UX Research vs. Consumer Insights: Where the Lines Blur

I am Zach Morgan. I'm a director of quantitative research here at Accelerant. Uh, and I'll be helping facilitate the discussion for our next presenter, Alex Strauss. Alex is a senior consumer insights specialist at Roku, where he's been for the past five years. Uh, his presentation that we'll hear is titled UX research versus consumer insights, where the lines blur. uh very excited to learn more about how these two research areas are merging and blending with one another. Uh so without further ado, Alex, feel free to take over and share. Uh the floor is yours. Um and I'll let you decide if you want to take questions as they come throughout the presentation or we can uh also save them to the end and I'll help facilitate that. >> Yeah. Um I'm at well one thank you so much for having me. Thank you Zach. Thank you Bill for inviting me. This is actually my second ARVIC I'm presenting at. So, I'm excited to be back for round two. Um, I'm happy to take questions throughout. Um, a lot of this topic uh is meant to elicit some questions and some thoughts. So, if you have any, please contribute throughout throughout. If I can't see them, um, Zach, feel free to chime in. Otherwise, I'll definitely have enough time at the end to answer any questions. And I really do want to facilitate some discussion. I want to hear how you guys feel on this topic. um at the end. So um if we don't get them covered through the presentation, please uh let's let's make sure that we cover them at the end. So with that, let's jump in. Um this topic, UX research versus consumer insights, where the lines blur, is really a bit of like a passion point for me because it's a little bit the way that my career has shaped up in insights over the last few years. So I started my research career on the agency side at a company called Holland Partners. And then from there I went client side uh first with a small social media sports startup called Whistle and then to ESPN working on the ESPN Plus business. And throughout all those phases of my career, I would always call myself a consumer insights professional. I worked in marketing research and content research and brand research. Um so really focused as a consumer insights professional. And then uh in 2021 I went over to Roku and I was brought over in a consumer insights capacity um on a team called the program programming and engagement research team but and but my focus was more on product research. And so that was like where I started tiptoeing and dabbling into the UX space. Um, and then as my career has evolved here at Roku, my team then got absorbed into the UX research team. And then that previous team dissolved and now I'm a full UX researcher as a part of that team and actually manage now a team of UX researchers as well at Roku. So I've fully made this pivot and throughout uh my my time at Roku, I've been noodling on this question of like well what is UX research? What is consumer insights? like where do I draw the line? Where does this sit? Um we also have a consumer insights team at Roku and so the delineation of where does this project sit, where does this go um has been a question that's uh come up a lot. So really that's the crux of this presentation. How do we differentiate these disciplines? And as things evolve, do we need to uh as these lines blur? Um is it important that we maintain UX research and consumer insights as two unique research disciplines? Um I'm not sure I'm going to give you a direct answer to that question uh by the end of the presentation, but hopefully I'll leave you at least with some good thoughts and the way that it's trending and how you view it as well. Uh and definitely want to hear your thoughts at the end. Um, so traditionally I just want to kind of set the scope a little bit and set the ground rules uh for how I'm framing this conversation before we get into the nitty-gritty of it. So at a high level uh I always have thought about UX research as in the product with the users in the execution and the actual interaction that you're doing with um with the people in your business like in your uh environment in your ecosystem. And then on the other side, consumer insights tend to have more of that macro lens as far as being focused on the market, being explorative and generative insights. Um, trying to really get at those why questions and and really focusing more on the brand and and the business strategy angles. And now all of a sudden, this is kind of getting thrown in the mix for a few reasons. And I think one is is just the the primary reason is the lines are starting to blur because of the digital landscape. I think the one of the easiest examples is like a brand like McDonald's, right? If you in if you went to McDonald's in the 90s or 80s or what have you, there was one point of interaction. You went into the store and you purchased a burger or and some fries and then you left the store and that was the end of your interaction with that brand except for maybe seeing a commercial on TV. Now there's a McDonald's app. You can order your food ahead of time. you can get points and benefits and they're sending you emails with deals and specials. And so there's such a greater level of interaction between the brand um and the consumer now. And McDonald's is one of a million examples where this level of interaction has increased over the last uh you know decade or two. Um and then there's a lot of brands that are just endemic that are just completely DTOC like Roku that every single day you are interacting with your Roku. So every single day you're having a brand interaction and a product interaction. Um and so at that high level there's inherently overlap. There's inherently blur. Um and beyond that, and I'm going to get into the nitty-gritty on all of these things later, but the tools and skill sets that we use as researchers have increasingly become begun to overlap. Um and then also, you know, I can't we can't have a research presentation right now without talking about AI. Um