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.

Looking Back…to Look Ahead

Gold
Tuesday, March 26, 2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Share the love for this talk
Looking Back…to Look Ahead
Speakers: Steve Portigal
Link:

Summary

Over the past 25 years, Steve Portigal has seen tremendous growth in user research as a community of practice, as an industry, and as a career. Steve will look at some of the changes that he’s experienced and observed—positive, negative, or otherwise. He’ll share some of the potentially overlooked opportunities to advance our field, issues that demand our limited attention and concern. He’ll also share his perspective on the directions we can drive towards.

Key Insights

  • User research has roots back to Edison’s in-home researchers analyzing fuel consumption.

  • Time and motion studies in the early 20th century treated people like machines but laid groundwork for usability concepts.

  • Louis Cheskin’s 1940s experiments revealed how packaging shapes consumer perception, not just products themselves.

  • Xerox PARC in 1969 was pivotal for user interface design, inspiring Apple’s GUI innovations.

  • Interval Research (1982), founded by Paul Allen, linked research to startup incubation but mostly influenced culturally.

  • Kate Tassie coined PWDR in 2018 to distinguish trained researchers from those who simply do research, adding clarity to role definitions.

  • Corporate research often aligns researcher incentives with company success, shifting researcher focus compared to consultants motivated solely by integrity.

  • Transcription technology now equals human error rates, but the imperfect 'good enough' acceptance risks degrading research quality.

  • The evolution of tools—from cultural probes and disposable cameras to AI-driven platforms—shapes how research is conducted, for better or worse.

  • Emerging future scenarios warn of AI replacing UI researchers, variable corporate control of user experiences, and potential for user research as a shared public good.

Notable Quotes

"Historians say the past doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes."

"We all stand on the shoulders of giants."

"People in organizations are already, to some extent, out there talking to users."

"Research is complex because we use the term to mean anything and everything."

"The in-house researcher has some elements of the client and stakeholder roles."

"The curse of good enough is a real trap that we’re grappling with."

"Paper prototyping was the original scrappy; low fidelity tools produce different responses than high fidelity."

"Corporate capture of research has brought amazing good things but changed the truth to power role."

"Remote research is the default now, but we’ve lost access to rich in-person context."

"The future of user research is not one future but many futures to consider."

Ask the Rosenbot
Jason Mesut
Unmasking Design Leadership: Navigating leadership without neglecting ourselves
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Nicole Wright
Democratizing Research at HoneyBook
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Allison Sanders
Operating with Purpose
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Aditi Ruiz
Pulse Check: Empathy Mapping Your Product Manager, Pt. 2
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Peter Levin
Solve a Problem Here, Transform a Strategy There: Research as an Occasion for Expanding Organizational Possibility
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Paul Pangaro, PhD
Systems Disciplines: Table Stakes for 21st Century Organizations
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
B. Pagels-Minor
Breaking the Tension: The Power of Enabling Your Employees to Show Up Authentically
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Sabrina Mach
How to Design Your Design Operating Model
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Alexis Lucio
Scaling Accessibility Through Design Systems
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold
Charlotte Lee
Theme 1 Intro
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Jenny Price
From Tradition to Transformation: Unlocking Startup Agility in a Legacy Enterprise
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Ed Mullen
Designing the Unseen: Enabling Institutions to Build Public Trust
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Michelle Morrison
Culture Design
2020 • DesignOps Community
Maria Rosala
AI-Assisted Qualitative Analysis: What to Automate and What to Own
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Bria Alexander
OKRs—Helpful or Harmful?
2022 • DesignOps Community

More Videos

Victor Udoewa

"In Western modernity, if something is not an object, it is not real research or real knowledge."

Victor Udoewa

Beyond Methods and Diversity: The Roots of Inclusion

March 26, 2024

Peter Morville

"When we understand organizations as ecosystems, we recognize the need for organic simplicity."

Peter Morville

The Architecture of Understanding

May 13, 2015

Sam Ladner

"You have to be careful not to be too weird; mental models differ internationally."

Sam Ladner

How Research Can Drive Strategic Foresight

March 9, 2022

Michelle Bejian Lotia

"Having one centralized repository aligned with our culture and values made the most sense for us."

Michelle Bejian Lotia Anne-Marie Morell

Rolling Out a Repository: How Zapier Centralizes Insights from Across their Organization

March 28, 2023

Leisa Reichelt

"Choosing the right hill to die on is so important and so hard; the problems that matter come around again and again."

Leisa Reichelt

Opening Keynote: Operating in Context

November 7, 2018

Sarah Gallimore

"What if I said that this was actually the assignment: to write an essay using AI, helping students become familiar with translating their policy intent through AI?"

Sarah Gallimore

Inspire Progress with Artifacts from the Future

November 18, 2022

Joerg Beringer

"The system is live now analyzing audience-submitted tasks and producing results in minutes."

Joerg Beringer Thomas Geis

Scaling User Research with AI: Continuous Discovery of User Needs in Minutes

September 10, 2025

Peter Merholz

"Relying on process is not a proxy for quality, and divorcing process from content is a fatal enterprise mistake."

Peter Merholz

Customer-Centered Design Organizations

June 8, 2017

Dalia El-Shimy

"If you understand their language—gross merchandising value, monthly recurring revenue, daily active users—you speak their world."

Dalia El-Shimy

So You've Got a Seat at the Table. Now What?

March 31, 2020