July 12, 2023
3 min

5 key areas for effective ResearchOPs

Simply put, ResearchOps is about making sure your research operations are robust, thought through and managed. 

Having systems and processes around your UX research and your team keep everyone (and everything) organized. Making user research projects quicker to get started and more streamlined to run. And robust sharing, socializing, and knowledge storage means that everyone can understand the research insights and findings and put these to use - across the organization. And even better, find these when they need them. 

Using the same tools across the team allows the research team to learn from each other, and previous research projects and be able to compare apples with apples, with everyone included. Bringing the team together across tools, research and results.

We go into more detail in our ebook ResearchOps Checklist about exactly what you can do to make sure your research team is running at its best. Let’s take a quick look at 5 way to ensure you have the grounding for a successful ResearchOps team.

1. Knowledge management 📚

What do you do with all of the insights and findings of a user research project? How do you store them, how do you manage the insights, and how do you share and socialize?

Having processes in place that manage this knowledge is important to the longevity of your research. From filing to sharing across platforms, it all needs to be standardized so everyone can search, find and share.

2. Guidelines and process templates 📝

Providing a framework for how to run research projects is are important. Building on the knowledge base from previous research can improve research efficiencies and cut down on groundwork and administration. Making research projects quicker and more streamlined to get underway.

3. Governance 🏛

User research is all about people, real people. It is incredibly important that any research be legal, safe, and ethical. Having effective governance covered is vital.

4. Tool stack 🛠

Every research team needs a ‘toolbox’ that they can use whenever they need to run card sorts, tree tests, usability tests, user interviews, and more. But which software and tools to use?

Making sure that the team is using the same tools also helps with future research projects, learning from previous projects, and ensuring that the information is owned and run by the organization (rather than whichever individuals prefer). Reduce logins and password shares, and improve security with organization-wide tools and platforms. 

5. Recruitment 👱🏻👩👩🏻👧🏽👧🏾

Key to great UX research is the ability to recruit quality participants - fast! Having strong processes in place for screening, scheduling, sampling, incentivizing, and managing participants needs to be top of the list when organizing the team.

Wrap Up 💥

Each of these ResearchOps processes are not independent of the other. And neither do they flow from one to the other. They are part of a total wrap around for the research team, creating processes, systems and tools that are built to serve the team. Allowing them to focus on the job of doing great research and generating insights and findings that develop the very best user experience. 

Afterall, we are creating user experiences that keep our users engaged and coming back. Why not look at the teams user experience and make the most of that. Freeing time and space to socialize and share the findings with the organization. 

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6 things to consider when setting up a research practice

With UX research so closely tied to product success, setting up a dedicated research practice is fast becoming important for many organizations. It’s not an easy process, especially for organizations that have had little to do with research, but the end goal is worth the effort.

But where exactly are you supposed to start? This article provides 6 key things to keep in mind when setting up a research practice, and should hopefully ensure you’ve considered all of the relevant factors.

1) Work out what your organization needs

The first and most simple step is to take stock of the current user research situation within the organization. How much research is currently being done? Which teams or individuals are talking to customers on an ongoing basis? Consider if there are any major pain points with the current way research is being carried out or bottlenecks in getting research insights to the people that need them. If research isn't being practiced, identify teams or individuals that don't currently have access to the resources they need, and consider ways to make insights available to the people that need them.

2) Consolidate your insights

UX research should be communicating with nearly every part of an organization, from design teams to customer support, engineering departments and C-level management. The insights that stem from user research are valuable everywhere. Of course, the opposite is also true: insights from support and sales are useful for understanding customers and how the current product is meeting people's needs.

When setting up a research practice, identify which teams you should align with, and then reach out. Sit down with these teams and explore how you can help each other. For your part, you’ll probably need to explain the what and why of user research within the context of your organization, and possibly even explain at a basic level some of the techniques you use and the data you can obtain.

Then, get in touch with other teams with the goal of learning from them. A good research practice needs a strong connection to other parts of the business with the express purpose of learning. For example, by working with your organization’s customer support team, you’ll have a direct line to some of the issues that customers deal with on a regular basis. A good working relationship here means they’ll likely feed these insights back to you, in order to help you frame your research projects.