and and frank the fact of the matter is it is scaling research and and changing the landscape at a really fast level. And so the volume of research we can do and the speed at which we can do it is all changing really quickly. And that also facilitates um kind of more crossf functional uh research and insights. So, this next section I've I've titled the current landscape, but really I've set this up to be a bit of like a practical layout just for like if you want to take this deck, I'll share it with Bill and the team and they'll send it out after. But if you want to take this deck to buy get stakeholder buy in and help kind of show the differences, I think these next slides hopefully uh lay out in a good way like what is the difference and kind of give you in layman's terms um the easiest way to just decipher between the two disciplines. So I've broken it out into four buckets here. Uh scope and focus, you know, where each discipline spends its attention. Um methodology and approach, you know, how each discipline gathers insights. um the organizational context where they sit and who they serve in their organizations and then the outputs and expo application um when it what are the outputs of these and what are the actions that are taken um based on these types of insights and so for each of them I'll kind of talk about the uniqueness but also the overlap uh within the two. So starting with scope and focus UX research and I kind of alluded to this a little bit earlier but is all about that interaction right it's about the experience of your your users in the ecosystem um so it's how they're interacting the usability patterns and how they're completing tasks um how they view your in interface and your design and and can they effectively navigate it and those really like very tactile and small minute behaviors. Um so in looking at that like narrow purview, you're going to focus on your existing customers. You're going to focus on how do we improve engagement? How do we make these things more repeatable, more habit forming, uh things like that. On the consumer insights side of the lens, it's really more about that understanding that broader consumer context, looking at market trends and category dynamics, purchase drivers and decision- making. Um, how the brand plays a role in in how they choose or choose not to engage with your brand. Um, and really focusing on those macro levels and uh behaviors and attitudes. Um, and so it's it's definitely not that simple, but generally it's about focusing on your potential customers. with that opportunity um and how do you acquire them as opposed to how do you interact with them which is more on the UX research side of the coin. And so they are unique angles but in the middle of that there is a foundation like a foundational aspect of this that you know at the end of the day you're just trying to understand who your consumer is and how they act and and why they feel that way. um when I describe to a stakeholder the facets of UX research right it's the foundational research upfront in the product development cycle to define what we create then it's the evaluative research to understand is this product that we're developing working with the consumer and then at the end is the measurement phase of like did this work and do people like it and how do we iterate and the middle is a little bit unique to UX but those two end points very much overlap and that's that blur is that foundational understanding. We need to understand who these users are and what uh or potential users are and what they're doing. And then on the back end, how do we make sure that we understand how they feel about it so we can transact on that? And both those things all layer up to making strategic decisions on product innovation. Where do you take your business? Where do you take your brand um to move forward and staying relevant with today's consumer? um and in both the disciplines play a huge role in in helping to shape those product strategic decisions. From a methodological standpoint, there's tremendous overlap. In fact, there's very few research methodologies at this point that can't be applied to both UX research and consumer insights. So, one, this is not meant to be an exhaustive list of every methodology here. Um, and there's definitely blur in this as well as far as like uh you might disagree or think like well but for any of these on here and and if you are thinking that then you're agreeing with my entire point of this presentation. Um, but I'll dis uh kind of disambiguate a little bit uh the differences here. Um, and please if you disagree, please put it in the chat. I would love to hear like where you think I' I've aired uh in these uh kind of breakouts. So, from a tracking perspective, um you know, I my entire time at Roku, I've run our Roku channel uh product tracker, but it's much more focused on how do people interact with streaming services. And I ask other brands and I ask other streaming services, how do you interact with those streaming services and how does the experience vary on those? But it is very different from a brand tracker on the consumer inside side. I don't ask things about like do you love the brand? Is it a brand that you want to tell people about? Um is it a leader in the field? Um are they innovative? Like those like softer imagery metrics definitely fall more in the brand track, consumer insight space. While in the product tracking side, I'm asking about like quality of stream and is it easy to find channels and things like that. Um, so both are tracking and both are sent periodically and things like that, but the lens that you're looking at tracking is is definitely different. Um, segmentation is another example. Um, you know, for UX research, I think you're going to focus much more on user segmentation. So, understanding your user base. Who are the people that you have the greatest opportunity to improve engagement with? Who are the people um that are your core customers? and what can you do to create more of them? And then from a