Introduction

‍

User research is invaluable, but in fast-paced environments, researchers often struggle with tight deadlines, limited resources, and the need to prove their impact. In our recent UX Insider webinar, Weidan Li, Senior UX Researcher at Seek, shared insights on Efficient Research—an approach that optimizes Speed, Quality, and Impact to maximize the return on investment (ROI) of understanding customers.

‍

At the heart of this approach is the Efficient Research Framework, which balances these three critical factors:

• Speed – Conducting research quickly without sacrificing key insights.
• Quality – Ensuring rigor and reliability in findings.
• Impact – Making sure research leads to meaningful business and product changes.

‍

Within this framework, Weidan outlined nine tactics that help UX researchers work more effectively. Let’s dive in.

‍

‍

1. Time Allocation: Invest in What Matters Most

‍

Not all research requires the same level of depth. Efficient researchers prioritize their time by categorizing projects based on urgency and impact:

• High-stakes decisions (e.g., launching a new product) require deep research.
• Routine optimizations (e.g., tweaking UI elements) can rely on quick testing methods.
• Low-impact changes may not need research at all.

‍

By allocating time wisely, researchers can avoid spending weeks on minor issues while ensuring critical decisions are well-informed.

‍

‍

2. Assistance of AI: Let Technology Handle the Heavy Lifting

‍

AI is transforming UX research, enabling faster and more scalable insights. Weidan suggests using AI to:

• Automate data analysis – AI can quickly analyze survey responses, transcripts, and usability test results.
• Generate research summaries – Tools like ChatGPT can help synthesize findings into digestible insights.
• Speed up recruitment – AI-powered platforms can help find and screen participants efficiently.

‍

While AI can’t replace human judgment, it can free up researchers to focus on higher-value tasks like interpreting results and influencing strategy.

‍

‍

3. Collaboration: Make Research a Team Sport

‍

Research has a greater impact when it’s embedded into the product development process. Weidan emphasizes:

• Co-creating research plans with designers, PMs, and engineers to align on priorities.
• Involving stakeholders in synthesis sessions so insights don’t sit in a report.
• Encouraging non-researchers to run lightweight studies, such as A/B tests or quick usability checks.

‍

When research is shared and collaborative, it leads to faster adoption of insights and stronger decision-making.

‍

‍

4. Prioritization: Focus on the Right Questions

‍

With limited resources, researchers must choose their battles wisely. Weidan recommends using a prioritization framework to assess:

• Business impact – Will this research influence a high-stakes decision?
• User impact – Does it address a major pain point?
• Feasibility – Can we conduct this research quickly and effectively?

‍

By filtering out low-priority projects, researchers can avoid research for research’s sake and focus on what truly drives change.

‍

‍

5. Depth of Understanding: Go Beyond Surface-Level Insights

‍

Speed is important, but efficient research isn’t about cutting corners. Weidan stresses that even quick studies should provide a deep understanding of users by:

• Asking why, not just what – Observing behavior is useful, but uncovering motivations is key.
• Using triangulation – Combining methods (e.g., usability tests + surveys) to validate findings.
• Revisiting past research – Leveraging existing insights instead of starting from scratch.

‍

Balancing speed with depth ensures research is not just fast, but meaningful.

‍

‍

6. Anticipation: Stay Ahead of Research Needs

‍

Proactive researchers don’t wait for stakeholders to request studies—they anticipate needs and set up research ahead of time. This means:

• Building a research roadmap that aligns with upcoming product decisions.
• Running continuous discovery research so teams have a backlog of insights to pull from.
• Creating self-serve research repositories where teams can find relevant past studies.

‍

By anticipating research needs, UX teams can reduce last-minute requests and deliver insights exactly when they’re needed.

‍

‍

7. Justification of Methodology: Explain Why Your Approach Works

‍

Stakeholders may question research methods, especially when they seem time-consuming or expensive. Weidan highlights the importance of educating teams on why specific methods are used:

• Clearly explain why qualitative research is needed when stakeholders push for just numbers.
• Show real-world examples of how past research has led to business success.
• Provide a trade-off analysis (e.g., “This method is faster but provides less depth”) to help teams make informed choices.

