Democratizing Research Without Jeopardizing Your Job

all right everybody i think we can go ahead and get rolling it's the top of the hour um one more presentation to go uh this has been really good conference so far some really really compelling topics um so why don't we keep this momentum rolling uh we've got our next presenter is sean good from jane.com so you know we began the day with liz castles giving us an overview of the agile research toolkit um sean's going to bring us down to earth a little bit uh so you know give us some insight into okay if we start you know implementing these efficiencies if we start you know do we run the risk of agiling ourselves out of a job and how do we avoid that so democratizing research without jeopardizing your job is his topic and i'm gonna get out of the way and let sean do his thing all right hopefully everyone can hear me good all right let's see all right let's see i'm gonna share my screen and hopefully you can see a deck slide all right good this is always the most nerve-wracking part about any uh zoom meeting is the first part well um all right hello i will jump right in uh thank you bill uh for the short intro um also thank you to accelerant research for hosting these conferences um i'm pretty new to them actually but as i was leading through going through some of the past conference speakers and their decks um so enlightening so interesting and educational i'm you know really honored to be a part of it and so um thank you for having me and for inviting me to chat a little bit about what i love to talk about every day user research um let me go ahead and dive in um as he mentioned the uh topic of today is democratizing research without jeopardizing your job a lot of this is going to be coming from personal experience and i'll explain why and i hope that all of you find it interesting engaging helpful no matter what kind of role you're in the size of your organization and how things break out so let's see quick introduction um as he mentioned my name is sean good i am a user experience researcher at a company called jane.com um i've been doing this for three years uh all with jane actually i've been with jean for four years my background is actually in marketing and advertising and so i came over from the ad agency world ad agency life to join the tech side of business and in that i made a lateral move into user research and i absolutely love it i love what i do every day i find it super interesting and engaging and i love talking about it i'm currently i'm the only user researcher at gene we used to have a second my form manager but um we have contracted down to just one and that's how it's been for the past two years now and my role currently pertains to product research but i do expand my responsibilities out because i have democratized my own research so i touch a couple other departments as well i'm doing usability testing customer surveying competitive analysis and research and really anything else that comes across my desk that relates to the customer that we want or that we currently have a little bit about gene.com just either have a little background info um it was founded in utah in 2011. we just celebrated our 10th uh anniversary as we called it um we began as a limited time deal site so if you remember about 2010 to 2013 these were really popular uh the deal a day thing um the the countdown timers we managed to survive that and now we are thriving with a lot more than those deals we still run on a limited time model um what makes this unique um we are e-commerce retail targeting women um about 98 of our customers are women um and we source our products similar to etsy through independent sellers we have currently about 3 000 active sellers a lot of these are small businesses a lot of women-owned businesses throughout the us it's been really exciting to work for jane and to not only see our own growth but the growth of our sellers that we partner with so just to dive right in democratizing research what is it and why is it important so as i mentioned i'm the only researcher at gene.com and i have been for a while um it's been important in my situation to democratize research because i'm only a person of one we have about 200 people working in jane right now and there's a lot of questions going around and right now we haven't had the budget or the desire to expand research therefore it's been up to me to democratize that out and get more people on board of the importance of user research and how it can benefit them outside of just product or even just user research that i do so today just to kind of give a baseline definition when i say democratization of research i'm really meaning creating an environment where those who aren't researchers feel empowered to engage in the user research process there are a couple different things that this accomplishes for you when you uh manage to do it um one of them is proving value and so proving value in user research and the process itself i'm going to go into these in a bit more depth later on but um showing through insights and roi that it's worth taking the time to perform research to invest in a researcher or a team of researchers and to prioritize it in decision making processes democratization also helps expand research capabilities on a budget um when i started at jane we're a company of a hundred people um and so there was a lot of work and not a lot of hands to do it but by expanding that out getting people interested and engaged and even participating i'm able to stretch my skill set and provide more services for the company on the budget of one and this might be valuable to you as well as you're looking around at your organizations you might see a need for user research but you may see a budget lacking for scaling up the people who do that you can step in and create these processes that help extend your reach on a budget which is really helpful especially in a smaller startup or small business and then third democratizing builds a research mining organization to me this has been most important and most rewarding but when people are involved in this process and understand what's going on behind the scenes they become not only interested and engaged but they start to think like a researcher even if that's not their primary goal um so they're making decisions based off of the same data or they're asking similar questions they are thinking about what questions they don't have answers to yet before they go and make decisions and that just means that your organization starts to move as one