consumer insight standpoint, you're going to focus more on like an audience segmentation of like who's your greatest opportunity segment. Who are the people that you can potentially bring in as customers? Um, a consumer an audience segmentation for consumer insight is also going to focus a lot more on like how you feel about different brands and and and you know throughout different segments like which uh brands you affiliate with more. uh interviews, you know, I think the nature of what you're going to ask in an interview can vary greatly. So, in a in UX research, the usability test is a core is like probably the core research methodology for uh UX research. So, you're really going through prototypes or mockups or wireframes um and having users give their thoughts on like where they would want to go and and how they want to engage. Whereas on the consumer insight side, it tends to be more about message messaging and concept testing and understanding like does this verbiage does this approach jive with how you think about research or think about the brand. Um journey mapping is another one. You know, for UX research, you're going to focus much more on like how someone navigates through your flows, how they navigate through your app to get to an intended destination. Whereas consumer insight is more about that purchase journey when you are about to buy a TV like where do you go? How do you research it? What's the ultimate decision driving factors? So um they're both the output of both is going to be like how you get to the outcome that but the outcomes and and the flows are very very different. Um AB testing similarly uh you know AB testing in the UX research space you're going to be testing different product features to see if different versions of the feature drive improved engagement whereas AB testing for consumer insights you're going to be talking more about the messaging and creative like which message you put in market is going to be most successful in driving increased business for you. Um and then ethnographies this one is I think the bluriest. I had the hardest time separating these two, but uh for UX research ethnographies, we might follow along as they inter interact with your product and when they're interacting with it. Whereas, uh consumer insights and ethnography, you might do a shop along and follow along in the store to see how they um choose what to buy. Um but you can definitely do inhome research for uh consumer insights and uh some shop alongs for UX research. So, that one's definitely one of the blurriiest areas. I did want to call out a few unique area. There are some methodologies that are unique to e these two disciplines. So I just wanted to call them out here on the UX side. They're much more about just like understanding the does this experience jive with your expectations. uh you know that's like heristic evaluations right testing is going to be like how do you improve this quickly to make sure that it's ready to ship and then Kano you know understanding the features that matter and the features that are going to drive uh engagement um and then on the other side of the coin um you know copy testing content pilot testing those things where you're really like trying to understand how a piece of content whether that's advertising or or content is going to work and then pricing conjooint really like understanding like business strategy and uh kind of how you want to bring a product to market. Um those type of studies are sort of on that side of the coin. Though I will say in my role where I've been kind of flipping on both sides, I've run a number of conjoint studies at Roku um even in my UX research capacity. But that is where we'll get to with this conversation. But um that is because I had that skill set and no one else had the skill set to do it. So I ran it um because it needed to get done. Organizational context. I think this one is one of the most straightforward. There's really like pretty clear line business areas and who these roles report into that are pretty unique. So on the UX research side, you're working with your your designers handinand. You're going to re reporting and the output of your work is going to go right to those product managers and engineers. On the consumer insights side, you're working much closer with marketing and branding and merchandising, retail strategy and business development. Business strategy development probably sits the most in the middle of all of these on here. Um, but they are uh I'd say unique and that is one of the most uh like uh discreet examples um of the scope for these two. That being said, anytime I present my product tracker, there's always marketing on that call. There's always brand on that call. There's always merchandising on that call. they care about those insights. They care about how the product's working. Um, and so that speaks to the need of like kind of like dissemination of your insights and making sure that um you're not siloing things. And the last area is outputs uh of the research and and I think like how these outputs look is really discreet between the two. UX research is so much more focused on like how do you get a feature to launch? Like which design should you go with? Is this going to work? Does this feature work with users? Um how do users navigate your flows to get to the output? Whereas on the other side, um for consumer insights, it's about understanding how is the brand working and perceived. What are the opportunities out there to target? Um you know, trends and thought leadership, like how are people thinking about this topic in in a macro sense? Um what's driving purchase? What's what's going to improve your marketing engagement? um those are all very unique I think to me as far as output is concerned where and generally the goal of insights right is that unified driving smarter decision-m so like creating really compelling storytelling and insights that drive tactical decisions from there um and so things that come out from that are like SWAT analysis or deeper