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.

Empathizing with the Empowered: Non-Researcher Responses to Democratization
Gold
Thursday, March 10, 2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Share the love for this talk
Empathizing with the Empowered: Non-Researcher Responses to Democratization
Speakers: Trisha Terhar
Link:

Summary

Our team has studied research democratization efforts of many shapes and sizes. This session focuses on what we've learned by approaching democratization from the perspective of the designers, product managers, marketers, and other non-researchers involved.

Key Insights

  • Democratization programs vary widely in training intensity, approval processes, and methodology restrictions depending on organizational needs.

  • Non-researchers often resist democratization programs because they perceive them as additional work on top of busy schedules.

  • Only a small subset of highly motivated power users, like Tony, actively engage deeply with democratization initiatives initially.

  • Balancing safeguards with inspiration—such as celebrating imperfect attempts—helps non-researchers learn without fear of mistakes.

  • Motivation is as critical as ability and opportunity in driving behavior change to adopt research practices among non-researchers.

  • The most successful democratization efforts align training with the non-researcher's immediate research needs, leveraging their peak motivation.

  • Customer empathy programs succeed better when interactions are highly relevant to non-researchers’ current work challenges.

  • Initial engagement in democratization initiatives tends to be low, with most users having minimal touchpoints early on.

  • Measuring success should go beyond activity counts to connecting research efforts to concrete business impact and ROI over time.

  • Building a democratization program requires substantial upfront effort including executive buy-in, training facilitation, and promotion.

Notable Quotes

"Democratization is becoming more of an umbrella term with different customers using it to mean very different things."

"Non-researchers work 12 hours a day and they don’t want to work 12 and a half hours a day."

"Resistance to adding to their workload is a huge factor why engagement is often low when these programs roll out."

"Give non-researchers some applause when they run a test even if it's not perfect, then help them do it differently next time."

"Aim for a healthy balance of safeguards and inspiration to protect customers but keep non-researchers motivated."

"We can over-index on capability and opportunity, but motivation is critical for non-researchers to engage in research activities."

"The most successful programs meet stakeholders at their highest point of motivation to participate in research."

"Non-researchers found traction when conversations were hyper relevant to what they were working on."

"Not everyone is necessarily asking to be empowered or ready to be empowered when launching these programs."

"Over the long term, democratization programs can even out workloads and reduce pressure on research teams."

Ask the Rosenbot
John Maeda
Making Sense of Enterprise UX
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
James Wieselman Schulman
Research is a team sport: advancing the work when everyone does the research
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Conference
Holly Cole
Panel Discussion: Growing People and Teams
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Erin Weigel
Get Your Whole Team Testing to Design for Impact
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Bria Alexander
Theme Two Intro
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Jacqui Frey
Flow and Superfluidity for Design Orgs
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Patrizia Bertini
Designing Within the Lines: How the EU AI Act Can Spark Better AI Innovation
2025 • DesignOps Community
World Usability Day Panel Discussion
2022 • DesignOps Community
Steve Krug
Don’t Make Me Think 3.0: What Endures and What Evolves in UX
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Conference
Molly Fargotstein
Multipurpose Communication & UX Research Marketing
2019 • DesignOps Community
Alla Weinberg
Workers Are Sick of Change: The Cure is Psychological Safety
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Fredrik Matheson
First-time users, longtime strategies: Why Parkinson’s Law is making you less effective at work – and how to design a fix.
2016 • Enterprise UX 2016
Gold
Savannah Carlin
Don't botch the bot: Designing interactions for AI
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Sheryl Cababa
Thinking in systems to address climate with Sheryl Cababa
2024 • Climate UX Interest Group
Devon Powers
Imagining Better Futures
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Ebru Namaldi
Designing the Designer’s Journey: Scaling Teams, Culture, and Growth Through DesignOps
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold

More Videos

Louis Rosenfeld

"Collaboration with peers and speaker coaches creates better content and stronger relationships beyond the conference."

Louis Rosenfeld Jemma Ahmed Christian Crumlish Uday Gajendar Chris Geison

Coffee with Lou #3: What Makes for a Successful UX Conference Presentation?

May 2, 2024

Jilanna Wilson

"Support software used to be really shitty and expensive, and Zendesk set out to fix that by making it beautifully simple."

Jilanna Wilson

Distributed Design Operations Management

October 23, 2019

Matt Webb

"The black Buzz Rickson jacket came from a work of fiction by William Gibson and then was made real."

Matt Webb

Context Window: Five Futures for AI

June 11, 2025

Sam Proulx

"If your company has customers with disabilities but no way to collect their feedback, you’re missing critical insights."

Sam Proulx

Accessibility: An Opportunity to Innovate

September 8, 2022

Theresa Neil

"We could become healthcare experts because we actually did have a portfolio in healthcare already."

Theresa Neil

Designing for Wellness: Specializing in Healthcare

May 22, 2024

Peter Van Dijck

"Use custom systems for experts to quickly review and rate outputs, making feedback cycles much faster."

Peter Van Dijck

Hands-on AI #2: Understanding evals: LLM as a Judge

October 15, 2025

Rachel Posman

"Why pick sides between product and design ops leadership? Why not both as user success leadership?"

Rachel Posman John Calhoun

"Ask Me Anything" with Rachel Posman and John Calhoun, Authors of the Upcoming Rosenfeld Book, The Design Conductors

September 25, 2024

Tricia Wang

"Building trust across functions means simple acts like scheduling lunch or coffee meetings with no agenda."

Tricia Wang

The most popular design thinking strategy is BS

January 27, 2022

Sarah Auslander

"Hiring people you want to design for is a powerful way of shifting power and valuing lived experience."

Sarah Auslander Betsy Ramaccia Gordon Ross

Insights Panel

November 18, 2022