it's very efficient and it takes the needs of the consumer into the first uh the highest priority um and this is something that i've seen at gene and i'll talk about a little later as well but as far as democratization goes i tried to break it down into three out of many different steps of what you can do i was really going back and forth on how many different ways i've done this or it could be done um sorry just checking the chat making sure people can hear me um so i broke it down to just three um but of course this is going to depend on where you are as far as your role your management how much do they let you in and out of your guardrails what are the needs of the company the maturity of the company and the research teams that they already have but let's start with this one right here building bridges i'm going to talk about how you can build bridges across your organization um to start this process and then keep it going i'm going to talk about delegating you know good or bad and like i mentioned we don't want to jeopardize our jobs so how can we find this balance within delegation that uh keeps you involved and at the forefront while also getting other people's involved got other people involved and stretching that reach of your uh skill set and third i'm gonna call it cyb cover your butt um this is also a part of not jeopardizing your own roles as you expand your responsibilities and you start to bring in others who maybe aren't as trained in research as you might be there come with certain risks but there are ways to mitigate those risks so i'm going to go over a couple of those to hopefully help you sleep better at night i was talking to a friend but a lot of this is also based on this impostor syndrome that at least i deal with daily i don't know maybe some of you as well but um if you know your stuff if you can cover your butt um things work out for the best in the end and then last thing before i get rolling i just want to acknowledge my own biases to everyone um like i said i've been working at james for four years that is my experience in user research we've been it's a special case um so as i'm talking note that these are illustrated by my experiences and they may not relate to you but i try to understand that and hopefully you will as well and like i said i hope this can help some of you let's talk about that step one building bridges um who is responsible for user research um this is a question that you see sometimes in early smaller businesses ones that are still growing or very low in the research maturity model who's going to do it in some cases it's a shared responsibility among a bunch of people different people who aren't trained in research you might see product managers um being asked to do it on the side as they are creating their pitches user ux designers a lot of times are responsible for their own prototype testing or getting um images out for a testing and things like that i've seen marketing teams do it sometimes it gets pushed to an intern it doesn't have to be a research intern but if they have the time they can do it who has access to google just hey let's pull it up on google and see what these third-party research firms have found about our customer and if you're really lucky you get the budget to hire a dedicated ux researcher this is rare but growing and it's great to see that this is a developing career and skill set uh jane in my example um was pretty early as far as creating a team of more than one but it's really benefited us um and so we can see the benefits of it but other companies have a little trouble with it sometimes like how how much value can i get from this one person who's only you know writing surveys or something like that but as you probably know there's a lot more to user research than just rewriting and things like that and so what sometimes happens and if if you are joining a new organization you just got hired with a new job you may see it as the spider-man standoff of everyone's pointing fingers who's going to take care of this oh he's done some and she's done some um what happens here though if there's no defined roles of who's going to be responsible for research sometimes there are problems diffusion of responsibility is one when especially results are presented or acted upon and they don't work out well they'll just start pointing fingers like so and so did it but really what was their methods uh there may be inconsistency in the data collected if you have two different teams running similar tests but on different uh samples you can get very different results and they can head in separate directions um also just stepping on each other's toes duplicating efforts maybe some people taking offense at some claims being made that don't match their data it's a little disorganized and so having a dedicated user researcher or becoming one yourself can help alleviate a lot of these pains bring some organization and efficiency to an organization and really develop better um results and data from what you're collecting um sometimes when looking at user research just as a baseline definition here as well studying your target users behaviors to inform business decisions sometimes what seems like second nature to you can be really a mystery to other people if you're in the qualitative research space or user research you have your methods and your best practices you know how to um which levers to pull to get the results you're looking for you know how to take all this data you collect from customers and you can synthesize them and break them down into really digestible formats this is where you shine and this is what you do every day so of course you're going to be good at it but looking from the outside if you're looking at maybe use a researcher research team it can feel kind of mysterious if there's no democratization that happens what it can feel like is let's say i'm on the marketing team i submit a request or a question to a research team something happens in what i'm going to call the research mystery box and then out pop these great insights that's really cool for you if you're not involved in research or if you don't care about research but for some people this can cause a little bit of an issue or a disconnect what's happening in this research box what is the uh secret recipe the magic sauce right and how can i trust the insights that come from this researcher if this goes on for too long if as a researcher you're not letting people inside your methods inside your mystery box some problems can occur they can start to distrust your methods