In today’s fast-paced and agile teams, democratizing research—allowing designers, product managers, and even marketers to run user studies—is becoming increasingly common. It’s often seen as a way to empower teams, speed up insights, and make user research more accessible.
At Netizen eXperience, we help clients build better digital products through UX research and design. While our UX Designers have always practiced user-centered thinking, it’s our UX Researchers and Consultants who lead the structured research process—from interviews and usability tests to data analysis—to uncover deeper insights that shape smarter design decisions.
As we embrace research democratization, we’ve started equipping our UX Designers with research skills through structured training and hands-on practice. Along the way, we’ve learned that democratizing research isn’t as simple as handing someone a “research 101” guide. Behind the scenes, non-researchers often face significant challenges that are easy to overlook.
In this Article
Why We Chose to Democratize Research
For us, the decision to democratize research wasn’t just about solving resource constraints or meeting tight deadlines. It was a deliberate step toward developing more well-rounded designers who don’t just create solutions but genuinely understand the people they are designing for.
By involving designers directly in user research, we wanted to help them:
- Build stronger empathy by hearing user stories firsthand
- Refine their designs based on real user feedback, not just assumptions
- Expand their skill set beyond design execution to include various user research methods
We believe that democratizing research is more than just sharing tasks—it’s about deepening the connection between design and research and nurturing design empathy by involving designers in the full research journey. This enables our team to design with even greater care, curiosity, and empathy for real users.
The Hidden Difficulties Non-Researchers Face
We knew stepping into research wouldn’t be all smooth sailing, but we wanted to find out what really happens when non-researchers take the lead.
To better understand the learning curve and challenges faced by non-researchers, we spoke to two of our UX Designers who were recently trained to moderate usability testing sessions and have participated in research projects. Their experiences shed light on the hidden difficulties that often come with democratizing research.
1. Staying Neutral Is Much Harder Than Expected
Designers often struggle to separate their role as design creators from their role as research moderators. As designers, it’s instinctive to start thinking about improvements the moment feedback surfaces.
Staying neutral, asking unbiased questions, and resisting the urge to validate their work require discipline, and that only comes with practice.
As one designer reflected:
“I know the answer, but I need to stay neutral. Sometimes I lead unintentionally or get stuck because I don’t know what to say.”
Even when designers understand moderation principles in theory, nervousness and inexperience can make them difficult to apply in the moment.
2. Moderation Is Mentally and Emotionally Demanding
The cognitive load of moderating is often underestimated. Moderators must:
✔️ Listen actively
✔️ Manage time
✔️ Think of follow-up questions
✔️ Navigate unexpected user responses
And they have to do this on repeat, often across five to ten sessions in a row, while maintaining the same level of focus and emotional presence each time.
One designer shared that the pressure was overwhelming, especially because it’s not something they’re used to.
“I like working with researchers because they offer a different perspective. But when I have to moderate, I’m stepping outside my comfort zone and it’s very, very stressful.”
As designers, they are comfortable answering stakeholder questions because they know their designs inside and out. In design presentations, they can prepare and control the narrative. But in moderation, the conversation is fluid, unpredictable, and requires them to stay neutral while thinking on their feet.
This kind of real-time cognitive and emotional effort can be draining for anyone, regardless of personality type, especially when it’s outside their usual day-to-day responsibilities.
3. Navigating the Grey Areas: When to Probe and How to Capture Insights
Effective research requires more than just following a script or taking notes. It demands real-time judgment; knowing when to dig deeper, when to move on, and how to make sense of what you’ve heard.
Non-researchers often second-guess themselves during moderation:
- Did I probe enough?
- Am I leading the participant?
- Was that detail important or not?
Even after the session, the uncertainty continues. Designers shared that summarizing and documenting what they heard wasn’t as straightforward as expected. They sometimes struggled with phrasing insights neutrally, avoiding overly design-focused takeaways, and identifying key behavioral patterns.
These grey areas can lead to blind spots or misinterpretations if non-researchers are left to figure it out on their own.
4. The Risk of Missing or Misinterpreting Insights
Without proper support and guidance, non-researchers may latch onto surface-level feedback or focus too narrowly on their own designs, missing deeper usability or user behavior issues.
The risk is especially high when designers moderate their own work. Familiarity with their design can create blind spots especially when designers are closely attached to the work being tested.
When designers step into the moderator’s role, they may unintentionally defend their designs or overlook critical signals, not out of ill intention, but because they’re too close to the product.
“When you test your own design, it’s really hard to stay neutral because you know it too well.”
So Why Let Designers Do User Research?
Yes, letting designers moderate user sessions introduces real challenges—staying neutral to avoid bias, cognitive strain, ambiguous probing, and the risk of misreading insights. But these challenges aren’t roadblocks, they’re investments. When designers confront these hurdles firsthand, they begin to:
- Develop ownership of outcomes: A designer who runs research, rather than just reviews reports, is more aligned with what users actually need, reducing the gap between design intent and real-world use.
- Strengthen cross-functional empathy: Direct involvement in user conversations gives product, design, and even marketing teams a deeper stake in insights, breaking down silos and leading to more cohesive decision-making.
- Scale research impact strategically: Empowering designers to handle routine studies allows senior researchers to focus on complex, high-stakes projects.
- Embed a user-centric culture: Broader participation in research makes user-centered thinking a shared norm, not a siloed function.
For decision-makers, this translates into faster iteration cycles, more grounded design decisions, and less dependency on overstretched research teams, and all without compromising user understanding.
And for the designers themselves, the value is just as transformative. Our designers found that conducting research themselves gave them a deeper, more personal connection to users, something they couldn’t fully achieve by just observing.
This fosters not only deeper design empathy, but also greater clarity in their decisions. Being present during user interviews helped them iterate more purposefully, defend their ideas more convincingly, and design with more accuracy from the start.
After all, it’s not about replacing researchers—it’s about building a more research-literate team where insights flow faster, bias is acknowledged, and design decisions are driven by real user evidence, not assumptions.
The Heart of Responsible Democratization
Democratizing research doesn’t mean everyone can (or should) run research independently. It’s about putting the right guardrails in place: clear processes, proper training, mentorship, and well-defined boundaries for when non-researchers can lead and when experienced UX researchers must step in.
At its core, it’s about mutual empathy and shared responsibility.
When done poorly, democratization risks introducing bias, missing key insights, and compromising research quality. But when teams build the right support systems, it can foster deeper empathy, improve research literacy, and encourage more thoughtful collaboration across disciplines.
When done well, democratization isn’t just a practical strategy, it becomes a cultural mindset.
A mindset that grows stronger when more people listen, more people learn, and more people genuinely care about getting it right.
Democratizing research responsibly isn’t just good practice—it’s good culture.
About the Author:
Wai Yee is a UX Researcher with four years of experience driving research initiatives in the fintech and insurance sectors, shaping digital strategies and product experiences. Outside of work, you’ll likely find her chasing hiking trails or perfecting her cup of coffee.
