Should Product Designers be Part of the Research Framework?

Product design should never be completely separated from the research phase. When this happens, a gap is created between what was learned and what is being designed.

Recently, while talking with some product designers from various companies, I noticed that teams are becoming increasingly segregated. Between those who do research and those who only materialize the findings into something visual, ready to hand off to developers.

This creates a separation and segregation in the process, where the depth of insights is lost and consequently ends up affecting the quality of production deliverables.

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After working with several companies and teams, I believe that the product designer should never be completely separated from the research phase. When this happens, a gap starts to exist between what was learned and what is being designed.

Hours with users, an important metric

Hours with users is a metric that can define the design maturity of a company or designer, as well as the quality of what is produced.

Product designers who spend few hours with users are product designers who have not observed the behaviors nor investigated the attitudes of those they are designing for.

I believe the negative impact of this is clear. Even if there are documents with findings or guidelines from the research team to follow a certain path, it is necessary for the person designing the interface or service to experience those same findings and investigate or observe them for themselves.

So how can we structure teams with both capabilities?

It has always seemed right to me to have one team more dedicated to research and another that is more operational. However, I never divided the methods that both teams use, but rather their purpose. That is, both teams should use research and design validation methods, but with different purposes or at different stages of the product.

In my case, when forming teams, the research team takes on a more strategic role, where the focus is on exploratory research, using more formative research methods. It tracks the Key Experience Indicators and is concerned with informing the business about new opportunities and changes to the current product that result in increased user value and consequently maintain the KEIs.

In addition, this team should support the operational side of research and help product designers produce their scripts, materials needed for the study, and supervise the use of best practices.

In the case of product designer teams, they are responsible for the operational side of research. Dealing daily with the materialization of new interfaces or experiences, these teams should be focused on discovering the value for the user, finding the best way to deliver the proposed value, and validating, through usability testing, what is produced.

This was the "snack" of the week. What is your opinion on this topic?

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