Moving to “The Next Normal”: How Research Will Evolve in the Post-COVID World
At the end of 2019, we outlined a series of "Moves to Modern Research"—steps organizations were taking to mature their research practice. 2020 changed everything. Here's how...
In 2019, we outlined a few “Moves to Modern Research”—a UXR maturity model sourced from numerous conversations with industry leaders. It sought to capture, map, and account for the rapid growth, change, and adaptation occurring within the field.
It's trite—but bracingly accurate—to say that the pandemic changed everything.
The effects of 2020 flew at multiple altitudes. Front-line UXRs were beginning to feel the weight of remote work, social unrest, and political strife. Those building, scaling, managing, and leading teams also felt these effects. For all the digital ink spilled on what 2020 "did," we thought it useful to sit down with leaders of design, research, and product teams, once again, to discuss what it's "going to do" to our professional lives.
One thing that was abundantly clear: there’s no returning to a “normal” that is unchanged by the pandemic. Better to frame what lies ahead as “The Next Normal," allowing for fluidity and feedback from more corners of experience.
Below we summarize some of the emergent themes leaders in the insights space reported and recap the “moves” underway from our initial report. Together, these themes represent a window into how things might be, as we begin to return to whatever we're going to call "normal.”
Table of contents:
Three currents of change that pushed each move
Scope: What do we expect research to do?
Approach: How are we getting research done?
Talent: Who makes up our research teams?
Structure: Where does research “fit” within an org?
Tempo: What timelines do we expect for research projects?
Output: What happens to findings once a study concludes?
Downloadable chart: Assess your org
Download the PDF version of this report, and our "assess-your-org" scorecard, for later.
Three currents of change pushed each “move.”
The speed of org-wide evolution and demand for strategic research insights
The need to innovate became dire as businesses of all stripes struggled to meet the new demands prompted by the pandemic and social change. Products and services moved up their 10-year-roadmaps—and teams across organizations felt the pressure to adapt. New practices, allies, and collaborators emerged as user researchers’ skill set became increasingly valuable in the wake of broader business transitions. And just as the maturation of a researcher’s respective industry sped up, the maturation of the research function rose to keep pace.
Buy-in for human-centered approaches and a “whole-person” understanding
The tumult and turbulence of 2020 revealed the criticality of knowing one's customer well...especially in an empathic, whole-person way. This insight offers faster problem solving and better prediction, and usually comes from the rich data collected by user researchers. Across our conversations, leaders mentioned the increased demand and hunger for the work their team's were doing. For some leaders, this meant demand exploded; for others, the chance to advocate for the approach and create new collaborations formed. In both instances, leaders took the chance to advocate for a human-centered approach and framed their team as uniquely-positioned to provide insights to match.
The distance between our users, our teams, and our collaborators
The “work-from-home” movement not only shifted the way we conduct research, but the way we collaborate as researchers. Who we work with, how we share findings, how we gather those findings, how we recover from the emotional impact of those findings—all became key questions prompted by our all-remote experience.
Note: Throughout this report, the quotes referenced will be color-coded to correspond with a “current of change” that was particularly influential. White quotes demonstrate the ways shifts within industries have created shifts within research practices. Blue quotes showcase the way an org’s research maturity has been influenced by increased buy-in for human-centered insights. Purple quotes represent the role remote work has played in changing our research routines.
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Scope: What do we expect research to do?
We were working to…
As an org's research practice evolves, researchers strive to (and push to) take on a more "strategic" role. Whereas research initially strives to prove immediate ROI or yield fast product or service improvements, mature research functions integrate research as a strategic partner—utilizing insights to define company strategy and vision.
We’re now concerned with...
Researchers are applying their skill sets inward as well as outward at their orgs—bringing a “human-centered” approach not only to the products and services their company develops, but to the policies, processes, and priorities that govern its strategy and operations. UXRs are increasingly looked to to provide an inclusive, and “whole-person” perspective to questions that impact their business strategy broadly, as well as the product development lifecycle.
For our other business partners, [the pandemic] opened up more willingness to focus on digital experiences. We were already doing this. It's just that we didn't always have the level of buy-in to fully realize what we want to deliver to customers. So it was almost just that the things that we were already working on, the things that were already top priorities in the digital space, for example, became top company priorities.
Director of UX Research at Verizon
3M’s business model has become much more complex [since the pandemic]—and it afforded us a new greater access to strategic level involvement. Stakeholders have told us, in the past, insight gathering meant going to customers, badgering them for feedback, or listening when they complained. Post-2020 we had the opportunity to “slide in” and say: “We know a lot of different methodologies, we have a lot of tactics that are digitally native that are remote native. We'll jump in and we'll do what we've always known to do—but now you’re really ready and primed to listen.
Director of UX at 3M
There was an increased demand for research across the board. Not only at an agency, but everywhere, as it became clear user behavior was changing and rapidly changing. Research became such an important relevant piece of the puzzle for our clients, as they worked to better understand how to pivot and keep moving forward. I think that was because we were in the realm of remote online research before this happened, so we were capable of becoming the voice of truth.
