Research Frameworks
UxR Kit's take on research frameworks
Last updated
UxR Kit's take on research frameworks
Last updated
A research framework defines different levels of UxR and where the findings end up in the organisation. It's a way to structure research efforts within a design org and it essentially depicts different types of research, the purpose of them, and how their findings are funnelled into the product development process, shaping backlogs, roadmaps, and portfolios.
There are multiple approaches to UxR frameworks and you could divide the different types of research in multiple ways depending on how you practice research in your organisation. For me, it makes sense to talk about three levels of research; operational, tactical, and strategic research.
I like to think of strategic research as being divided into two different tracks; being connected to an existing product, or being disconnected from an existing product. The purpose of both is to identify opportunities, but on two different levels.
This is where we aim to identify opportunities within an existing product and customer base. It's strategic but still has some limitations in terms of it often being connected to existing customers, product, or market.
This is exploratory in its nature and isn't limited by an existing product, market, or customer/user base. I think of it's when you're exploring new markets or products on the highest level and it's about understanding trends, new technologies, the future customer/user base, their needs, motivators and pain etc. It's not about evaluating or researching something connected to a physical or digital interaction but rather understand the behaviours of people and shifts in market and technology.
Strategic research differs from operational and tactical research in the sense that it's on a higher level and has less connection to an actual product. It's more about identifying trends that might prove to be an opportunity. The longer the time perspective, the harder to spot the trends and where we'll end up in X amount of time.
When looking into the future, trying to understand and identify behaviours and opportunities, we cannot think about time as a straight line. Instead, think about time as a cone. In the center of the cone runs a straight arrow representing that if nothing in our environment changes from today, then point B is probably where we'll end up in the X amount of years since there are no external influences that can make us shift direction or take us on a new path. When working with product or service development, this is never the case or reality. As new technologies emerge and existing ones grow, the longer time perspective the further we'll move away from point B.
If there are changes to our environment - such as new technologies and trends - we can be pretty sure these changes to the environment will bend our path and affect where we are in the same X amount of years. These trends can give us a hint of where we will be in X years. The dotted line represents the probable state (point C) in which we'll end up if the trends we see today are true and that nothing unexpected happens.
But sometimes life throws you curveballs. These curveballs can be new and emerging technologies or innovations that we are not aware of today, or that were expected to take much longer to evolve into a usable technology. It can also be radical changes to our environment, as we experienced in 2019 with the covid-19 pandemic. These are the curveballs in strategic research, that are very hard to predict or spot and that will take us on a completely different path (point D) than what we expect to be in X years looking at the trends.
An example of this is how the Covid-19 pandemic changed the need for and sped up the development of remote meeting software to support our the shifting need (and in many countries requirement) to work from home.
For a company to stay relevant and in business we need to conduct strategic research. You could compare it with us humans, when we stop being curious and close of our minds to learning new things and taking in new perspectives, we often "fall behind" of the society. I think of it the same way for organisations, if they aren't responsive to their changing environment (being trends in the market and needs of people) they'll likely won't last that long.
Like stated earlier, there are multiple ways to map and define a research framework. Directional and foundational research is another way of defining it. Directional is the more everyday, short feedback-looped type of research (operational and tactical), and foundational research is more of the uncovering of unmet needs and future possibilities both in the context of an existing product an in the lack of one (strategic research).
There is a great article by Matthew Godfrey that talks about UxR Frameworks and why you need one - be sure to check it out 👇 👀
Another good article on the subject of different research types is this one by Ben Ralph, talking about directional vs foundational research and how to stop research from being a blocker in your development.
This is everyday research. The quick to understand how a change to an existing design affects the usability of a product or the to research the actual impact a tweak will have on key KPI's. It can be of both , likewise its goal can be to improve qualitative experience metrics or quantitative business KPI's.
Tactical research is also a common, everyday research type in the life of a UX/Product designer or researcher. This is were we explore solutions to a problem that we are facing, but don't yet know how to solve. It can also involve methods like as we do in operational research, but the application of the method is different and the interview questions will have a different nature and purpose. It's about evaluating concepts against each other to decide on which approach to take to solve the problem at hand.
The is a workshop method that can be used for trend spotting activities and to get different perspectives on a specific topic.
