Democratization Is Nothing to Fear — Unless You Fear Collaboration
Yesterday, someone questioned what I am doing with Curious Zebras. Not so much questioned I suppose—more told me that I am completely wrong to be doing it.
While I don’t think I am wrong, I do think their perspective is valid: that all trained (key point) UX Research1 people should keep everyone but them out of the research business. Their perspective is valid for two reasons:
It’s their perspective. Who am I to tell them what to think?
Trained researchers are going to elicit better data to make decisions with.
That’s pretty solid in my mind. Here’s why I don’t think I’m wrong:
Non-researchers have been eliciting data … forever. Like, literally forever.
It’s not going to stop any time soon.
I think I can help them do better by training them.
I think by training them, they are better able to see the value of having dedicated researchers to work with.
I consider this a scaffolding (educational method) effort for organizations who don’t have researchers or don’t have enough researchers. I consider what I am doing with Curious Zebras as a way to help now. And there is certainly nothing to preclude using CZ to train people to be dedicated researchers—it’s how it started after all.
But, back to the perspective of the person from yesterday. They aren’t wrong. No organization who makes things (products or services) should be making business decisions without trained researchers helping to guide the way—in their opinion and in my opinion. And to be honest, we could spend days talking about that “making business decisions without” part. Goes along with my litmus question of, “To what extent does Research impact the Roadmap?”
In the end, I’m comfortable with what I am doing. I am also open to questioning what I am doing along the way. Sometimes I think the willingness to be wrong is seen as a weakness, but while I do know a lot about research, I don’t know everything. In my mind, I must remain open to the possibility I’m wrong. Or at the very least, I need to remain open to the idea that I can do better.
I don’t see a world where everyone is a Researcher, but I see a world where everyone contributes to research. And that isn’t a future statement—that’s the world now. If you’ve been doing research for a while, you have worked with other team members, other employees, other points of contact with your client. They have all gathered data prior to your arrival that you will use—and they will continue to gather data at your behest (and not your behest).
My question is: Are you going to be a Gatekeeper or are you going to teach them how to ask better questions of customers so that when you aren’t there, they won’t ask dumb, actually-asked-by-a-real-human-once questions like, “If we made an app that made your life better would that make your life better?” I mean, those KPIs won’t meet themselves!
If you choose Gatekeeper, cool. I genuinely hope it works in your favor because I’m rooting for you. But I’ve seen a lot of researchers (and designers) take a “my way or the highway” approach and it never works out for them—unless they run the company. And even then it tends to not work in the long run.
Democratization is nothing to fear—unless you fear collaboration. I think in an organization that has a decent Resear Chops2 program, trained researchers on staff, and an understanding that research shouldn’t be crammed into an Agile Development sprint can benefit a lot from a researcher’s usual collaborators contributing to the body of knowledge.
And I think even without that, helping people gather data more accurately and ethically cannot be a bad thing.
1 Not a fan of “UX Research” as a name for what I do, but it’s the current trend for searches and I want to be found. I’m honestly not even a fan of “UX” anymore.
2 Saw it. Can’t unsee it.
