Users Know

Save time and money by avoiding common research mistakes

Laura Klein

Author of Build Better Products and UX for Lean Startups, and Principal at Users Know, a UX design consultancy.

Research includes a whole collection of methods. Learn the difference between qual & quant and when to use them.

Learn about the different types of research

People who are new to research tend to run into a lot of the same traps. This talk will show you how to avoid them.

Learn from the mistakes others have made before you! Make new and more interesting mistakes!

Hear horror stories about what can go wrong

Detectives. They don't just conduct investigations—their work drives outcomes. Their investigations put bad people behind bars. Researchers (and those conducting research) could learn much from them. They don't just aggregate evidence—they use analytical thinking and logic to put the evidence together like a puzzle to build a case that leads to convictions in court. They don't just deliver data—they are master storytellers who win the hearts and minds of judges and juries by capturing the voices and emotions of the victims and witnesses, ensuring their voices aren't lost in the process. Detectives close cases. And so should you. This course will teach you detective-grade strategies and tactics—the kind I learned and used as a metro police detective—to build and close business cases that lead to product growth using customer insights, i.e., research projects that drive impact in "business speak." These skills sharpen your competitive edge and enhance your ability to identify and seize new opportunities, manage risks more effectively, and drive sustainable growth and profitability for your business. Research&nbsp;should be&nbsp;one of the most valuable functions in a business… But it isn’t. People who leverage research&nbsp;should be&nbsp;treated like senior consultants who help the business make more informed—and less risky—business decisions... But they aren't. We are going to change this. The secret to becoming indispensable to your company is to generate better insights—faster—and then have business leaders use those insights to make better decisions. It's that simple. And that hard. In just two half-days, you will become a Growth Detective and develop three foundational skills that will elevate your career and&nbsp;transform you into an influential consultant: 1. You will learn how to&nbsp;Think Like a Detective™&nbsp;to generate better insights. This will immediately differentiate you from those who use the outdated, antiquated, legacy models of data collection. 2. You will learn how to deliver consumer and market insights like headline news. You know, the kind that grabs your audience by the face and wins their hearts and minds. 3. You will learn to&nbsp;use strategic communication to influence business decisions. You will be seen as a consigliere (business consultant) rather than a service provider. Businesses protect the things they value—and YOU will be no different. Develop the confidence and skills to be seen as a trusted advisor to business leadership—and watch your impact and influence grow 🌱

Become the product strategist your business needs—and build the career you want.

You will learn how to use a time-tested method to collect evidence, just like a detective, investigative journalist, or a physician...

Collect Evidence Like a Detective

You will learn how to build a case—and develop a point of view (POV)—from the evidence you collect.

Build a Case

You will use the Influence Triad to present your POV to influence business decisions. You will inspire trust and confidence to help the business make better decisions faster.

Influence the Outcome

Course syllabus

Learn to use the SIMPLE investigation framework to rapidly collect evidence for your case.

🔎 Collecting and interrogating evidence like a detective

Learn how to capture the attention of your audience using The Topline Method.

🎤 Reporting insights like a primetime news anchor

Build bulletproof business cases that enable your stakeholders to make smarter growth bets.

⚖️ Building, presenting, and defending a case like a trial attorney

Special Guest Speakers

Course schedule

You are a product manager who wants to build better products grounded in customer and user evidence.

You are a UX designer, UX researcher, or market researcher who wants to be seen as a peer rather than a service provider.

You are a marketer or product marketer who wants to use insights to create marketing campaigns that resonate with your customers and buyers.

Who is this course for?

What you will learn...

A common complaint in business is that research "slows things down." I will show you how to be "high-speed, low-drag" so that you aren't seen as an anchor ⚓️, but as a rocket 🚀.

How to Think Like a Detective™ to generate better insights faster

The TRUE VALUE of research is in collecting evidence, connecting the dots, and catalyzing decisions that: 📚 Turn data into stories📝 Stories into strategies🚀 Strategies into outcomes To tell better stories, you have to build better stories. You will learn this.

Don't just be a better storyteller—be a better storybuilder

Expertise isn't developed from using a cookbook approach to research. You can't be a master chef by following a recipe. You must develop a deeper understanding. The same applies to research. I teach you the fundamentals of becoming an expert practitioner.

Methods alone are bullshit 🐂💩

The job of research is to help business leaders make less risky business decisions. I teach you how to communicate effectively using time-tested principles of persuasion. You will leave with the confidence to deliver research that catalyzes decisions, i.e., has an impact.

The power to influence business decisions

Research has historically failed in The Last Mile of Research, i.e., explicitly connecting outcomes to the things businesses really care about. Learn to speak the language of business and connect your work to business strategy—transforming you from technician to tactician.

The ability to connect insights to business strategy

Learn to use insights to advocate for product growth—and become the strategist your business needs while building the career you want.

