Rosenverse

Unsticking Research for Better Information Flow

Gold
Wednesday, March 11, 2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Share the love for this talk
Unsticking Research for Better Information Flow
Speakers: Jon White and Erin May
Link:

Summary

Creating and sharing knowledge to make better decisions and solve problems is the core of a research function. An “insight” helps organize disparate information – it makes things clear.

Key Insights

  • Deliberate documentation with decision focus and tagging is key to making research insights retrievable and actionable across teams.

  • Limiting key insights to five per report prevents dilution and conflicting stakeholder interpretations.

  • AI tools like SharePoint Copilot and custom GPTs can effectively interrogate research repositories to detect duplication and support decision-making.

  • Tagging documents with metadata such as decision informed, core problem, and expiry date helps both humans and AI find relevant insights quickly.

  • Curated communication—using output-only channels for high-frequency updates and targeted in-depth emails—prevents stakeholders from becoming overwhelmed.

  • Research insights have varying shelf lives; pricing studies may expire in 12-18 months while usability heuristics last longer.

  • Keeping research reports focused on actionable decisions ties the insight work directly to business impact and ROI.

  • An insight is a finding plus an opinion, emphasizing the so-what that ties data to business and user meaning.

  • Scaling insight sharing requires evolving processes suited to company size, culture, and tools availability.

  • Building relationships with customer-facing teams strengthens research influence and amplifies insights usage.

Notable Quotes

"What good are the insights if we can’t get them where they need to go, when they need to go there, and make sure they get used?"

"We end up with this junk drawer phenomenon with spaghetti-fication of different insights being passed around with no clarity."

"Deliberate documentation can be the decider between something being useful in the future or not."

"An insight is a finding plus an opinion — it’s the so what of it all."

"No more than five key insights — any more and teams start going off in different directions."

"We are not just doing research to find stuff out; we need to show a return on investment on everything."

"Don’t try to tag all historical work at once — tag as you go to avoid re-platforming nightmares."

"Curated communication means linking, not explaining — think of your messages as a doorway, not the destination."

"If you’re a team of one, focus on getting one stakeholder at a time to sponsor your work."

"If you’re in a big company, think smaller to work bigger — narrow your focus rather than get distracted by every shiny tool."

Ask the Rosenbot
Mariah Hay
Ethics in Tech Education: Designing to Provide Opportunity for All
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Patrick Boehler
The service shift: transforming media organizations to create real value through design
2025 • Advancing Service Design 2025
Gold
Rima Campbell
Increase Productivity and Drive Business Impact
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Sam Proulx
Prototype Reviews, People With Disabilities, and You
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Ryan Matthew
Bridging Design and Code: AI-Powered Design System Integration
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Victor Udoewa
Beyond Methods and Diversity: The Roots of Inclusion
2024 • Advancing Research 2024
Gold
Bob Baxley
Leading with Design Operations Past and Present
2019 • DesignOps Community
Alissa Briggs
How to Coach Enterprise Experimentation
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Satyam Kantamneni
Do You Have an Experience Vision?
2023 • Enterprise Community
Todd Healy
Driving Change with CX Metrics
2023 • Enterprise UX 2023
Gold
Benjamin Real
Maturity Models: A Core Tool for Creating a DesignOps Strategy
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Deanna Washington
Connecting the Ops: Plenary Panel and Closing Circle
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Matt Bernius
Trauma-informed Research: A Panel Discussion
2021 • Advancing Research Community
Marc Majers
Interrupted UX - Add A Dose of Reality To Usability Testing
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Shipra Kayan
Make your research synthesis speedy and more collaborative using a canvas
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Clemens Janssen
Efficiently Scaling Research as a Team of One
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold

More Videos

Daniel Gloyd

"The Shaker village sidewalks followed people’s natural inclinations, not forcing unnatural movement."

Daniel Gloyd

Warming the User Experience: Lessons from America's first and most radical human-centered designers

May 9, 2024

Aletheia Delivre

"Sometimes business context points us to a direction where we no longer have the safety of our identity constructs."

Aletheia Delivre

New Shapes and Emerging Identities for Design Ops

September 11, 2025

Dr. Jamika D. Burge

"Inclusive teams, especially women-led ones, are more productive and effective at achieving results."

Dr. Jamika D. Burge Mansi Gupta

Advancing the Inclusion of Womxn in Research Practices

September 15, 2022

Peter Van Dijck

"User testing for AI still means watching people use it, plus collecting analytics and running evaluations."

Peter Van Dijck

Designing AI-first products on top of a rapidly evolving technology

June 10, 2025

Ricardo Martins

"Cluster analysis is very useful if you want to avoid a one-size-fits-all approach to product or service design."

Ricardo Martins

Unlocking the power of advanced quantitative methods

March 12, 2025

Emily Danielson

"The app was a huge flop because we let our excitement about helping people let our design principles slide."

Emily Danielson

“I mean, I can lift a shovel”: Design Skills in Disaster Response

June 9, 2022

Bria Alexander

"If you feel uncomfortable or unsafe engaging in this community, we want to know about it."

Bria Alexander

Opening Remarks

March 29, 2023

Jerome “Axle” Brown

"I literally ask, how are you feeling right now? It’s about connecting on a human level before diving into data."

Jerome “Axle” Brown

How to Use Self-Directed Learning to Ensure Your Research Insights are Heard and Acted Upon

March 11, 2021

Sarah Williams

"Creating experience principles helped democratize design decision-making across teams inside and outside the design group."

Sarah Williams

A Framework for CX Transformation

June 11, 2021