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👋 Hello, it’s Niki here! Welcome to the UX Under Microscope newsletter. Bi-weekly, I deep-dive into the world of UX, sharing practical tips and insights that will take your UX design and research skills to the next level, enabling you to make a greater impact as a UX professional and accelerate your career growth.
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Since transitioning from UX design to UX research in my 9-to-5 job, I've been devouring books on research, just like how some people change t-shirts.
Despite having conducted over 1,000 interviews in my tech career over the past decade (which isn’t nothing, but…), I still felt there was room for improvement in my skills to interview stakeholders effectively. That’s when I stumbled upon Tomer Sharon's book, ‘It's Our Research,’ and instantly fell in love with it as one of the best resources on stakeholder management for UX researchers.
Even though the book is over ten years old, I still consider it a gem. And today, I want to share with you what I’ve learned from it and how you can apply Sharon’s framework to your stakeholder interviews (SIs).
Before kicking off any research project, we UX researchers need to gather all the available information out there so that we don’t waste our effort and the company’s research budget on a research study that has already been done and the research objectives and questions have been answered, just perhaps were not documented well enough.
The other reason you need to conduct interviews with your stakeholders is to understand their expectations and needs, ensuring the research is user-centric and aligned with business objectives, essentially fulfilling the requirements stakeholders set.
Lastly, having a structured set of questions for the interviews will enable you to capture stakeholders' perspectives and expectations related to the problem space & research requested. The information you gather during SIs will shape and guide the research plan you write.
One note I want to add before we dive in is that receiving research requests is a good thing. It indicates that the company or team values research insights and what UXRs bring to the table. However, not every request matches what the company prioritized for the current FY (fiscal year) or aligns with OKRs (objectives and key results). After conducting and recording the stakeholder interview, to ensure accuracy and minimize the need for repetitive queries or additional meetings, use some rubric or tool to prioritize the requested research (more on this next month, so subscribe if you haven’t already done so). This will help you determine the project’s priority level and evaluate the research request in a structured and informed manner.
The session should be scheduled for ~30 minutes with each stakeholder.
Product and engineering partners, designers, other researchers, and sales and customer service representatives could be stakeholders.
Meeting Title: UX Research Prep Session [Product X]
Meeting Description: Here are the questions regarding your recent UX research request that we’ll discuss during the meeting. Before the session, please set aside a few minutes to reflect on these questions. Thank you!
Questions:
Kicking off a research project with a short meeting, during which you ask your stakeholders the following questions, is crucial to the success of the research study. These questions shouldn’t come as a surprise, so make sure to send a short agenda, as seen above.
If you want to learn more about research in general, I started a series that will help you start with the basics. Check out the first two articles in the series:
I hope you enjoyed this newsletter & found it valuable! I’ll see you in the next one.
Happy researching!
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