Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Inviting the Whole Org to Come See For Yourself
Gold
Monday, March 30, 2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Share the love for this talk
Inviting the Whole Org to Come See For Yourself
Speakers: Jesse Zolna
Link:

Summary

So all of a sudden, everyone at your company is interested in going into the field, meeting with clients, and “building empathy.” What could possibly go wrong? At ADP we created a program of ethnographic (lite) research designed to harness this excitement for exploratory research, enable anyone in the org to participate in conducting research, and help stakeholders think outside of their own product or screens. Secretly, our program was carefully designed to also teach our partners what it means to do Research: listen thoughtfully, analyze holistically, and truly understand client feedback before jumping to solutions.

Key Insights

  • Democratizing research involves both involving non-researchers in the research and upskilling them to collect better data.

  • Having a large appetite for research is a positive problem that requires structured management to avoid chaos.

  • Using exposure hours for non-researchers to regularly interact with research helps build empathy and understanding.

  • The 'Come See For Yourself' program breaks research into three phases: planning, data collection, and analysis, to teach fundamentals.

  • Planning research carefully with scripted interview questions aligned to business goals improves reliability and avoids on-the-fly errors.

  • Empathy training for non-researchers before interviews teaches active listening, managing power dynamics, and avoiding leading questions.

  • Non-researchers as observers use note-taking sheets to focus on specific research questions, reinforcing data collection rather than casual conversation.

  • Synthesis sessions use unstructured, inclusive discussion to surface similarities, differences, and underlying themes across all interviews.

  • Analysis involves translating factual data into user needs and problem statements, often framed as 'how might we' questions.

  • Collaborative solution workshops prioritize problems and evaluate multiple solution ideas, enabling user-centered decision-making beyond individual opinions.

Notable Quotes

"Doing research is not always the most natural transition for people who don’t really care about research."

"If you want to be involved in developing solutions at the end, you better have gotten yourself significant client exposure."

"Break research down into planning, data collection, and analysis phases — that’s how non-researchers understand it better."

"Just being smarter and really having been exposed to the research is not going to lead to a specific feature, but a better overall product."

"Listening is different than conversation, even though it looks and feels similar."

"We view ourselves as Sherpas on the adventure — we do the work, they get the experience."

"The note-taking sheet helps reinforce that just because it seems like a conversation, we are still collecting data."

"Synthesis sessions focus on facts rather than interpretation to find underlying themes and consider outliers."

"Problem statements help us discuss and compare solutions in a user-centered way, aligning goals versus the hip of the highest paid person's opinion."

"We can help develop a friendly and informed army of people who do research part time, not just part way."

Ask the Rosenbot
James Rampton
The Basics of Automotive UX & Why Phones Are a Part of That Future
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Helen Armstrong
Augment the Human. Interrogate the System.
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Brigette Metzler
Scaling ResearchOps: Helping Researchers do Their Best Work
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
Christian Bason
Innovating With People: Unleashing the Potential of Civic Design
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Dave Malouf
Panel: Design Systems and Documentation
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Fatimah Richmond
The Future of ReOps as a Strategic Function: A Roadmap for Getting There
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Savina Hawkins
Harnessing AI in UXR: Practical Strategies for Positive Impact
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Billy Carlson
Ideation tips for Product Managers
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Liz Ebengo
The Burden on Children: The Cost of Insufficient Post-Conflict Services and Pathways Forward
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Jon Fukuda
The Big Question about Innovation: A Panel Discussion
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
David Cronin
The GE Design System and Thoughts about Craft at Scale
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Chris Hammond
Embedding sustainability into enterprise design and development: A journey towards "sustainability consciousness"
2025 • Climate UX Interest Group (Rosenfeld Community)
Janelle Estes
UX Research Trends (Videoconference)
2021 • Advancing Research Community
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Adam Cutler
Discussion
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Zen Ren
Taking Inspiration from Instructional Design for Research
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold

More Videos

Zariah Cameron

"Your breath is the most powerful thing. It moves on its own, but it’s the one thing you can control."

Zariah Cameron

ReDesigning Wellbeing for Equitable Care in the Workplace

September 23, 2024

John Cutler

"You can have more than one priority at a time because they might have very different value and urgency profiles."

John Cutler Harry Max

Prioritization for designers and product managers (1st of 3 seminars) (Videoconference)

June 13, 2024

Nick Cochran

"We created our design system called Unity to help scale great app experiences and connect developers and designers."

Nick Cochran

Growing in Enterprise Design through Making Connections

June 3, 2019

Deanna Smith

"Documentation helps explain the rationale and revisit decisions in the future, preventing repeated mistakes."

Deanna Smith

Leading Change with Confidence: Strategies for Optimizing Your Process

September 23, 2024

Magdalena Zadara

"Breathing and resisting the urge to rush is essential because rushing will not help."

Magdalena Zadara

Zero Hour: How to Get Far Quickly When Starting Your Digital Service Unit Late

November 16, 2022

Nova Wehman-Brown

"We didn’t exploit the knowledge gap. Everyone was willing to say I don’t know. Can you help me?"

Nova Wehman-Brown

We've Never Done This Before

June 4, 2019

Liwei Dai

"Machines may identify that higher ice cream sales is associated with higher band ice, but the former is not causing the latter."

Liwei Dai

The Heart and Brain of the AI Research

March 31, 2020

Gordon Ross

"We made changes in the last three weeks that would normally have taken three years. Could we expect a COVID dividend?"

Gordon Ross

12 Months of COVID-19 Design and Digital Response with the British Columbia Government

December 8, 2021

Tutti Taygerly

"Sharing my story with the engineering director opened something; vulnerability builds trust."

Tutti Taygerly

Make Space to Lead

June 12, 2021