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.

Research After UX
Gold
Monday, March 25, 2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Share the love for this talk
Research After UX
Speakers: Nalini Kotamraju
Link:

Summary

Moving the research function out from UX can transform how insights influence product-making in an organization. In this talk, Nalini explains how and why she led this shift for her team at Salesforce, as well as the move’s effect on their work and impact. Nalini will also share lessons learned in the process - “the how to’s” and the “absolutely how not to’s” - that may inspire and guide leaders and individual contributors alike.

Key Insights

  • Decoupling research from UX can provide researchers with more agency to frame broader business problems beyond design.

  • Identity work is a fundamental challenge when moving research out of UX, requiring careful leadership attention.

  • Playing the long game through persistent business case building and internal socialization is essential for organizational change.

  • Research teams positioned alongside product management, engineering, and data science gain higher visibility and influence.

  • Measuring research impact becomes more complex but broader, shifting from simple metrics like study counts to influence and strategic involvement.

  • Research operations functions are crucial infrastructure that enable scalable, efficient research beyond UX.

  • Control over budget and headcount advocacy improves significantly when research reports outside UX.

  • COVID-19 amplified issues around identity and belonging for team members during organizational transitions.

  • In B2B companies like Salesforce, much product decision-making happens before UX, necessitating research involvement earlier in the lifecycle.

  • Providing reassurance and support for new research skills helps ease team anxieties during structural changes.

Notable Quotes

"What happens if research does not report into UX? What might happen if we uncouple research from UX?"

"We made this move in January 2020 — our research and insights team moved out of UX but stayed within product organizations."

"Conscious uncoupling is about identity — how one thinks of oneself defines oneself and how others define you."

"I believed we could do more — more for the company, customers, stakeholders, and ourselves if we had more agency."

"Our research practice was perceived largely as design testers, empathy vehicles, and policing functions — a narrow, reactive role."

"After the move, our work had more impact, more visibility, and we're present across the entire product life cycle."

"Research operations is the spine of any successful research and insights group."

"For the first time, I was able to advocate for funding directly for the research function at high executive levels."

"I underestimated how much identity our team tied to UX and how scary that loss felt to many of them."

"Our shift is structural, not because of personalities — it was needed to influence earlier, more business-centric decisions."

Ask the Rosenbot
Matt Bernius
Learnings from Applying Trauma-Informed Principles to the Research Process
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Robert Fabricant
Shifting dynamics: The evolving relationship between researchers, participants, and organizational systems
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Yolanda Rankin
Black Feminist Epistemology as a Critical Framework for Equitable Design
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
David Sternberg
Uncovering the hidden forces shaping user behavior
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
John Cutler
Oxbows, Rivers, and Estuaries: How to navigate the currents of change (without burning out)
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Lily Aduana
5 Reasons to Bring Your Recruiting in-House (and How To Do It)
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Cornelius Rachieru
Handling Complexity: Framing a Scale of Design
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Renee Reid
Becoming a ResearchH.E.R (Highly Enterprise Ready)
2019 • Enterprise Experience 2019
Gold
Maria Skaaden
Continuous Design: One eye on the horizon and the other on the next wave
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Ron Bronson
Design, Consequences & Everyday Life
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Saara Kamppari-Miller
Cartography for Design Communities
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Tutti Taygerly
Videconference: How to Work with Difficult People with Tutti Taygerly
2020 • Enterprise Community
Michelle Morrison
Practice What You Preach
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Jennifer Strickland
Fireside Chat: How Design Addresses a World on Fire
2022 • Civic Design Community
Michelle Morrison
Culture Design
2020 • DesignOps Community
Dan Ward
Failure Friday #1 with Dan Ward
2025 • Rosenfeld Community

More Videos

Jack Moffett

"Story pointing UX work would help us plan capacity and avoid being surprised by last minute discovery work."

Jack Moffett

SAFe or Sorry?

May 29, 2019

Lona Moore

"Design at ExxonMobil isn’t just what designers do; it’s about changing the way people think and solve problems through a human-centered lens."

Lona Moore

Scaling Design Beyond Designers

June 11, 2021

Tess Dixon

"Creating moments of joy in the day can encourage positive behaviors and brighten people’s days."

Tess Dixon

C'mon Get Happy

September 29, 2021

Tamara Kartoziia

"We needed a scalable system and GPS that everyone could follow with clear lanes for each team."

Tamara Kartoziia

Think global, adapt local: how service design accelerated B2B market entry by 6 months

November 20, 2025

Zen Ren

"Bloom's taxonomy forces us to focus on what we can do with information, not just repeating it."

Zen Ren

Taking Inspiration from Instructional Design for Research

March 10, 2022

Dan Willis

"Why wouldn't we design a fabulous cancellation process for customers who no longer want to be our customers?"

Dan Willis

Enterprise Storytelling Sessions

June 14, 2018

Christian Rohrer

"The PURE method measures usability by scoring cognitive load and friction at each step of fundamental user tasks."

Christian Rohrer

Research Operations at Scale

November 7, 2017

Darian Davis

"Reviewing decisions out loud held everyone accountable and made it harder for Jeff to forget or change his mind."

Darian Davis

Lessons from a Toxic Work Relationship

January 8, 2024

Amelia Cole

"You can use experience sampling data to select a small qualitative sample to dive deeper in interviews."

Amelia Cole

Data-Prompted Interviews

December 17, 2021