Rosenverse
The Future of Research: Bridging the Gaps

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

The Future of Research: Bridging the Gaps

Thursday, July 29, 2021 • Advancing Research Community
Share the love for this talk
The Future of Research: Bridging the Gaps
Speakers: Steve Portigal , Alba Villamil and Sam Ladner
Link:

Summary

During this call, Advancing Research 2021 conference curators invite a special panel of researchers to discuss the future of research. In particular, panelists share their perspectives about the research practice and how they expect the discipline to evolve. To provide additional grounding for our conversation, we discuss, broadly, results from the survey we recently launched, which is designed to learn more about the topics and themes that you, the community, believe will be important to advancing the research and insight industry over the next year. Our esteemed panel of cross-disciplinary researchers, includes: Steve Portigal (Principal Researcher & Rosenfeld Media Author), Dr. Gloria Osardu (Senior Researcher at Amazon), Alba Villamil (Principal Researcher and HmntyCntrd Facilitator) and Sam Ladner (Principal Researcher at Workday). Dr. Jamika Burge (Entrepreneur and Head of Experience Products & Platforms Research at Capital One), one of our AR curators, will be moderating the discussion. Join us!

Key Insights

  • Remote research practices evolved rapidly due to the pandemic but lack collective processing of what has been gained or lost.

  • Research must move from reactive, evaluative roles to strategic partners influencing long-term roadmaps.

  • Building relationships with internal change agents can amplify research impact within organizations.

  • A sociological and equity-centered approach is essential to make research inclusive and address systemic biases.

  • Organizational cultures often exclude or harm researchers of color, impacting diversity and inclusion.

  • Large companies like Amazon align research closely with yearly business planning to anticipate future needs.

  • Bridging insights across multiple disciplines (data, marketing, research) creates more influential narratives.

  • Claims of research as sole 'human experience' experts risk arrogance; humility and collaboration are key.

  • The field is experiencing a tension between professionalization with standards and the need for inclusivity and diversity.

  • Training and supporting the next generation of researchers is critical to avoid repeating past mistakes and to sustain the field's growth.

Notable Quotes

"We have to figure out the strategic, unique value to our clients, stakeholders, and customers."

"There’s this inflection point about how research work is done and what the system wants from knowledge workers."

"The pandemic is a message from the universe to pause and rethink who we hire and how we train."

"Our standard research frameworks and tools are often inadequate for addressing complex social problems."

"Strategic positioning means research is a decision-making tool, not just a service to requests."

"I’ve started giving up on product management and focusing more on product strategy and senior executives."

"We see value-based research strategies emerging that center equity and ethics at the highest levels."

"Research tells stories data alone cannot, helping stakeholders understand customer feelings."

"Organizations are racialized and systematically exclude qualified researchers of color."

"If we believe we're the only champions of human experience, then we’re not doing the right job."

Ask the Rosenbot
Jess Greco
Claiming your power: Practical tools for amplifying your unique voice
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Brad Peters
Short Take #1: UX/Product Lessons from Your Industry Peers
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Mitchell Bernstein
Organizing Chaos: How IBM is Defining Design Systems with Sketch for an Ever-Changing AI Landscape
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Aras Bilgen
Who does the math: A designer’s journey in building an AI-based tutoring app
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Llewyn Paine
Day 1 Using AI in UX with Impact
2025 • Designing with AI 2025
Gold
Alan Williams
Designing essential financial services for those in need
2022 • Civic Design Community
Kyle Godbey
Non-linear service design for complex adaptive systems
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Bria Alexander
State of DesignOps Panel
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Christian Crumlish
Introduction by our Conference Chair
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Joseph Meersman
Sweating the Pixel: Scaling Quality through Critique
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Magdalena Zadara
Zero Hour: How to Get Far Quickly When Starting Your Digital Service Unit Late
2022 • Civic Design 2022
Gold
Maria Skaaden
Continuous Design: One eye on the horizon and the other on the next wave
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Elizabeth Churchill
Exploring Cadence: You, Your Team, and Your Enterprise
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Victor Udoewa
Radical Participatory Design: Decolonizing Participatory Design Processes
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Marisa Bernstein
It Takes GRIT: Lessons from the Small, but Mighty World of Civic Usability Testing
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Shipra Kayan
Make your research synthesis speedy and more collaborative using a canvas
2025 • Rosenfeld Community

More Videos

Leah Buley

"You cannot be emotionally attached to whether your UX suggestions get implemented."

Leah Buley Joe Natoli

Ask Me Anything with Leah Buley and Joe Natoli, co-authors of The User Experience Team of One (2nd edition)

October 8, 2024

Heidi Trost

"Onboarding is often fleeting, so influencing security behavior there has an outsized impact."

Heidi Trost

To Protect People, You Have to Protect Information: A Human-Centered Design Approach to Cybersecurity

January 23, 2025

Cornelius Rachieru

"Focusing exclusively on design systems, sprints, and agile commoditizes design and reduces it to cookie-cutter processes."

Cornelius Rachieru

Handling Complexity: Framing a Scale of Design

June 9, 2021

Michele Marut

"I was trained to isolate very specific data points and only assert what was backed by evidence."

Michele Marut

Research Repositories Reconsidered

February 14, 2019

Kim Fellman Cohen

"Our team’s improvement wasn’t the final state—we set ambitious goals to be in the 80th to 90th percentile next year."

Kim Fellman Cohen

Measuring the Designer Experience

October 23, 2019

Joanna Vodopivec

"Starting with positives and acknowledging good work helps break down resistance when sharing findings that reveal weak points."

Joanna Vodopivec Prabhas Pokharel

One Research Team for All - Influence Without Authority

March 9, 2022

Tess Dixon

"There’s a lot of pressure on ops people and managers to make everything perfect all the time for staff."

Tess Dixon

C'mon Get Happy

September 29, 2021

Theresa Neil

"Inheriting marketing style guides is the biggest mistake in data visualization color use because they’re usually not appropriate."

Theresa Neil

Just Build Me a Dashboard!

April 9, 2019

Kayla Farrell

"I started spending more time understanding agent processes at a deeper level beyond just answering tactical questions."

Kayla Farrell Chelsey Glasson Sean Fitzell Jared LeClerc

What It's Like To Be a User Researcher at Compass

March 12, 2021