um and actually all these three i've seen in personal experience distressing your methods being are you sure that was an accurate test are you sure you had a big enough sample you only got 50 people on this you only got eight usability tests i don't feel like that's enough um and because of that they may start to doubt your recommendations they may say well because it was such a small sample size that i don't understand i don't understand how you've connected the dots between the data and your findings i just don't trust them um and so you go through all this work to source customers create this test run this test synthesize the test re-watch the videos um it goes into this beautiful deck that gets passed up to the stakeholder and they just toss it out and they go with what they already know in other words they revert to their data the anecdotes that they see on their own biased point of view and they roll with that instead of the strong that you provided and so democratizing research as you start to reach out and build these connections build bridges what it does is it changes how people respond to the information you provide so instead of distrusting your methods as they become involved as you involve them and build these bridges they start to trust them more and so they don't second-guess your recommendations quite as often when you provide these recommendations because they trust the process now they trust that the recommendations you provide are accurate and they can move on and then third they can start to disregard their anecdata their anecdotes and their assumptions and begin to trust the data even if they're proven wrong and this is sometimes the biggest learning curve is understanding that you are no longer your customer um you are representing your customer but you do not know them best um this change is really a great benefit of democratizing and building bridges because it really makes your job easier in the end as a researcher you can spend maybe less time worrying about how your results and findings will be taken and you can trust that they will be utilized effectively and accurately also it's great to see as trust is built in your research the research you provide goes further um things start to be shared outside your small bubble with it whichever department you're in or just your own team you start to see things becoming shared outside of that incorporated into strategy or other department meetings this is a sign that what you're doing is going well the nice part when trying to start building bridges is that your customers are interesting what i found is no matter which team you're on in an organization even not involved in research customers are cool especially if you have a fun product or you have a fun customer set like i mentioned jane.com is 98 women um shoppers and they come from a very diverse background they have a lot of things going on as they decide where to shop for products that define them and as a result talking to them is really enjoyable um i guess i'm sort of lucky i've never had a bad customer interview they are all so friendly and accommodating and as i share that out with other teams they see it as well um deep down inside no matter which team someone is on they're always wondering what is the customer thinking so some of these questions where do they live what do they do when they're not interacting with your business how do they think what do they think about why do they identify with your brand why did they choose you why did they continue to choose you why do they pick you over your nearest competitor um all these are engaging questions fun thought experiments they relate directly to user research but a lot of people don't think so and so the way to build bridges is trust in your customer base and and how they think and then sharing that out and that really helps build maybe the first bridge like hey these people are cool we can really learn a lot from them and here's how so some ways to build bridges um just go through a couple steps for you finding allies i find this to be super beneficial um and it can actually come naturally um as you're either starting with a company or if you've been with the company for a while um just keep an eye and take note of who's actually paying attention to the stuff you provide um who is asking you questions who comes to you more often uh who's asking those deep questions that really trigger tests for you you know put a little note in your planner like hey reach out to this person because they already show interest in the research process but maybe they don't know where they can take it and this is where you can step in and guide them along be that mentor to them as you build bridges to democratize research you can start with them and it makes things a lot easier um have an open door policy this one for me has been easy and fun um it depends on your workload as always if you feel really um tied down with responsibilities and deliverables this can be really hard to open your door and say if you ever have a question just hit me up one way that i've done this is through slack um create a slack channel just for user research that's what i've done and it's just an open conversation i also have a form that people can use as far as submitting their questions it's a three question form what's your name what's your big question and when do you need it by this just allows people to feel invited to participate that this is no no longer a mystery box where things happen outside of their control they can actually have a partner and become part of the whole process uh let's see marketing your skills i joke that i feel like 50 of the time i'm marketing what i do versus the other 50 i'm doing what i do um this is once again dependent on your workload but it does pay off in the end this is removing that the cover or the curtain behind this mystery box of what researchers do this is going out and maybe being a little annoying even and so what i've done for example is i'm pretty often sharing what capabilities i have so hey by the way we have this tool we can access um our customer demographics if you ever have questions about people who don't shop with us um i can run this kind of tests i've done this kind of test don't forget we have access to um these platforms that help us run tests quicker in the way of being annoying even popping into people's um channels that i work with hey i'm still here don't forget we can do this and even sharing results which i'll talk about in a second um but just always making sure you get the attention