understandings of consumer needs and behaviors and that's where that that blur exists so now that I probably told you all things that you already know. Let's talk a little bit more about where it's going. So, um are these two disciplines converging? Um I kind of laid out both sides of the coin here. So, on the side of convergence, uh both disciplines are ultimately just the voice of the consumer. You're just expressing how consumers feel. Um and you're trying to help the business by expressing those uh needs. Um as I mentioned on that methodology side a a lot of these methodologies overlap and so the skill sets required to execute the research are very similar. You might need expertise to understand how you reframe a question or approach um to solve for one side of the coin or the other but at the end of the day like a segmentation is going to have a factor analysis like a journey map is going to take them through the different uh steps of their uh flow and things like that. Um, and then the other the last one there is there just increasingly businesses don't want to make decisions in a silo off of one data point and there's just a greater need for holistic view of aggregated insights and and uh sources that are not just the study conducted but more broader uh framing to provide required context. Um the reasons to keep them separate. Um, if you have different stakeholders, they're going to have different needs and and you want to make sure that you're meeting specific needs. Um, the timing of a UX study can vary greatly from a deep dive like u market or consumer research study. Um, the strategic lens of consumer insights versus the tactical lens of uh UX research are very different. And then also I think one of the biggest ones is is there is this expertise there is a specialization within both of these fields and and understanding those outcomes and design and how you pro produce those outcomes um is really important. So if you converge them it's potential that you're going to kind of be a master of like master of none. So uh you don't want to dilute. So a few trends that are driving the conversion side of the coin. Um, as I alluded to at the front, technology is a big one. These next two slides will kind of touch on that. So, as AI seems like every single day is changing our field, it's also changing the speed at which we do research, is changing the way that we do research, is changing the parts of the research that we spend time on. Um so automated data collection, AI moderation, synthetic data, all these things are are things challenges that all researchers are facing and things that are kind of expediting our timelines and lowering the barrier to completing research in a more timely manner. Similarly to power these AI features the tools uh that are becoming available to the researcher are also uh making it a lot easier for anyone to engage. So a lot of these self-service research platforms um allow anyone you know product managers and designers can run studies now marketers can run studies now um and even like things that are more advanced that like someone like that would never touch in the past a max diff a conjooint a lot of those in these tools are also automated now where you don't even really need to understand the statistical background of how these work to execute these studies um And so the implication for that on the researcher is like you need to shift from like doing research but also enabling research and making sure things are done the right way and and operationalized um to provide make sure that their success and the insights that are generated are accurate. Um and then focusing on like the like the the big swings as a researcher is really important. The things that just like a stakeholder would never be able to execute. Um but that democratization also means that the speed and the amount of resource being asked to you is is kind of is shifting. The next trend is as I mentioned with the digitalization products are experiences now everyone has the app an app everyone has a website everyone has a platform um and so the products are the ones that are driving acquisition and retention. their user experience is also how they interact and experience the brand um and what they do in their product is like their behavior. So the a lot of times where we drew these hard lines between the two disciplines have very much blurred um and so you know product decisions have an impact on marketing and UX research can inform a marketing strategy whereas consumer insights can help and be required to define a product roadmap. And so just with the nature of a product not just being a thing that sits on a shelf uh it it it really informs and drives uh kind of different needs for uh the outputs of the research. And then the last trend that I think is really driving convergence is is what I alluded to as far as like needing holistic insight. So there's so much hap like social media listen like uh social media listening and uh like always on trackers and intercept surveys and all these things that are always on vehicles that are always collecting insights. Um and a lot of these just like quick turn self-service platforms allow for research to be collected quickly frequently and uh and so we're not just doing one report every few months now. there's like ongoing dashboards that need to be maintained and shared out on. And so these faster feedback loops really make it so that research on either side of the coin have to aggregate insights, make sure they're all widely disseminated and democratized um and and available for all and and and that doesn't really change uh on the UX research side or the the consumer insight side. So what's next? where where does this go and how do we kind of deci make this convergence decision? Uh I think there's a few factors that we can just look at as far as like should they merge? Um an easy one to break it out by is company size. Um you know at a startup or smaller company kind of you know they're only going to have one or two researchers. So often the