WINSight: Making Research and Insight Ethical and Inclusive
Under limited budgets and ever-tightened time constraints, ensuring inclusivity in research can sometimes feel like an afterthought or reduced to a tick-box affair.
In innovation, that’s a serious problem. Designing and delivering global products, services, systems, and messages has never been more essential than now.
As innovators, we’re poised to find a solution. It’s not only an ethical priority but it makes commercial sense too. By representing those typically excluded from research processes, we’re better able to identify potential areas for innovation and view existing problems through a new lens. But how can build inclusivity into every step of the research process, and even beyond? And more than just individual efforts and isolated projects, how can we magnify our actions to help create ethical, equitable, and sustainable corporate behaviors?
In late January, WIN LDN and WIN NY joined forces for the first time to shed some light on the subject. From recruitment and research to synthesis and insights, across the two sessions, our attendees used the space to share and learn from each other’s dilemmas, ideas, and experiences in approaching research and insights through a more ethical and inclusive lens.
Rethinking Recruitment: moving from boxes to behaviors and beyond
Recruiting the right participants is a central first step to uncovering relevant and valuable insights from user research. But how do we determine what ‘right’ looks like when we think about appropriate representation?
“Recruitment can feel like tick-boxing. How can we make it feel more dimensional?” – Mind Salon attendee
Going beyond demographics. Recruitment can feel very two-dimensional. Often we’re looking for people that fit into certain boxes; who they are, where they are, and what they do.
But if we want to develop more inclusive approaches to recruiting, we need to start re-thinking these boxes to help bring recruitment to life. Thinking more holistically, through psychographics and attitudinal measures, for example, is one way to help better navigate issues of identity, and ensure our recruitment pool is more diverse and multi-dimensional.
Going beyond the individual. What’s more, how do we look beyond boxes altogether? In the recruitment phase, it’s often enough of a challenge to find and represent the target group in question, but do we still risk falling short?
As researchers, we’re responsible for thinking broader. Truly inclusive research means considering not just the individual involved but those in their wider ecosystem. It means understanding the motivations of, and effects on other stakeholders in the field of impact. Beyond hearing from those directly using our products, services, and systems, we need to start speaking with those only tangentially related, and even those who are not at all.
2. Methodologies at the Margin: inclusive research design should benefit everyone
If the first step is asking who is involved, then the next is considering how they are involved. But when committing to a more inclusive and ethical approach, it can be helpful to go one step further to ask how you are involved too.
“Design for the extreme and then test for the average.” – Mind Salon attendee
Designing through targeted universalism. When research orbits around its primary user, solutions are designed with the average in mind. But there’s much to be said for designing research specifically for edge participants who fall outside the average and sit at the extremes. What is vital for some is valuable to everyone. If you’re able to design research to meet an extreme need, you are ultimately serving a far wider audience. And we’re all better off for it.
Take closed captioning, for example. Addressing barriers to accessibility for those with hearing impairments simultaneously benefits the average user with the sound off in a variety of circumstances.
Designing through co-creation. But even if we are designing for the extremes, how can we ensure that testing for the average is approached with inclusivity in mind? Designing for edge cases is one thing, but designing with your participants is another.
Many of our attendees see co-creation as a powerful solution. Participatory or co-creative approaches engage users directly in the research process, enabling participants to play an active role in the generation of universal, shared solutions. Inviting participants to explore and collaborate with you as a part of the process not only refines the researcher’s role, mitigating potential unconscious bias but encourages dialogue and constructive user feedback, enabling a more valuable, effective, and relevant result.
3. Putting Intersectionality at the Centre: new approaches to presentations and personas
Presentation is everything. As researchers, we are responsible for ensuring that the data we deliver and the stories we tell are as accurate and representative as possible. But how can we be mindful of our voices and biases?
Reflecting on presentations. From reports to presentations, we all strive to communicate our findings and research stories thoughtfully and authentically. Leading with empathy and sensitivity is key. Our attendees stressed the importance of self-awareness whenever and however you are representing your target users, being cognizant of your own identity and the assumptions, positionality, values, and biases you may bring to any context.
One attendee recommended journaling before any session, helping to make sure you’re asking and answering the right questions in the first place: what do I assume about this group of people, what are my assumptions?
“When presenting to clients, it’s also about how you are telling the story, and who is telling it.” – Mind Salon attendee
Reflecting on personas. Personas are a popular tool in the world of research, seen as a useful way to articulate who is in your target group and identify their needs and behaviors. A way of helping to bring our audiences to life, are we doing enough to ensure our personas too are inclusive and diverse?
It’s time for a rethink. A reliance on personas as templates for users has left them shallow, often overly-specific, and therefore useless. Considering intersectionality and how other areas of someone’s life can come into play, attendees shared ideas to help create richer, multi-layered, and more colorful personas for the modern world.
4. Keeping Inclusivity Accountable: creating ethical, equitable, and sustainable corporate behaviors
And now for the most challenging part; what many of our attendees referred to as the ‘hands-off moment’.
The challenge. Things are always changing. In research, we’re often wrapped up in short-term projects and operate within agency models. It’s difficult to see or act beyond our own sphere of control, leaving efforts towards inclusivity bound by short-termism and an absence of real accountability. It can be hard to navigate this reality and re-define these relationships.
How do you make a challenge to the client when you see a focus group isn’t representative, or the discussion guide isn’t quite right? How can you hold clients and stakeholders accountable full stop? Even within our own organizations, how do we keep diverse and inclusive thinking consistent? Should one person, therefore, be responsible for research ethics? Or does this itself too risk imposing significant bias?
One solution. Ensuring that we as individuals and organizations commit to ethics and inclusivity in research will demand both planning for the future and challenging day-to-day status quo. Our attendees acknowledged that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to accountability in practice. Whether we are involving stakeholders in vision-building or scheduling check-ins and follow-ups with ourselves and our clients, there needs to be a great commitment to look within and beyond our research.
“Our clients come to us asking for help and support. If you raise a concern around diversity, very few are opposed.” – Mind Salon attendee
Throughout all stages of research, from recruitment to reporting and beyond, taking the necessary steps now to build inclusive and ethical approaches will only better serve ourselves as researchers, our clients, our organizations, and our customers too, helping to chart a more representative and fairer future for research.
A huge thank you to Georgie, Neha, Justine, Becki, and Joëlla from the LDN and NY chapters for facilitating such insightful discussions as well as our incredible community members for their openness and participation in shaping this conversation.
Editorial by Lucia Corry
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