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What is a research repository?

A repository is just a store of information. We call it a repository when we want to be fancy 💃.

A user research repository is a place to store research data, notes, and insights.

These can be accessed when needed, ideally by everyone in the organization.

A good repository would let teams across the organization find what they’re looking for on their own. This makes research insights more accessible to the right people at the right time.

A user research repository can start as nothing more than a Google doc.

It can also grow into a complicated library of insights with entire applications dedicated to it.

There are 3 key benefits of building a research repository.

UX Research projects start with a request for user insight.

The project is planned, participants recruited, research conducted, raw data stored and analyzed, reports created and shared, and finally the data collected is archived somewhere.

A repository speeds up every step of this process.

By definition, the research repository acts as a storehouse of past insights & reports, along with an archive of the raw data to go back to.This store of historical data allows repositories to cut away requests that can be answered using data from previous projects.

UX Research is a team sport. Having a research repository allows for it to remain one.

In an ideal case, repositories should allow people outside the UXR team to contribute to the organization’s body of knowledge.

Once successfully implemented, the repository can be accessed by anyone. This makes the organization’s knowledge easier to find by those who need it the most.

User research piles up quickly. It’s easy to lose your work in the unrelenting jungles of Google drive and Google Sheets and email chains and Miro Boards and floppy disks and pen drives and — you get the idea.

The data and/or insights hidden away in these corners might be required by other teams eventually. When that happens, researchers can hunt for them through the jungles or conduct the research again.

Having a repository makes things easier to find and prevents you from running the same research over and over and over again. Since items are centralized and searchable, you can discover the relevant information within a couple of clicks.

There are a bunch of repository tools available for you.

If you have a good idea of your team’s needs, deciding which tool to go for will be easier! 🫠.

When choosing a repository tool, you should review your options based on a few decision criteria.

Here are the most important of these criteria. Discuss how much importance each one carries for your team and judge your options accordingly

There’s a ton of options out there.

Researching research repositories requires a repository.

To make an even more informed decision, ask yourself and your team these questions.

If your organization has just started basic user research, we will recommend against investing time and/or money in a repository.

Is the cost of that tool with extensive tagging options justified? Do you have enough teammates to justify investing in research templates? Is your organization mature enough to need collaboration between researchers and non-researchers?

Teams usually spend their time on Google Drive, Notion, Confluence, etc.

Ideally, your repository tool should integrate with them to reach your team where they are.

DIY repositories win here since you can build them wherever your team is already hanging out.

You’ve shed blood, sweat, and tears on this research repository. Let’s see some reasons all your efforts can go to waste. Why do research repositories fail?

Sounds like a good way to end this article 🥰.

Getting buy-in would involve convincing multiple stakeholders. You would have to convince other teams of the benefits of collaborative research. Convince the product team that being actively involved in the repository will let them create a better product. Convince the marketing team that reading and adding insights will help them understand the customer better. Convince the sales team that repositories are the easiest way to identify the “pain points” people want to pay for.

Your team hates you for making them learn another tool.

You hate your team for not picking it up on their own.

To avoid this situation, spending time and energy making sure everyone understands how to use the repository is always wise!

This one is obvious (and has been repeated all over the article).

A shiny repository tool with every conceivable feature might hurt your research work. Don’t go too big too soon if your organization is still tiny. Even a large organization just getting started with UX research will be turned off by complexity.

Someone from the research team should be accountable for the repository.

Building and maintaining the repository, answering questions related to the repository, onboarding new team members, ensuring that other teams are doing things correctly — these are just some of the tasks that go into a successful repository implementation.

Implement a research repository! Your research team will thank you.

Even the most basic repositories will immediately improve your research capabilities.

We hope this quick overview has been helpful.

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