disciplines are combined just out of sheer necessity. um at midsize companies uh I think it depends on the f amount of uh interest and kind of value they place on research whether or not there's the opportunity for integration and then it really is almost at the enterprise level where that's where it makes most sense for these disciplines to live uh in two different areas for now because just the nature the the val the volume of work required the complexity to answer these bigger questions um may require ire like the separation of the disciplines. Um I think industry also has a huge bearing on whether or not these these disciplines should merge. Um in the tech space uh I think you know for Roku like me sitting in the Roku organ sitting on both sides of the coin it definitely blurs more rapidly because on a tech platform those interactions are the same that the the interactions are the experience are the product. Um whereas in the CPG retail world, while McDonald's does have an app now, there still is the instore experience, there still is um a really important role of marketing and advertising and things like that. So it can be a bit more distinct. Um and then just company culture will play a role on whether or not these uh functions merge. Some companies are are very more very collaborative, very flat, and so that makes integration a lot easier. and some other organizations uh like kind of keep things in very tight silos and and in those areas the fun the insights kind of stay in those places and so you kind of need distinct functions um to support each of these business areas. So as far as like what happens if these functions converge, I think there's on this negative side, we'll start bad first then talk about good. Um some pitfalls of what we might lose. Um, one is I think a big one is diluted experience. So if you're asked to do everything, how is it possible to specialize? How is it possible to really focus on one discipline and be really excellent at doing usability studies or how is it like can you really be great at running a segment a consumer seg segmentation um if you're like a UX researcher by trade. So I think that that really poses a a a risk. And then if you're covering all these areas, will you have that specialized knowledge to understand like how this specific business area works and what their goals are? Um often these these disciplines have conflicting priorities. Uh with product, you want to move quickly. You want to make decisions. Um whereas for consumer insights, you want to make sure you have the rigor and the depth to inform smart business decision- making. And so can you balance speed with depth? Um, and where do you find the middle ground if you're covering both bases? Um, and so those and then also if you're focused on the nitty-gritty of UX research, those tactical needs, solving for like does this feature work the intended way, like those can add up. Those studies can add up and then that gets in the way of potentially like taking on that bigger swing project that's going to help define strategy and move the business forward. So are you sacrificing one for the other? Um, another area is just stakeholder confusion. If if you just are master of everything, then do they know the right person to go for for that study? If all the researchers are just everything researchers, then if they have a specific ask, do they know who to ask uh for that? Um, and then just from your own personal like career growth, it can be hard to understand like do I apply for this UX research role at another company even though I've been in consumer insights or I I did both and now I'm not a master of either and I want to go for this UX research role but now my uh resume doesn't look as good because I haven't dedicated my time to UX research. So, it can kind of make it uh a little bit more challenging when you're out in a a really challenging job market right now. Um, on the other side of the coin, I think there are a lot of things that benefit from having these insights brought together. Um, increasingly we need to have this full picture of what's going on. And so being able to see both sides of the coin can really help you connect the dots with the insights and understand those macro trends as well as the tactical feedback and and how those marry up to to make smarter strategy decisions. Um, it is efficient to have both together. Um tooling can be shared, infrastructure can be shared. Um you know sometimes projects happen across two teams that actually cover similar areas. Even similar questions can be asked and that type of redundancy can be kind of uh gotten rid of if it's all in one team. Um and then just as far as you know it can be a unified voice in an organization. So research all research and insights are coming from one place and and that gives it strength and credibility knowing that like this is the one source of truth in the organization. Um and then on the other side of the coin I think it is good to have a broad skill set and and make sure that you know a lot of different things and and tools to to work through. Uh it makes you more diverse. So while it may make it hard to go for that one very specific job, I think it does give you opportunity to explore a lot of different areas. So a few things that I think researchers kind of need now in this landscape to succeed um is that mixed methods expertise. I think there's so much now that happens with both marrying like survey and uh user research with the analytics and the behavioral data. And so having that data literacy like SQL skills and things like that to make sure that you understand how the log data marries up with consumer perceptions. Um and then when it comes to like the unique value you can provide, storytelling and communication are so important that like why do research with us versus the stakeholder running it themselves is our ability to tell that story and work through the data and pull out the greater meaning. Um and then having that business acumen to be able to do that to pull that together to