{"id":184781,"date":"2016-02-17T13:12:53","date_gmt":"2016-02-17T13:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.rm.gfolkdev.net\/?p=184781"},"modified":"2022-10-14T12:20:41","modified_gmt":"2022-10-14T12:20:41","slug":"whose-job-is-user-research-an-interview-with-steve-portigal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/whose-job-is-user-research-an-interview-with-steve-portigal\/","title":{"rendered":"Whose Job is User Research? An Interview with Steve Portigal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"steve.portigal.jpg\"<\/em>Those of us who conduct user research as part of our jobs have made pretty big gains in recent years. I watched my first usability test in 1995 then spent a good portion of the 2000s trying to convince people that talking to users was an important part of designing and building great products. These days, when I talk to companies, the questions are less about <\/strong><\/span>why <\/i>they should do user research and more about how<\/i><\/strong> they can do it better.<\/strong> Believe me, this feels like enormous progress. <\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, you still don\u2019t see much agreement about who owns user research within companies. Whose job is it to make sure it happens? Who incorporates the findings into designs? Who makes sure that research isn\u2019t just ignored? And what happens when you don\u2019t have a qualified researcher available? These are tough questions, and many companies are still grappling with them. <\/span><\/p>\n

So, I decided to talk to some people who have been dealing with these questions for a living. For this installment of the Whose Job is User Research blog series, I spoke with Steve Portigal, Principal at <\/span>Portigal Consulting<\/span><\/a>. He\u2019s the author of <\/span>Interviewing Users<\/span><\/i><\/a>,<\/span><\/i> which is a book you should read if you ever do any research on your own. <\/span><\/p>\n

You still don\u2019t see much agreement about who owns user research within companies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Steve has spent many years working with clients at large and small companies to conduct user research of all types. He also spends a lot of his time helping product teams get better at conducting their own research. Because he\u2019s a consultant, he sees how a large number of companies structure their research processes, so I asked him to give me some advice.<\/span><\/p>\n

What Does It Mean to Own User Research?<\/span><\/h2>\n

\u201cThere are two aspects to ownership,\u201d Steve says. \u201cOne is about owning the need. The other is about owning the actions where we build on what was learned in research. It doesn\u2019t seem like there\u2019s any perfect model for how research ownership works.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

As Steve points out, the concept of owning research is much more complicated than a single ownership model can describe. At a minimum, somebody needs to determine which business questions should be answered. Somebody needs to figure out how to get those questions answered. Somebody needs to figure out what to do with the results of the research. It\u2019s not often the same somebody. <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, the different people involved in the research frequently are not even from the same department. Company org structures vary widely: researchers might be their own group or they might be part of marketing, product, or even engineering. The people requesting research and using the results might be product managers, ux designers, or marketers. That\u2019s not even addressing the times when research is done by outside firms or by team members who aren\u2019t trained in research. <\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason this is so confusing. Despite the fact that various forms of user research have been used to develop products for decades, the widespread adoption of user research in the tech industry is still relatively new. Steve says, \u201cPeople have more dogmatic theories about best practices, but I\u2019m seeing so much variety and so much iteration as people try to figure it out.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Hopefully with a few more iterations we\u2019ll get a better idea of what works and what doesn\u2019t. Although it\u2019s likely there will never be one single answer. The best configuration may always depend on factors like company size, industry, and type of research that needs to be done. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Who Should Do the Research? <\/span><\/h2>\n

Despite the fact that Steve is a highly experienced research expert who conducts research for clients, he\u2019s very upfront about the fact that internal teams should be heavily involved with the research. Often they should be doing it themselves. This is one of the reasons he teaches people how to be better at research and why he <\/span>wrote a book<\/span><\/a> that explains how to interview users more effectively. <\/span><\/p>\n

Not every research study requires an expert at the helm. Quite a few products would benefit from having somebody on the main product team who could quickly get feedback or answers to simple questions. \u201cEven a newbie researcher should be able to answer some factual questions about what people are doing or might want to do. They also have the opportunity to reflect on what assumptions they were holding onto that were incorrect,\u201d Steve explains. \u201cYou\u2019ll always get more questions to go with your answers, but hoo boy\u2013it’s\u00a0better than never talking to users and acting with confident ignorance.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

There are some questions you\u2019re better off bringing in an expert, though. \u201cThe more help you need in connecting the business problem with the research approach and connecting the observations to the business implications, the more expert help you need,\u201d Steve explains. <\/span><\/p>\n

We should all know by now that things like usability testing make our products simpler and more intuitive for our users. There\u2019s also a huge amount of information to help you run a basic usability test. But when you\u2019re getting into some of the trickier questions around generating or validating business ideas\u2013or turning early customer research into innovative solutions to problems, an expert can help guide the research process and make these complicated research studies run more smoothly. <\/span><\/p>\n

How Do We All Work Together? <\/span><\/h2>\n

Of course, none of this answers the question of how we all work together. Steve feels like there\u2019s not a single answer to this question, but it\u2019s very important to decide this ahead of time so that everybody knows what to expect. <\/span><\/p>\n

For example, consider where researchers live in relation to the people who need insights to inform product design. When your company has expert researchers, they may be part of an in-house silo, embedded in the product team, an outside consultant, or some hybrid of any of the above. Wherever they come from, you should determine five things as part of your research planning process:<\/span><\/p>\n