Dr. Ari Zelmanow

Cohort 10

Cohort 11

We have limited time and resources. We need to be sure we're focused on only doing the research that will help de-risk decisions. In this course, you'll learn a proven and flexible prioritization framework based on an Uncertainty + Risk + Cost approach. If you decide research is needed, you'll learn how to set it up for maximum impact from the start. Whether it's time for quarterly planning, you're in a 20-minute standup, or in a Slack convo - this framework can be used anytime you're trying to decide whether you need to do research or should go straight to development. This is a highly interactive, hands-on course. You'll work independently as well as with other participants to come away with a completed worksheet where you've prioritized 3 actual research ideas.

Be confident your team is doing research that will have real impact

<ul><li>What we mean by impact and why prioritization is important</li><li>Preparing to prioritize: deciding who's involved in the process</li><li>Overview of the prioritization process</li><li>Gathering requests for research projects</li></ul>

Session 1: Setting the stage

<ul><li>Assess and Prioritize projects</li><li>Communicate decisions to stakeholders</li><li>Post-research: Identify and track impact</li><li>Lock in key learnings and identify your next steps</li></ul>

Session 2: Prioritizing your projects and tracking impact

We'll meet for 2 sessions of 2 hours each. These will be live, highly interactive sessions, where you'll work through the prioritization model. In addition to learning from Carol, you'll develop skills through interactions with other attendees.

Two consecutive days

There is 30-60 minutes of pre-work before our first live session.<ul><li>Gather details for 3 actual research projects you will prioritize during the workshop.</li><li>A 12 minute pre-course video introduces basic terms and concepts to help us hit the ground running when the course begins.</li></ul>

Offline projects

Carol will be available on Zoom and in the community for 30 minutes the day after our last session to answer any remaining questions.

Bonus: Optional AMA

You lead researchers, whether you're in Research, Design or Product, and you want confidence in the impact of your research investment.

You are a senior, lead, staff, principal IC researcher who wants to have more impact and grow your business acumen.

Your team is doing what you think is the right research but the insights are falling flat

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

You'll prioritize several real-world projects using the framework, assessing each potential project to determine which studies need to be done and which don’t.

Develop a repeatable framework to identify when research is actually needed, prioritize the right studies, and track impact

Using a worksheet, you'll prioritize your research projects according to key criteria like Clarity, Risk, and Cost. In addition to the takeaway completed worksheet, working through the framework with peers is attendees' favorite thing about this approach.

Create a worksheet you can use to gather, assess, and prioritize research projects

You'll determine how to include key stakeholders in the prioritization activity, and create scripts for how to communicate your final prioritization decisions with sensitivity to organizational process and stakeholder feelings.

Increase confidence in how to involve stakeholders in your prioritization process 

Without literally writing down the impact of research, we can't articulate the true impact it has had throughout the org. You'll see how simple it can be to track post-research impact in a worksheet.

Communicate post-research impact using tools you already have

Know when research is needed and when it's not

Carol Rossi

December 2024

April 2025

Unfortunately, doing good design work is only half the job. The other half is getting people to agree that it's good, and that's where you might be struggling. This course will teach you how to handle some of the most common communication challenges Designers and Managers often face: - Handling opinionated stakeholders- Having design recommendations and user needs ignored- Dealing with teams that only want quick fixes- Not being able to showcase the value of your work- Being unable to translate design solutions to non-designers- Getting stakeholder buy-in for large, underlying user problems- Struggling to communicate the value of design in your portfolios If you're struggling with these issues, Data-Informed Design can help by turning "Design Intuition" into a data-backed insight. By the end of this course, you won't have theoretical frameworks. You'll have a practical step-by-step process, that I've used in my career, to learn how to work with Data, refine findings into insights, and create effective Data Visualizations and UX Stories to drive change. I will provide you with real-life examples I implemented in Product-Led Growth initiatives, along with case studies from Meta, Nike, and Netflix, to provide actionable strategies on how to implement Data-Informed Design into your workplace.. By integrating "Just Enough Data" into your Design process, you can show how design decisions impact business outcomes and persuade your team to take action. If you want to influence decision-makers, show design's impact on business, or create design portfolios that employers want to read, this course is for you. -- Training your team? Email Kai for bulk pricing, private cohorts, and a personalized course: kai@datainformeddesign.online

Do you feel ignored? Are your design presentations failing to have any impact?

Provide a brief description for each module as a way to sell the value of what students will be learning throughout the course.

First Module

Second Module

Third Module

I will have live lectures with Q&amp;A, reviewing this week's lessons. These will also be where I review student's exercise and provide live feedback

Mondays and Fridays

In these lectures, I'll dive into the specifics around Data, Narrative, Visuals, and more. This will be a more detailed videos on the stuff I cover live on Mondays and Fridays

Pre-recorded lectures

These exercises, paired with the lecture, will help you practice the concepts you learn from lectures

Weekly projects and exercises

Experienced UX Designers who want to solve user's problems, but don't have stakeholder buy-in for their ideas.

Design Leaders and Managers who must influence founders, executives, and other leaders to make the right decisions for their users

Designers who have done good work on design projects, but may have no idea how to create an effective design portfolio.

