Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
A Genuine Conversation about the Future of UX Research
Summary
Key Insights
-
•
Aligning user research outcomes with business goals is critical for demonstrating research value.
-
•
AI offers opportunities for continuous discovery but raises concerns over bias and ethical transparency.
-
•
Democratizing research involves enabling non-researchers to conduct basic studies, freeing skilled researchers for complex tasks.
-
•
A mature organizational environment is necessary to successfully democratize research without sacrificing quality.
-
•
Research quality can be evaluated using reliability and validity concepts adapted from academia.
-
•
Not all research activities require advanced skills; even product managers can be trained in targeted, simple research types.
-
•
Organizational change management is as important as research execution for advancing user-focused practices.
-
•
The UX research community debates moving past the term 'democratization' to focus on evolving roles amidst technological change.
-
•
Measuring UX research value is complex because impact permeates across teams and is less quantifiable than engineering outputs.
-
•
Despite evolving roles and tools, there will always be a need for specialized, skilled researchers for longitudinal and rigorous studies.
Notable Quotes
"How do we show the value of the work that enables us to really advocate for the humans whom we are serving?"
"Building for humans is a huge challenge because humans are multi-layered, weird, and wonderful irrational creatures."
"If we are truly going to create customer-centric organizations, every single person needs firsthand exposure to customers."
"Democratization has been happening for over 20 years and it’s only going to keep happening."
"User research itself is not a single function but many disciplines that require integrity and stewardship."
"We need to move past the point of who does what and into how our roles are changing with technology."
"We know what is not good research, but defining and communicating what good research looks like is more challenging."
"The ultimate measure of our research is its impact—did we build the right thing and did it have the expected effect?"
"Organizational change management requires as much care and effort as executing good research."
"There is always more work to be done than we will ever be able to do, so enabling others to participate is beneficial."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"We treat our shared tooling and design system as a product with a dedicated team maintaining reusable components and governance."
Shawna Hein Kevin HoffmanCreate a Cohesive Civic Design Practice Across Agency, Vendors, and Contracts
November 17, 2022
"Embedding micro-lessons into team rituals sets an ongoing expectation that customer learning never ends."
Crystal YanBuilding a Customer-Centric Culture
March 30, 2020
"Self-directed learning is hard and busy, but you have to make time and schedule learning religiously."
Sara ConklinA UXer’s 12-Month Journey from Climate Concern to Climate Credibility
June 26, 2025
"HITS indexes individual insights, not just whole reports, so you can drill down into the actual claims behind evidence."
Matt DuignanHITS, Microsoft's internal human insight system: From research library to living body of knowledge
July 16, 2019
"Giving people control over their work is just as important as validating their experiences to reduce burnout."
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW Uday Gajendar Dr. Dawn Emerick Dawn E. Shedrick, LCSWLeading through the long tail of trauma
July 13, 2022
"Align on what you’re looking for before the interview to evaluate non-traditional candidates fairly."
Discussion
June 9, 2017
"The hardest part is acting on feedback, which requires integrating tools and aligning multiple teams like research, product, marketing, and customer success."
Aleksandra Korczynska Caroline Jarrett Justyna ParmeeSurvey Tools
March 12, 2026
"Sketch’s open file format allowed us to build custom tooling that shapes the design data to our needs."
Luca RagerEmpowering Gaming at Scale: How Xbox Builds Powerful, Automated, and Distributed Design Systems with Sketch
September 30, 2021
"Speculative research requires participatory methods, putting people into future scenarios, because people often can't articulate what they will want."
Ovetta SampsonResearch in the Automated Future
March 11, 2022
