Flawless team playing
Editor's note: Jenny Callans is UX senior design researcher at Ford Motor Company, Detroit.
Research is amazing. People are endlessly fascinating and even the most mundane study challenges my thinking about what it is to be human. But getting ready to do research well can be daunting. I like to think of research as a true partnership; there are steps I can take to be prepared, there are times I rely almost entirely on my partner and there are all moments in between when we work together.
Here, I discuss some practices that, when implemented, set up effective research partnerships. If you’ve already got a good research partner – whether internal or external – you may already be taking these steps. But if you’re in a partnership-building phase or you’re having trouble, these practices should help. My perspective is that of an in-house researcher – my “clients” are all my coworkers at Ford Motor Company – but I regularly work with external partners, too, and a lot of these practices still apply.
Let’s start with what you bring:
Clients should come ready with the who, what, when, where and, most importantly, the why. If some of these are still open questions, at least have started your thinking on them.
Researchers typically bring in the how but they often can’t bring that in until after some discussion. They can certainly help nail down the finer points of who, when and where but that also comes after some conversation.
Before you even reach out to your research partner, start with the why of your research needs. Why do you need this research? What does successful research look like, in this instance?
This might be straightforward: “Successful research will tell us which digital interface is more intuitive for new users.”
It may be complex: “We need to understand how we can get rental customers to take care of our vehicles.”
It can be straightforward to ask but complex to answer: “We need data on touchscreen usage, post-pandemic, in order to plan our next round of product offerings.”
This part comes from you, the client. You must know your why. Any why that comes from a research partner – whether that partner is internal or external – may be interesting from a research perspective but of little use to you. Sure, you can have conversations with your research partner about what your product is or who your target market is but you must be able to elucidate why you need to learn something.
Once you have your why, restate it as a question – your central question (CQ) – and assess whether there is, in fact, an answer.
Straightforward
“Successful research will tell us which digital interface is more intuitive for new users.”
Becomes the CQ: “Which digital interface is more intuitive for new users?” This can be answered by comparing types of interfaces.
Complex
“We need to understand how we can get rental customers to take care of our vehicles.”
This kind of discovery research is broader in scope but success can still be defined. Try stating it as a “how might we” CQ: “How might we support a sense of temporary ownership in rental customers?” We can break this broader question into component parts and answer those parts: How do our current customers behave toward our vehicles and why? What are some other situations when people don’t own something but they still take care of it and why does that happen? If someone knows they’re only going to own something for a short period of time, do they care for that thing differently?
Straightforward + Complex
It can be straightforward to ask but complex to answer: “We need data on touchscreen usage, post-pandemic, in order to plan our next round of product offerings.”
Becomes the CQ: “How will people respond to public touchscreens, post-pandemic?” This is impossible to answer effectively because we’ve never before experienced a global pandemic and therefore there is no analogous situation. What we think we know is changing frequently, even from week to week, and behaviors can also change quickly. Yet people can become complacent and fall back into old habits. Add in regional variations in behavior and this question is too broad. Narrowing it down might make the question answerable but that same narrowing might make the answers useless, from a business standpoint.
This step may be a collaboration between you and your research partner. Even when the question is straightforward, your research partner can help you refine it. Most importantly, though, your research partner can help you land on questions that are answerable – or they can tell you that the answers won’t really help and why that’s the case.
Now that you’ve defined your central question, you’ve on your way to defining the how.
CQ: “Which digital interface is more intuitive for new users?”
>> A/B testing with semi-structured interviews to gather qualitative data.
CQ: “How might we support a sense of temporary ownership in rental customers?”
>> Interview existing customers to understand their feelings about their rentals. Investigate analogous situations in which people are exhibiting the kind of feelings and behaviors we hope to inspire, such as short-term vacation rentals, borrowing a friend’s car for the weekend and even fostering a dog or cat that’s awaiting a forever home. Study short-term ownership situations, such as people who upgrade their cellphone annually or people who are active in swap meets.
CQ: “How will people respond to public touchscreens, post-pandemic?”