you deserve i think even more now as you notice i'm working from home i don't even have the benefit of running into people in the uh the cafeteria lunchroom right that's where i felt i used to get a lot of test requests and so a little extra effort is sometimes required to get your name out there and remind people you're still here even though you don't see each other every day go where the data is so build bridges by um actually building bridges right in this case look at where data is being collected what groups what people are doing this and try to integrate with them so in my case what we've done is i work with marketing on occasion with their creative team and with their data science team um these are areas where they are collecting other sorts of customer data that aren't directly qualitative such as interviews and such where they're collecting their site data or marketing data or um click data and i have created open lines of conversation and communication with them what you can do here is you can be inquisitive yourself so while we're asking others to be inquisitive what you do be inquisitive what they do understand how you collect site data and how is it processed how are they using data to come to decisions and then what you can do is look at ways that your data can illustrate and color in the lines for theirs and vice versa and so for example a great partnership i have is with their data science team um as i sat in on their meetings i just listened in and listened to some of the questions they were having and i take notes where they're kind of missing not even missing they just didn't have enough data to connect two dots that i could fill in with qualitative data and so i'd go out and run those tests come back report on it and all of a sudden we're all in a better place and now i trust their process and they trust mine and we can work closer together in the future this has helped us move forward as far as even on the qualitative side understanding why people feel certain ways as you know sometimes there's a bias in user research where people aren't um totally aware of the processes going on in their head like why did you click on this button well i don't really know sometimes other teams can fill this in with let's say click data you can understand oh they went through these three steps we saw that they stopped scrolling at this point and then they left the page um they wouldn't be able to recall this because it wasn't maybe quite as an impressionable an event in their mind but by taking that and applying my data and vice versa it's able to paint a richer picture of total experience and this bridge can help you go a lot further because now you're also collecting way more data be transparent um like i've mentioned removing that curtain on the mystery box be willing to reach out and teach and mentor and give away some of your secrets right uh explaining things in simple terms breaking it down making it uh understandable to the layperson is a good way to put it right there's a lot of science that's behind user research it doesn't have to always be shared and it's kind of in its fullness you can break it down at the very simple bite-sized pieces um but also just being transparent shows that you are not hiding anything from anybody um that's a trust building step right and the last thing here make it fun oh sorry share your results and make it fun um making it fun really i think goes the furthest because when it's enjoyable people are willing to um participate a little bit more sure a couple ways to make it fun lunch and learns are awesome um especially you know you provide the food who doesn't want to go to a meeting where they have free food and they can learn some cool stuff uh this can be on research processes this can be on recent findings this could be a q a really the sky's the limit but not only does this get your face out in front of these people it also gets the mystery behind what happens in research it comes to light and it makes them feel more comfortable with that experience run research on your co-workers this one's always fun too because it's neat to see it from the other side this can be sharing the same research tests you share with your customers with them it can be custom making just co-worker specific tests um it can be fun it can be serious but once they see what it's like to experience from the customer's point of view they start to build empathy for them and they also see how enjoyable it can be and they want to participate themselves let's see invite them to participate in your sessions as you are running your tests with customers always have an open invitation like especially with stakeholders hey if you want to listen in here's a link um this can be controlled so that they are not participating this is kind of your choice of how much leeway you want to give but at least allowing them to be present builds so much customer empathy and it really gets you a lot further down the road of trusting the customer and what they say and then trusting what you as a researcher says and recommends this is great especially if they have any direct um responsibility with what you're testing for example if you're testing a prototype get the designer just to listen in um you know sometimes it's nice hearing a little brutal feedback on your um your test but it's also good seeing and watching how customers are interacting with what you create i hope it'd be rewarding for them as well and then share findings in engaging ways like i mentioned breaking this down for them in a really digestible way really helps just kind of build that bridge into what you do and why it's cool um for me i use slack a lot to do this um like i mentioned i have a dedicated slack channel just for user research it's uh i try to keep it a bit more of a conversation and less of a one-way kind of just me posting my results but for example recently i did this a quick impromptu poll as far as a question about online shopping um just got them involved the thumbs up comes down and then i post the results to my tests that i recently ran with their customers this these uh synopsis are broken down very simply it's a one-page deal a lot of charts i quickly mention any insights and recommendations but outside of that if they want more details i have it elsewhere but for them i try to keep it simpler and more engaging so they can browse through it while they're doing a regular job they don't have 10 minutes to read through my stats or my number crunching but charts are cool and it's something that they can also grab and