understand what this means for the business. Um and then also managing your stakeholders to make sure that they understand where they need to go for this research, what is the best methodology to answer these questions. Um and then as we move forward, I think as these things evolve and blur, there's some skills that uh are really important to acquire. So, um, one obviously is the AI ML literacy. Um, feels like every single day at, uh, Roku, we're talking about how do we integrate AI into our research practices? How do we do things faster, more efficiently? How do we templatize and standardize things using AI to to be able to do more with less? Um, as I alluded to, research operations has become increasingly important. the ability to operationalize research programs across organizations and make sure that they're stood up in a way that is both effective and efficient but also getting the right depth of insights is really important. um system thinking uh just having that broader lens to think about and cross functional collaboration just making sure you're ac like you have that purview that you can think bigger um and then of course ethical research practice as well just making sure that like with AI with these things that we're doing things the right way that we're creating a beneficial experience for users um that that isn't kind of detrimental and so just on the two sides of the coin here like just some recommendations for navigating this I think for UX researchers it's really important to develop a business and market acumen to really understand how marketing works understand how brand works um and and make sure you have that tight relationship with your consumer insights counterparts and then kind of the exact opposite on the consumer insights side figure out how products work like what does a product manager do like how how do you build a a user interface um how do how do I run research more quickly how do I flip research more quickly um to get more tactical insights that may actually benefit marketing or in business in that way and again part partnering with the UX counterparts on the other side. Um and then for research leaders I think there's really great opportunities right now to look for collaboration to make sure that that consumer insights teams and UX research teams are working in lock step and making sure that they are uh providing complimentary and not duplicative insights and that they're unified and providing similar insights. you don't want to tell two different narratives on both sides of the coin. Um and then similarly as projects get defined I think it's important to have clear roles um to make sure that you know where projects should go um but also give researchers the flexibility to explore try out different methodologies try out different approaches um to to broaden their skill set and and be really successful. So I'll just finish this whole thing out with kind of five principles that I've I've kind of covered here. Um but distilling that down into a quick summary here. So I think the first important thing is to stay curious about the other side. It's important to to stay curious and and figure out like what you don't know and and and broaden that skill set and learn from adjacent disciplines. Um and not to be hypocritical, but I also think it's really important to main that attain that core excellence. So there is a lot of specialization in these two disciplines. And I think it's really important um that you have that defined skill set and you have that ability to be the expert because that's going to carry more weight with your voice in in the room. Um understanding technology and trends and how they're accelerating uh the changes in the industry. understanding AI like you you you almost have to embrace it at this point. If you don't I think in research you really are going to get left behind. So understanding how that is shaping the new landscape of research and uh and what is going to mean for both sides of this coin and where there is going to be increased overlap because of that. Um when it comes to research or like business needs, focus on that broader question, not like the label of like oh this is a UX research project. what what does the business need that's important here and what's the best methodology and best team to handle that to get the right answer and drive the approach there. Um so focusing on that question I think is a really important part and then build bridges not walls. So I think insights democratization is hugely important. I think the more that people in a like stakeholders see that like oh you're guarding your insights for that area of the business I think the more they're going to think like why don't we combine these things but the more that the insights are freely available and it shows that the the insights are coming from a lot of different places I think it actually shows more value of the two disciplines because um it shows how much breadth and depth that we're able to cover across these two business areas. Um so with that that's all I have. I want to open it up to kind of a little bit I know it's a little hard to discuss in chat. Um but I want to open it up to discussion like have you guys experienced any of this kind of evolution in your own organizations? Um where have you seen things work or fail as far as integration? Um what are you guys doing to make sure that you stay relevant in this landscape and and do you think in the next 5 years uh these things are going to converge at all? Yeah, great questions and thanks again, Alex. Um, super interesting topic. Um, again, feel free to add any questions in the Q&A. Happy to relay those. Otherwise, um, I mean, I can give a little bit of just insight even from Accelerant. We are traditionally um in the consumer insights world and haven't had a UX division or ARM really, but we've since been starting to actually get into UX research, I think just in the past few years, and Bill can attest to that. I think for now we're still a bit siloed because of our our backgrounds. And so