By working with your sales team, they’ll be able to share issues prospective customers are dealing with. You can follow up on this information with research, the results of which can be fed into the development of your organization’s products.

It can also be fruitful to develop an insights repository, where researchers can store any useful insights and log research activities. This means that sales, customer support and other interested parties can access the results of your research whenever they need to.

When your research practice is tightly integrated other key areas of the business, the organization is likely to see innumerable benefits from the insights>product loop.

3) Figure out which tools you will use

By now you’ve hopefully got an idea of how your research practice will fit into the wider organization – now it’s time to look at the ways in which you’ll do your research. We’re talking, of course, about research methods and testing tools.

We won’t get into every different type of method here (there are plenty of other articles and guides for that), but we will touch on the importance of qualitative and quantitative methods. If you haven’t come across these terms before, here’s a quick breakdown:

  • Qualitative research – Focused on exploration. It’s about discovering things we cannot measure with numbers, and often involves speaking with users through observation or user interviews.
  • Quantitative research – Focused on measurement. It’s all about gathering data and then turning this data into usable statistics.

All user research methods are designed to deliver either qualitative or quantitative data, and as part of your research practice, you should ensure that you always try to gather both types. By using this approach, you’re able to generate a clearer overall picture of whatever it is you’re researching.

Next comes the software. A solid stack of user research testing tools will help you to put research methods into practice, whether for the purposes of card sorting, carrying out more effective user interviews or running a tree test.

There are myriad tools available now, and it can be difficult to separate the useful software from the chaff. Here’s a list of research and productivity tools that we recommend.

Tools for research

Here’s a collection of research tools that can help you gather qualitative and quantitative data, using a number of methods.

  • Treejack – Tree testing can show you where people get lost on your website, and help you take the guesswork out of information architecture decisions. Like OptimalSort, Treejack makes it easy to sort through information and pairs this with in-depth analysis features.
  • dScout – Imagine being able to get video snippets of your users as they answer questions about your product. That’s dScout. It’s a video research platform that collects in-context “moments” from a network of global participants, who answer your questions either by video or through photos.
  • Ethnio – Like dScout, this is another tool designed to capture information directly from your users. It works by showing an intercept pop-up to people who land on your website. Then, once they agree, it runs through some form of research.
  • OptimalSort – Card sorting allows you to get perspective on whatever it is you’re sorting and understand how people organize information. OptimalSort makes it easier and faster to sort through information, and you can access powerful analysis features.
  • Reframer – Taking notes during user interviews and usability tests can be quite time-consuming, especially when it comes to analyze the data. Reframer gives individuals and teams a single tool to store all of their notes, along with a set of powerful analysis features to make sense of their data.
  • Chalkmark – First-click testing can show you what people click on first in a user interface when they’re asked to complete a task. This is useful, as when people get their first click correct, they’re much more likely to complete their task. Chalkmark makes the process of setting up and running a first-click test easy. What’s more, you’re given comprehensive analysis tools, including a click heatmap.

Tools for productivity

These tools aren’t necessarily designed for user research, but can provide vital links in the process.

  • Whimsical – A fantastic tool for user journeys, flow charts and any other sort of diagram. It also solves one of the biggest problems with online whiteboards – finicky object placement.
  • Descript – Easily transcribe your interview and usability test audio recordings into text.
  • Google Slides – When it inevitably comes time to present your research findings to stakeholders, use Google Slides to create readable, clear presentations.

4) Figure out how you’ll track findings over time

With some idea of the research methods and testing tools you’ll be using to collect data, now it’s time to think about how you’ll manage all of this information. A carefully ordered spreadsheet and folder system can work – but only to an extent. Dedicated software is a much better choice, especially given that you can scale these systems much more easily.

A dedicated home for your research data serves a few distinct purposes. There’s the obvious benefit of being able to access all of your findings whenever you need them, which means it’s much easier to create personas if the need arises. A dedicated home also means your findings will remain accessible and useful well into the future.

When it comes to software, Reframer stands as one of the better options for creating a detailed customer insights repository as you’re able to capture your sessions directly in the tool and then apply tags afterwards. You can then easily review all of your observations and findings using the filtering options. Oh, and there’s obviously the analysis side of the tool as well.

