When I interview candidates for user research roles, one of the questions that I am always looking to answer is how the candidate has ensured that their research results were acted upon. \u00a0For researchers who work inside a company, I want them to have ownership of their research results and recommendations based on the research. \u00a0I don’t want them to just throw the report over the wall and hope that someone on the other side of the wall will do something. \u00a0I want them to own those results, to work with teams to ensure that they understand the results and the recommendations, to help brainstorm ideas if the recommendations can’t be contained in this release. \u00a0It doesn’t help anyone if a researcher conducts fantastic research if the product doesn’t become better as a result of that research. \u00a0The best research is the research that impacts the product.<\/p>\n
I recently had a conversation with another researcher who was frustrated. \u00a0He had done some great research, and had shared the results and recommendations with the team, and had been working with the team to ensure that they understood everything and would be able to take action on them, and was even tracking bugs o ensure that things were getting into the product. \u00a0He was doing everything right. \u00a0And then he finds out about a meeting after it was already 90% done, in which someone else was talking about the area that he had researched. \u00a0The presenter was sharing the researcher’s results and recommendations, and was discussing next steps. \u00a0The research results had gone rogue: they weren’t accompanied by the researcher who had a deep understanding of them, and they were being used by someone else who mostly (but didn’t completely) understand them for a different purpose and with a different audience than originally intended.<\/p>\n
The researcher was upset: he had put a lot of work into creating, conducting, and disseminating that research. \u00a0It barely got acknowledged that the user insights that the presenter discussed were insights from the researcher, let alone that some of the slides were actually taken from the researcher’s presentation. \u00a0The researcher felt like his work wasn’t being acknowledged, and that he was being cut out of discussions about this area where he could continue to contribute.<\/p>\n
His feeling was valid. \u00a0He should have been acknowledged for the work that he had done, and how his work was forming the basis for what the presenter was discussing as future work to be done. \u00a0His frustration is completely understandable. \u00a0The presenter should have contacted him to ask permission to re-use his slides, as well as get him involved so that he could help address follow-up questions about his work.<\/p>\n
I reminded him that there was something really positive in all of this. \u00a0He had done all of the right things. \u00a0He had done them so well that his research is now just part of that team’s DNA. \u00a0It’s part of what they use to make decisions, and now it’s an important part of what they’re using to go forward. \u00a0This is one of the best possible outcomes for user research: not only does the team understand it and are taking action on it, it has a continuing impact as they think about what they should do next. \u00a0We talked about strategies to get him involved with the ongoing conversation so that he can contribute other things that he learned in conducting that research, as well as help with additional research as they move forward.<\/p>\n
Research results can go rogue. \u00a0This can be good, this can be bad. \u00a0It’s frustrating either way, but I’m so glad that these rogue results are being used for good, and that there are ways that it can be managed to help rope them back in and grow those research results into an even better understanding of our users, their needs, and the challenges that they face. \u00a0He did a great job with the research, so good that his research is something that the team has forgotten was something that they didn’t know and couldn’t make headway on until he did that work. \u00a0We often talk about how a good UI should fade into the background. \u00a0Maybe that’s true for good research as well: it’s so good, and the results and recommendations are so much a part of what we do and so important to our understanding of our product and our user, that we forget that research happened at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I interview candidates for user research roles, one of the questions that I am always looking to answer is how the candidate has ensured that their research results were acted upon. \u00a0For researchers who work inside a company, I want them to have ownership of their research results and recommendations based on the research. … Continue reading when research results go rogue<\/span>