride along is a richer experience than watching session recordings because you can interact in real time."
"Despite automation, many people still skim information or are busy and need simpler, focused communication."
"No matter how much we simplify, research isn’t for everyone and that’s perfectly fine."
"One of the best parts is seeing people from Ops, recruiting, marketing and product interacting together in Slack."
"The CEO advocating for user exposure gave us a now-or-never moment to start this initiative."
"We automate the entire flow so once people react in Slack, they’re invited automatically to sessions."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"We believe in global citizenship and de-westernizing research by including community members in the discourse and insight decisions."
Xenia Adjoubei Sean BruceEmpowering Communities Through the Researcher in Residence Program
March 29, 2023
"We were reinventing the wheel every time we entered a new market, which was incredibly slow and inefficient."
Tamara KartoziiaThink global, adapt local: how service design accelerated B2B market entry by 6 months
November 20, 2025
"AI tech debt has compounding interest to it."
Jay BustamanteNavigating the Ethical Frontier: DesignOps Strategies for Responsible AI Innovation
October 2, 2023
"Potential refers to not yet actualized possibilities that may or may not come to fruition."
Nicole AleongFuture Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology
March 26, 2024
"When I started out, I knew nothing about digital sustainability."
Nick LewisDesigning and building low-carbon websites independently
November 18, 2025
"UX practitioners already have the mindset and mentality needed to drive a product discussion forward and a handy toolkit of approaches and methods."
Vicky Teinaki Michele Marut Tim ParmeeShort Take #3: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers
December 6, 2022
"Conflict resolution skills include self-regulation, acknowledgment, asking exploratory questions, and deep listening."
Laura WeissTurn Down the Heat: 3 Ways to Handle Conflict in the Moment
November 20, 2024
"The tool enables designers and product managers to generate high-quality context and user requirements without dependency on user access or research skills."
Joerg Beringer Thomas GeisScaling User Research with AI: Continuous Discovery of User Needs in Minutes
June 10, 2025
"Be present, put devices down, turn off Slack notifications, and really engage."
Shelby SwitzerMaking Space for Community Knowledge-sharing in a Distributed World
December 10, 2021