Research Director at Huge
Resources for advancing scope:
Approach: How are we getting research done?
We were working to…
Initially, researchers work to execute on projects—often raised by stakeholders’ most pressing concerns. As an org's research function matures, researchers struggle to keep up with increased demand, before eventually "offloading" some of the research to "non-researchers." At this point, UXRs spend their time training, monitoring, and project managing, rather than primarily conducting research.
We’re now concerned with...
While researchers, prior to 2020, were largely plagued by questions of: “Should we democratize?” or “What should we democratize?”—the accelerating nature of the pandemic has shifted the conversation to, “How quickly can we democratize?” This means folding more voices into the research process, determining what other sources of insight-generation might be brought in to best answer a question, and ruthlessly prioritizing which requests “trained” researchers handle.
We're getting teams more engaged through our democratization programs and by really rolling out more opportunities for them to get their hands dirty, especially with remote unmoderated testing. Since they're doing it from start to finish, they have a sense of ownership: they're watching the videos, they're in the sessions, they’re really doing the work. Remote tools have really helped supercharge our democratization efforts.
Director of UX Research at Verizon
Before the remote shift, if we wanted to visit 10 dealers, we'd just visit 10 reps and ride with them to 10 dealers! Now, we're exploring more digital and remote research tools to see if we can augment that internal relationship and power up the reps’ ability to collect user feedback...This has opened the space for new ways of approaching opportunities; UX and sales are flexing our skill sets (design, the customer relationship) to create faster solutions to what were—during the pandemic—evolving problems.
Former Director of UX and Design at CARFAX
It feels like everything is super-charged on that front [UX demand] now, because people are recognizing, 'Hey, this has been a missing piece of what we've been doing,' and I think it goes back to democratization. There's tremendous demand now and we knew pretty early on that our small team was not going to be able to satiate that demand. So then you start trying to figure out, 'Okay, how can we do this at scale?' and I think that's the biggest priority for us this year.
Resources for smarter democratization:
Talent: Who makes up our research teams?
We were working to…
As research functions get more sophisticated with an org, teams move from hiring "do-it-all" generalists to larger ranks of methodological specialists. Eventually, the need for operational expertise emerges; companies begin to hire research operations managers, librarians, or trainers responsible for supporting a busy research organization.
We're now concerned with...
How many perspectives get a say in research? Emboldened and encouraged by a year of social change, researchers are concerned with their company’s career journey as it intersects with a DEI lens. They’re focused on research being analyzed and conducted by teams with a diverse array of backgrounds and experiences—noting that research teams with varied viewpoints can more effectively advocate for the varied viewpoints of users.
One of the big things that we've been tackling is rebooting our career ladder. This has involved benchmarking interviews and asking others, 'How have you brought a DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) lens to the career ladder itself?' That seems to be an untapped opportunity in our field in general. We also recognized an opportunity to better understand and invest in building an inclusive research practice. While we're just dipping our toes into this important work, it's prompted us to evaluate our current practices and begin to dig into questions like, How do you tell people's stories? How do you bring that into workplace interactions and be a bridge between people in the world and people in the company?
Director of Product Research & Strategy at Credit Karma
We've been thinking a lot about the scarce pipeline for UX talent and the challenge for so many to find entry-level positions. Our team thought about an apprenticeship program, where folks from any background or training could shadow our UXRs to learn how Mailchimp approaches business questions. On my team we have former journalists, support folks, writers, all kinds of training...how can we make sure we're not eliminating some folks from consideration?
Director of UX Research at Mailchimp
As Reddit’s first Head of User Research, I’ve helped build the user research foundation with a vision of growth over the last two years. We’re hiring a team of Avengers—people who have research superpowers with quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods skill sets. Beyond that, for research to represent the diverse voices of our users, we have to reflect that diversity on our own teams in backgrounds and in life experiences.
Head of User Research at Reddit
Structure: Where does research “fit” within an org?
We were working to…
Originally, many research teams start "as a service"—responding to projects other teams bring their way. As the research function in an org expands, teams are "embedded" across other company functions that require their expertise (ie. product teams, design teams). Finally, research teams often adopt a hybrid model—with a subset of researchers responsible for “centralized” tasks of company-wide relevance, while other researchers embed themselves across different teams.
We’re now concerned with...
Researchers are increasingly focused on meeting their companies “where they are”—and folding their skillset into their org’s broader systems and processes. This means knowing where to “offer up” their expertise, and creating better opportunities for collaborations with their org’s other “insight generating” functions—be they data science, market research, or business intelligence.
We lead a hybrid model of User Research at Reddit. Our embedded researchers join meetings with our partners—groups like product, design, engineering, and data science—and if a meeting doesn't exist, we suggest one. We often say, 'Hey, we’d like to check in on the product roadmap and make sure we’re aligned for impact. What questions might you have about users? What do you need to learn about them?' We uncover and connect overlapping questions across product areas where we could generate more efficient and effective insights on users' needs and motivations. Product teams discover research in their own way. If there are multiple teams asking similar questions, we bring those teams together with our central researchers. Researchers meet partners where they are, and invite them along to see how research elevates product goals.
