Key takeaways
📊 ResearchOps streamlines the logistical and operational aspects of UX research.
🔄 Effective ResearchOps enables teams to focus on insights, not administrative tasks.
📚 Building a solid ResearchOps framework improves research efficiency and consistency.
🤝 Collaboration across teams is essential for successful ResearchOps implementation.
🐝 Tools like UXtweak simplify participant management, data collection, and insights sharing.
We all know how valuable UX research is when working on a new product or trying to release a feature. And even as valuable as it is, the process can be time-consuming and inefficient if not done right.
If you’ve ever felt that running research takes way more time than it should, you’re not alone. That’s exactly the kind of problem ResearchOps was created to solve.
It’s about setting up the right tools, systems, and workflows so research doesn’t get stuck in chaos. In other words, it helps researchers focus on what they do best – understanding people.
Let’s dive into how ResearchOps impacts UX design!
What are Research Operations (ResearchOps)?
In simple terms, Research operations are the processes and frameworks that help customer and UX research teams work efficiently.
According to the Nielsen Norman Group, ResearchOps is a specialized area of DesignOps focused specifically on components concerning user-research practices.
Research operations really is truly about designing and then also delivering the infrastructure that can help an entire team or, in some cases, an entire organization, to do research.
ResearOps is a collective term for efforts aimed at supporting researchers in the planning, conducting, and application of quality user research, such as:
- Standardizing research methods and supporting documentation (e.g., scripts, templates, and consent forms) to save time and enable consistent application across teams.
- Recruiting and managing research participants across studies.
- Ensuring research ethics are understood and upheld by individual researchers across studies.
- Educating research-team partners and leadership about the value of user research.
- Managing user-research insights and making data accessible throughout the team and organization.
- Sharing success stories and ensuring that the overall impact of user research is known.
Now that we’ve covered what ResearchOps is and why it matters, it’s worth seeing how it all began and how the idea took shape within the UX community. Let’s take a look at the history of Research Operations.
How ResearchOps took shape
As DesignOps gained traction in the UX community, researchers recognized the need for a similar framework to bring more structure and efficiency to their work.
That led to the creation of the ResearchOps community in 2018—a group of volunteers who started with a few workshops and quickly grew into a network of over 8,000 members worldwide.
The community continues to shape the field by sharing best practices, hosting town halls, maintaining a Board, and connecting professionals through a lively Slack community.
What began as a grassroots initiative has evolved into a thriving career path and a core pillar supporting UX research teams everywhere.
The role and responsibilities of a ResearchOps manager
Research involves a lot of moving pieces, and therefore, a well-defined objective of a ReOps manager needs to come into play here.
There are six common focus areas (core components) of the Research Ops framework, and they include:
- Participant management
- Governance
- Knowledge management
- Tools
- Competency
- Communication and Advocacy
📍Participant management
Participant management covers everything from participant recruiting and screening to scheduling and handling incentives.
It’s often the first thing people think of when they hear “ResearchOps,” since it directly affects how smoothly research runs and how reliable the results are.
Good participant management is about more than logistics. It’s about creating a respectful, consistent experience that encourages participants to return and provide honest insights.
Typical ResearchOps activities include:
- Building a database or panel of potential study participants, or researching and selecting external recruiting platforms
- Designing and standardizing screeners and approval processes
- Managing communication with participants before, during, and after sessions
- Setting fair and transparent incentive structures that reflect participants’ expertise and time investment
📍Governance
Governance focuses on the safety, legality, and ethics of research. It’s the layer that protects both participants and organizations while allowing research to happen responsibly.
Most common governance responsibilities include:
- Translating data privacy regulations such as GDPR or CCPA into practical workflows and documentation
- Defining ethical guidelines for research participation and data use
- Creating compliant consent forms and processes
- Managing how personally identifiable information (PII) and study materials are stored, shared, and deleted
💡 Pro Tip
Keep consent templates and data-handling rules in one shared space so researchers always work with the latest compliant version.
📍Knowledge Management
Knowledge management turns research from a series of projects into an ongoing source of learning. It ensures that insights are collected, organized, and made accessible so they can guide better decisions across teams.
Usually, it is managed with an insights repository or a special type of knowledge management software.
