How do you handle it when people are skeptical of the value of UX research?(How do you conduct a UX research project with a high impact/How to collaborate with your skateholders?)
The first step
is to know whether your research findings are meaningful and valuable for your product team. What the business goal of the company is, what the OKR of your product team is，what results your team members need and want. Check whether your research findings could satisfy their needs, whether solve problems for them, then you’ll know whether your research findings are valuable or not.
If your research findings are not valuable, nor could solve problems for your product team, conduct the UX research again, and these points as following should be taken into consideration:
1.Before conducting the research
●What problems do your product need to solve?
●What’s the priority of these problems?
●What are your skateholders worrying about? What do they care?
●What obstacles or barriers will occur if they buy in your research findings? Will these obstacles or barriers slow down or even stop their goal achieving?
●What results do they expect your research findings provide?
●What research findings could help them with solving their issues?
2.When conducting the research:
●Learn whether the research methods you choose could help you gain the real and valuable user data.
Check these two articles from NNGROUP：
When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods
Or this book：
●Is your sample size large enough to represent the majority of your population?
●How do you define your target market? Check your screening criteria or screening survey — — Check whether some population has been excluded, Or one of some participants are not in your target market. Ask your skateholders who will be included in the population, and who will be excluded.
●Check the script of the interview questions — — Are they able to provide you with valuable users data? What interview questions will answer your research questions? And how to design the whole process of testing your user, such as in usability testing, to motivate participants speak out their mind?
3.Research findings analyzing
●Prejudice or bias based on your past experience
●The crucial details unconsciously ignored
●Excessive inference and concluded
●Focus on the secondary or minor things instead of the crucial key data
SECOND
If your research findings are valuable, here are 3 steps to handle with other scepticism on your research findings — — Before conducting the research, when conducting the research and after research findings have been finished.
Before conducting the research
1.Choose the research project which could bring impact, which means your skateholders will benefit from your research findings, and they could realize their KPI and OKR by using your research findings. Or your research findings help them reduce their workload and the cost of development. This will help you better on building a trust with your skateholders.
In general, evaluative research could help you increase UX research impact in a short time. And the frequently used research method is usability testing. If your time is limited, you could also conduct Heuristic Evaluation and Cognitive Walkthrough.
2.Collect the research needs for your skateholders, including the Google form and interview.
（1）Google Form
Link here.
Send this questionnaire to your skateholders.
（2）You could also conduct an interview with your stakeholders to collect their research needs.
Things you have to know from your skateholders:
●Talk with them about their previous working experiences. What are their comfortable and satisfied working experiences with UX researcher? And what are their uncomfortable and unsatisfied working experiences with UX researcher?
●Ask them what problems are the most important ones which need to be solved, and how long these problems have been lasting/existing.
●Ask them whether they tried to solve the problems in the past.
●Ask them what stopped them from completing the developing project in the past.
●What do they care mostly about? What are they worrying about? How terrible would it be if in possibility? And what would it be?
●What are the motivations and causes when your stakeholders making a product decision/strategy? What happened to them that they are motivated to make the product decision/strategy?
●Ask your stakeholders what they need, what they want to do, and what their plans are.
●Ask them how they see their work and what their anticipation is. Ask them what their difficulties and obstacle are, and what limitations they are facing (including controllable and uncontrollable factors).
●Ask them how much research findings are bought-in and applied by them in the past.
●Tell them your anticipation, and tell them how you would like them to cooperate with you.
●Don’t promise people if you’re not able to realize. Otherwise, people will be disappointed and uncomfortable because you can’t meet their expectation.
●Try to find your common goals, and collaborate with each other to realize it.
Things you also have to learn:
●How do your product earn? Where do the business profits come from?
●How did product team realize the business goals in the past?
●What did your skateholders do/finish before launching this project?
●Who will benefit from your research findings? What benefits? And how long will the benefits last?
3.Do research plan with the best timeline, which could fit into the timeline of product development, then conduct the research.
