The Sensemaking Business
Summary
You collect data, synthesize findings, and deliver insights. But what you’re really doing is something bigger: helping your entire organization make sense of the people it serves. Dana Chisnell has spent four decades in UX — from writing one of the earliest usability manuals to leading culture change across a 260,000-person U.S. federal agency. In this keynote, she shares what she’s learned about the real work of research and why it matters more than ever. Key takeaways: - Research is sensemaking, not just a deliverable — and that distinction changes how you work - Every research activity is an act of organizational culture change - You don’t need authority to have influence - Your path will look different from anyone else’s, and that’s the point
Key Insights
-
•
The fundamental role of UX researchers is sense making and facilitating culture change, not just delivering insights.
-
•
Skipping learning phases in design adoption often backfires; teams must experience each phase to grow effectively.
-
•
Root problems often differ from the symptoms organizations initially present; deep discovery is essential.
-
•
Researchers serve as vital connectors between users’ realities and organizational decision-makers.
-
•
Bringing stakeholders directly into research sessions accelerates culture change and shared understanding.
-
•
Traditional research reports are often ineffective; visualizations, prototypes, and collaborative artifacts are more impactful.
-
•
Reframing risk concerns can transform opposition to research into support by showing how research mitigates risk.
-
•
Research at scale in real-world contexts provides invaluable validation beyond abstract data or metrics.
-
•
Long-term perseverance and incremental change can transform even large, bureaucratic organizations to center human needs.
-
•
Design leadership is not about being the best individual contributor but enabling others to make human-centered decisions.
Notable Quotes
"Your world is different. You probably have a design related title and tools, but the business we’re in is the same sense making for culture change."
"You are the expert in understanding the lived experiences of your users. It’s ongoing work helping those around you develop a shared understanding."
"Stop writing reports. If people aren’t reading them, try drawing, prototyping, and inviting others to make and visualize with you."
"When your product manager asks what users said before a decision, or your engineer notices accessibility without prompting, that’s sense making happening."
"You can do evolution or you can do revolution. I prefer evolution where everyone collaborates toward the same goals."
"The hardest job I ever had was redesigning an organization, not just a system."
"Every time you bring a teammate into a research session, you’re scaling change."
"Researchers are in the sense making business—they connect the present to the future, step by step, helping users get what they need."
"Seeing someone a decade later give useful UX feedback because they learned from you shows the power of long-term impact."
"You come from the future. Now go build it."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Cohorts are consistently one of the highest rated parts of the conference — they’re a fantastic way to learn together."
Bria AlexanderOpening Remarks
September 9, 2022
"Hip-hop culture proves that we can re-animate spaces and create generative communities even in spaces that weren’t built for us."
Tricia WangSpatial Collapse: Designing for Emergent Culture
January 8, 2024
"If executives are responsible for the why and managers are responsible for the what, then directors are responsible for the how."
Peter MerholzThe Trials and Tribulations of Directors of UX
July 13, 2023
"I want a story that moves and quakes me, palpitates my heart and shakes me."
Victor UdoewaResearch in the Pluriverse
March 29, 2023
"Research should prioritize participant and researcher well-being over institutional convenience."
Rachael Dietkus, LCSWThe power to heal and harm
March 13, 2025
"Remote, unmoderated usability studies give designers feedback in less than a day."
Marjorie Stainback Kelsey KingmanTransforming Strategic Research Capacity through Democratization
October 24, 2019
"We practice care by being anti-urgency—questioning if things really need to happen when we think they do."
Sahibzada Mayed Lauren LinCultivating Design Ecologies of Care, Community, and Collaboration
October 4, 2023
"Killing the handoff doesn’t mean killing the critique, it means putting it inside the same loop that ships the code."
Paul BakausKilling the handoff: Iterating design live in the browser on real production code
June 10, 2026
"It’s difficult to break the rules when they’re not very clear or even there."
Neema MahdaviOperationalizing DesignOps
November 7, 2018