‍

A well-justified approach ensures research is respected and acted upon.

‍

‍

8. Individual Engagement: Tailor Research Communication to Your Audience

‍

Not all stakeholders consume research the same way. Weidan recommends adapting insights to fit different audiences:

• Executives – Focus on high-level impact and key takeaways.
• Product teams – Provide actionable recommendations tied to specific features.
• Designers & Engineers – Share usability findings with video clips or screenshots.

‍

By delivering insights in the right format, researchers increase the likelihood of stakeholder buy-in and action.

‍

‍

9. Business Actions: Ensure Research Leads to Real Change

‍

The ultimate goal of research is not just understanding users—but driving business decisions. To ensure research leads to action:

• Follow up on implementation – Track whether teams apply the insights.
• Tie findings to key metrics – Show how research affects conversion rates, retention, or engagement.
• Advocate for iterative research – Encourage teams to re-test and refine based on new data.

‍

Research is most valuable when it translates into real business outcomes.

‍

‍

Final Thoughts: Research That Moves the Needle

‍

Efficient research is not just about doing more, faster—it’s about balancing speed, quality, and impact to maximize its influence. Weidan’s nine tactics help UX researchers work smarter by:

‍
✔️  Prioritizing high-impact work
✔️  Leveraging AI and collaboration
✔️  Communicating research in a way that drives action

‍

By adopting these strategies, UX teams can ensure their research is not just insightful, but transformational.

‍

‍

Watch the full webinar here

‍

Every month we have informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your day. These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry 🚀

‍

Do you want to learn ways to uplift qualitative researchers and value their skill sets as business assets?

‍

In an effort to make “data-driven” decisions, business leaders look to research for guidance. However, there is often an implicit priority for quantitative research over qualitative research.  Often, even if qualitative research is funded and the findings are valued, the qualitative researcher and their skill sets can feel under-appreciated at an organizational or business unit level.

‍

Let’s uplift the qualitative researcher and honor the craft of qualitative research as a transferable skill set. In this talk we will discuss: 

‍

• Theories about why business leaders have a hard time thinking about qualitative research findings as “data”
• Techniques for navigating the quant vs. qual conversation with non-research minded stakeholders — with an emphasis on not pitting research methods against each other.
• The importance of modeling qualitative researcher behaviors in other business contexts.
• How thinking like a qualitative researcher can close organizational gaps and aid in consensus building
• Tips for demonstrating the value of thinking and acting like qualitative researchers

‍

‍

Jennifer Long

‍

‍

‍

‍

Speaker Bio 🎤

‍

Jennifer is a business generalist with UX Research and Information Architecture chops. She spent six years at Factor, an Information Architecture Consulting Firm, where she most recently held the Chief of Staff role. Jennifer has an MBA, a certificate of UX design from School of Visual Concepts in Seattle, and Bachelor of Arts in Theatre. She strongly believes in building stakeholder consensus and adding depth to projects through careful exploration. She lives in Washington State near the U.S./Canadian border and loves hiking in the North Cascades with her family and their German Shepherd mutt.

‍

Take a seat, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next UX Insider!

Have you ever used a self-service checkout at the supermarket, or scanned your own bags onto the belt at the airport? As much as these interactions seek to follow the same principles we apply to web and mobile interactions, often there comes a point where we need to improvise and come up with novel ways to apply what we know in a new context.

‍

In this talk, we’ll explore what happens when the things we take for granted as digital designers go out the window and how you can adapt your design to the different needs of ‘phygital’ interactions.

‍

Every month we have fun and informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your lunch break. These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry.

‍

Caitlin Pilcher and Ben McCarthy

‍

‍

‍

Speaker Bios 🎤

‍

Caitlin Pilcher is a digital experience designer driven by the belief people have a critical role to play in tackling the challenges we face today and building the world we want to see tomorrow. Her background in industrial and digital design has allowed her to investigate how people interact with both physical and digital environments, developing a keen interest in how we can design the space in between. Her work seeks to deeply understand and has focused on exploring complex problems with a sense of curiosity to create simple, human-centred solutions that work towards bringing exciting possible futures to life.