When conducting the research
●Motivate your skateholders to take part in your research, and observe the process of testing people and interviewing them. It will be more possible for them to understand how your research findings come from, to learn more about user ideas and behaviour. So they will be more likely to accept your research findings and less skeptical on your recommendations. The more they invest in participating in your research, the cost higher, the possibility of buying-in your research findings higher.
●It is best to motivate them to participate in your research from research plan, to the process of conducting the research, and to synthesizing the research findings and produce the research results. Try to associate your research with their work, make the two ones boost each other, and make your research findings be more likely applied to the product strategy.
After finishing the research
If unfortunately, you neither conducted a research with a high or profound impact, nor prepared for the collaboration with your skateholders such as having an interview or sending a questionnaire to collect their research needs, nor motivated them to participate in your research, how could you do to handle with the problem that they are skeptical on your research?
●Convince them with your past research project which is similar to this one and which has a high research impact — — You could tell them like this: “In the past, the research needs were ___, your research findings were ___, your research findings were ___, the team gained ___ profits, ___ growth, realized the goals of ___, solved the problems of ___, reduced the cost of ___, shortened __(how long)__ time, avoided the risk of ___, brought the additional benefits of ___, achieved the OKR and KPI of ___ for the product team.” Give them the real and similar examples to make them trust the helpfulness of your research. The more similar, the more possibility of taking your recommendations/research findings into consideration.
●Convince them with the research project that a professional or authoritative UX researcher in a famous or authoritative company has conducted, and that research had helped ___, realized ___, achieved ___. And tell them your research is similar to his or hers.
●Convince the product decision-maker or the person who is the crucial/important role in the team at first, such as the VP, your PM and so on. When they think your research is reliable, they’ll buy-in your research findings, and they will influence other team members to accept your research gradually.
●Try to bring more and more benefits to your skateholders. Make them be your supporter, especially the ones who are mostly skeptical on the value and helpfulness of your research. The benefits you give must be relative to their work, relative to their OKR and KPI, and must be the benefits they want or desire.
●Observe how other UX researchers in your company handle with the issue that their research doesn’t get buy-in by the skateholders. Then, summarize their solutions, choose the ones which are suitable for you. Or you could chat with your UX colleagues on how they solve this.
●About reporting the research findings, choose the ones which could benefit yourself, your skateholders, your users, your business at the same time. Before reporting, think what your skateholders need, what they want and what is important for them. In general, people prefer the solutions which require less time and effort, lower risk, and which is effective and simple. Report the user data which could determine the growth&decline and exist&die of your product.
●Think these: If they apply your research findings, how much will be the cost of developing the product? Will there be any risk for them? How much the risk will be? How long the risk will last? Do your skateholders care about these costs and worry about risks?
●Think what tech limitations they are facing, what uncontrollable factors for them are, and what design solutions are easier to be achieved for them.
●If what users want are the opposite to the concept of the design, try to find the common goals between both, and think what your team could do to satisfy both themselves and the users.
My Story
Gaining skateholder buy-in is similar to selling a product. Take my true story as an example: Weeks ago, I subscribed a video channel about ancient Chinese history(mainly on conspiracy/intrigue/tricks between the kings and their courtiers). And the video maker wrote a book about that, which is about how to solve the problems in our real work and life by learning from the ancient conspiracy. I added him as a friend, and he told me the book had been selling. The price of the book is 20 times higher than the common books. He kept telling me it was worth for the price because it contained over 600 pages. But why will I pay for that? He thought it was worth because he invested in writing the book a lot, he paid a lot of effort, labor and energy or even wisdom in it, but it doesn’t mean that it is meaningful or valuable for me. To sell the book, seller should be in buyers’ shoes. Why will they buy an expensive thing when they are not sure whether the product is helpful for them or not? For me, I’m not sure whether his book could help me solve the problems in my real life. Will it be effective? Will it help me realize the goal that I want? Will it meet my anticipation or even exceed it? All the things are not sure, why will I spend a lot of money for that? The same as your skateholder: Developing products requires a lot of energy and cost, and it may also bring some disadvantages or even risks if things are not sure, why will the skateholders adopt your research recommendations?