share right which is really what i want to do um encourage that reading and spreading um sometimes it's one sheets sometimes it's just graphics um but as if it looks interesting if it's illustrated if it's broken down nice and simply they can grab it and put in their deck and all of a sudden you've just got more eyes on your work and so starting to see that spread throughout a company it's really rewarding too because it means your work is actually going somewhere um and being used and trusted step two is delegate why um it's really a balance between how much freedom you want to give and how many restrictions you need to have um a couple of pros when choosing whether or not to delegate you can cover more ground in a lot of cases qualitative research teams are kind of small but there's a lot of work to be done um many hands makes light work so by getting more people involved you can cover more ground a little quickly more quickly and also increases buy-in and you create allies which you can then use in the future for other things um cons as you probably know you have so much to do already i don't have time to do this there's a lot of uptime and investment up front um it takes time to create processes that can be understood and shared with others a little bit of training making sure that they're doing things in a consistent way that involves you to pull time off of what you need to do to work on them it also reduces consistency and control in some ways as you spread out the work they're going to run in their own way they're going to have different methods than you perhaps this is just going to change the consistency versus you just doing everything yourself once again that just depends on what you're comfortable with and then last like i mentioned at the very beginning we don't want to jeopardize our jobs and how do we not do it um if not done carefully delegation could lead you to becoming less relevant um but at the same time it's important to make sure you actually are providing value to the company you work for and so that balance is something that will be on a case-by-case basis but i encourage you to spend time uh thinking about it and kind of measuring out where you want to go with it uh what can be delegated in user research there's some low risk and some high-risk kind of testing there's also low risk and high-risk tests itself when considering what to delegate perhaps start with low risk and move up as you build out skill sets train more build out these guidelines um looking at some low-risk things writing surveys creating polls and just basic discovery research um these are a little bit quicker to train others to do um can usually be low risk they can be redone pretty quickly if something happens with a sample or a question was written weird or formatted weirdly that's a great place to start and it's interesting for the co-worker who's getting involved customer guerrilla testing this might depend on who is your ally who you're trying to get trained up but if they are in a position where they can do this it's really helpful for example a designer a user experience designer as they are working on some prototypes they have a couple questions about button placement button colors this is something they could quickly jump into with minimal training as far as getting this in front of a few customers and getting some quick feedback to um to be used as they develop out their prototype in this case training would be things like how to ask unbiased questions how to actually grab maybe some random sample of people on the street not just asking your friends things like that prototype testing um this one gets a little bit more complicated at least especially with limited prototypes making sure that it is not a confusing experience for the customer that's what i see most often even as i'm running prototype tests making sure they don't get lost or pulled out of the experience that you're trying to get most high risk i'd say long-form interviews and ethnographies where you're having to get in front of these customers on a face-to-face basis or getting into their places of business or homes um that would take a bit more risk a bit more time a bit more training and so maybe don't start with those unless you're really confident in the person you're trusting um just because if something goes wrong if the data you find isn't accurate you'd have to redo it which would cost time and money for you and for them how to delegate some quick tips for this um create and maintain guidelines this is really important um at the end of the day you are still responsible for research and so um making sure that best practices are maintained is really important this is delegation is not a free-for-all right so this can be writing out a roadmap this can be um explaining what is delegated and what is not what kind of tests are allowed to be taken by other people versus not a research guide is helpful to train those who are interested um you know allowing them ideas and best practices for different kinds of tests this is kind of writing out your process that's kind of helpful to have anyway um when to use what tests here are some templates for surveys or for polls here are some programs that we have access to that you can use um let's see last mean check in regularly um as you're going through all this as you create these guidelines as you train those who are interested make sure you don't cut off communication as you go along like i mentioned this is still something that needs to be guided by you as you go along as you mentor and monitor them in their process it's always okay to talk to them for feedback it's okay to start to maybe pull back or give more responsibilities at the end of the day this really does depend on you um i encourage you to sit on their sessions let them sit in on yours cross train on these things ask them how it's going it's okay if after they've done this a few times if they're not enjoying it it's okay to take it back on your plate um there's nothing worse than i guess taking a research and someone who doesn't want to be there right um and so that's not ideal for them or for the customer who you're working with and so keep that communication open and working with them as they give feedback on things you can update your guidelines you can update your training manuals it's back and forth communication and it's really nothing is fixed and set in stone so don't let it feel like that this should be fluid it should be constantly changing as you grow as a company as your needs change this will be slowly shifting