Ideas I Used to Have About UX Research… That I Don't Anymore

Paulina Contreras

Preconceived ideas and expectations I had about working as a UX Researcher. This is a list that will help me remember the learnings up to this stage of the journey, and I hope it also helps you on your own path.

Let’s go through these preconceived ideas:

1. My leaders know what a UX Researcher does and therefore know what to ask of me.

They should, but leaders outside of UX roles don’t necessarily know what a UX Researcher does differently from a UX/UI designer, a Product Designer, a Service Designer, a UX Writer, and therefore don’t know what to expect or what to ask us. Additionally, sometimes we get research requests from non-direct management, and they don’t necessarily know what/how to ask us for research, our timelines, etc.

It’s happened to me that I’ve been asked for a Benchmarking when what they really needed was to design a product for a new segment. The benchmark would then be just one more step within this Discovery, but one among several other steps.

Here it would have helped me to think of the person making the request (colleague, Lead, Manager) as a client or user:

Ask, ask, ask

Questions are like magic keys that open the door to the interlocutor’s mind.
They allow us to gather information to get clues.
What they tell us may not be the real problem (e.g., I need a benchmark), asking allows us to discover deeper motivations (e.g., design a product for a new segment).
It helps us gain clarity.

What to ask?

What are you thinking?
What would an ideal outcome of this be?
What impediments exist to achieve that goal?
What is the real challenge for you?
What worries you about this?
Who else needs to be part of this conversation?
Is there anything else I should know?

2. The presentation is the final stage of user research

As in academic research, when you finish an article, paper, or thesis, when you publish it and present it to an audience, you’re done. Here I imagined something similar—everything culminated in the moment of presenting the results, but this isn’t quite so. It will always depend on what was being researched, the purpose of the research, but generally after finishing and delivering the results, we must ensure that those recommendations are implemented, that is, connect with the key teams and people to implement those necessary changes.

It may be that it’s just a few key meetings, and in other cases, you may need to implement a strategy that involves many teams and processes. UX Research is not a linear but an iterative task.

3. If we’re not rigorous in methodological processes, the research results won’t be useful

In my first research projects as a UX Researcher, I was very strict about how research was conducted. By this I mean:

Seeking enough people to obtain significant data in quantitative data, or obtain data that reached saturation in the case of qualitative data (interviews, tests, surveys).
Having enough researchers (at least 2) to be able to triangulate the data.
Systematically transcribing and analyzing qualitative data (if there was any).
Always and without exception choosing the best methodology and not the fastest (better quality than speed was my motto).

Now I think we shouldn’t do anything—just kidding xD. I still think all those points are relevant, I’ve just acquired a bit of flexibility, learning to read the request, expectations of deliverables and available time, the team’s capacity. In short, I understand that there are many more internal and external variables to consider than just methodological rigor, and I learned that the hard way xD. From there, the best methodology is to do what’s possible with the resources available.

4. Good research by itself will have an impact

This is a derivative of point 2. I imagined that you deliver and present the results, you had made sure you did everything necessary to deliver data-based information, you reviewed it a thousand times with your team, and you’re sure you’ll nail it and it will be the best presentation in the world. And then, nothing happens. It’s not implemented, because there are other priorities, because it didn’t connect with the needs and timelines of other teams, and there it stayed 🙁

Learn from me, and review your stakeholder map. Who are the relevant actors for this project? How do I connect with them? What are their needs and how do they align or not with what I’m about to present?

Here’s a link to an article and template that can help you create a Stakeholder Map.

5. The best way to show results is with arguments, from logic

I think I had several preconceived ideas about research results. And I’ll say again that it depends on the audience, the purpose of the research, and what you want to achieve in that presentation.

Here I’m remembering a moment when my UX Researcher colleague and I were trying to show research results in different ways, because we saw it wasn’t being implemented. There were several meetings and nothing happened, and we didn’t know if it wasn’t understood, if it was too abstract to say something like:

“Customers have difficulty knowing what type of product and how much they need, because the tools they need are scattered in different places on the site and that makes them lose their main focus.”

After iterating a bit, we presented this finding in a visual format, and we put together a “Frankenstein” copy-paste of how we imagined the solution to that problem. From what needs to be solved (the problem) to how to solve it (the solution). What happened? Within a week they had already implemented the changes!

Perhaps the proposal isn’t to make everything a prototype or visual proposal from now on, but rather to try to understand the audience, what works, and in the case I was commenting on, iterate different formats to see which one works depending on the organization.

6. There’s only ONE best way to do user research

When I started in all this, I read a lot, listened to many podcasts, attended seminars, webinars, courses, to be able to learn the state of the art of UX Research and be able to do the best in whatever position I would reach, or so I thought. And now I see that the “work of the UX Researcher” is not the same for everyone. My story here probably won’t be the same as that experienced by my colleague, nor by other UX Researchers, because it depends, again, on many things—from the very industry you work in (e.g., Retail, Banking, Gaming, Health, etc.), also the maturity of the organization around UX, the number of Researchers on the team, because there may be more specialized roles at certain times or for certain products, and also the background of the person doing Research. Each brings a different way of thinking—someone coming from Design, or Social Sciences, or Communications—each will have a different way of facing challenges. Each will contribute from their vision and experience to that work.

There is no ONE best way. Each research challenge will be embedded in a unique context, from which you have to find the best alternative according to the available resources.

To Close

Don’t assume others know what you do, what your strengths are, what to expect from you. Be proactive and share your scope, your priorities, and the constraints you see. And ask, ask, and ask.
The Researcher’s work is iterative, it starts at any stage of the cycle, and can continue much longer than expected.
Choose the methodology considering your context: What is the best methodology I can use to achieve that goal considering the current times, resources, and constraints?
Good research is achieved when its results reach the end user, and for that, it’s not enough to present, but to meet with other teams to coordinate that value delivery.
Be flexible in how you communicate your objectives and results. Maybe the best is a two-slide presentation, or a 200-page Word document, or a video with customers, or perhaps a mix of several things. Iterate, test, experiment.
Find YOUR way of doing user research, take advantage of your knowledge.

If you read this far, I appreciate your time :), and if you want to continue the conversation, leave me a message on LinkedIn.