"Oh yeah, you told the story about the guy in the meeting. I love that one."
If you, dear reader, have doubted my passion for storytelling, please note that the above was my husband's reaction to last week's issue about the people of research. He was sincere in his appreciation of the story, and also truthful in that he already knew it. The story of the presenter who refused to speculate is definitely a moment I've thought—and talked—about many times before.
Indeed, all three stories of research people are part of the lessons that resurface as I go about my work as a researcher. They serve as a reminder of who (and therefore, for me, why) I am doing the work I am.
For our participants, I strive both to understand why they do what they do and to pursue that understanding in a way that respects their time and intelligence.
For our research consumers, I strive both to understand what decisions they need to make, and to provide them with actionable findings to support those decisions.
For our fellow researchers, I strive to respect their expertise and mine by being clear in what I think I understand and why.
My experiences as a member of each group have made it easy for me to keep them in mind. Each group has its own needs, which in turn shape my research process in different ways. While I have described this shaping as a duty—did anyone catch the extremely subtle reference to the TV show The Good Place in my first two email subjects?—I find that keeping these people in mind also helps us do our jobs better.
For example, a common difficulty in our field is having research consumers disregard the findings we worked so hard to gather for them. After too much frustration at having this happen to me, I amended my study planning process.
Along with drafting research questions and choosing a method, I now write out the names of the specific people who I think will use (or I hope will use) the study's findings, and I figure out what they'll each need. Sometimes this requires a little meta research, and other times I already know enough from past experience with a person. Thanks to taking a look at the problem directly and in advance, I can often address my research consumers' concerns with everything from the method to the topics covered. And if I don't succeed, I try to take what I learn about their questions and needs into account next time.
I can think through things in this way with each group for each stage of each study, and all the work in between. When I remember the needs of our participants, our research consumers, and our fellow researchers, I do my best work.
Thanks for joining me for the fourth of four Finding Out issues introducing the roles of people in UX research. If you missed the earlier three issues and want to catch up, check out the links above, or the whole archive of Finding Out.