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Accepting criticism ain't easy. Unfortunately, many of your partners — whether Product, Design, Engineering, or other — may see the output of UX research as just that... criticism. Pointing out flaws in their work. Now, your best partners will be curious, reflective, and open to feedback about how to improve the user experience they've helped shape. But we're here to tell you that willing acceptance of feedback isn't the norm, nor does it come easy (for any human being!).
Until recently, we've written mostly about direct methods for managing UXR projects. For example, straightforward efforts such as, how to write great interview questions, and specific tool-based viewpoints like, why unmoderated user research can be powerful. However, we'll now shift focus to tackle the indirect and very challenging, aspect of a UX Researcher's job... making change actually happen through the empowerment of others.
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Successful user experience research (UXR) is all about uncovering and sharing valuable user feedback. UX pros, cons, and everywhere in between. This feedback fuels the change(s) to be made by the organization. Therefore, we need to ensure at all costs that feedback is packaged constructively. In this article, we'll share what you can do as a UX Researcher to increase your hit rate for sharing user insights and opportunities. We'll provide a clear framework, and outline an approach that begins on day-1.
Read on to learn how UX research is commonly viewed by others (outside the field), the importance of having a UXR initiative roadmap, and how these add up, so you can become a trusted and revered partner. Hint: it's about having as much empathy your internal stakeholders as you do with external users.
Now, let's get down to business!
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UX Research aids organizations to make sense of today's user experience, and to increase the success rate of future user experience enhancements.
While UX Research hasn't existed in it's current form for very long, the general premise has been around for a while. Research & Development (R&D), Human Factors Engineering, and subsets of Market Research have paved the way for the field of user experience research (UXR). UXR is all about understanding the complex system of users, products, ideas, and the exchange of value between them.
Firstly, the value of UX research (as seen by other departments) is to gain perspective on today's UX. The organization needs insight into what is the current-state user experience. As companies grow in size and scale, many departments become removed from the end-user and product they've put on the market. This is a matter of efficiency and specialization that's needed to grow as a business. The downside being that the majority of employees who make decisions about marketing, engineering, design, product strategy, etc. are not in touch with their end-users' perceptions/needs/behaviors. This is where UXR shines, as we bring that insight back into the organization, and help all build understanding to improve decision-making.
Secondly, UX research helps organizations gather input about tomorrow's UX. The act of surfacing future-state opportunities regarding what can be different to improve the UX is valuable to any company looking to innovate and evolve. Here again, UX researchers work as a conduit between the end-users and various internal functions of the company to ensure decisions are made with the user in focus. This is particularly useful when companies are deciding what to do next. New ideas, features, product strategies, etc. need to be vetted to reduce the risk of investment, and to increase the success rate. UX researchers add value by gathering insight into user perceptions/needs/behaviors as it relates to new business opportunities.
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The Turbo UXR Playbook is your tactical reference 👇 guide — free to download!
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UXR initiative roadmaps are important because they (1) elevate your practice from tactical to strategic, (2) help you avoid non-value-add projects, and (3) ensure you're working on a diverse range of work streams.
In the business world, having a plan is critical to success. Business plans, marketing plans, design plans, and whatnot. They provide structure, focus, and timelines to facilitate forward progress. Often they evolve, but they're useful stakes in the ground to orient work and effort. Similarly, forming a UXR initiative plan (i.e. a forecast of projects you intend to take on) is invaluable.
(1) UXR initiative plans elevate your practice from tactical to strategic. Instead of working on whatever work other teams request, having a plan implies a vision and thought put into the type of work your striving towards. (2) UXR initiative plans help you avoid non-value-add projects. When teams come last minute, or try to user test every small detail, constantly, you can manage them appropriately by showing how they stack up against your properly outlined projects. (3) UXR initiative plans ensure you're working on a diverse range of valuable work streams. They'll clearly highlight when there's need to diversify methods, user types, stakeholders, or project size in regard to upcoming work.
As Dale Carnegie describes in 'Win Friends and Influence People', to change people without giving offense or arousing resentment, "Begin with praise and honest appreciation."
To be successful in UX research, we must not ask, 'How do we convince others to listen?', but rather, 'How might we plan, prioritize, and present findings in a manner to be well received?'. Therefore, the 1st order of business as a UXR is to uncover the basics, especially the positives, of what's happening across the existing user experience. Where's the momentum? What's working well? Why do users appreciate it? Opportunities and pain points will come as natural fast follow. First, we must make time and space for the positives of what's already been built.
As much as we empathize with our external users, we must also flex that muscle inside our own organization. Know your audience and respect their hard work that's already taken place. Your internal stakeholders are the ones who ultimately have to do the real work to make change happen. It's best to start by giving them insight and feedback about what they've created that matters to users. Trust us, they're eager to know.
