Creating engaging and enjoyable user experiences requires a solid understanding of the people your product or service is meant to serve. Unfortunately, many companies don’t really understand their customers — even companies with large research groups. But understanding people takes more than simply hiring researchers armed with PhDs and the latest methodologies. Understanding customers isn’t something that a research team can do on its own; it’s something that the whole organization needs to do as a whole. That’s the only way that insights into the lives of your users have any hope of getting into the products and services you design.

Research is only effective if it integrates well with the larger design process. When done poorly, research does nothing but keep research staff busy. When done well, research can transform the understanding of users for your organization as a whole and empower your teams to create compelling experiences.

In this session, you will:

* Learn how to make research actionable and durable within an organization.

* Discover strategies for integrating other departments and key players into the research process, and vice versa.

* Examine and learn from case studies of successful research activities within design projects.

About Todd Wilkens

Todd Wilkens is the design researcher for Adaptive Path. Thanks to over a decade of experience in research and design he holds a passionate belief that focusing on and truly understanding people allows us to create products and services that provide compelling experiences and real value.