So, if I were the seller, how could I solve that?
●First step is not to sell, instead, to build a trust. How to build a trust? Learn what your buyers need, what results they want, what obstacles that stop their purchase. The viewers who subscribed my channel are the ones who are interested in learning the solution from Chinese history, and their goal is to make their life happier, their relationship better and their career smoother. List the problems that people are struggling with, write down the solutions, then publish them on social media. Also, tell them you could give them free solutions for 5 times in personal message, when they are struggling and worrying about some real problems and looking for some help. When the seller and the ones who always ask for help are more and more familiar with each other, and they get lots of benefits and help from the seller, trust has been built. When trust has been built, and when people believe your solution is very meaningful, valuable and helpful for them, and your solutions and answers have solved problems for them immediately in the past, and helped them get rid of the difficulties and obstacles at once, again and again, it is very likely that they’ll pay for your product.
●Another way is to break down your book. What does that mean? It means that your book contains lots of solutions for different problems. You could sell solution A to Jack if he needs A, and sell solution B to Mike if he needs B. They pay for the solutions they need, instead of purchasing all the solutions (the whole book). Solution A may be chapter one, solution B may be chapter two, they could be written in a pdf. If people are asked to pay for the whole book which is too expensive, they think they will lose much money. But if they pay for 10% or 20% of the price, and they will only spend a short time to finish that pdf (which means they don’t have to spend lots of time and effort for the book), they are more likely to buy the pdf and complete reading. If the book has been broken down into different parts with lower prices, it is much more possible that more people will buy the solutions(pdf), when compared to the whole book selling. No one wants to lose much cost for exchanging something that they are not sure whether it is worth or not. So the total income you earn will be more than the income that you sell the whole book to few people. You could also increase the prices of the parts of that book, because it has been broken down with a low price. People won’t discover or feel they lose much. The second advantage is that people will be more loyal and trust your book, rather than selling the whole book. Why? Because you sell the solution which serves for solving their problems in their real lives when they need. When bad things happen to them, such as worse and worse relationship with their colleagues and friends, salary growth limited, being in debt, being not accepted or even excluded by the group or society they are in, when they are struggling with these issues, they urge to get rid of these difficulties, so it is time to sell your solution — — they desire happiness and well-being the most in this period. So the possibility of purchase is the highest. If the parts of the book successfully solved their problems, and it didn’t take lots of money, time and effort, trust has been built, and they are loyal because your solution helped them get rid of the difficulties. They will be more likely to pay for the other parts of the book when another adversity happen to them.
So, as for the skateholders, ①build a trust with them — — make them regard you as a reliable person who could provide effective and efficient solutions to help them achieve the result or to get rid of the difficulties. ②Provide them with the solutions which require them less time, effort, energy and other costs. ③Provide them with the solutions when they need, when they urge for, and when your solutions are for their priorities. If the problems don’t bother them too much, or don’t negatively affect or influence them too much, they won’t cherish your solutions, or they will even regard them as irrelevance.
Conclusion: It’s common that people don’t trust the unsecured and unknown things. They are not sure whether it could help them accomplish the results they want, nor they know the whether it is harmful, dangerous or damageable. If you turn the people who are most skeptical on your research findings into your supporter or backer, by building trust with them and being regarded as a reliable colleague, your collaboration with them will be more and more smooth, and your research findings will get more buy-in.
Recommendation
It’s our research by Tomer Sharon
References
Thanks for the video 如何正确开始一个用户研究新项目 #InsightSprint#业务方访谈#研究提案#建立团队信任感#桌面研究#合理利益分配达成双赢#去中心化组织#商业意识 from 波波和宇舟
Thanks for Stakeholder Interview Questions Template from the website adamfard.com
