Difference between a Product Designer and UX Researcher
Long article short: Research approaches are replacing rather than supplementing expertise, and that’s a big problem. But Research should only be a supplement. So let’s go deeper.
A few years ago it was hype about Soft Skills. You know, all this stuff: VUKA, networking, motivations, be too polite and so on. As one of the outcomes, nowadays many people are talking only about qualitative research because it is about communication. Product Manager should perform research, Designer, Developer, even the hamster should perform research or, at least, be a respondent. And mostly it is the right idea: check before doing. But in 2021 something went wrong. Let me show an example:
A student of mine was doing a case study. The topic was: a course for adults on building relationships with young people.
After conducting about 40 in-depth interviews with moms, dads, and kids, she brought back conclusions, classifications, insights. In terms of the customer development approach, the research was done perfectly. Huge job. If it were not for one small nuance…
None of it needed to be researched. She should have talked to a family psychologist and validate it with books. The information the researcher had been gathering for months could have been obtained in one day. Just a few interview is needed to create a person, and not event in all cases. Maybe a Narrative Research.
So the obvious problem here is time-consuming. Now some researchers and product designers become self-centered and they want to perform 30 in-depth interviews, create a user-flow, after creating a CJM, validate all of it with an external agency, perform a SWOT analysis, choose between user stories and JTBD, and only after this business can start development and «not to lose a money». But we already lose money. While a researcher performs proper research, other companies just make a few fast pieces of research in their professional area and start to create an MVP. Instagram was created just two months, and it was for the web as well. If Kevin Systrom made research instead of MVP, we would never meet Instagram, and Kevin didn’t get his millions of dollars. Yep, almost half of startups is fail because no need on the market. But how many potentially successful startups die before born, just because the researcher said: 5 respondents said they never paid for the same stuff?
Looks like we are going to bury expertise under communications. A new business or startup is unthinkable without expertise in the field in which it is created. Apparently, many people believe that research can replace expertise. But it’s not true. No one can perform research properly without expertise. I can’t ask network engineers about tools if I know nothing about networks.
All we are experts in shopping, chatting, watching video, and especially relationships and politics. Let’s imagine it’s so. But, to research how to improve the OSI model, you need to understand what is it and how it works. Work on it with your own hands, not just imagine how you would do it. You don’t know what is OSI model? It’s fine, but how you will learn it? Just ask people to explain it like “for the children”?
Even worse, in some cases, nowadays expertise is even considered harmful: people tend to think, that professionals are used to thinking narrowly, they lack vision for opportunities to innovate. We even have a phrase in my home country for this: you can’t teach an old dog to do a new tricks. There is some truth in this. Indeed, “experience” often interferes with the creation of customer value. But that doesn’t mean we should trust innovation activities to dilettantes! Otherwise, people who don’t understand how a dentist places a filling will start making tools for dentists. This, alas, is the case in some industries.
Did you tired of entrepreneurs, which take money for the product and fail everything? After they would say something like: it didn’t fail, I just tested a hypothesis. Now I have the knowledge to share with you for money. As a result, today we have a market full of coaches with inflated expectations and zero expertise. Some IT people, researchers, salespeople, analysts, designers, advice coaches, scrum masters — anyone but subject matter experts. And it makes me sad because that’s the market, which one I love.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t tell you there is no need to perform research at all. Research must be in a modern Software Design & Development. It is an important part of Software Design & Development, but only while it provides more value than harm. I love to work with researchers and sometimes be one of them. I even do Usability Tests and Speaks with users, but never considered it like complex research, just part of the design. But first of all, I’m a Product Designer and my responsibility is to make a product earn and grow via user’s needs. If I see, how somebody slows down the process of potential earning, I know there are competitors out there who do work faster than we do.
Do not need to research for an obvious solution. This is the obvious solution. So, be an expert and do research, when needed. Experts are supposed to know something, they have experienced, and they don’t need to test all their solutions. It is clear that referring to the study, the designer adds weight to his decision. The problem is that knowledge and experience are replaced by trial and error.
I suspect that we will realize the true extent of the problem in about 10 years when one day we come to the clinic about a bad headache. And doctors will go and ask people, how did they solve the same problem before. Instead of just knowing the exact right treatment for your special case.