Designers who work in complex fields (like Healthtech, Fintech, or AI) who want to unlock the power of data

If you've ever struggled to justify the "ROI" of UX, Data-Informed Design can help. You'll learn several frameworks that help you incorporate Data into your Design process to persuade others and showcase the value of your work.

Data-Informed frameworks that showcase the value of your design work

One of the major issues designers face is that their team may not understand the impact certain design decisions have. You'll learn how to align design recommendations with business outcomes to have a greater impact.

Understand how to align design recommendations with business outcomes

Data-Informed Design is a team effort, and you may not know how to talk with your Product Manager about it. You'll receive templates for sending e-mails, interviewing stakeholders, and more to implement Data-Informed Design in your organization.

Communication templates to help implement Data-Informed Design 

Facts aren't enough: you need to learn how to tell UX stories to have the greatest impact. You'll learn frameworks to turn insights into UX stories, no creative writing experience needed.

Craft 5-minute stories, compelling narratives you can use to persuade your team (no creative writing experience needed) 

Each organization faces different Data-Informed Design challenges. Through exercises, live workshops, and Q&amp;A, get the feedback, advice, and tactics you need to apply the course content to your situation.

Personalized 1:1 guidance

The Data-Informed Frameworks and 5-minute stories that you'll use on the job are also the perfect way to create a design portfolio that recruiters and interviewers want to read. You'll learn how to take what you learn and apply it to your design portfolio.

Create Design Portfolios that get employers interested in you

Show the Business Impact of Design, Create User Insights backed by Data, and Craft design portfolios that get noticed by employers. 

Christopher Kai Wong

Senior Product Designer at Nanthealth. Top Design Writer on Medium (52k following). Data-Informed Design Expert. Designed for 1m+ users.

Cohort 3

January Cohort

Think you don't have time to talk with customers, or that "doing research" takes too long? Not sure you're asking the right questions? Or you've talked with customers but not seen action from those insights? It all sounds overwhelming so it seems easier to just go with your gut? I get it. But it doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to be a career researcher to learn the foundational skills that help you have successful conversations with customers. Since 2010, I've taught countless people to do just that. This is a highly interactive, hands-on course, with a mix of video content and projects you complete on your own, and live sessions where we take the learnings into action together. What we'll doI'll share key info that will make your interviews a success. You'll work in small groups to create an interview plan, run interviews, synthesize the raw interview input into actionable insights, and create a plan to put those insights into action. What you'll getYou'll walk away knowing how to run successful customer interviews, and how to make the insights actionable through practice in real time. Bonus: This isn't a workshop about AI tools, but we'll touch on how to use AI to your advantage throughout the research process. Let the bots do what they're good at (hint: it's not interviewing customers) so you're free to make human connections and do big-picture thinking with insights.

Don't just talk to customers, feel confident you're making the most of insights

If your events are recurring and at the same time, it might be easiest to use a single line item to communicate your course schedule to students

Tuesdays & Thursdays

Feel free to type out dates as your title as a way to communicate information about specific live sessions or other events.

May 7, 2022

Schedule items can also be used to convey commitments outside of specific time slots (like weekly projects or daily office hours).

Weekly projects

You're a designer, PM, engineer, or other non-UXRer seeking confidence in gathering quality customer insights to make informed decisions.

You manage designers, PMs, engineers, and want to ensure your team knows how to get actionable customer insights and make informed decisions

You've run a lot of interviews but want to see more action from the results

We'll dive deep into common challenges, like asking leading questions or asking customers to predict future behavior, and what you can do instead. Learn to run story-based interviews and see real examples of interviews done right—and wrong.

Learn what we mean by "quality" insights and how to get them

Align your research with OKRs and KPIs. Learn how to get your team on board from the start, to make insights-driven decisions later. Identify the right participants and craft unbiased interview questions for maximum impact.

Craft a foolproof interview plan

Get confident in your ability to have customer conversations by practicing interview skills in real time, in the safe space of our workshop. Work through constructive feedback with other attendees. You'll practice several rounds of interviews.

Run interviews 

Learn the difference between findings (what you heard during interviews) and actionable insights. You'll be guided through the process of identifying insights, and how to prioritize those that matter most for your business.

Transform raw interview notes into insights

Research doesn’t stop at insights—it ends with an action plan and accountability. We’ll outline tools like "how might we" statements, opportunity and journey maps, and teach you to measure and track impact. No deep ideation, but practical strategies to take insights to action.

Make the insights actionable

At the end of the workshops, ask Carol any outstanding questions during a final 1-hour live AMA. This is a great way to wrap up your knowledge and be sure you know how to move what you learned into your day-to-day work.

AMA to address remaining questions

You'll leave this course with templates for: sample non-biased interview questions, a 2-page interview plan, a step-by-step process to go from interviews to opportunities and an action plan, and 2-page summary report. Plus, you'll get links to relevant outside resources.

Templates and links to resources

Learn to run successful story-based interviews and make data-driven decisions using the insights

Lightning Lessons

Save time and money by avoiding common research mistakes