3 Things We Learned After Launching Our First User Research Course

The reviews are in! Research 101 for Non-Researchers was a resounding success (ok maybe we’re editorializing a bit, but can you blame us?). Before we resumed patting our own backs, we first wanted to spare a moment for self-reflection.

Research (with a capital R) professionals spend a fair amount of time on support and education for their non-research counterparts. In fact, our recent State of User Research report found that 37% of dedicated Researchers can spend up to about 10% of their time supporting their people who do research (PwDR) counterparts.

Time is a finite resource, so the importance of lightening the support load for Researchers isn’t lost on us. And, in our ongoing quest for self-improvement, we wanted to see how well we helped bridge the research education gap through the course.

Therefore, we aimed to get to the bottom of the following questions:

• What topics came up most frequently among attendees during the live Q&A portions of the course?
• What did these questions expose about hurdles researchers are facing these days?
• How did the course survey feedback challenge or affirm our assumptions about the non-researcher learning curve?

More on the themes we uncovered below.

Check out our free UX Research Methods Selection Tool.

1. User research fundamentals topped the curiosity charts

One of the most revealing takeaways from the course is that there is no concept too small when it comes to bringing non-research folks up to speed on best ways to approach user research. Given the course name and subject matter, this (thankfully) tracks! However, even some seasoned Researchers found a refresh helpful, as one course participant notes:

“Overall, [a] really great overview of UX research. I would actually change the title to not say "for non researchers" because so many researchers joined!”

When we asked course participants what they found helpful, we noticed a few recurring topics:

• The double diamond’s role in facilitating the research process
• Why empathy (and empathy mapping) matters in research
• Scoping the best research questions and methods tends to be a challenge among non-researchers
• Determining the “right’ user research sample sizes

More on the double diamond here:

2. Organizations are different, but some of the hurdles are universal

While those who were asking the questions spanned nonprofits to global conglomerates, there was at least one universal truth across those who took the course: making the case to get organizational buy-in for research is still a challenge. 

This is despite our latest State of User Research report finding that 75% of researchers said that buy-in among their peers was high or very high.

Here’s a few ways our course instructor, Eniola Abioye, addressed the barriers to conveying the value of research at organizations:

• It’s not simply about proving the value of your research by what you achieved at another company, but the “delta you bring now”
• Leaders are thinking about the themes of the day, week, or quarter to create more revenue, so bringing a business mindset to the process is critical
• It's not exclusively about getting people excited about research, but rather how they can get excited about growing their product

How we start to do these might depend on your organization, but in general keep these in mind:

1. UX research isn’t meant to be done in a vacuum. Quite the opposite, actually — it’s meant to be integrated into product development. One way to accomplish this? Understand how your product makes money and align your research goals with business goals.

2. Actionable recommendations serve multiple purposes. They are both the next steps to get your team from the baseline (where you are now) and closer to your objectives (where you want to be), based on the evidence you’ve collected.

‍3. Sharing is caring. A good research repository goes a long way (and is the first step to encouraging your team to leverage insights continuously).

3. Research challenges vary by organization (and are fairly complicated!)

Speaking of challenges and true to the range of research experience among the course cohorts, attendee questions spanned research 101 to 401. Topics that frequently arose during our live Q&A included:

• Scoping a research project, particularly within niche industries such as healthcare or nonprofit organizations where nuance is so critical
• Selecting the best method to support your user research, especially when you can’t afford to get it wrong the first time
• Asking the right questions of your research participants
• How to quickly make sense of the rich data that you receive from your research (and where technology can help)
• How to distill complex data and findings to a wide range of stakeholders

So, how can Researchers help address at least some of these questions by non-researchers? 

• Research usually takes some time to be actionable; be proactive by building a body of knowledge across projects and make it accessible to your product partners
• To expand on the above point, let’s do a quick callback to the research repository note above — centralizing research sources of truth can help PwDRs “self-serve” their most common research questions, as we covered in our fourth session of the course.

Research 101 for Non-Researchers: That’s a wrap

Lest we forget that research can be an overwhelming and, at times, intimidating process for non-researchers to undertake. Luckily, we just wrapped up a course that you can check out any time for free and on-demand.

Is there anything else we should cover for a future course? Let us know on LinkedIn.