If you’re looking for a way to store high-level findings – perhaps if you’re intending to share this data with other parts of your organization – then a tool like Confluence or Notion is a good option. These tools are basically wikis, and include capable search and navigation options too.

5) Where will you get participants from?

A pool of participants you can draw from for your user research is another important part of setting up a research practice. Whenever you need to run a study, you’ll have real people you can call on to test, ask questions and get feedback from.

This is where you’ll need to partner other teams, likely sales and customer support. They’ll have direct access to your customers, so make sure to build a strong relationship with these teams. If you haven’t made introductions, it can helpful to put together a one-page sheet of information explaining what UX research is and the benefits of working with your team.

You may also want to consider getting in some external help. Participant recruitment services are a great way to offload the heavy lifting of sourcing quality participants – often one of the hardest parts of the research process.

6) Work out how you'll communicate your research

Perhaps one of the most important parts of being a user researcher is taking the findings you uncover and communicating them back to the wider organization. By feeding insights back to product, sales and customer support teams, you’ll form an effective link between your organization’s customers and your organization. The benefits here are obvious. Product teams can build products that actually address customer pain points, and sales and support teams will better understand the needs and expectations of customers.

Of course, it isn’t easy to communicate findings. Here are a few tips:

  • Document your research activities: With a clear record of your research, you’ll find it easier to pull out relevant findings and communicate these to the right teams.
  • Decide who needs what: You’ll probably find that certain roles (like managers) will be best served by a high-level overview of your research activities (think a one-page summary), while engineers, developers and designers will want more detailed research findings.

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5 ways to measure UX return on investment

Return on investment (ROI) is often the term on everyone’s lips when starting a big project or even when reviewing a website. It’s especially popular with those that hold the purse strings.  As UX researchers it is important to consider the ROI of the work we do and understand how to measure this. 

We’ve lined up 5 key ways to measure ROI for UX research to help you get the conversation underway with stakeholders so you can show real and tangible benefits to your organization. 

1. Meet and exceed user expectations

Put simply, a product that meets and exceeds user expectations leads to increased revenue. When potential buyers are able to find and purchase what they’re looking for, easily, they’ll complete their purchase, and are far more likely to come back. The simple fact that users can finish their task will increase sales and improve overall customer satisfaction which has an influence on their loyalty. Repeat business means repeat sales. Means increased revenue.

Creating, developing and maintaining a usable website is more important than you might think. And this is measurable! Tracking and analyzing website performance prior to the UX research and after can be insightful and directly influenced by changes made based on UX research.

Measurable: review the website (product) performance prior to UX research and after changes have been made. The increase in clicks, completed tasks and/or baskets will tell the story.

2. Reduce development time

UX research done at the initial stages of a project can lead to a reduction in development time of by 33% to 50%! And reduced time developing, means reduced costs (people and overheads) and a speedier to market date. What’s not to love? 

Measurable: This one is a little more tricky as you have saved time (and cost) up front. Aiding in speed to market and performance prior to execution. Internal stakeholder research may be of value post the live date to understand how the project went.

3. Ongoing development costs

And the double hitter? Creating a product that has the user in mind up front, reduces the need to rehash or revisit as quickly. Reducing ongoing costs. Early UX research can help with the detection of errors early on in the development process. Fixing errors after development costs a company up to 100 times more than dealing with the same error before development.

Measureable: Again, as UX research has saved time and money up front this one can be difficult to track. Though depending on your organization and previous projects you could conduct internal research to understand how the project compares and the time and cost savings.

4. Meeting user requirements

Did you know that 70% of projects fail due to the lack of user acceptance? This is often because project managers fail to understand the user requirements properly. Thanks to UX research early on, gaining insights into users and only spending time developing the functions users actually want, saving time and reducing development costs. Make sure you get confirmation on those requirements by iterative testing. As always, fail early, fail often. Robust testing up front means that in the end, you’ll have a product that will meet the needs of the user.

Measurable: Where is the product currently? How does it perform? Set a benchmark up front and review post UX research. The deliverables should make the ROI obvious.

