The right way to do research in a startup is to have the people who are responsible for making decisions about your product intimately involved in the research itself. That means that product owners and UX people are designing and running the tests. Even the engineers should watch some of the sessions and hear first hand what their users are going through.I found this article Startups Shouldn't Hire User Researchers from Future Workshop's twitter. The author, Laura, makes an exaggerated claim in the title. I don't like it despite knowing that she wants to say something to catch people's attention.
However, I do like the point she made that at startups, every role in the company should hear first hand what their users are going through rather than second hand presentation. Hiring user researchers in collaboration with other professionals and allowing them involved in decision making seem to be perfect circumstances, but I wonder how many startups would accept that.
by Lis Hubert: Mission Impossible: Shrinking the UX ProcessAny type of involvement, however small, is better than no involvement at all.
