Recently, I wrote about the reasons many companies don’t do enough user research. In this post, my hope is to offer a constructive sequel - how to make user research a consistent “practice” (it’s done consistently and taken seriously) in organisations.
But first, a disclaimer: Company cultures are really hard to change. It’s easy for me to take potshots at the failings of a company, but every organisation has weak spots, and inertia in a company is an incredibly powerful force. I’ve seen many idealistic people burn out trying to steer an organisation is a new direction. So take these suggestions as possible tactics to slowly make a change in your team, in your own work, or in your collaboration with a manager.
With that said, here are some approaches to making user research a more consistent practice in your organisation:
I’ve seen plenty of excellent research fall flat because of the presentation. It’s always easiest to accept user research insights where you hear it straight from the user. As soon as decision makers are at least one level removed from researchers (as often happens in organisations), it becomes harder for decision makers to appreciate the insights. This dynamic puts a lot more pressure on the “packaging” of user research for decision makers.
The most foolproof approach to packaging user research that I’ve found is to try my best to put the decision maker “in the room” with users (note: this is more relevant with qualitative research), through directly quoting users and clipping audio/video of user interviews or usability tests to illustrate a trend or insight. When decision makers hear it directly from a user, it tends to have more of an impact on them.
If you’re in the position to do so (ex. Product Manager), I’ve found that instituting a practice of only making changes/building features supported by evidence is a great way to enforce a practice of user research. Practically, I’ve sometimes set up a field in every Jira/Asana task called “Evidence”, that needs to be filled out before we start implementation.
The risk of confirmation bias is high with this approach - it’s very easy to find the “evidence” that reinforces your existing belief in an idea’s efficacy. However, as long as there’s awareness of this risk, I’d argue it’s acceptable in the short term as a cost to building a practice of user research. Teams may start by finding evidence to support pre-existing ideas, but hopefully the pendulum will slowly shift towards research generating evidence that triggers ideas. Good is better than perfect here.
Perhaps the most “easier said than done” in this post. Nevertheless, I’ve seen organisations treat user research as a task to be done once to paint the definitive picture of their users, when that picture is really a moving target that one burst of research simply cannot capture. This is why making user research a “practice” is so important - user preferences change, your product and offerings change, and the market changes. Any given piece of user research has an expiration date.
Accepting that you’ll never have the ultimate answer, and therefore that finding that answer is a never-ending process, is the start of making user research a practice instead of a task.
These tactics have helped me make user research a practice in several organisations I’ve worked with - what’s worked for you? I’d love to hear approaches that worked (or didn’t work). Feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or email.