5. Investing in UX research leads to an essential competitive advantage.

Thanks to UX research you can find out exactly what your customers want, need and expect from you. This gives you a competitive advantage over other companies in your market. But you should be aware that more and more companies are investing in UX while customers are ever more demanding, their expectations continue to grow and they don’t tolerate bad experiences. And going elsewhere is an easy decision to make.

Measurable: Murky this one, but no less important. Knowing, understanding and responding to competitors can help keep you in the lead, and developing products that meet and exceed those user expectations.

Wrap up

Showing the ROI on the work we do is an essential part of getting key stakeholders on board with our research. It can be challenging to talk the same language, ultimately we all want the same outcome…a product that works well for our users, and delivers additional revenue.

For some continued reading (or watching in this case), Anna Bek, Product and Delivery Manager at Xplor explored the same concept of "How to measure experience" during her UX New Zealand 2020 – watch it here as she shares a perspective on UX ROI.

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Why user research is essential for product development

Many organizations are aware that staying relevant essential for their success. This can mean a lot of things to different organizations. What it often means is coming up with plenty of new, innovative ideas and products to keep pace with the demands and needs of the marketplace. It also means keeping up with the expectations and needs of your users, which often means  shorter and shorter product development life cycle times.  While maintaining this pace can be daunting, it can also be seen as a strength, tightening up your processes and cutting out unnecessary steps.

A vital part of developing new (or tweaking existing) products is considering the end user first. There really is no point in creating anything new if it isn’t meeting a need or filling a gap in the market. How can you make sure you are hitting the right mark? Ask your users.  We look into some of the key user research methods available to help you in your product development process.

If you want to know more about how to fit research into your product development process, take a read here.

What is user research? 👨🏻💻

User experience (UX) research, or user research as it’s commonly referred to, is an important part of the product development process. Primarily, UX research involves using different research methods to gather qualitative and quantitative data and insights about how your users interact with your product. It is an essential part of developing, building, and launching a product that truly meets the needs, desires, and requirements of your users. 

At its simplest, user research is talking to your users and understanding what they want and why. And using this to deliver what they need.

How does user research fit into the product development process? 🧩🧩

User research is an essential part of the product development process. By asking questions of your users about how your product works and what place it fills in the market, you can create a product that delivers what the market needs to those who need it. 

Without user research, you could literally be firing arrows in the dark, or at the very best, working from a very internal organizational view based on assuming that what you believe users need is what they want. With user research, you can collect qualitative and quantitative data that clearly tells you where and what users would like to see and how they would use it.

Investing in user research right at the start of the product development process can save the team and the organization heavy investment in time and money. With detailed data responses, your brand-new product can leapfrog many development hurdles, delivering a final product that users love and want to keep using. Firing arrows to hit a bullseye.

What user research methods should we use? 🥺

Qualitative ResearchMethods

Qualitative research is about exploration. It focuses on discovering things we cannot measure with numbers and typically involves getting to know users directly through interviews or observation.

Usability Testing – Observational

One of the best ways to learn about your users and how they interact with your new product is to observe them in their own environment. Watch how they accomplish tasks, the order they do things, what frustrates them, and what makes the task easier and/or more enjoyable for your subject. The data can be collated to inform the usability of your product, improving intuitive design and what resonates with your users.

Competitive Analysis

Reviewing products already on the market can be a great start to the product development process. Why are your competitors’ products successful? And how well do they behave for users? Learn from their successes, and even better, build on where they may not be performing as well and find where your product fills the gap in the market.

Quantitative Research Methods

Quantitative research is about measurement. It focuses on gathering data and then turning this data into usable statistics.

Surveys

Surveys are a popular user research method for gathering information from a wide range of people. In most cases, a survey will feature a set of questions designed to assess someone’s thoughts on a particular aspect of your new product. They’re useful for getting feedback or understanding attitudes, and you can use the learnings from your survey of a subset of users to draw conclusions about a larger population of users.

Wrap Up 🌯

Gathering information on your users during the product development process and before you invest time and money can be hugely beneficial to the entire process. Collating robust data and insights to guide the new product development and respond directly to user needs, and filling that all-important niche. Undertaking user experience research shouldn’t stop at product development but throughout each and every step of your product life cycle. If you want to find out more about UX research throughout the life cycle of your product, take a read of our article UX research for each product phase.

Seeing is believing

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