Rosenverse

Accessible only to conference ticket holders.

Log in Create account Buy conference recordings

For 90 days after a conference, only paid ticket holders can watch conference videos. After that, all Gold members have access.

If you have purchased recording access and cannot see the video, please contact support.

Methodological toolkit for unique research impact

Gold
Wednesday, March 11, 2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Share the love for this talk
Methodological toolkit for unique research impact
Speakers: Kwabena Opoku , Leonie Annor-Owiredu and Sam Ladner
Link:

Summary

An intimate conversation between Sam Ladner and Leonie Annor-Owiredu examining the methodological toolkit researchers need to stand out in a landscape where traditional methods are widely accessible, AI is ubiquitous, and everyone is a researcher. Hosted by an early-career practitioner, this intergenerational discussion draws on the experience of two veterans to uncover what gives researchers unique value, what adds impact, and how methodological choices can deliver clarity, relevance, and measurable influence in a democratized research world.

Key Insights

  • Storytelling in research fosters participatory inquiry by inviting authentic narratives rather than extracting data.

  • Respecting the dignity of stories means acknowledging researchers as stewards rather than extractors of insights.

  • Cultural storytelling traditions, like Ghanaian folklore or North American Indigenous Turtle Island narratives, offer deep context for richer insights.

  • Multiple perspectives exist in every story, making it critical to avoid single-story or monoculture thinking in research.

  • Storytelling helps insights to cut through noise as people process stories more naturally than statistics or data.

  • Metacognition — deliberate reflection on decisions and processes — sustains rigor and deeper understanding in research.

  • Researchers experience 'aha moments' often during reflective, off-task activities like walking or doing chores, connecting disparate insights.

  • Editing research stories requires balancing completeness with clarity, often ruthlessly focusing on the core truths and themes.

  • Storytelling enables researchers to challenge organizational narratives and bring authentic participant voices directly to stakeholders.

  • Despite advances in AI and democratized research tools, human researchers remain essential for empathizing with multiple perspectives and integrating them into meaningful stories.

Notable Quotes

"Stories don’t work by extraction, people tell them and you listen."

"We are guardians and stewards of that story, giving people the agency to share their experience."

"Every story has multiple perspectives; there’s a story before me and a story after me."

"Monoculture in stories is like having just one narrative that doesn’t capture the full reality."

"Stories require no learning to understand, but you really have to work to make sense of statistics."

"Metacognition is rigor — being able to explain why you made every decision in your research."

"The moments when things 'click' often come during shower thoughts or while doing dishes — those reflective pauses matter."

"I use storytelling as armor to present findings clients may not want to hear, preserving the authentic voice."

"When editing, I focus on the sharpest image and core truths, what really matters to tell moving forward."

"Researchers have a responsibility to tell stories that remain intact long after we’ve left the organization."

Ask the Rosenbot
Kara Kane
Theme One Intro
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Lais de Almeida
Designing Data Services
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Sarah Brooks
Fireside chat with Sarah Brooks and Jen Pahlka
2021 • Civic Design Community
Tracy McGoldrick
IBM User Experience Program—The What, Why and How
2021 • Advancing Research Community
Roy Opata Olende
How Zapier Uses ‘All Hands Research’ to Increase Exposure to Users
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Erin May
Distributed, Democratized, Decentralized: Finding a Research Model to Support Your Org
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Russell Blair
Killing the blank page
2024 • Designing with AI 2024
Gold
Chris Govias
Perspectives on Civic Design
2021 • Civic Design Community
Cheryl Platz
Merging Improv with Design
2019 • Enterprise Community
Elana Chapman
Getting started with accessibility research
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Lona Moore
Scaling Design Beyond Designers
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
GenAI for UXers: A Rosenbot Demo and Discussion
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Amy Evans
How to Create Change
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Saskia Liebenberg
Start Small for Big Impact
2019 • DesignOps Community
Alicia D. Johnson
Disasters and the 21st Century
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Brendan Jarvis
Framing Tomorrow by Questioning Today
2022 • Design at Scale 2022
Gold

More Videos

Louis Rosenfeld

"Join our Slack channels—it’s really where the party is with gifts, jokes, and amazing conversations."

Louis Rosenfeld Bria Alexander

Opening Remarks

November 16, 2022

Dan Willis

"We’re going to say fortunately, and she’s going to say a sentence. Then we say unfortunately, and he’s going to say a sentence connected to that sentence."

Dan Willis

Enterprise Storytelling Sessions

June 8, 2017

Bethany Brown

"The real shift wasn’t speed, it was also trust."

Bethany Brown

Rewiring operations with service design and AI

November 20, 2025

Sheryl Cababa

"Pilots and prototyping create evidence to inform decisions, making change more achievable and less risky."

Sheryl Cababa Alexis Oh

Thinking in systems to address climate with Sheryl Cababa

June 12, 2024

Ruzanna Rozman

"Frameworks are a team sport; each player brings unique strengths that help create innovative solutions."

Ruzanna Rozman

Getting in Flow with Your Team

January 8, 2024

Llewyn Paine

"Blurring user faces loses context and doesn’t address voice privacy, making it an inadequate solution."

Llewyn Paine

[Demo] Deploying AI doppelgangers to de-identify user research recordings

June 5, 2024

Christopher Taylor Edwards

"Designing as a team means centering all the humans involved, not just the users."

Christopher Taylor Edwards Valerie Roske

Design as a Team Practice, A Practical Guide to Cross-functional Collaboration

September 30, 2021

Amy Gawronski Zuccaro

"I promise you they did not get up one morning and think, ah, yes, what my team needs is design ops."

Amy Gawronski Zuccaro

Advice for DesignOps Employee #1

September 29, 2021

Taylor Jennings

"Setting up a repository as a team of one or two is actually the prime time to establish processes like that."

Taylor Jennings Joe Nelson Alex Knoll

Repository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research

March 9, 2022