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What's Next for Research?
Summary
For the next Advancing Research Community Call, we’re going to switch things up. We’ll be breaking into small discussion groups to get thoughts from you about the current challenges, opportunities, and key themes for the future of research. You’ll have the opportunity to facilitate or contribute to your group’s discussion of the burning issues in our field. How are you thinking about users, participants, stakeholders, and communities we serve? What changes do you see to the frameworks, toolkits, and methods we apply to understanding the problem space? Into which areas (e.g., industry, academia, government, nonprofit) can research move and from which areas can research borrow; where are the opportunities for us to bridge divides? Join us on June 17th to share and learn what’s next for the practice of research.
Key Insights
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Killing a product can be one of the most impactful outcomes of user research, as noted by Tony from group one.
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Inclusion in research must account for multiple dimensions including sexuality, neurodiversity, and ethnicity, as discussed by Monday in group four.
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Democratization of research is expanding the number of people involved, increasing diversity but also creating challenges in specialization, highlighted by John in group eight.
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There is a growing need for governance and rigor in research methodologies to maintain quality amid democratization, emphasized by group six.
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Cross-organizational communication remains a challenge; leveraging existing tools like newsletters and wikis can improve insight sharing beyond research silos, as observed by group nine.
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Ethical considerations like privacy and security need to become mainstream topics championed by UX researchers within their organizations, per Sheila in group three.
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Impact measurement often focuses on business outcomes, but some fear this narrows research’s broader value and language of influence, according to group ten.
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There is potential in laddering stakeholder involvement from passive viewers of research artifacts to active co-researchers, a concept discussed by group ten.
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Democratization involves teaching others which could reduce time dedicated to doing actual research work, creating tension, noted by group six.
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Specialized roles such as DesignOps and UX recruiters are emerging with research’s expansion, offering new career pathways, as brought up by group eight.
Notable Quotes
"One of the most important parts of our job is killing the product."
"We hope that topics like privacy, security, and ethics become more amplified and mainstream throughout the organization."
"People are talking the talk about diversity and inclusion, but the fear is, are they really walking the walk?"
"The pyramid has gotten so much larger; the number of people feeling special at the bottom is growing."
"We need more governance and rigor around methodologies rather than just democratization."
"Connectivity and communication across organizational silos like product, marketing, and sales is key to advancing research impact."
"The ladder of engagement for stakeholders could range from watching videos to becoming co-researchers with us."
"The existing insights repositories aren’t engaging other parts of the organization effectively."
"Assuming business language is the ultimate goal can preclude other valuable perspectives in research impact."
"There are more and more specialized roles emerging as research expands, like DesignOps and UX recruiting."
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