Head of User Research at Reddit
My ethos and philosophy as a research leader is that I am less concerned about being precious about research and I'm more concerned about focusing on impact and outcomes—making sure research is integrated and applied, because that's how you get the impact to actually hit people's lives. We put a lot of emphasis on that integration. Our researchers do a lot to enroll their cross-functional teams as collaborators. I'm slowly moving away from the word 'stakeholder' for this very reason.
Director of Product Research & Strategy at Credit Karma
We have to focus all of our efforts on prioritization and an emphasis on research for that prioritization. How can we scale with the existing infrastructure? Thinking about the stakeholder question: 'How is research going to help me do that?' is what I stressed to my team early on. We put an emphasis on research that “helps you do that” because our partners were reaching out for any lifeline to help them push through what they care about: their initiatives, programs, and projects.
Director of UX at 3M
Resources for encouraging better org-wide engagement:
Tempo: What timelines do we expect for research projects?
We were working to…
Researchers may start at an org working independently, but as demand for research increases, timelines shorten. In mature research orgs, senior researchers tackle longer, strategic projects, while junior UXRs and non-researchers tackle quick-turn tactical work.
We’re now concerned with...
Researchers are now focused on coping with speed and demand, rather than meeting it. Teams are addressing burnout, Zoom fatigue, the isolation of the remote moment, the emotional weight of empathy, and the broader toll research can take on researchers. Pushing back, realigning expectations, and making space for “self care” across teams—is increasingly important for research leaders.
It's important to highlight not just the labor of doing research, but also the emotional labor of empathy with our users and our partners in delivering that research in an impactful way. The breadth and scope of research requires prioritization and communication for any team, regardless of size. At a high-growth and well-known tech company in the San Francisco Bay Area, there’s no choice but to be on target with our research. We created new synchronous and asynchronous workflows at Reddit that adapt to cross-functional stakeholders throughout the organization, and also provide realistic timelines and expectations for our team. I also check in with my team about major events that arise internal and external to the company and impact people and their work. It's about opening up the opportunity for conversation, but not forcing that dialog, so that we can show up as our whole selves and find a sense of community and belonging together on the team.
Head of User Research at Reddit
Early on, we tried to do fun stuff over Zoom. Zoom happy hours, etc. But it didn't quite translate the way it does in person. Especially during the height of the pandemic—Zoom fatigue was real, and everyone had a lot weighing on their minds. People just needed time off. Having a coordinated company level-time off policy so people didn't feel like they were missing any meetings was great. And on top of that, additional researcher days off were a must. There would be times when one of my researchers would have a really heavy week of interviews and their manager would give them a day or two off to recover from it. So in terms of self-care, the best thing we could do was just ask people not to work.
Director of UX Research at Mailchimp
I love going into the office, I love the people that I got to see every day. That being taken away, overnight, was incredibly hard to deal with. The company issued a number of resources to help employees navigate the remote situation—a work from home handbook, workshops, panels, access to experts. When it comes to self-care, Huge walks the walk. And they encouraged managers, like myself, to encourage our people to take time off, to be very vocal on their boundaries. To be very mindful that their health came first.
Research Director at Huge
Resources for coping with research demand:
Output: What happens to findings once a study concludes?
We were working to…
Research output reflects an org's research demand and capacity. Initially researchers may prepare decks and reports, but as timelines shrink, sharing quick, just-in-time insights becomes the norm. Finally, findability and accessibility of insights becomes a priority, and developing a repository or research library becomes a need for research teams.
We’re now concerned with...
Whatever communication cadences worked before—now have to work in a remote, often asynchronous environment. Workshops, share outs, deliverables, and updates all need to capture attention and spur engagement in virtual only spaces.
People are so fatigued with Zoom meetings and dialing into another one as opposed to getting the readout...so it's something that is on my list of things to be thinking through for 2021. How can we try to bring more of that experience of the customers to our teams when we're in a remote environment?
Director of UX Research at Verizon
Workshops have to change, there's meeting fatigue—how do we get attention? One of my focus areas has been evangelizing the function of our work more. A researcher on my team started a Slack channel called "Member TV," where they drop in video compilations from dscout for people to follow along and listen to. I did a bunch of virtual leadership chats with the company, where I've shared member research or talked about products we've been working on. I've started partnering quite a bit more with our internal comms team and our internal PR team because they've really wanted to get more member voice into the company.
Director of Product Research & Strategy at Credit Karma
We were faced with two big things: how to do research in a virtual context and how to do workshops in a virtual context? There was a lot of interest in both, so we did a big round robin of internal calls with people all around the world offering tips and tricks on going remote. We had experience with remote diaries, collaboration boards, and conferencing tools. I think we proved you could do a lot really well.
Global Co-Lead at Fjord
Resources for more engaging remote collaboration:
Assess your organization
We have a PDF version of this report and an updated, summarized maturity matrix. Print it out and mark it up to get a sense of where your org stands.
Mac Hasley is a writer and content strategist at dscout. She likes writing words about words, making marketing less like “marketing,” and unashamedly monopolizing the office’s Clif Bar supply.
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