First and foremost, as you begin your new role in UX research, you'll need to understand what's working well, already. Now is time to build respect, knowledge, understanding, camaraderie, and shared value with your new stakeholders. Your managers and leaders may be asking you to immediately highlight what's wrong with the experience, and ascertain the friction, pain points, and opportunities... BUT, you really need some allies with those who've created this UX. Therefore, it's a good idea to figure out what's right with the experience. Trust us. There's many things that work well. That's how the company afforded to hire you in the first place.
Tip: Sprinkle in just a few questions across the foundational research studies that ask users about what they use, how so, and why. Keep the findings in your back pocket so you can speak to it. Present it. Lead with it.
Deliverable: Informally reach out and share only the positives (as a starter) with stakeholders from engineering, design, and product. They will appreciate the feedback loop on their hard work.
Return to overview ⤴This seems like a no-brainer, but you'll be surprised at how many disconnects we've witnessed between research, design, and product. You need to actually learn what services are being exchanged, and for whom. How the does business model work? Is the consumer different from the customer? What's the full experience, and direct/indirect beneficiaries? These are important to know what everyone in the company has actually been working on before you arrived. You've got to get smart, fast.
Tip: Do everything you can to become an expert quickly. Try the experience yourself, get demos, ask users to do basic walkthroughs, interview sales associates, customers service, and super users alike.
Deliverable: Create user journey maps, experience maps, and/or service blueprints to visually map the user experience in detail. These will come in handy for a variety of reasons and during all project phases.
Return to overview ⤴Users are your lifeblood. It's 100% your job to get to know them extremely well. Early and often. Whether research has already been done, or it's blank slate, some of your first work should entail painting coherent pictures of the user types. Read what's been studied already. Start establishing conversations and interviews immediately. Ask customer service to categorize the users into buckets. Examine the quant data. Listen, observe, and inquire. You need to become the leading expert on the user mindset, mental model, characteristics, behaviors, etc. ASAP.
Tip: Early on, establish weekly interviews with your users, and invite product and design to attend. You'll find more structure over time, and by initiating rolling research you'll have the opportunity to be creative from the get-go.
Deliverable: Classic outputs of user research will be UX personas, user profiles, UX needs, and establishment of active user groups/panels. Don't be afraid to compile V1 user archetypes early, and iterate often.
Return to overview ⤴User value is fundamental to an organization's profitability. It's not always straightforward. And many times the user values aspects of the product or service that was not intended to be the case. You have the opportunity to uncover these values, whether they were planned for, or not. Most importantly, these user insights will be the basis for your communications to stakeholders. This will be great material to 'begin with praise and honest appreciation'. You must seek truthful values that the user perceives, so that you can share back with the organization; thereby building strong relationships with the ones who need to make change occur as you inevitably uncover areas to improve.
Tip: Ask users, whether moderated or unmoderated, a few different ways to share what they most value, appreciate, and why. Sometimes it may be hard for them to describe, so inquire from multiple angles.
Deliverable: The best start is a user highlight video expressing all the wins, gains, and values across a variety of user types. This will be watched by many, and offer you a foot-in-the-door to continue the conversation about forthcoming opportunities (in days and weeks to come).
Return to overview ⤴Time to get quantitative in our approach. We need to see the numbers. The data. The stats. An important angle to uncover early on is gathering a clear picture of where users are coming from, and going to. Whether it's Google Analytics, Pendo, FullStory, Tableau, or a slew of other data platforms, we need to understand the real user behavior. This analysis will supplement much of the qualitative insights from prior sections. Data is a powerful overlay, since it shows the bigger picture. Having a thorough understanding about the user flow, funnel, and key interactions across the user experience will provide valuable insight to a variety of stakeholders.
Tip: Overlay quantitative data points onto the journey and experience maps to indicate hot spots of user interactions. This will quantify the importance and potential impact to take place, once changes occur.
Deliverable: Analytics reports, waterfall diagrams, heatmaps, and bar charts reign supreme. Visibly show your stakeholders in a clear and compelling manner where users start, drop off, end, and everywhere in between.
Return to overview ⤴
Once you nail these first steps on the job, be sure to check out more templates for UX research to keep the momentum going. Additionally, see related articles such as how to share user insights with success to make sure you individual projects are hitting home. And to avoid long-term burn out, check out how to remain resilient as a UX Researcher to deliver great insights for years.
Work smarter, not harder.
The Turbo UXR Playbook is your tactical reference 👇 guide — free to download!
Get the Playbook
Learn More
