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.

Research is Only as Good as the Relationships You Build
Gold
Thursday, November 17, 2022 • Civic Design 2022
Share the love for this talk
Research is Only as Good as the Relationships You Build
Speakers: Deirdre Hirschtritt , Cesar Paredes and Marie Perrot
Link:

Summary

Without relationships, qualitative research findings will be filed away and forgotten. By focusing on two core types of relationships, researchers can make their findings relevant and impactful. First, researchers must build trusting relationships with those they aim to learn from: clients of government programs, frontline workers, and community-based organization staff. And in order to do anything with the collected data, researchers must also build relationships with those who have the authority to actually improve the government programs and systems. In this session, speakers will share how they’ve realized the full potential of research through building authentic, trusting relationships to influence change.

Key Insights

  • Building strong relationships is foundational to successful qualitative research and project outcomes in government service design.

  • Thorough background research on community context and history (the 'flour') shows respect and builds credibility with stakeholders.

  • Consistent, reliable communication and presence (the 'butter') deepen trust and enable reciprocal partnerships with government staff and clients.

  • Trauma-informed research practices and humility (the 'eggs') help create ethical spaces for participants to share lived experiences honestly.

  • Returning to clients multiple times to validate feedback both improves accuracy and strengthens human connection.

  • In-person research during the pandemic was prioritized carefully, as remote methods often exclude the most marginalized.

  • Including leadership in research by having them shadow interviews often builds advocacy and leads to structural changes.

  • Recruitment strategies must be adapted to community norms; digital approaches can falter with some populations, such as Indigenous communities.

  • Balancing feedback from clients and government partners requires transparency about project scope while fiercely advocating for clients.

  • Small relational gestures and icebreakers in meetings significantly help build camaraderie and openness among diverse stakeholders.

Notable Quotes

"Without those relationships, you won’t get good data. And without good data, you won’t have good project outcomes."

"Flour gives the core structure of our relationships; the more gluten, the stronger the dough."

"We don’t probe for anecdotes or quotes; we answer real questions to provide actionable guidance that pushes projects forward."

"I just feel like you’re talking to robots in the system a lot. They don’t have any awareness of other people’s cultures or worldviews."

"Consistently showing up builds reliable relationships that enable staff to enthusiastically reciprocate."

"When we make a mistake, we try to respond gracefully because the stakes are really high when considering relationships."

"Returning to the same clients multiple times lets us check if we understood their feedback accurately and builds human connection."

"We practice deep listening to treat every individual’s lived experience with care and to ensure they feel heard."

"We invited leaders to shadow our research sessions remotely, which has helped secure resources like client feedback panels."

"Small icebreakers and sharing pronouns or fun facts in meetings really help break the ice and build connection among partners."

Ask the Rosenbot
Nalini P. Kotamraju
Two Jobs in One: Being a “Leader who is a Researcher” and a “Researcher who is a Leader"
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Joi Freeman
A New Vantage Point: Building a Pipeline for Multifaceted Research(ers)
2020 • Advancing Research 2020
Gold
John Maeda
Making Sense of Enterprise UX
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Sol Mesz
Hands or Brains? How to Hire for Strategy, Strategically
2024 • Enterprise Experience 2020
Gold
Shawna Hein
Create a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Catt Small
Moving from Execution to Strategy as a Designer
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Jacqui Frey
Flow and Superfluidity for Design Orgs
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Ignacio Martinez
Fair and Effective Designer Evaluation
2024 • DesignOps 2024
Gold
Victor Udoewa
Radical Participatory Design: Decolonizing Participatory Design Processes
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Magdalena Zadara
Zero Hour: How to Get Far Quickly When Starting Your Digital Service Unit Late
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Meghan Hellstern
The Next 100 Years of Civic Design: How Might We Better Rise to Meet the Challenges of Today and Tomorrow?
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Shipra Kayan
How Tess Dixon Facilitates Team Engagement and Collaboration at Condé Nast Using Miro 
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Llewyn Paine
[Demo] Deploying AI doppelgangers to de-identify user research recordings
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Alex Hurworth
Designing a Contact Tracing App for Universal Access
2020 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Sam Proulx
Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Dan Hill
Designing for the infrastructures of everyday life
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold

More Videos

"Concept validation lets us objectively decide which features to build based on perceived usefulness and intent to use."

Standardizing Product Merits for Leaders, Designers, and Everyone

June 15, 2018

Simon Wardley

"If I don’t have a map, I can’t see patterns or apply context-specific gameplay."

Simon Wardley

Maps and Topographical Intelligence (Videoconference)

January 31, 2019

Sandra Camacho

"Designing for the dominant default ignores people whose identities are marginalized or excluded."

Sandra Camacho

Creating More Bias-Proof Designs

January 22, 2025

Darian Davis

"I held Jeff accountable by expecting criticism to come with rationale and intentional improvement."

Darian Davis

Lessons from a Toxic Work Relationship

January 8, 2024

Fisayo Osilaja

"Using ChatGPT allowed me to elevate from a researcher to a strategist by increasing my visibility and trust in the company."

Fisayo Osilaja

[Demo] The AI edge: From researcher to strategist

June 4, 2024

Uday Gajendar

"Craft should evolve from making a beautiful final object to serving as a facilitative anchor in enterprise UX."

Uday Gajendar

The Wicked Craft of Enterprise UX

May 13, 2015

Davis Neable

"Experience vision is a powerful tool because it gives everyone a tangible goal to work towards."

Davis Neable Guy Segal

How to Drive a Design Project When you Don’t Have a Design Team

June 10, 2021

Eniola Oluwole

"We did a great cleanup of patterns from every decade and deleted anything off brand or untested."

Eniola Oluwole

Lessons From the DesignOps Journey of the World's Largest Travel Site

October 24, 2019

Aurobinda Pradhan

"Most of us in design are very process-oriented, but traditional devops tools are task and issue-centric, making collaboration hard."

Aurobinda Pradhan Shashank Deshpande

Introduction to Collaborative DesignOps using Cubyts

September 9, 2022