Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Coexisting with non-researchers: Practical strategies for a democratized research future

Gold
Tuesday, March 11, 2025 • Advancing Research 2025

This video is featured in the PDI 2026 playlist.

Share the love for this talk
Coexisting with non-researchers: Practical strategies for a democratized research future
Speakers: Sean McKay
Link:

Summary

Research democratization is here to stay, with both researchers and people who do research contributing to knowledge creation. This session explores effective collaboration models and roles—curation, co-creation, and generation. It examines necessary boundaries and offers practical strategies for managing democratization, regaining agency, and ensuring shared power that strengthens the whole, rather than diminishing individual contributions.

Key Insights

  • Forming a cross-disciplinary 'customer team' with diverse roles breaks down silos and aligns internal perspectives around real user needs.

  • Field research involving direct user observation, like riding in tractors, reveals true user goals and pain points beyond assumptions.

  • Research’s impact is about shaping team thinking and collective understanding rather than just delivering insights.

  • The traditional model where researchers own research is fading; research is now a collective, continuous, and democratized activity.

  • Balancing risk and confidence helps decide when research is necessary, preventing research from becoming a bottleneck.

  • Researchers gain influence not by authority but through building helpful, respectful relationships and facilitating collaboration.

  • Understanding and aligning with current business objectives is critical alongside user needs to deliver recognizable business value.

  • Visual artifacts like mental models and scenario maps help create shared understanding across product, support, and engineering.

  • Depersonalizing conversations about research findings reduces conflict and keeps focus on achieving the right outcomes.

  • The future of research includes AI automation, cross-functional participation, and shifting from gatekeeping to guiding decisions.

Notable Quotes

"The entire customer experience was broken, users were frustrated, support teams were overwhelmed, and internally teams were struggling to align."

"Research isn't about collecting insights, it’s about shaping how teams think."

"Engineers started questioning old assumptions and product wasn’t just adjusting roadmaps, they were reframing decisions around user needs."

"If you give up, we all give up."

"Research is evolving. It’s not about ownership, it’s about impact."

"Research wasn’t meant to be a silo. It was meant to be a guiding function, a system for creating shared knowledge that drives better decisions."

"When done well, convergence means research isn’t a department, it’s a shared system of knowledge or a collective understanding that aligns teams."

"The ability to understand business needs and align efforts is key to delivering recognizable business value."

"Balancing risk and confidence helps teams move at the right speed for the right decisions."

"Leading the future of research isn’t about control, it’s about influence and impact."

Ask the Rosenbot
Feleesha Sterling
Building a Rapid Research Program
2023 • Enterprise Community
Ryan Matthew
DesignOps without Boundaries: Building More with What You Have
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Bassel Deeb
Do More With Less: Equip and Lead Design Orgs Through Adversity
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Benjamin Wiedmaier
Redefining Toolkits: Unbundling to Create a Perfect Match
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Andreas Huebner
What Is It Like To Be Part of The UX Team at Compass?
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Prerna Makanawala
Achieving Balanced Design Consistency
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Iram Shah
Closing Keynote: The View from the Top
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Shipra Kayan
Emerging principles for using AI in Design: What the product design team at Miro has learned from deeply integrating AI in their workflow
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
David Conrad
The Feeling of Data
2023 • Enterprise Community
Matt Bernius
Learnings from Applying Trauma-Informed Principles to the Research Process
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
Becoming a Civic Designer: Making the Move from Private to Public Sector
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Craig Brookes
"Just Make it Look Good" and Other Ways We're Misunderstood
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Aaron Stienstra
Leveraging Civic Design to Advance Equity and Rebuild Trust in the US Federal Government
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Dan Hill
Strategic design, slowdown, and the infrastructures of everyday life
2022 • Enterprise Community
Jorge Arango
AI as Thought Partner: How to Use LLMs to Transform Your Notes (3rd of 3 seminars)
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Nicole Umphress
Delivering Design Education During a Global Pandemic: Lessons Learned
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold

More Videos

Matt Stone

"People said, ‘I get it’ when a peer explained how their day actually changed—not from top-down communication."

Matt Stone

Scaling Empathy, A Case Study in Change Management

June 11, 2021

Luke Roberts

"Emergence is a moral concept—it can be a good thing or a terrible thing that emerges from systems."

Luke Roberts Christian Bason, Ph.D. Amanda Woolley Ben Reason

Panel Discussion

December 4, 2024

Cornelius Rachieru

"If you see a system, you cannot unsee it — systemic awareness changes how you approach design."

Cornelius Rachieru

Handling Complexity: Framing a Scale of Design

June 9, 2021

Patrizia Bertini

"Transparency requires all decisions to be clear and understandable to non-technical users."

Patrizia Bertini

Designing Within the Lines: How the EU AI Act Can Spark Better AI Innovation

December 11, 2025

Bria Alexander

"When I think about resilience, I think about flexibility, like trees that bend in strong winds instead of breaking — that starts with mindset and communication."

Bria Alexander Laura Gatewood Corey Long Daniel Orbach Laine Prokay Deanna Smith

The Big Question about Resilience: A panel discussion

September 23, 2024

Chris Hodowanec

"Recording videos with voiceover to walk through user flows has become invaluable for sharing complex scenarios."

Chris Hodowanec

Agile + User Experience: How to navigate the Agile landscape as an UX Practitioner

November 16, 2022

Briana Thomas

"Michael became our farmer maintaining steady flow; Davis our forger bringing world-class UX; Dana our gardener cultivating quality work."

Briana Thomas

The Quiet Force: Uncovering Hidden Leadership in High-Impact Design Teams

September 24, 2024

Mansi Gupta

"Male universality is one of the leading causes of gender gaps."

Mansi Gupta

Women-Centric Research: What, Why, How

March 29, 2023

Andreas Huebner

"Leadership buy-in now means we get to focus on bigger, generative research questions instead of just tactical usability studies."

Andreas Huebner Amy Takata Craig Brookes

What Is It Like To Be Part of The UX Team at Compass?

March 11, 2021