Buy the right thing: Identifying the needs of your research team + stakeholders in research tooling

By
Jack Wolstenholm
November 15, 2023
Buy the right thing: Identifying the needs of your research team + stakeholders in research tooling

Buying UX research software can be a daunting process.

For starters, it’s something that you do infrequently — maybe once a year, more likely once every couple of years. This means you don’t necessarily have a lot of experience in running this process, or it might have been a long time since you’ve done it before.

It’s also high stakes: if you buy software which doesn’t solve your team’s problems, or doesn’t work with your other software, or doesn’t meet your security or legal needs then you’re going to be at a loss. 

Making the wrong decision can be an expensive lesson to learn.

So how do you reduce this risk?

One way we’ve previously talked about is to get your team to prioritize what they need via a checklist, where they indicate what features are most important for them prior to doing a vendor assessment.

Another way to reduce the risk of making a bad decision is to run a stakeholder survey.

A stakeholder survey is a way to identify the needs and views of everyone who is involved in a project. This method is best used in the early stages of a project to better understand background from different perspectives and define requirements, roles, and goals. 

A well-executed stakeholder survey helps ensure every voice is heard, building trust and setting your team up for success.

Identifying what your stakeholders need in a vendor is a perfect use case.

Let’s say you’re in the market for a new customer research tool. If you’re a researcher, you probably have an idea of what you need; maybe you’re even comfortable enough to create a shortlist of vendors.

But how confident are you that your shortlist will align with what your fellow research and research ops teammates have in mind? And what about your non-research stakeholders — the folks on your team who do research or need research, but aren’t researchers by trade. From product managers and marketers to designers and engineers, they’re completely spread out across your org.

To align on vendor needs and pick a tool that’s built to endure your legal, compliance, and procurement processes, you first need to run a stakeholder survey. It will help you evaluate how your stakeholders think about and prioritize:

Ready to get started?

Create a free Great Question account here and survey your stakeholders using the free template below. Great Question makes it easy to customize the survey to your liking, share it with your team, and most importantly, identify what they need in a research tool.

Use this template to learn what stakeholders need in a research tool

1. On average, how often are you conducting research with your target users today?

  • Less than once a month
  • 1-2 times per month
  • 3-5 times per month
  • 6-10 times per month
  • 11+ times per month

2. In an ideal world, how often would you like to conduct research with your target users?

  • Less than once a month
  • 1-2 times per month
  • 3-5 times per month
  • 6-10 times per month
  • 11+ times per month

3. Which research methods do you currently use? 

Select all that apply.

  • Unmoderated usability/concept testing
  • Moderated usability/concept testing
  • 1:1 interviewing (remote)
  • 1:1 interviewing (in-person)
  • Focus groups
  • Diary studies
  • Continuous discovery
  • Card sorting
  • Tree testing
  • Surveys
  • None of the above

4. Which research methods would you use if you had access to a tool that supported them? 

Select all that apply.

  • Unmoderated usability/concept testing
  • Moderated usability/concept testing
  • 1:1 interviewing (remote)
  • 1:1 interviewing (in-person)
  • Focus groups
  • Diary studies
  • Continuous discovery
  • Card sorting
  • Tree testing
  • Surveys
  • None of the above

5. Tool selection criteria

For the next set of questions, think about how important each of the criteria are when determining which research tool to use.

6. How important is privacy and security in a research tool?

This includes things like protecting participant PII, GDPR compliance, HIPAA compliance, and single sign-on.

  1. Not at all important
  2.  
  3.  
  4.  
  5. Essential

7. How important is supporting multiple research methods?

This includes things like interviews, surveys, focus groups, and unmoderated methods.

  1. Not at all important
  2.  
  3.  
  4.  
  5. Essential

8. How important is having an attached research repository?

This means being able to store your data and artifacts in the same place you conduct your research.

  1. Not at all important
  2.  
  3.  
  4.  
  5. Essential

9. How important is participant management?

This means being able to upload lists, track, update, manage, and recruit participants for research projects.

  1. Not at all important
  2.  
  3.  
  4.  
  5. Essential

10. How important is having an integrated scheduling tool?

This means being able to schedule research in the same tool you use to conduct it.

  1. Not at all important
  2.  
  3.  
  4.  
  5. Essential

11. How important is having integrated incentive management?

This means being able to send incentives to participants in the same tool you use to conduct research.

  1. Not at all important
  2.  
  3.  
  4.  
  5. Essential

12. Which of the following additional features do you look for in a research tool?

Select all that apply.

  • Observer rooms (watch interviews live without being on the call)
  • Highlight reels
  • AI assistance
  • CRM integration
  • External recruiting
  • Professional services
  • Round robin study moderation (have multiple moderators run sessions for a study)

13. What else should we be thinking about as a team regarding our research infrastructure?

(Short answer)

Jack is the Senior Content Lead at Great Question, the end-to-end research platform for customer-centric teams. Previously, he led content marketing and strategy as the first hire at two insurtech startups, Breeze and LeverageRx. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska.

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