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Summary
The world of UX Research has evolved and changed rapidly. As businesses wake up to the power of understanding customers as human beings and using those learnings to make smarter decisions, the demand for these valuable insights has grown exponentially. So, how does the practice of UX Research adapt to this demand? How can we accommodate our stakeholders and teams while maintaining the integrity of research?
Key Insights
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UX research was not a distinct profession when Janelle started; practitioners often wore multiple hats like design, prototyping, and some research.
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The last 4-5 years have seen rapid growth in UX research teams, with sizes ranging from single researchers to hundreds.
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Centralized UX research teams benefit from shared knowledge and camaraderie but risk becoming 'order takers' disconnected from business impact.
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Embedded researchers have more direct impact and insight into product decisions but often face time and resource constraints affecting research rigor.
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Successful democratization of research requires clear training, guardrails, and leadership buy-in to enable non-researchers effectively.
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Automating or templatizing research can improve efficiency but risks losing the nuance needed for situational research questions.
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Hybrid team models—with a central center of excellence and empowered agents embedded in product teams—can help spread research culture efficiently.
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Democratization efforts typically focus on the evaluative phase of product development, where lower-risk, iterative research fits well for non-specialists.
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The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated companies’ recognition of the need for continuous customer insight to navigate changing behaviors.
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Future UX research must emphasize inclusivity and diversity, ensuring designs serve broad and varied customer populations beyond the default user.
Notable Quotes
"I felt like I have this little superpower that nobody really knew about just me."
"The biggest mistake I see is people believing the UX team owns all customer knowledge."
"Don’t be precious, but don’t be reckless either."
"If you build something that’s easy to use but not what people want, it doesn’t matter."
"Sometimes you become the 'no machine' because demand outpaces supply."
"There isn’t one method or one way; be flexible to adapt to what’s most helpful for your team."
"The way we’ve done things in the past is important but we have to build a bigger culture of customer understanding."
"Empowering others requires giving them guardrails so they don’t go off the rails or produce bad data."
"The future is about helping organizations develop a wide and deep culture of understanding customers as human beings."
"You can’t just flip the switch and say ‘go talk to customers’; training and context are key."
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