Summary
During this interview, we'll hear how Senior UX Researcher, Nicole Wright has helped HoneyBook–a client management software company–democratize research, build a better product that led to a recent $1B valuation. Nicole will share her best practices, lessons learned and her vision for the future.
Key Insights
-
•
Democratizing research improves not just product quality but also internal collaboration and company culture.
-
•
Building a centralized research repository accessible across teams drives greater research adoption and shared insights.
-
•
Standardized taxonomies across teams are critical to efficiently organize and retrieve research insights.
-
•
Involving new hires company-wide in user calls accelerates empathy and user understanding from day one.
-
•
Adoption of research tools and processes takes time and requires incremental wins and ongoing training.
-
•
Research insights shared in daily briefings and Slack channels keep user needs visible across the organization.
-
•
Cross-functional partnership, including support, CS, marketing, and education, amplifies the impact of research.
-
•
Balancing research execution and process building is essential, especially for solo researchers growing to teams.
-
•
Having different access levels to the repository manages data quality, relevance, and ethical concerns.
-
•
Embedding research findings into education and support content helps solve user problems more holistically.
Notable Quotes
"Research isn’t just about building a great product; it’s about having a great company and stronger internal bonds."
"When new hires talk directly with users, they connect with the product in a way that makes the research insights stick."
"We had 1600 tags in our system at one point, which was overwhelming, so getting taxonomies aligned was a game changer."
"Adoption doesn’t happen overnight; it’s all about patience and incremental wins."
"It’s funny to talk about being a research team of one, managing five product teams, and how the repository helped focus research."
"We have a daily seven-by-seven meeting where research shares insights monthly, and sometimes more often depending on projects."
"By understanding other teams’ pain points, you can show them how democratized research can help solve their challenges."
"Most people have read-only access to summaries, while power users have broader access to dive deeper into research data."
"Having engineers watch research clips often leads to faster fixes because they feel the pain firsthand."
"We’re focusing in the next 6 to 12 months on connecting research with education to improve product learning and support."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"UX people do have research methods that fit into shorter product development cycles."
Noreen Whysel Katie SaindonShort Take #4: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers
December 6, 2022
"If we invest in green technologies today, we can secure a sustainable tomorrow."
Ash BrownSilver Linings: What DesignOps Learned in the Shift to WFH
October 23, 2020
"Designing at scale means handling millions of users and dozens of geographies with all their unique challenges."
Uday GajendarTheme 1: Introduction
June 9, 2021
"The double empathy problem: neither neurotypicals nor neurodivergents see each other’s empathy as empathy."
Cassini Nazir Meah LinThe Dangers of Empathy: Toward More Responsible Design Research
March 27, 2023
"We can’t say understanding users is someone else’s job; no white knight is coming to save us."
Gregg BernsteinOpportunistic Research with Gregg Bernstein
July 11, 2019
"Scott Cook noticed his wife’s frustration balancing their checkbook and realized millions more probably felt the same pain."
Kaaren HansonStop Talking, Start Doing
June 9, 2017
"75% of democratized studies don’t see full reporting mostly because stakeholders don’t have time for the analysis."
Erin May Roberta Dombrowski Laura Oxenfeld Brooke HintonDistributed, Democratized, Decentralized: Finding a Research Model to Support Your Org
March 10, 2022
"Reducing cognitive load on decision makers really helps them work with the data."
Brad Peters Anne MamaghaniShort Take #1: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers
December 6, 2022
"People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel."
Tutti TaygerlyVideconference: How to Work with Difficult People with Tutti Taygerly
June 25, 2020
Latest Books All books
Dig deeper with the Rosenbot
What are the best practices for organizing metadata and tagging in research repositories to balance structure and flexibility?
What role do competency maps play in guiding design team growth and hiring decisions?
How can knowledge management empower design teams to engage and win over skeptical government leaders?