The key activities of knowledge management include:
- Creating standardized templates for data collection and reporting
- Building and maintaining a shared research repository
- Organizing regular share-outs, insight reviews, or updates for stakeholders
- Collaborating with teams like marketing or analytics to align research insights and avoid duplication
When done well, knowledge management keeps research connected to strategy instead of lost in slides or folders.
📍Tools
Tools are the backbone of modern research, and managing them effectively is a big part of ResearchOps. The goal isn’t just to buy software, but to build a sustainable and secure ecosystem that supports researchers.
Typical ResearchOps responsibilities include:
- Procuring and maintaining tools for recruitment, data collection, analysis, and storage
- Ensuring all tools meet privacy and security standards
- Managing access rights and onboarding
- Providing training and documentation for new users
- Tracking usage, renewals, and licenses to prevent tool sprawl
- Facilitating the onboarding and training of tools and processes
The right tools make research faster, safer, and easier to scale.
📍Competency
Competency focuses on helping both researchers and non-researchers build research skills. It’s about creating consistency and confidence in how research is done across the organization.
ResearchOps work in this area often includes:
- Developing clear growth paths and training opportunities for researchers
- Setting up mentorship and onboarding programs
- Creating playbooks and method guides for different types of studies
- Training non-researchers, such as designers or product managers, to run small studies responsibly when research teams can’t cover everything
A culture of shared research competence makes the whole organization more user-focused.
💡 Pro Tip
Provide detailed research playbooks and templates to help non-researchers run studies consistently and effectively.
📍Communication and Advocacy
ResearchOps also plays a key role in helping research gain visibility and influence. Communication and advocacy make sure the value of research is recognized and applied in decision-making.
This often involves:
- Defining the research team’s mission and linking it to company goals
- Sharing research wins and lessons learned across teams
- Writing case studies that show how research improved products or metrics
- Keeping stakeholders updated through newsletters, dashboards, or internal reports
Advocacy ensures research doesn’t stay hidden in documents but drives real impact.
The value of ResearchOps and why it matters in user research
The field of user experience is growing exponentially; Jakob Nielsen of NN/g predicts that by 2050, there will be 100 million UX professionals worldwide (i.e., 1% of the population).
The most significant benefit of ResearchOps for any organization is efficiency. With the support of ResearchOps, UX teams can focus on the tasks that directly enhance the user experience.
This efficiency helps organizations achieve their goals faster while maintaining high research standards and staying compliant.
For small teams, a dedicated ResearchOps team or individual might not be feasible; however, as a startup scales, the necessity for this department increases as well.
How to know if your organization needs a ResearchOps team
As mentioned, ResearchOps is a whole of many parts that are best considered holistically, because every component both affects and is affected by the other factors. However, when establishing a ResearchOps practice, not all aspects can be addressed at once.
The first step to figuring out where to start is understanding where the biggest pain points are. Are researchers overwhelmed with the logistics of recruiting and scheduling participants?
Maybe participant management is the best starting point for the team. Is research data scattered and inaccessible to new team members, causing duplicative research efforts and poor research memory?
Perhaps knowledge management is where the team should focus.
Begin by identifying the current problems that necessitate ResearchOps. Perform internal research to understand where the biggest pain points currently exist for research teams and research-team partners.
To understand fully if your organization needs a dedicated research team, you can begin asking questions like:
How large is your research team?
In large teams, things like participant recruitment, asset management, and budget management can be full-time jobs.
Asking one person to address everything or trying to address everything while being a full-time researcher would be like asking someone to have twelve part-time jobs while starting a business.
Typically, you should start looking into a research team once your team hits eight researchers, as confirmed by Kate Towsey, the founder of ResearchOps community.
At this point, it’s time to start thinking about a ResearchOps function. It can start off small, with just one dedicated Ops person to help your researchers do better and more efficient research.
How much research are you doing?
As your research practice scales, either within the core Research team or with other teams taking on additional research, as is the case of any democratized research model, it too becomes increasingly difficult to process and facilitate research effectively.
No matter who’s conducting them, higher volumes of research projects require more time, cross-team coordination, and strategic overview.
A dedicated ResearchOps function can ensure that this overview and coordination happens effectively, efficiently, and without fail.
Finally, let’s take a look at some best practices for getting started in ResearchOps amongst small dedicated teams or even large enterprises.
