Research Methods
Role
Director of UX → Vice President of UX — Leading Research and Design for the Organization
Scenario
A communications platform with FCC-regulated B2C products and enterprise B2B offerings where research was ad hoc, disconnected from decisions, and slow due to compliance and privacy barriers.
Goals
Design and scale a research function that delivered insights quickly, safely, and reliably so product decisions could be based on evidence, not opinion.
The company had no central research practice.
Insights and Data were:
Spread across departments
Based on personal bias
Too slow to influence product roadmaps
This was worse because:
Users had diverse and complex needs
Government regulations made access and recruitment difficult
Research efforts risked breaching compliance or privacy rules
Leadership needed proof that research could deliver meaningful, reliable insights at speed without risking legal exposure.
I was responsible for:
Designing a compliant research operations model
Embedding discovery into product lifecycle decisions
Scaling methods so that product teams could act on insight
Constraints included:
Legal and privacy requirements that added review cycles to all research outreach
Limited access to user segments due to FCC regulatory compliance
Research expertise fragmented across departments
This was not a scenario where a typical research team could operate normally — it required building new infrastructure and trust simultaneously.
Rather than start with sample recruitment or tools, I built a research ops approach that met legal, privacy, and regulatory requirements. This made research safe and repeatable, not risky and sporadic. This replaced slow, one-off research with a reliable foundation.
What this meant in practice:
Designed communication processes that met strict approval requirements
Created clear research protocols that legal and compliance could sign off quickly
Standardized templates so individual teams didn’t need repeated approval cycles
Regulation limited direct access to some users. I expanded reach through partnerships with internal teams and external academic researchers. This mixed approach ensured data fidelity even when direct access was restricted.
How partnerships worked:
Collaborated with field teams and support staff to gather contextual insights
Engaged academic partners to access hard-to-reach segments
Used aggregated, ethical methods to expand input without violating rules
Provided tools, templates, and training so product teams could run quick, ethical studies without waiting for a central team.
Tactical enablers:
Created reusable research templates
Provided rapid-testing tool access (Maze, Pendo)
Trained teams on compliant methods and feedback filtering
Research shouldn’t just happen — it should change behavior. I built linkages between research outputs and roadmap prioritization. This ensured products were prioritized for what users truly needed, not what was assumed.
How integration worked:
Weekly research summaries directly tied to feature scopes
Executive briefings focused on insights that mattered, not raw data
Prioritized research calendars alongside delivery cycles
Research became continuous and accessible, not sporadic and siloed
Compliance risk dropped to zero — legal and privacy became partners, not blockers
Roadmap decisions were informed by real user patterns, not anecdotes
Teams could head off issues early rather than react later
Research insights became part of “how we think,” not “what we show”
This shift changed how roadmap planning worked — evidence, not opinion, became the norm.
Intermediate Success Indicators
Continuous feedback loops across platforms
Direct influence on roadmap decisions
Zero compliance issues during research outreach
Teams reached user segments previously inaccessible
These are not vanity metrics — they indicate that research became trusted and useful, not a theoretical nice-to-have.
In regulated environments, research is often the first function to get sidelined because it’s perceived as slow or risky. In this case, research instead became:
a competitive advantage
a means to reduce risk and uncertainty
a consistent input to strategy and prioritization
Where mistakes were made, research helped teams course-correct quickly with confidence.
This is strategic research, not tactical execution.
“
Aiden Hirshfield, PhD
UX Research Manager
