Presented at O'Reilly Design 2017 and the 2017 Information Architecture Summit. This talk describes approaches to ensuring that user research findings are taken into account at every phase of design and development and that design team members and stakeholders are involved in those approaches.

1. The Embedded Researcher
Integrating Research into the
Design Process
Amy Silvers
@A_Silvers
O’Reilly Design Conference 2017

2. #EmbeddedResearcher
• @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedResearcher
• Senior Product Designer at Nasdaq
• IA at heart, designer by trade, researcher by default
• One of two researchers on a 20-person product
design team
• Worked on 186 interviews/usability tests in 2016
• Helped create open-source research asset repository

3. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRePhoto: Dan Slee

4. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
What the Process Really
Looks Like (Sometimes)
✓ Record user interviews
✓ Transcribe user interviews
✓ Design what we like
✓ Done!
✓ Conduct user interviews

5. Photo: Brian Omura
https://www.flickr.com/photos/oleswerdlow/

6. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Why This Happens

7. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Why This Happens
1. Lack of time, budget, or resources

8. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Why This Happens
1. Lack of time, budget, or resources
2. Working in silos; lack of communication between teams

9. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Why This Happens
1. Lack of time, budget, or resources
2. Working in silos; lack of communication between teams
3. Designer decides not to implement the feedback

10. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Why This Happens
1. Lack of time, budget, or resources
2. Working in silos; lack of communication between teams
3. Designer decides not to implement the feedback
4. “We lost track.”

11. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Why This Happens
1. Lack of time, budget, or resources
2. Working in silos; lack of communication between teams
3. Designer decides not to implement the feedback
4. “We lost track.”
5. Business goals take precedence over user needs

12. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Why This Happens

13. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Why This Happens
1. Lack of time, budget, or resources
2. Working in silos; lack of communication between teams
3. Designer decides not to implement the feedback
4. “We lost track.”
5. Business goals take precedence over user needs
6. We don’t have a process for making sure it doesn’t happen.

14. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
What Happens Next
1. Your design doesn’t reflect what the user needs.
2. Your product fails.
3. Management doesn’t want to do research again.
4. Research fails.

15. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
What Happens Next
1. Your design doesn’t reflect what the user needs.
2. Your product fails.
3. Management doesn’t want to do research again.
4. Research fails.

16. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Why This Happens
1. Lack of time, budget, or resources
2. Working in silos; lack of communication between teams
3. Designer decides not to implement the feedback
4. “We lost track.”
5. Business goals take precedence over user needs
6. We don’t have a process for making sure it doesn’t happen.

17. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Research Debt
research isn’t
implemented
product doesn’t
meet key needs
rework has to
be done
someone says,
“Let’s do
research first.”

18. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Research Debt
• Research is ignored, dismissed, or minimized to save
time, money, or effort in the short term.
• The result doesn’t meet (or doesn’t fully meet) the
user’s needs, and research and design rework is done
to address the shortcomings.
• One solution: create a research “parking lot” and
agree to revisit research that hasn’t been
implemented.

19. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Photo: Simon Huggins

20. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Make Everyone a Researcher

21. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Everyone = Everyone
Every member of the team:
‣ agrees on research goals
‣ contributes to the script or moderator’s guide
‣ participates as facilitator, notetaker/summarizer,
or observer for at least one session
‣ attends a debrief
‣ contributes to and reviews the findings report

22. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Who’s Everyone?
‣ Researcher
‣ Designer
‣ Product manager
‣ Business sponsor/owner
‣ Content strategist
‣ Developer

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Capture Findings Fast

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Capture Findings Fast

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Identify Themes Together

26. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Identify Themes Together

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Identify Themes Together

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Identify Themes Together

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Make Findings Easy to Find

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Individual Campaign

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Individual Campaign

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Individual Campaign

33. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Individual Campaign

34. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Individual Campaign

35. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Individual Campaign

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Individual Campaign

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The Back End

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The Back End

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The Back End

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The Back End

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The Back End

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Workshop the Findings
• Create user scenarios or define goals based on the findings.
• Pose “how might we” questions for each goal or point in the
scenario.
• Or use findings to inform a User Centered Design Canvas.
• Once you’ve come up with answers, have everyone join a
sketch session to begin designing the solution.
Photo: Burt Lum

43. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Additional Approaches
“Researcher & designer collaborate to come up with ideas on how to
merge research into design.Then we progress to iterative testing to
refine design as best we can in time frame of project.”
“We take the research findings and flow them out into themes which
become our design principles and then match designs to our
principles when sketching.”
“We are a distributed, remote team and usually we will do a couple
of online 'working sessions.’ …From this exercise we are usually able
to begin to group items and generate things such as key findings,
suggested design principles and overall design and content
recommendations.”

44. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Embedding
Photo: Luis

45. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Embedding
• Based on pair development concept, but less intense
• Researcher and designer meet daily to review ideas
and check against findings.
• If the designer is also the researcher, s/he sets aside
time every day to align with research.
• Researcher (or designer with researcher hat on)
attends all reviews as design progresses.

46. Amy Silvers | @A_Silvers | #EmbeddedRe
Resources
• Mosaiq: http://nasdaqproductdesign.com/mosaiq
• “Everything you need to plan and share user research with
Trello.” Jessica Crabb, Pivotal Labs.
• “Using Trello for User Research Synthesis.” David Ghent,
Pivotal Labs.
• “Make your findings interactive.” Tess Rothstein, Medium.
• “How Might We.” Design Kit by IDEO.
• User Centered Design Canvas