What’s better than a UX team doing awesome research? A whole organization backing investment in UX research. What’s that look like in practice?  Collaboration and support from stakeholders across the organization throughout the research process from set up, doing studies, sharing insights, and digesting, understanding, and actioning recommendations based on the amazing insights you generate.

UX research should be something that is known, understood, and expected across your organization. Rather than keeping all the insight goodies to yourselves, why not democratize user research by making it accessible and shareable to all stakeholders to drive understanding of its value wherever they sit in the organization?

We go into this in more detail in our ebook UX Research for Teams. By including the stakeholders throughout the process, the role of research becomes a lot more visible throughout the organization. Having the best online tools to make the whole process simple and straightforward is a great place to start.

1. Who owns the research?

Recognition that the user research undertaken in your organization benefits the whole organization is essential for setting up key resources. By ensuring that everyone is operating from the same set of tools, the insights and results are easier to manage, find and file. It also means if someone leaves,  they don’t leave with all the insights and knowledge.

2. Everyone’s a researcher

Everyone within the organization should have the opportunity to be involved with UX research and should be encouraged to have a base understanding of the process (and even try out the tools) or, at the very least, have some understanding of the results and insights. If everyone has access to the tools, they can use these no matter where they sit in the organization. 

3. Don’t get distracted by shiny things

Maintaining a single source of research, with a well-organized filing system means you can always look at what has gone before. It is a great place to start. The best UX researchers often revisit past studies to see where to go from here. Creating consistency through the process and output means comparing insights are simpler.

4. Research is better with friends

What’s better than one mind? It’s two or more. Working alongside a team opens new perspectives, thinking, problem-solving, and approaches. New ways to see a problem and how to interpret insights and results. By socializing your results with the key stakeholders, you bring them on the journey, explaining how and why UX research is important to the project and the wider team. Firming up the opportunity for future research.

5. Qualitative research insights that are simple to find

Qualitative research tools are designed to assist you with testing types, including user interviews, contextual inquiries, and usability tests. Working as a team with tags, sorting, and recording can be made simple and streamlined. 

One of the best decisions you can make as a researcher is to bring the organization along for the ride. Setting up consistent tools across the team (and beyond) will help streamline research, making it simpler for all to be involved at each step of the process. Embedding UX research into each part of the organization. 

Take a look at our ebook UX Research for Teams, where we go into more detail.