there are some folks who really specialize in the UX side, a few people. Most of the others have come from a um purely consumer insights background and haven't really touched it. But I think there's just a lot of room to keep communicating and learning from one another and something that we could actually be having more learnings and discussions about internally. Um to open up the questions maybe though for you I think just even um getting more into just like thinking through exemplars of how this is going. I was wondering if Alex you could even think about and give any details about any like case studies that you have seen in Roku or otherwise of like a really good example of how um consumer insights and UX research have integrated well and have really helped to level up the the research and the insights and the the output that you're getting out of it. um even just like a few details, you know, don't have to get too in the weeds, but just wondering if there's anything that comes to mind of a really good case study of how the two of those merging and integrating well um helped get more out of it than they would have if they were being done individually, not really um interacting and communicating with one another. >> Yeah. I mean, I think a lot it to me it's just a lot of the way that we present research at Roku, we make sure that not just the product managers and engineers are on this the meetings, but also the marketing teams, also the brand teams and things like that. Um, and then also the way that I share research a lot is I'll do separate readouts. So, I'll do the broad readout to just like share the insights, but then I'll do a follow-up session um of my tracker with just the product managers to talk about like what business areas do we need to improve on? Like why do we think we're seeing some of these things? And then I'll have a separate meeting with marketing of like why do we think people aren't noticing this kind of content more? Like what can we do to better promote this? Um and so taking the same piece of research and kind of repositioning it and re and adapting it to make sure that the application works for both sides of the coin. So in a lot of instances it's not even about doing unique research. It's just about putting the right lens on it so that it means different things for different people. Um I think that's one of the ways that we've really seen it like adapt and be applied. Um, and in general, like we're actually like our consumer insights team is now standing up another tracker uh that is about like the experience on the Roku platform with different features, but it's for marketing because they're going to do more product like driven campaigns. And so uh it's a product tracker, but it's for the marketing team. And of course the output of that is not only going to help the marketing team, it is going to help the product team as well as far as are people noticing these things that you're building and why not and things like that. So um it is really interesting just seeing um like where do we sit like that the consumer insight team is running that one not me. Um and there's no problem with that and I think it's going to be just as effective. Uh, and so I think sometimes it's okay to just embrace that blur and and let it run as long as the insights are being properly disseminated and that they're really getting out there. So I think those are kind of the best examples I have. >> Totally. Um, thanks for that. It looks like we did just get uh a note in the chat. Uh, really love this presentation. This is from Leila. Um, if I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly. Really love this presentation. and it's super relevant to me as my org has just combined market research and UXR. I'm also transitioning to UX research and I'm getting my masters in UXR. Awesome. In my job search, I've seen more and more that consumer insights roles involving more UXR responsibilities. Do you foresee this continuing to happen? I think it will especially as think it will especially as companies are leaner and trying to remove perceived redundancies. I'd love to hear your perspective. Yeah, I think I think it's kind of twofold, right? Is that companies want to get the most out of their re out of their researchers? So, they're like, yeah, you need to do everything. uh but I think you know why I also don't didn't give an answer to this question of like should they merge is because I think there is sometimes an organization doesn't understand the incremental value that each of these disciplines provides and so they're like I just need a researcher to do research and they don't make the distinction that is required and I think as researchers we it's important that we educate in that way and that show like if you like If I were to come into an organization like that that was like I I just need research to do everything. I'm like I'll do the stuff. Obviously you're hiring me to do the job, but like here's where I specialize. I think we need someone to come in and do usability tests and really build out the UX uh practice more and I'll focus on the consumer insights or vice versa. Um I think it's a lot our job to make sure that people understand the value that each of these disciplines provide. And even in a world where we're doing more faster, there is a lot of specialization that is in each of these fields and it's important that like organizations understand that incremental value that each is providing. >> Yeah, totally agree. I I kind of I do think that there's room for both specialization and integration and learning from those two groups. Um, you know, I think just like an example from my world is like uh I'm often in helping out with consumer segmentations and that's kind of one of my favorite methodologies to get into and I love the idea of you know taking the knowledge we have from a certain consumer segment that you know maybe this segment really cares about uh the user experience and technology and is savvier than the other segments. It it wants to learn more about