>> As established, this question can’t be effectively answered. But if it’s worth the resources for long-range planning and if the parameters can be tightened (such as by narrowing the market demographics or geography and by narrowing the focus to something like “airplane touchscreens”), a longitudinal study can easily be launched to provide ongoing, up-to-the-minute data on consumer attitudes.
Advising you on how best to learn something is your research partner’s strength. Let your partner bring all their expertise to bear on this – be open to all their ideas and then work through them to figure out what will get you the best data, given your timeline and budget. It could be that the data you really need will take longer – and cost more – to get but there also may be intermediate steps to getting that data and perhaps just getting to one or two of those will actually be enough. Let your research partner coach you on what makes the most sense.
A word of caution here, though: This is where scope creep can become a problem. Stay as focused as possible on your CQ and work with your research partner to identify what types of data are critical and which are just nice-to-have.
Now it’s tactics
Now you are well-positioned to identify the who, when, where. Your strategy is set, now it’s tactics. What markets make the most sense? Do you need to go into the field or can this work be done well virtually? Who do you need to talk to and for how long? How much should incentives be worth?
CQ: “Which digital interface is more intuitive for new users?”
>> A/B testing with semi-structured interviews to gather qualitative data: can easily be conducted online or in-person; would be good to talk to at least 12 people (N=12), alternating which interface is presented first; consider demographic targets – screen for people who would typify new users. This could easily be completed in a week or two.
CQ: “How might we support a sense of temporary ownership in rental customers?”
>> Interviews with current customers: perhaps N=5, one hour each, online or in-person.
>> Analogous research via contextual inquiry: N=5, one hour each, in-person in a situationally appropriate context if at all possible (for example, meet up while they’re borrowing their friend’s car).
>> Observational studies: Consider spending a morning at a local swap meet and engage people in conversation about your topic of inquiry. These three approaches might take your research partner a month.
CQ: “How will people respond to public touchscreens, post-pandemic?”
>> Longitudinal panel: Recruit a group of people who represent your desired market(s) and convene them regularly – online – over a period of months. Involve them in a variety of discussions about this research topic and others to ensure that they stay engaged. This is an ongoing effort that will be most useful over the course of months, not weeks.
This is squarely within your research partner’s wheelhouse; take their recommendations seriously. Of course, ask questions so that you understand what’s behind the recommendations but recognize that sample sizes and timelines might not have any wiggle room. Even additional resources – such as a larger research team – can’t make certain things happen faster. A thoughtful approach to data collection, synthesis, analysis and reporting takes a certain amount of time.
Scope creep can be a problem at this stage, as well. It becomes obvious that other research objectives are aligned so with a widening of the participant pool or with a bit more time you can get a two-for-one. After all, the digital interface interviews could include a section on preferences or the interviews with rental customers could also cover how they decide what to rent.
Each incremental addition, though individually discrete, adds time to the planning process and to the reporting process. The two (or more) lines of inquiry might be best served by different respondent audiences. These additions might even distract from the main CQ, diluting that data to the point of uselessness. Open communication with your research partner, and clarity of purpose on your part, are needed here.
None of this means anything if you don’t take time to review and socialize the research findings. A research report can be many things – a slide deck; video compilation; a paper with data tables and illustrations; even prototypes built from interview data – but it’s useless if it’s just filed away. Spend time with your research partner reviewing their findings, asking questions, understanding the nuances. Get your research partner’s take on how best to communicate findings with your stakeholders. Then share out what you’ve learned.
Allow you to iterate
The real beauty of long-term partnerships is that they allow you to iterate on previous research, as needed. This kind of relationship builds from strength to strength and also lets you make the most of failures. A research partner who knows your history of central questions, for example, and a partner with whom you confer regularly about your upcoming deliverables, who knows what’s worked well for you in the past and what’s been a tough sell to stakeholders – that’s a research partner who makes your work better. It’s worth the time to cultivate this kind of partnership, whether internal or external. Know what you need, what your strengths and limitations are, and then lean on your research partner to build from there.