Research After UX
Summary
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."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Design ops people are mutants coming at this profession from different directions."
Holly ColePanel Discussion: Growing People and Teams
November 8, 2018
"Fuji Xerox would show you how to set up collaborative posters not just as technology but as service for social capital."
Elizabeth ChurchillExploring Cadence: You, Your Team, and Your Enterprise
June 8, 2017
"You lie to yourself more than anyone else; the lie is that you are completely rational and objective."
Dave GrayLiminal Thinking: Sense-making for systems in large organizations
May 14, 2015
"Qualitative data is data. It’s okay to be informal and human when designing complex systems."
Alison Rand Sarah BrooksScaling Impact with Service Design
March 25, 2021
"The key to good diagrams is accessibly rendered, content driven, and visually supported."
Abby CovertStuck? Diagrams Help
October 27, 2022
"All designers have responsibility to communicate upstream and downstream, sharing their work context and contributing to the DP&M system."
Ellie Krysl Jon FukudaPlanned Right. Managed Right. Designed Right.
June 6, 2023
"We are drowning in an endless sea of data yet we are stuck in an insight desert."
Jill FruchterInconvenient Insights: The Researcher's Role is to Stay Curious
March 29, 2023
"LLMs don't just match keywords or labels. They infer meaning, extract subtle nuances, and understand intent behind words."
Kritika YadavOptimizing AI Conversations: A Case Study on Personalized Shopping Assistance Frameworks
June 10, 2025
"I feel like I helped to create the environment that that came from, so I certainly have responsibility."
Jim KalbachPeace is waged with sticky notes: Mapping Real-World Experiences
June 14, 2018
