Strategic contributions to the UX Research discipline
Challenge
Leveraging my background in HCI and passion for system design, I've led initiatives to the systemic elevation of the research function in advocating for novel UXR approaches.
Topics of contribution over the years:
1: Bridging the Academic-Industry Rigor Gap
The Challenge (The Systemic Problem): The transition of highly qualified researchers from academia to the fast-paced product development lifecycle often results in a painful methodological friction. Deep, time-intensive research practices (dissertation-level rigor) clashed with tight business deadlines, leading to researcher frustration and insights that arrived too late to be actionable.
My Contribution (The Structural Solution): I led a dedicated working group to architect a Research Translation Framework designed to codify and scale efficient, high-impact research. This initiative provided the necessary scaffolding to adapt rigorous methods for speed and business relevance.
Scoping for Impact: Developed a structured methodology to help researchers identify the Critical Research Questions (CRQs) necessary to drive immediate product decisions, replacing the default pursuit of comprehensive, foundational studies.
Methodological Optimization: Established guidelines for selecting the most efficient, high-fidelity research methods—a triage system prioritizing speed and necessary data quality over methodological purity.
Actionable Communication: Instituted a required "Business Recommendation" format, shifting the reporting emphasis from academic findings and discussion to concise, data-backed strategic recommendations for stakeholders.
The Impact (The Quantified Result): This framework successfully reduced the time from research question inception to final report delivery by 25%. The resulting acceleration of insights ensured our research was consistently aligned with product development sprints, dramatically increasing the perceived value and timeliness of the UXR function.
2: Integrating AI for Researcher Workflow Optimization
The Challenge (The Efficiency Bottleneck): Our research team was burdened by manual, low-value, repetitive tasks—specifically transcription, initial data tagging, and preliminary synthesis—consuming crucial time that should have been dedicated to strategic insight and deep thinking.
My Contribution (The Technological Solution): I championed the strategic adoption of AI tools to automate and streamline the research workflow. This was an organizational change project focused on embedding technology to augment human analysis.
Curated Toolkit Development: Conducted a rigorous evaluation and piloting of AI-powered tools for tasks such as automated transcription, sentiment analysis, and thematic pattern identification.
Organizational Enablement: Created and documented a Shared UXR AI Toolkit with approved applications, ethical usage guidelines, and best practices to ensure consistency and data security across the team.
Change Management: Designed and conducted dedicated workshops to train colleagues on the ethical, effective integration of these new tools into their established qualitative and quantitative workflows.
The Impact (The Resource Recapture): This initiative reclaimed an estimated 10 hours per researcher, per major study. This significant time savings was reallocated to higher-value activities, including proactive strategic planning, robust stakeholder engagement, and sophisticated, in-depth analysis, thereby increasing the team's overall strategic contribution and capacity.
3: Institutionalizing Accessibility and Inclusive Design
The Challenge (The Fragmentation of Focus): Accessibility was culturally treated as a specialized, isolated research project or compliance check, rather than a fundamental dimension of all user experience. This fragmented approach led to inconsistent product quality and a shallow understanding of inclusive design principles across development teams.
My Contribution (The Cultural Shift): I successfully advocated for and integrated accessibility checks as a required component of our standard UX research protocols, ensuring inclusivity was a constant input, not an afterthought.
Lightweight Audit Development: Developed a simple, yet rigorous ten-point checklist for accessibility considerations, implemented across every stage of research, from participant recruitment screeners to interview question design and reporting.
Mindset & Value Presentation: Led internal presentations that effectively framed accessibility not as a cost, but as a mechanism to uncover latent usability issues for all users, demonstrating the business value of inclusive design.
Protocol Integration: Secured alignment with the Research Ops function to officially embed these checks into our required study templates, effectively institutionalizing the practice.
The Impact (The Proactive Quality Gain): By allocating a minimal 20% (1 session of 5) of standard research resources to these ongoing checks, we proactively identified and resolved critical accessibility barriers in three high-profile product areas. This initiative embedded a robust culture of inclusive design, making our products more resilient, comprehensive, and user-friendly for a wider global audience.