Get started in ResearchOps with these best practices
Getting started with ResearchOps begins by identifying the key challenges that slow research progress, often rooted in administrative tasks.
The best practices below will help you improve efficiency, whether you’re building a dedicated team or refining existing processes.
💡 Create a ResearchOps framework that works
You need to create a good research framework that works. A framework lays out what your research practice can and will accomplish.
It can also help determine who will do what within your research practice, thereby clearing up misunderstandings before they happen.
Before you create your framework, it is important to think about how your team currently approaches their research and product development. Then, ask yourself questions like:
👉 What research does my team do already?
👉 Are there internal or external deadlines that could affect the way they view research?
👉 Why does my team do research?
👉 What are the logistics of my research as it stands today?
Once you have answers to these questions, they can help you build up a framework that reflects the growth for your organization. This also helps to establish what your ResearchOps team will be responsible for.
There are several tools that are great for creating an effective framework. Look into using tools like:
- Mind mapping tools, such as Miro, Scapple, and LucidChart. These frameworks start with a central idea and create branches of that central idea. Mind maps can be as fluid or as rigid as you want them to be, and you can add or subtract things as you see fit.
- Kanban tools, such as Asana, Trello, Airtable, and the aptly-named Kanban Tool can help you lay things out in a more linear manner with categories and subcategories that each have their own card. You can shuffle the cards around as you see fit, as well as add and take away from what’s included in each card’s category.
- Design tools, such as Figma, Adobe Illustrator, or Sketch can help you get creative and make your own version of a framework. You can create or make something totally unique for your team.
- Research tools, such as UXtweak. It offers a wide variety of research and usability testing tools that you can use for your project, all in one handy platform. In addition, UXtweak also provides additional help with recruiting quality participants for your study.
Ready to see it for yourself? Try UXtweak’s prototype and usability testing tools! 🔽
💡 Get the whole team involved
It’s always for your benefit to lead with a delegation in mind because this would help get everyone involved in the research process. This could involve designers, engineers, marketers, support, and anyone else who your research may affect.
ResearchOps professionals can be responsible for creating scalable, repeatable practices for sharing, storing, and presenting research to the rest of your team.
Some ways to share and socialize your research include:
👉 Regularly sharing insights with the wider team via newsletters, lunch-and-learns, or workshops.
👉 Creating case studies that showcase the impact of research on business metrics
👉 Communicating research findings directly to stakeholders with reports or live presentations
Understand the scope of your team’s research process and design your delegation process effectively.
💡 Pick one area to master, then branch out.
Do not overwhelm yourself or get caught up by trying to perfect everything at once. It’s always important to start off your research operations by focusing first on the area that will make the most significant difference to your research team and process.
💡 Build a habitual practice
Research should be something you do regularly and often. Being armed with information from your customers that will help you make smarter, more confident decisions, it should leave your team feeling ready to take on all your business challenges.
However, the problem for most people who are committed to habitual research practice is that it gets harder. There are so many moving pieces and doing it right requires a lot of up-front work to make sure everything goes off without a hitch.
This is why it is important to build a good research ritual within your team which looks like “when in doubt, think research”.
💡 Document your research for easy accessibility
If no one ever sees your team’s research (or if people only see it for a moment during a presentation, then never refer to it again), it’s unlikely to make a lasting impact.
In order for research to have lasting effects on your company’s processes and decisions, it needs to be easy for everyone to access, sometimes even long after the research is complete.
Documentation must take the front seat in your research process, and you can start this by building a healthy research repository of past and present research which would be accessible to the research team at any time.
You can use repository tools like Airtable, Google sheets, Dovetail, Trello and Zapier. Any one from the listed can serve as a database for all things research in your organization.
Wrapping up
Optimizing ResearchOps is crucial for improving the efficiency of your research process and ensuring that insights are consistent and impactful.
By addressing the key challenges, you can create a streamlined environment that empowers your team and accelerates product development.
UXtweak simplifies Research Operations with a comprehensive platform that streamlines participant management, study execution, and data analysis.
Whether you’re scaling your team or refining existing workflows, UXtweak removes the administrative burden, allowing researchers to focus on valuable insights and product improvements.
Start with a free trial today and see how UXtweak can transform your research operations. 🐝
