We're Presenting at UXPA Boston 2026
May 6, 2026
On Friday, May 8, we're taking the stage at UXPA Boston with a talk called "Without Research Thinking, Your Democratization Program Isn't Research. It's Research Theater."
It's a provocative title. We mean it.
Research democratization is everywhere. 64% of companies now report having a democratized research culture. Designers, product managers, strategists, and engineers are all conducting research – often without training, without oversight, and without a framework for knowing whether what they're producing is any good.
And here's the uncomfortable part: bad research doesn't announce itself. The output of a poorly designed usability test looks identical to one produced with rigor. The report is polished. The findings are confident. And nobody in the room can tell the difference.
That's research theater. And most organizations are performing it right now without knowing it.
What we'll cover on Friday:
We'll share findings from our desk research and from 12 interviews we conducted with UX professionals, designers, strategists, and product managers – the people actually doing democratized research in organizations. About half of them had never heard the term "research democratization." But they're living it every day.
We'll introduce the Research Literacy Framework™ – a four-element model we built because we couldn't find one that addressed the full picture. It places research thinking at the center, surrounded by four elements: What (the body of work), How (the thinking standards), Who (the people and capabilities), and When (the trigger system). We built it because nobody else had assembled these pieces into a single model – and because organizations need more than good intentions to make democratization work.
We'll also debut the Research Democratization Maturity Diagnostic – a tool to help you figure out where your organization stands before you try to change it.
And we'll ask you to push back. This is a work in progress. We want your experience, your opinions, and your stories.
If you're at UXPA Boston:
Come find us. The talk is interactive – bring your phone for live polling and bring your opinions for the discussion. We'll have a one-page scorecard you can take home and use on Monday.
If you're not at UXPA Boston:
We'll be sharing the presentation, our findings, and our framework on this site in the coming weeks. Sign up on our Participate page to stay connected – and to be part of the research we're conducting for our upcoming book on research literacy and the impact of AI on organizations.
We've spent the last month talking to people who are doing research without a net. On Friday, we're going to talk about how to build one.
See you at the Revere Hotel.
– Jim & Denise
Tags: UXPA Boston, Research Democratization, Research Literacy Framework, Conference Talk
