Rosenverse

Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.

Log in Create free account

100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.

Design Research Strategy & Strategic Design Research

Thursday, February 3, 2022 • Advancing Research Community
Share the love for this talk
Design Research Strategy & Strategic Design Research
Speakers: Mike Oren and Janice Wiitala
Link:

Summary

When scaling and democratizing research practices, how can you help ensure higher levels of value are delivered? In this interactive session, we discuss different items we can leverage to ensure design research is providing value to an organization by driving strategic decisions. Areas we cover include: Utilizing research repositories as strategic assets; Leveraging quant + quo data to track success; and Ensuring research can focus on the highest value work.

Key Insights

  • Research repositories should be designed like design systems—organized, accessible, and enabling holistic storytelling rather than just storing final reports.

  • Atomic insights or research nuggets capture rich, verbatim customer feedback that enhances empathy and informs design decisions more effectively.

  • Democratizing research to teams increases insight ownership but risks duplication and inconsistent results if not strategically managed.

  • Effective research strategy involves deciding what not to do to maintain organizational focus, echoing Michael Porter's definition of strategy.

  • Most organizations struggle to fully integrate user-centered research into decision-making despite having talent and data available, causing researcher frustration and turnover.

  • Combining deep usability study insights with broader, real-time listening posts enables a richer understanding of user pain points across contexts.

  • Qualitative UX research faces challenges in measurement and aligning results with business metrics, requiring new approaches beyond standard quantitative data.

  • Video and multimedia summaries of research insights can personalize findings and improve engagement across teams.

  • Building trust and relationships across departments (UX, strategy, marketing) maximizes the value of research data collected through various channels.

  • Investing time upfront in organizing and tagging research insights can save teams significant time searching and accelerate impactful outcomes.

Notable Quotes

"Strategy is telling organizations what not to do, not just generating new ideas."

"Research repositories often get a bad rap because people just dump final reports without thinking about how they'll be used."

"Atomic insights are nuggets that tag what customers actually said, including their sentiments and sometimes swearing."

"On average we spend 20% of our time just looking for things, which is not the best use of resources."

"Democratizing research can lead to duplication and even conflicting results if we’re not careful."

"I want to look at the discussion guides or listen to recordings to really get the emotional context."

"Organizations are slow to adopt the practice of making every decision from the voice of the customer, despite having talented people and data."

"Combining deep usability studies with site intercepts gives you both step-by-step insights and a moment-in-time view of user pain."

"Using video clips of insights creates a more personal connection and helps teams engage with the data."

"Building relationships with other departments helps us leverage information collected for different purposes in a structured way."

Ask the Rosenbot
Cennydd Bowles
Responsible Design in Reality
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Yunyan Li
UX Best Practices
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Discussion
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Peter Van Dijck
Building impactful AI products for design and product leaders, Part 3: Understand AI architectures: RAG, Agents, Oh My!
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Kaaren Hanson
Stop Talking, Start Doing
2017 • Enterprise Experience 2017
Gold
Natalie Dunbar
DesignOps and Content Strategy: Envisioning the Future Together
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Dr. Jamika D. Burge
A Genuine Conversation about the Future of UX Research
2024 • Advancing Research Community
Catherine Dubut
Bridging Physical and Digital Spaces: Approaches to Retail Service Design
2021 • Enterprise Community
Gabrielle Verderber
Documentation Your Team Will Actually Use
2023 • DesignOps Summit 2023
Gold
Taiye Akin-Akinyosoye
Amplifying voices and enhancing user research through group interviews
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Louis Rosenfeld
GenAI for UXers: A Rosenbot Demo and Discussion
2025 • DesignOps Summit 2025
Gold
Patrizia Bertini
Pushing DesignOps’ Influence into New Global Markets
2022 • DesignOps Summit 2022
Gold
Bria Alexander
Opening Remarks
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Christian Crumlish
Morning Insights Panel
2022 • Design in Product 2022
Gold
Taylor Jennings
Research Debate Club
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Greg Petroff
Design is the Differentiator: Bringing New Design Innovations to a Very Antiquated and Very Large Industry
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold

More Videos

Jim Kalbach

"Without these rules and conventions, we wouldn’t be able to improvise."

Jim Kalbach

Jazz Improvisation as a Model for Team Collaboration

November 6, 2017

Louis Rosenfeld

"Inclusion, collaboration, and iteration are the three pillars of how we work with authors to make a book."

Louis Rosenfeld

Coffee with Lou: Should You Write a (UX) Book?

March 7, 2024

Catt Small

"The difference between director and principal often lies in whether you’re inspired more by leading people or focused on outputs and craft."

Catt Small Micah Bennett Brian Carr Jessica Harllee

What's Next for ICs: Exploring Staff and Principal Designer Roles

February 22, 2024

Marieke McCloskey

"I invited Mark to a user interview — he had no idea interviewing wasn’t for him but respected that skill deeply."

Marieke McCloskey

User Science: Product Analytics & User Research

March 11, 2021

Llewyn Paine

"If you can’t see a human in a video, how do you know the entire conversation wasn’t fabricated?"

Llewyn Paine

[Demo] Deploying AI doppelgangers to de-identify user research recordings

June 5, 2024

Joshua Noble

"Matching is very much an art, not a science; there are no hard and fast rules for what counts as a good match."

Joshua Noble

Casual Inference

October 6, 2023

Sara Logel

"Stakeholders are users too; the product we’re sharing is the research and learnings for their decision-making."

Sara Logel

Your Colleagues are Your Users Too

March 29, 2023

Bria Alexander

"We made a very intentional choice to build in five minute breaks after every talk based on feedback and experience."

Bria Alexander Louis Rosenfeld

Welcome

January 8, 2024

Sam Proulx

"Timely interactions that log users out without saving progress cause abandonment, especially for people with disabilities."

Sam Proulx

Online Shopping: Designing an Accessible Experience

June 7, 2023