‍

Ben McCarthy is driven to create incredibly positive outcomes for both people and the planet and speed up the inevitable transition to a low carbon future. Ben unpacks the complexity of human-centred systems to aid others in achieving this, looking for key interactions we have with each other, our services, and our institutions to unlock our ability to make the most meaningful change. Ben is unafraid of using novel and proven methods to tackle the most significant societal and environmental challenges we face today.

‍

Grab your lunch, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next Lunch n’ Learn! 🥪

Every month we have fun and informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your lunch break. These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry.

‍

Susanna Carman

‍

‍

‍

Speaker Bio 🎤

‍

Susanna Carman is a Strategic Designer and research practitioner who helps people solve complex problems involving services, systems, and human interactions. Specializing in design, leadership, and learning, Susanna brings a high-value toolkit and herself as a Thinking Partner to design leadership and change practitioners who are tasked with delivering sustainable solutions amidst disruptive conditions. 

Susanna holds a Master of Design Futures degree from RMIT University. She has over a decade of experience delivering business performance, cultural alignment, and leadership development outcomes to the education, health, community development, and financial services sectors. She is also the founder and host of Transition Leadership Lab, a nine-week learning lab for design, leadership, and change practitioners who already have a sophisticated set of tools and mindsets but still feel these are insufficient to meet the challenge of leading change in a rapidly transforming world.

‍

Grab your lunch, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next Lunch n’ Learn! 🥪

Every month we have fun and informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your lunch break.  These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry. 

‍

Join us at the end of every month for Lunch n' Learn. 🌯

‍

‍

Torrey Podmajersky

‍

A lot goes into good content design (AKA UX writing), but what exactly is that "lot" made up of? Torrey Podmajersky tackled the question with research: What are the skills content designers use in their roles? Torrey's research uncovered 94 skills, and her open survey gathered results from every economic region of the globe, surveying more than 800 people in its first month. The insights into the core skills of content design, combined with the impacts that can be made with those skills, are helping designers make better products by investing in the right efforts.

‍

‍

Speaker Bio 🎤

‍

Torrey Podmajersky is the president of Catbird Content and author of the bestselling book Strategic Writing for UX. Torrey helps teams solve business and customer problems using UX and content. She has consulted on and created inclusive and accessible consumer and professional experiences for Fortune 500s and startup clients in consumer, B2B, and enterprise software spaces, including Google, OfferUp, and Microsoft.

‍

Grab your lunch, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next Lunch n’ Learn! 🥪

Every month we have fun and informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your lunch break.  These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry. 

‍

Join us at the end of every month for Lunch n' Learn.

‍

‍

Jamal Abdulrahim 👋🏽

‍

Technology is an integral part of our daily lives, but how does it affect people with vision impairments? In this presentation, Jamal shares his personal story of being a blind person who uses technology for education, work, and entertainment. Jamal demonstrates some of the tools and devices that he uses, such as screen readers, braille displays, and magnification software. He also discusses some of the challenges and opportunities that technology presents for people with visual impairments. Join him for an informative and interactive session that will give you a new perspective on technology and accessibility.

‍

‍

Speaker Bio 🎤

‍

Hey I'm Jamal! By day I work with See Me Please not just for the usual user testing gig, but to create inclusion from within. 

‍

Officially, I lead engagements with clients, but my job is a mixed bag of surprises. Sometimes I get paid to chat with some really interesting people about tech and accessibility.  

‍

I was born with a vision impairment and I'm passionate about accessibility and technology. I also love talking with people. In my opinion, accessibility shouldn’t need to be a heavy or intimidating conversation. Organisations shouldn’t be worried about compliance or getting in trouble when it comes to the accessibility of their services. Creating interest in accessibility, and the users who rely on accessible services is incredibly important to me. 

‍

By night, I perform stand-up comedy at various clubs around Sydney and am a regular at The Sydney Comedy Store. I try to use humour as a way to humanise the blind experience in hopes of making interactions with normies a little less awkward. 