over time and that's okay um also important here with check-in is logging their information and so tracking what they do and putting a repository um i'll talk about this in one minute but all the day they collect is still valuable data especially if they've gotten really adept at participating in their special specialization it's important that you take time to pull that all together continue to synthesize it and use it as part of your research as well it shouldn't stand alone it shouldn't be oh that was not run by me so it's less valuable that should not be the case should really still be an extension of you and your work and therefore take all that data and continue to use it and so be sure to log what they're doing as they go along i'm skipping through this just because of time these are all things i just covered i should have just blanked out these slides though because the time i wanted to get into the last section here called cover your butt um at the end of the day the buck stops here stops with you and you're responsible for research that is collected democratization is good but like i mentioned there's this trade-off a pro and con of risk and responsibility and no matter who is running this research whoever you trust to do it remember that it still comes back to you that at the end of the day you need to vouch for the work that's done you need to take responsibility even if it wasn't you directly in these tests and um you need to own up to any mistakes that are made um some things we can do to minimize this be very clear about the limitations of qualitative research when presenting your findings what happens is as people grow in their maturity with research it's important to remember that qualitative research as is all research has its limitations about how far you can stretch a fining how can it be applied how long can it be applied for so as you are presenting data as you're collecting that as you're training others be very clear about um what are these limits within the findings that they have um this is especially important with stakeholders who are very separated from the research so think of like vps and department heads um they might not understand the nuance of research and so um for example if you're taking a targeted study of your customers during the holiday season be sure to note in your findings this is relevant to our holiday season customers if we want to discuss our non-holiday customers recommend other tests this just makes make sure down the road it doesn't come back to bite you when they say well you gave us this test result and it didn't work out um if they weren't aware of the limitations that's kind of on you to make sure that they understand that that was for a limited time a limited group a limited sample be honest about timelines speed and depth are one of these balances that's really important how deep do they want to go versus how quick do they need results be very upfront about this and have those who work with you those who you've built bridges with or collaborated with let them know that this needs two weeks to run correctly this really does reduce frustration and anger coming your way especially when people have these last minute things um and it's your fault that it can't be done technically it just can't be done in the timeline needed but maybe there's some other alternatives that could work better for them and for you so recommend additional testing different types of testing instead of running this big test let's run two small ones to get us part of the way there this comes back as looking good on you and the research team that you work for as far as um you're responsible with your time and that you always deliver as expected keep your ear to the ground um this is part of just listening and being involved in other teams and building those bridges there but keep your ears open for how your data is interpreted and used this comes from a personal experience with jane a couple years ago we built out some customer personas and what happened the customer persona was the main one was called jenny um her name was jenny she was our common customer she illustrated her loves and needs and desires and additional behaviors but what had happened as i was listening to other meetings i heard someone named jen being referenced and i'm thinking who is jen um do they just mean jenny my persona is that just a shorthand and i just logged it but i didn't know what to do about it it comes i come to find out that jen was kind of the sub sub persona that have been created through some word of mouth sharing of data right um so some of the findings were very accurate and some were not uh what ended up happening i had to go through and analyze their data compared to the original data and make some corrections within it if i hadn't been paying attention this could have gone even further down the road until you have a totally different and maybe inaccurate representation of your customer but because i was listening for these things um i was able to kind of put it in the bed early and it wasn't a big deal at all um it's just someone had to talk to someone talk to someone and things just got passed around through the game of telephone last here for covering your butt is keeping the receipts so this just means having things written down that support your findings and your research and your sources so cite them and log them any third data you correct any third party data i'm sorry uh anything that's clipped and shared make sure you citing where it's coming from the tests the samples anything relevant to that and encourage others to link back to your original data as well so if you create a deck with your findings and they grab a clip and encourage them to also link back to that deck in case someone finds that they want to know when was it sampled who is a sample size was it significant or not they can easily dive into your work as you originally intended and that just prevents these problems from bubbling up where they are interpreting data incorrectly log your data and your findings in a public repository this should be shared by everyone in the company and they should be able to access it at any time again this is removing that mystery box feeling but um confluence airtable a wiki page your own page is great for this uh google docs even um make it just so they can always find what you've done the data behind it um the recommendations the source info that transparency only helps you it's a little bit more work to write all this stuff up and log it but by creating it and sharing