Research System: Helping to Scale UX Research
Hello! I’m Dani Renner, Insights & Research Lead, and I’ll show you how we created and scaled the Research process at Hurb to facilitate the democratization of access to UX test results and research.
What challenges do we seek to solve?
Organizations usually hold research projects focused on validating functionalities for specific initiatives of a given squad. It is quite often a challenge to merge all research material to present a Research discipline in the agile format — where all areas of the company may experience integrated learning.
In 2020, early on in the process of building the Research core group at Hurb, I performed as a UX Researcher in shared services, assisting product development teams with their researching needs. The UX designers were allocated in the product squad to contribute according to their available time and common interest. In addition, it became a challenge to steadily serve all product squads with a limited number of resources.
The resolution strategy
To solve the challenge, three strategies were outlined:
- cultural change and strategic people management to raise awareness about the importance of the research.
- changing the business model from shared services to a consultative approach.
- building a Research System, a standard communication base of all granular insights using decentralized guidelines and processes.
1. Cultural change and strategic people management
Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Peter Drucker
This emblematic Peter Drucker sentence is the main motivation to start the implementation of the UX Research discipline in agile companies through culture.
At Hurb specifically, we built a Research culture focusing on the co-creation framework based on each UX research requirement over the first six months of the area. For instance, at the first qualitative research opportunity, we started building data lake insights into Airtable — where each column and filter of the structure was iterate taking into account feedback from Product Managers, UX Designers, other managers, and those interested in the subject. Our primary commitment would be the users, the reason why the most important aspect was the construction process.
The dynamics of research engagement and contribution made the cultural change strategy work as properly as the engagement of other areas. According to the professor and researcher Carmen Migueles in her book “Managing in the Dark”, for cultural changes to succeed we need a leading thread in the process of changing. And in the case of building the UX Research discipline at Hurb, this leading thread would be qualitative research to build Hurb Personas — which involved the whole company.
The research leadership process is premised on invisible leadership. If we need the insights and learning coming to life, we also need engagement and a leading role from all areas. Like parents to a child. To make her/him develop and succeed, they stand behind the scenes giving the proper conditions for her/his development.
That’s why the intangible assets in an organization (human and cultural resources) are more valuable than the tangible ones. Marco Zanini, a researcher at FGV, places Trust as the core intangible asset because a performance culture is only achieved when the leader establishes sincere relationships that unfold trust among team members.
2. Model Change
At the end of 2020, while reorganizing the UX Research area, we moved from shared research services to a consultative approach. Then we created a commons-based framework to apply definitions and metrics that would help to scale the shared insights platform.
3. Research System Communication
After carrying out the whole process of co-creation and cultural change over the first months of the area, introducing the Research System at Coda.io represented the consolidation of a long process that had been taking place for at least 10 months. All the documents and tools integrated into the Research System wouldn't have meant as much if it hadn't been built together.
Through the Research System, we can ensure democratic access to all research insights by applying a decentralized process.
Process insights and learning:
🎯 Every research, usability testing, survey, “tick” etc. that results in knowledge about pain and opportunities has its learning pill included in one of the three components of the Research System: granular recommendations, personas, and context mapping and/or guidelines.
🎯 Based on the traveler’s perspective, the purpose of the base is to bring the user’s context to the design, writing, business, and marketing decision-making processes. In addition to sharing knowledge, it also opens the door for other areas to include any audience data.
Current Situation
The Research System was launched as Phoenix, and it is a reference for the Research team to continue the dissemination and research operation and keep the company’s continuing innovation remodeled.
Phoenix (Latin) is the brightest star in the Phoenice constellation. In the Roman, Egyptian, Chinese, and Persian cultures it symbolized life and its cycles, the rebirth. As the Research System is a guiding star to upgrading and renewal, the choice of that name symbolizes its essence.
Today the system is divided in two parts:
1. Granular Recommendations
After interviews and usability tests (qualitative and performance), we are able to share insights and learning through the Research System platform on a daily basis to the entire company. There are two sessions:
- Datalake — Created into the Airtable with granular recommendations based on qualitative tests and interviews. We included tags to filter findings by steps of the journey or type of evidence (complaints, own vocabulary, action required, for instance).
- Surveys — Granular recommendations resulting from surveys.
2. Context Recommendations
The research learning can be accessed and communicated considering the context without tagging keywords. Words are Personas and Context Mapping resulting from qualitative usability tests applied recurrently in our monthly processes.
Carrying forward research insights and context testing by applying experiments. Understanding real-life and usage contexts that inspire campaigns or product experiments. Product Managers use that information to think about Roadmap and Backlog.
3. Research Ops — Rituals, tasks, guidelines, and research templates to scale the application in the whole company.
And as in its essence, it remains a living organism constantly under construction and improvement, always seeking to renew itself — as its own name refers: Phoenix.
