The Problem With Research Democratization That People Aren’t Talking About
One day, I was having the following conversation about teaching with my 10-year-old child, and it put all the recent discourse about research democratization into perspective…
ME: “I don’t know how teachers do it. I could never be a school teacher.”
MY CHILD: “What do you mean? You teach.”
ME: “Yes, but I teach people who actually want to learn.”
This used to be a true statement. Sadly, with the rise of research democratization, it has become less so. It’s related to a big problem that I don’t see getting much attention.
Just because non-researchers (i.e. designers, developers, product managers, marketers, etc.) can learn to conduct research, it doesn’t mean they want to.
One of the services I offer as a research consultant is training through custom courses or workshops. In the past, this has typically been to help research teams sharpen their skills or train people who want to become researchers. Currently, with the rise of research democratization, I’ve been asked to train a lot of non-researchers who don’t even want to conduct research. As you can imagine, this can create a lot of issues. Recently, my last 2 workshops consisted mostly of designers and developers that were signed up by their bosses to learn how to conduct UX research. Why? Because it recently was added to their list of responsibilities despite their lack of interest. Unsurprisingly, this completely changed the dynamic of the workshops.
I’m accustomed to having a lot of engagement with attendees when I teach researchers or those that want to become researchers. I love it when they ask tough questions and you can see and feel how thrilled they are to finally be in a place where they can get answers. It becomes a safe and fun place to geek out on all things research and possibly exchange war stories from the road. There tends to be a lot of “what if” questions that are asked by new researchers in anticipation of what they may encounter with participants. In the end, there’s always an energy of excitement that’s palpable because the attendees can’t wait to put what they’ve learned into practice. It’s one of the reasons I find teaching so fulfilling.
On the flip side, when I teach non-researchers who never raised their hand to take on this responsibility, the engagement level is pretty meager. When I pause for questions, the crickets are almost audible. There’s no passion about the topic so there’s no excitement or any kind of energy. When I call on someone, they look like a deer caught in the headlights. Suddenly, I feel like a middle school math teacher. No one wants to be here and I’m all that stands in the way between them and recess.
![Picture of bored employees in a meeting.](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:700/1*6PPRO-v95A7tNW9UtyD0sw.jpeg)
Conducting a rigorous research study can be draining. The moderating alone can take a lot out of you and the analysis can be absolutely daunting. And that’s coming from someone with over 20 years of experience who loves research! Now, put someone who doesn’t want to conduct research in that role, and I can tell you that’s just not going to be sustainable. Not to mention, the quality of the output will be questionable at best. You may be able to get through a study, but in the end, your proxy researcher is going to be spent, possibly jaded, and the analysis may even have a wee bit of bias (I’m being kind) depending on their main role. What I’ve seen from some of my clients is similar to what Rannie Teodoro mentioned during Dscout’s panel about “How to Democratize Your User Research Practice”; the non-researchers end up empathizing more with the researcher role. This can be a distraction from the participants that they should be empathizing with.
“I don’t know if folks have ever chatted with non-researchers who are conducting research, but it tends to be a really big empathizing moment for non-researchers. They realize, “Holy shit, what you do is hard.” If anything, democratization has allowed us to advocate for more resources because non-researchers realize how much time and effort and intentionality is required in order to conduct these research studies.”
My plea: If you need to conduct research, before spending a lot of time and money on training non-researchers, ask yourself, “Does [team member] actually want to take this on?” Don’t make assumptions. Ask them.
If those team members answered with an enthusiastic, “Yes!”, please check in on them. Give them permission to change their mind or make it a temporary shift in their responsibilities. Until someone has fully executed a study, they can’t know for sure if they truly want to continue taking on this role. After all, nobody wants to see team members getting burnt out or disgruntled. We all want the research to get done, but it also needs to be done well while keeping the team intact.
Now, before you come at me in the comments, I truly do believe there are good things about research democratization. Non-researchers can and should speak to customers and ask thoughtful questions. I’m all for fostering a user-centered culture, but using reluctant non-researchers is not the way to go about it. Yes, there are some people that are interested in taking on the researcher role in addition to their other job responsibilities. I’m not talking about those folks. Sure, I have some concerns about that, as any good researcher would, but I’m not focusing on those in this piece.
Perhaps my experience is unique. But after talking to fellow researchers and all the recent layoffs in tech, there appears to be an increasing trend where reluctant non-researchers are having to conduct research. I’m curious to hear your thoughts and if you’ve had similar experiences and/or observations.