it publicly um it just really saves you a lot of time later trying to dig up what you've done uh example here on the right is just what i've done i use a confluence page i love all of my tests i categorize them this is accessible by anyone in the company i share out these links as i report on tests i link back to them um at any point someone can look and see maybe how our data has changed how my findings have changed over time things like holiday shopping habits obviously change year over year but this just shows that i have nothing to hide everything is solid i've gone through my data and they can trust it so as i've talked about these things just wanted to bring it all back why is it important what is it done for jane.com um why is it important to consider doing it for yourself so just a quick look back creating an environment where those who aren't researchers feel empowered to engage in the process it proves the value of research it expands your capabilities on a budget and it helps you build a research mind organization so this is why it's important to do it um let me talk about just how we've managed to do it in vain and why i believe in this process as we've as i've democratized research here um it's led to the idea that we test assumptions first but it leads to better decisions later this is important because less mistakes happen we kind of win more often so less of these expensive failures it's really a small investment so running a user test doesn't have to be a lot of time or money involved but it can really prevent big problems and we've seen that happen where you know it stops you very early in the process before you get too far down the road of a new feature a new strategic move a little test first can save a lot of ping leader we filled in knowledge gaps um when i first began there's a lot of questions about who's the jane customer why do they shop with us what are they doing outside of their gene experience as user testing has gone along as people get more involved in it we filled in gaps outside of my own department even we now know how they interact with marketing how they view our creative and what's important to them there how they view the features on our app and website and as time goes on as all these tests continue to happen not only are we filling in all these former gaps in what we didn't know but it's also sparking new questions um and especially questions that i wouldn't have thought about myself that's the best part of democratizing research is it gives new points of view to the customer and their experience outside of my own realm of experience personally and then third we found that it's applicable the whole organization and this has just been the growth of my personal responsibilities at jane but now that i help other teams as well we find that user research and the skills and processes and types of tests involved there can be applied and utilized by other people as well uh so i've become a shared resource and the research findings that i deliver are used in other spots so our strategic growth and our strategic plans our marketing our creative decisions our photography how we lay out and define and describe our products these all have little bits of user research involved in it that wouldn't have happened if these bridges hadn't been built number two expanding on a budget doing more with less that's always a great thing it's also we can do more faster and so with more people involved and participating we can iterate quicker we can change faster and like i mentioned reducing these costly time expensive mistakes of going down the wrong road but also democratizing research has led to this setting the stage for future growth within user research itself or it's like a proof of concept that it works so you can start with one person that may be you it may be someone you're looking to hire but by seeing this work seeing the effects of shared user research partnerships within these different departments and even those as you delegate collaborating with you it shows that this is a worthy investment it's worth having a dedicated research team or a person it's worth including this in the process no matter what and if jane user research thankfully is very ingrained in the process of what we do it took time to get there but that trust is there now and um it's not a fight that has to be won every new project right and now we're starting to plan for growth within my department finally um to be able to move even quicker with user research we've already shown what can be done with one person guess what if we had two it could be done twice as fast so that's always nice to show to your stakeholders or your leaders and last building a research-minded organization this has been the most rewarding part of doing this within jane of reaching out building bridges collaborating and things like that is that we have changed the way we think people are much more curious i feel than when i started the questions i get are so unique and so interesting they are just thinking like researchers which is really a great goal to have they're starting to think why does this happen instead of just seeing it's happening why um they want to get involved they volunteer to participate they come to me with these great questions um i'll show you a couple examples in a second um they want to run they make decisions so this is turning off these assumptions that they might have and they're saying well let's test it first and that is just a great thing to see from my point of view um a it means i'm going to be reloading for a long time but b it also is just the mindset you want to have within a company is well let's step outside what we know it what we think we know and let's just ask the customer let's ask the user themselves and then we'll make a decision um it also means that they are okay and they have become okay with being proven wrong sometimes negating assumptions can feel challenging for you it can feel kind of scary but over time as you let the data speak for itself i usually let the customer speak for itself um it gets easier for people to be proven wrong and they actually may even prefer it they may say like hey prove me wrong but this is what i'm thinking about our customer am i right or not or not and then last is watching research that i do effect change across the whole company at the end of the day i want to be doing something that has some kind of effect on the greater business and you know the world as a whole and so as i have stretched out my arms to bring other people into seeing how cool