it. So then taking that and helping us you know get into um some user research uh with that group specifically because they have better thoughts about um these UX things. So maybe you know getting into some qualitative research after we've done the consumer insights of the segmentation and then developing developing that into some future UX research that can come out of it. So I think there's a lot of room for integration. Um but yeah there will always also be I think some some specialization within that and uh everyone will have their own specific expertise but um I think great to have just knowledge shared and continue to inform one another like you said Alex. >> Yeah absolutely. >> All right I don't see any any more questions. Alex, if there's any of these uh that you have any thoughts on or any of these other questions you want to just delve into, feel free. Um I'll leave it up to you. Uh, and also from Leila. Uh, thanks. That was a great answer. So, appreciate that. Um, and so, yeah, if you want to, uh, keep going, up to you. If not, we can, um, take another break before the next one. But, yeah, um, some great questions still here, I think. Uh, totally up to you. >> Yeah, I'll just wrap it up by saying I I do think things are changing more in like the next year than they've changed in the last 10 or 15. Um, and so I think there may be merging out of just out of necessity and out of because we can do so much more with so much less in the next few years. And I'm just kind of along for the ride and and hoping that I can kind of keep pace. So I I hope I hope everyone feels similarly. I hope everyone no one feels discouraged by this. I think it's really exciting opportunity. Um, but it is a time where like evolving will be really important and staying on top of all of this and keeping a really broad skill set is going to matter more than ever. So, I would just encourage everyone to just like seek knowledge now and and stay on top of it because uh otherwise it's it's going to be pretty tough in the next few years. >> Great. Yeah, 100% agree. Um, thanks so much. We've got one more question from Christine. Out of curiosity, what tools in Roku is is Roku using to help distill UX research? >> Yeah, we have uh it kind of depends on if we're on the qualitative side of the coin or quantitative. Um we actually in our San Jose headquarters have our own lab uh where we have every Roku device set up and we can load it withever whatever software we want. So we do a and we have like eyetracking glasses in there. So we have a lot of capabilities in our own offices to conduct research which is really amazing. Um when we were actually releasing um our TVs uh one of the things that we wanted to do um was just make sure that uh people it was easy for them to mount the TVs. So they actually set up uh drywall and 2x4s in our lab and had people come in and assemble the the TV mount. And so we do a lot in our lab. uh to understand how users are actually in uh uh working with our operating system. Um but then we also we do a lot of online interviews. We work with like ethnography companies like Dcout and things like that to kind of understand how people are are engaging with stuff in the wild. And then we run a lot of surveys where that's kind of more of my specialization um where through QualricS but we actually have a very custom research process that we are able to pull our users out of our database based on actions they've taken and then send them very tactical surveys based on like the parts of our platform that they've engaged with. So that's another way that we really like get meaningful UX research by targeting people um on specific actions. So I think that's a that's a solid summary for you. And Leila's back with one uh follow-up question about AI. How have uh how have you integrated AI into your workflow for UX research versus consumer research? Um if you have, I'd like to know or I'd love to know how. >> Yeah, I mean honestly, it's definitely a bit of the wild west right now. We're blocking and tackling as much as we can to stay on top of this. Um, at a basic level, you know, we're using the LLMs to code up open-end responses and help us to distill themes. Um, helping like working with we're like working we're starting to look at some vendors like Listen Labs is one that's out there that's doing some like AI moderation. So, we're starting to work with companies like that. Um, and then we're also like starting to build a lot with claude code where I'm trying to automate my I have a for our AB test we run a sentiment survey program and the sentiment surveys um are are pretty standardized. So we're using cloud code uh to automate a lot of that process um so that it will like automatically generate the questionnaires and pull the list of users and then um take the data file and and autogenerate a report. Um so that's stuff that's like happening right now like that's like still in the works. I don't even have a working version of that yet. But but really we're just trying our best to, as I mentioned, we're just trying our best to stay on top of it and figuring out ways that we can work quicker and more effectively. Um cuz the technology is amazing and it's happening really fast. >> Yeah, definitely agree. It feels feels like the wild west. >> It really >> and Christine just says, "Thank you for sharing all this. Super helpful." Um, also love the idea of automating the surveys with Claude. We'll have to explore that further. Um, yeah, thanks everybody for the for the interaction and the questions. Um, and again, Alex, yeah, appreciate you coming and and speaking and presenting this all been very interesting. I think we will be able to share out this this deck that you've sent through later so that anyone can look back at it as well. Um yeah, if there's nothing else from anyone, I think we can um close off a bit early and if everyone can just hang out till 2 o'clock, take a little break. Um we'll be back with the next presentation in about 10 minutes. >> Thanks so much. >> Thank you, Alex. Bye.