Turning Research Ripples into Waves
Summary
Growing organizational research capacity requires both bottom-up and top-down changes that can be daunting to tackle. Hana Nagel will examine the challenge of scaling research ops through the lens of social change theory, showing how service design and systems thinking can be used to create a strategy to increase research’s impact on product. By building collaboration, connection and community, you can bring enough people together to turn research ripples into waves.
Key Insights
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Scaling UX research is a form of social and systems change requiring new patterns of interaction within complex organizational systems.
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Small, iterative interventions targeted at key moments, like early product development, yield outsized impact on systemic change.
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Firsthand engagement of product owners with UX research—conducting or moderating interviews—triggers a positive shift in valuing research.
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Theory of Change combined with system mapping and service design helps identify effective intervention points and align stakeholders.
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Non-researchers can be empowered to conduct UX research through safe, low-risk practice spaces, increasing scale and speed of research use.
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Rituals, as repeated group activities embodying organizational values, serve as leverage points to embed new behaviors sustainably.
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Grassroots change needs empathy that validates existing values while introducing new behaviors to achieve better outcomes.
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Top-down alignment, especially with engineering leadership and C-level, is crucial for resources and scaling impact in large enterprises.
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Community building through newsletters, Slack workspaces, and Ask Me Anything sessions increases visibility, engagement, and ownership of UX research.
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Persistence amid setbacks and adaptive shifts in strategy enable systemic change to progress from initial ripples to sustained wave swells of impact.
Notable Quotes
"If you make a change in one part of the system, it ripples out and you can’t always know the full scale of that impact."
"It’s not just empathy, but allowing people to understand all feelings are valid while offering new behaviors that reflect their values."
"Firsthand engagement with UX research shows that it doesn’t slow you down — it can actually help things move faster."
"Rituals embody our values by translating those values into repeated actions that sustain behavior change."
"Scaling change starts at the margins and ripples from the periphery into the center of a system."
"Design is a way to create better futures — better alternatives — but it requires persistent realistic optimism."
"You have to create a safe space for people to make mistakes in practicing UX research, because confidence grows over time."
"People not only need insights; they need confidence that they are making the right decisions with those insights."
"Facilitating change means giving others ownership, so they become responsible for finishing that change."
"It’s not incumbent upon you to finish making this world a better place but neither are you free to desist from it."
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