‍

My passion for tech and comedy overlap as I rely on accessible technologies such as transport apps, productivity apps and accessible tech devices. All of which I use to get me to and from shows, manage my own books and write new material to keep my sets fresh.

‍

Grab your lunch, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next Lunch n’ Learn! 🥓

Every month we have fun and informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your lunch break.  These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry. 

‍

Join us at the end of every month for Lunch n' Learn.

‍

‍

Ally Tutkaluk

A multi-faceted approach is key when creating digital products for users who may be in a vulnerable, sensitive, or distressed state. Adopting an approach to copy, design, and testing that considers the unique needs of your main user group not only enhances their experiences, but improves the product for everyone.

From user interviews, to copywriting, to IA decisions, to testing - Ally will cover tools and tips for how you can ensure vulnerable users needs’ are considered at every stage of the digital design process.

‍

‍

‍

Speaker Bio

‍

Ally has worked in digital experience in the higher education, FMCG, and not-for-profit industries for over 14 years, most recently at Australian healthcare charity Lives Lived Well. She’s passionate about working with users to create data-driven, meaningful and valuable digital content and navigation pathways. She lives in Brisbane and also teaches Design Thinking at the Queensland University of Technology.

‍

Grab your lunch, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next Lunch n’ Learn 🌮🍕🥪

Every month we have fun and informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your lunch break.  These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry. 

‍

Join us at the end of every month for Lunch n' Learn.

‍

‍

Susanna Carman

The world is growing increasingly volatile and uncertain. Design practitioners working during these times are tasked with bringing skills and professional expertise to help solve complex customer and internal-facing challenges. However, many of us are operating in professional contexts that are resistant to change, struggle to understand what we do, or are unable to fully embrace the value we have to offer. Trying to do ‘good’ work in these conditions can be isolating, frustrating and anxiety producing. In order to sustain our capacity for impact, now is the time to invest in integrating our own well-being into our design practice.

‍

Design Leadership & Learning specialist, Susanna Carman, returns to offer 60-minutes of sanctuary for those who would like to explore the questions:

‍

• What does it take for us and our practice to BE well?
• What’s the relationship between well-being, self-leadership & impact?

‍

Susanna will present and share restorative practices that deepen understanding, enhance capacity for self-care, and reframe the quality of impact we can have with others in our professional roles.

‍

‍

Speaker Bio

‍

Susanna Carman is a Strategic Designer and research-practitioner who helps people solve complex problems, the types of problems that have to do with services, systems and human interactions. Specializing in design, leadership and learning, Susanna brings a high value toolkit and herself as Thinking Partner to design leadership and change practitioners who are tasked with delivering sustainable solutions amidst disruptive conditions. 

‍

Susanna holds a Masters of Design Futures degree from RMIT University, and has over a decade of combined experience delivering business performance, cultural alignment and leadership development outcomes to the education, health, community development and financial services sectors. She is also the founder and host of Transition Leadership Lab, a 9-week learning lab for design, leadership and change practitioners who already have a sophisticated set of tools and mindsets, but still feel these are insufficient to meet the challenge of leading change in a rapidly transforming world.

‍

Grab your lunch, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next Lunch n' Learn 🌮🍕🥪

Every month we have fun and informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your lunch break.  These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry. 

‍

Join us at the end of every month for Lunch n' Learn.

‍

‍

Elle Geraghty

‍

We all know that testing your IA is essential to create a functioning user experience.

‍

But prior to testing, what is the best way to decide between multiple possible IA approaches?

‍

For Elle Geraghty, the answer is a thorough understanding of potential categorisation options that can be matched to your business and user needs.

‍

‍

‍

Speaker Bio

‍

Elle Geraghty is a consultant content strategist from Sydney, Australia who specialises in large website redesign. 

‍

Over the past 15 years, she has worked with Qantas, Atlassian, the Australian Museum, Virgin Mobile Australia and all levels of the Australian government.

‍

Elle also teaches and coaches content strategy and information architecture.... and through all this work she has developed a great IA categorisation system which she will share with you today.

‍

Connect with Elle on:

‍

Linkedin

‍

Instagram

‍

Twitter