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.

Repository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research

Gold
Wednesday, March 9, 2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Share the love for this talk
Repository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research
Speakers: Taylor Jennings , Joe Nelson and Alex Knoll
Link:

Summary

While many researchers see the value of a central research repository, how to introduce one in an organization is still a big question. Today we have the chance to learn from two researchers who have done it. Taylor Jennings, Senior UX Researcher at Chili Piper, and Joe Nelson, User Experience Researcher at MasterControl, will share their process and experience gained from implementing their research repository. We’ll cover how they realized the need for a repository, how they convinced stakeholders, evaluated solutions, and what they’d do differently in hindsight. Join us live as we leave plenty of opportunities for the audience to ask questions.

Key Insights

  • Building a research repository early, even as a small team, sets a scalable foundation for future growth.

  • A centralized repository drastically reduces time spent on analysis and synthesis compared to scattered document storage.

  • Including both raw data (interviews, transcripts, surveys) and polished insights enables flexible stakeholder usage.

  • Video and audio clips within repositories significantly increase stakeholder empathy and understanding of user pain points.

  • Well-designed tagging systems balance flexible project-specific tags with a controlled set of global tags for cross-project insights.

  • Stakeholders often hesitate to adopt new tools, so researchers must continuously promote and guide repository usage.

  • Implementing participant management features prevents redundantly contacting the same users and improves coordination.

  • Security, legal, and privacy considerations are critical when choosing repository software, especially for participant data.

  • Migration and implementation ease, including single sign-on and importing legacy data, are important evaluation criteria.

  • Repositories support long-term insight building by allowing retrospective access and iterative tagging of findings.

Notable Quotes

"If we wanted to scale and continue to grow, we were going to need something to help us."

"Setting up a repository as a team of one or two is actually the prime time to establish processes like that."

"Having a place for people to self-serve insights is really big, so they don’t ask us to repeat research."

"Slides are hitting a brick wall; video clips make findings much more interactive and engaging for stakeholders."

"Cutting down on the analysis time was huge for us, speeding up speed to insight significantly."

"We had to convince our director and executives by showing how the repository added real value for the product team."

"Drag and drop ease, and collaborative affinity diagramming in the tool, were unexpected but very welcome advantages."

"Seeing product managers and designers’ aha moments when they realize how impactful the tool is was great."

"Tags are a balance; project tags are wild and flexible, global tags must be controlled to avoid chaos."

"Short-term learnings kind of roll into long-term ones as you iterate and build on historical findings."

Ask the Rosenbot
Saskia Liebenberg
Start Small for Big Impact
2019 • DesignOps Community
Peter Levin
Solve a Problem Here, Transform a Strategy There: Research as an Occasion for Expanding Organizational Possibility
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Jon Fukuda
The Big Question about Innovation: A Panel Discussion
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Jen Briselli
Learning Is The Engine: Designing & Adapting in a World We Can’t Predict
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Ivana Ng
Level Up Your Program with ProductOps
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Dave Malouf
Theme 3: Introduction and Provocation
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Ron Bronson
Design, Consequences & Everyday Life
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Gabriela Barneva
Operationalizing Inclusive Design in Service Design
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Victor Udoewa
Theme One Intro
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Sarah Coyle
Design and Analytics with Sarah Coyle
2020 • DesignOps Community
Yolanda Rankin
Black Feminist Epistemology as a Critical Framework for Equitable Design
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Sam Yen
Driving Organizational Change Through Design? Do more of this and less of that
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Erika Flowers
The Handoff is Dead: Design-Led Engineering with AI Agents
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Dolly Parikh
Exit Interview #7: Journey of a Social Entrepreneur
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Kate Towsey
ResearchOps AMA with Kate Towsey & Jake Burghardt
2025 • Advancing Research Community

More Videos

Joanna Vodopivec

"We should feel empowered to propose research initiatives that stakeholders aren’t explicitly asking for."

Joanna Vodopivec Prabhas Pokharel

One Research Team for All - Influence Without Authority

March 9, 2022

Louis Rosenfeld

"Public sector work is about broadening your reach and delivering outcomes to everyone, not winning market share."

Louis Rosenfeld Lashanda Hodge Senongo Akpem Chris Hodowanec

Becoming a Civic Designer: Making the Move from Private to Public Sector

November 17, 2022

Bria Alexander

"No need to take notes — session notes, sketch notes, resources, videos and decks will be shared after presentations."

Bria Alexander

Day 3 Welcome

September 25, 2024

Uday Gajendar

"Hopefully the internet stays strong and holds steady despite the stormy weather here in Louisiana."

Uday Gajendar Louis Rosenfeld

Day 2 Welcome

June 5, 2024

Sam Proulx

"Confidence is a higher burden in retail because people are giving real money; inaccessible flows cause quick abandonment."

Sam Proulx

Online Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience

June 7, 2023

Russ Unger

"Day one is a commencement, a graduation from candidate to employee, not a paperwork slog."

Russ Unger

Onboarding: The Ecosystem, not the Afterthought

November 7, 2017

Catherine Dubut

"The store mobile device is the indispensable silent partner enabling store employees to balance task productivity and customer engagement."

Catherine Dubut

Bridging Physical and Digital Spaces: Approaches to Retail Service Design

March 18, 2021

Josh Clark

"Embracing AI’s weirdness can turn unpredictable outputs into experience assets rather than liabilities."

Josh Clark Veronika Kindred

Sentient Design: New Postures for AI-Mediated Experiences (2nd of 3 seminars)

January 29, 2025

Dantley Davis

"Designers who come out of US tech need to pivot quickly toward broader inclusion or risk being outpaced by other markets."

Dantley Davis

Leadership & Diversity—A Fireside Chat with Dantley Davis

September 17, 2020