research is and how they can get involved it's great seeing down the road changes happen based on recommendations and information i've provided and i feel that be rewarding for a lot of people for you i hope uh as well um seeing that what you're doing actually matters it's being listened to it's being taken into consideration and they're doing something and even better is when you um your recommendation proves right obviously that feels really good but um it's nice to see that happening over time it builds that ownership and pride in your own work and in your department your team it's great seeing other people feel that as well kind of especially if you've mono mentored them um seeing them feel that same success and pride in their work it's a self self-fulfilling kind of thing just real quick couple quotes these have been just uh slack messages i've gotten from people not involved with research in our company um as like i mentioned as i've gone along i've tried to open up the door to what i do anyone can reach me at any time these questions are what i live for these are some things i would never think about myself but also just the excitement that you can sense that they have you know wouldn't it be cool if we knew this like it would be cool you're getting it this is great thank you this is why i do research um or this quote at the bottom you know this is an assumption that this person could have run with but they decided to reach out to me first i ran a couple quick little research finding tests found that um yes this is you know one of these hobbies that our customer does enjoy go for what you were thinking in this case it was going to be looking for new sellers in the sewing and home making space so something that could have maybe been costly was now the risk has been reduced and so um seeing this is really just what makes my day makes me feel like i'm doing something good and it shows that the work that has gone into democratizing research has actually paid off because now i'm getting these slack messages or emails or questions from people who have maybe never done research on their own or have never thought about it this way and now they are feeling involved and like their thoughts and questions are important which is exactly what i want to feel i want them to feel and so with that any questions i don't know how this would work maybe in the chat bill yes sir yeah we do have a few questions piled up uh so we've got a few more minutes we'll try to bang through as many of them as possible let's see number one from heidi uh former virtual insights conference presenter heidi thank you very much um in my organization we use qualitative research then quantify afterwards and quickly forget the richness of qual do you have any lessons learned about giving call an important voice equal to or at least different than yeah great question uh heidi thank you um for me this has been accomplished through working closely with our quantitative data team um in my case it's very similar where qual is used to kind of discover these problems quantities to illustrate them how they're happening um at the end of the day though for me it's a bit of storytelling uh as far as when you're working with quant data or a quant team um like you said the richness of qual is a story and it's not always seen within the data the clicks the log actions on a site and so making sure you're part of those conversations um being in those meetings where you can pitch in with additional information is really helpful to kind of elevating quality on a similar level to quant and so as they are reporting back on findings or results of a test like hey this really matches something i heard from this customer having a quote ready is something i do or i'll share out a video later um even things like that it kind of gives a face to a lot of numbers uh zeros and ones that go on behind the scenes and at least in our case i feel like this the data team does appreciate it um and i just appreciate being invited so hopefully that works move right along okay we have rachel and john on youtube submitting comments and just an aside that looks like rachel and john are in a heated battle for the gold medal for best q a submitters for the day um i'm obviously watching too much olympics i'm making everything in competition uh both have given us compelling topics throughout all presentations let's go with rachel first how do you educate designers and stakeholders how to determine when to bring in researchers or investigate research themselves yeah so in that case i guess two parts how to bring in research i always invite them just to ask before they go it doesn't hurt to ask me a question and then we can decide if something's necessary or not um the second half of that how did was the question to get them involved is that what it was yeah it's it kind of depends on their experience and their desire to get involved like i mentioned at the very beginning sometimes research was a shared resource if you're a designer you're kind of expected to do it yourself even so they might have some experience and some resources to do that but also they may just have an interest or maybe they don't they might have an interest and participate in a certain kind um if they have a tough skin they might really want to be able to run an effective test on their design which really is a great shortcut for for finding insights because they're the person i'd report to anyway so if i can train them in to running an unbiased um an unbiased prototype test where they can step away and maybe not be offended by any of the criticisms they get that's a really short line between the feedback and getting that updated and fixed and so a little bit of both as far as what do they have experience and what do they even have interest in and in some cases they don't which is okay all right like a talk radio guy 30 seconds or less we've got one from john um do you have any recommendations on if it's better to start democratizing with proactive or reactive research i'd say proactive because then you get to set the rules if you can get there early you can create it in your way um which i think will save you time in the back end having to fix things that maybe aren't done to your standards that's my short answer perfect um yeah and we are out of time sean thank you so much this was really really great i really appreciate it um thanks to everybody who was able to attend today um be on the lookout for info on our next uh sessions uh everybody have a good day thanks a lot thank you everybody thank you bill bye