As a research function scales, managing the growing research-related body of knowledge becomes a challenge. It’s common for research insights to get lost in hard-to-find reports. When this happens, research efforts are sometimes duplicated. Enter research repositories: an antidote to some of these common growing pains.

In This Article:

What Is a Research Repository

A research repository is a central place where user-research artifacts and outputs are stored so that they can be accessed by others in the organization.

A research repository with recordings, notes, data, and reports showcased.
A research repository is a central place where user research assets, like reports, recordings, notes, and other data from research studies, are stored.

Storing user research centrally in a repository provides the following benefits:

  • Insight can be quickly found because research outputs are stored in one place (rather than distributed across many platforms or team spaces).
  • Teams can track findings and observations over time and across studies, helping to uncover themes that might not be identified from one study alone.
  • Research efforts are not duplicated, as teams can learn from or build on research performed by others.

Creating and maintaining a research repository is often the responsibility of a ResearchOps function.

When successfully implemented, a research repository can be a helpful tool in increasing the UX maturity of an organization, because it makes insights about users accessible to many people.

What Is Included in a Research Repository

Research repositories often house (or link out to) the following items:

  • Research reports capture what happened and what was learned in the research study. A research report usually includes overarching themes, detailed findings, and sometimes recommendations.
  • Research insights are the detailed findings acquired from each research study. While insights also appear in reports, saving them as their own entities makes them easier to see and address.
  • Study materials, such as research plans and screeners, allow team members to learn how research insights were gathered and easily replicate a study method.
  • Recordings, clips, and transcriptions make user data easily accessible. Summarizing and transcribing each video allows teams to search for keywords or specific information.
  • Raw notes and artifacts from research sessions might be useful for future analysis and can sometimes be easier to read or process than a full transcript or video recording.

Of course, there could be other items included in your repository. There’s no hard rule on what belongs in a research repository. In some organizations, research repositories also store data coming from sources other than user-research studies — for example,  customer support-emails, notes from customer-advisory groups, or market research. When choosing what to include in a repository, consider the needs of your team and repository users.

Bar chart shows items that are commonly stored in a research repository from 411 respondents. The most common item are reports (70% of responents store this item in their repository. Over 50% of respondents store recording, transcripts, notes, and insights or nuggets in their repository. Less than a third of respondents store participant information and consent forms in their repository. A third to a half of respondents store clips, study materials and artifacts like persons in their repository.
Most of the respondents in our survey reported storing documents related to research findings (reports, insights, notes, transcripts, and recordings) in their research repositories.

Tools for Research Repositories

Research repositories can be built and hosted in many different tools. Choose a tool that your team (and any colleagues who need to use the repository) can easily access or use.

According to our survey, the most popular tools for research repositories across organizations were:

  • Collaboration tools (such as Confluence and Sharepoint) are often already used in many organizations. Since teams and stakeholders can easily access them, they become a natural starting place for many research repositories.
  • User-research tools (such as Dovetail and EnjoyHQ) are used by researchers to transcribe and tag video recordings and perform qualitative data analysis. Many of these tools have repository features, making them an obvious repository choice.
  • Database tools (such as Notion and Airtable) are often used by teams that already work with databases for product management. Database tools allow for easy cataloging of research projects, deliverables, and insight.
A bar chart shows the most common tools used by 411 respondents for their research repositories. 43% of respondents used a collaboration platform. 32% of respondents used a user-research platform, 14% of respondents used a database tool. Under 5% of respondents used multiple tools, project management tools, or some other tool.
In a recent survey with over 400 respondents, the 3 most popular tool types for hosting research repositories were collaboration software (like Sharepoint and Confluence), user-research platforms (like Dovetail and EnjoyHQ), and database tools (like Notion and Airtable).

Research-Repository Types

A research repository can take many forms and is often dependent on the tool chosen for the job.

Some repositories act as glorified document libraries, where research reports and study materials are filed away in a specific folder structure. These are common when repositories are housed within collaboration platforms like Sharepoint or Confluence.

Other research repositories are searchable indexes or databases of research findings. These are common when teams pursue atomic research — where knowledge is broken down into “nuggets” or key insights.

A research report is added to a folder representing a document library, which is one type of research repository. Some diamonds are shown being added to a database, representing an inisght database.
Some research repositories act as document libraries that store all research reports and study collateral, while others are databases of research insights.

Each type of research repository has advantages and disadvantages (as shown in the table below). The main tradeoff is insight discoverability versus effort needed to add to the repository. Folder libraries are easy to contribute to and manage, but insights are less discoverable. On the other hand, insight databases are hard to contribute to and manage but provide easy access to research insights.

Document Libraries Insight Databases

✅ All research materials can be found in one folder.

✅ It is easy to contribute to and maintain the repository.

⚠️ Often it’s not possible to search for particular insights.

⚠️ It can be hard to discover interesting or relevant insights.

✅ Specific insights are easy to discover and find.

⚠️ Insights can lack context to help with decision making.

⚠️ Contributing can be challenging and time-consuming.

⚠️ Insights sometimes need updating, refining, or retiring, so repository maintenance is needed.

Of course, a research repository could include both an insights database and a research-document library. For example, an insights database could link to a folder structure containing all the research documentation from the study where the insight originated.

Helpful Features for Successful Adoption

Getting people to contribute and use a research repository can be challenging. Regardless of the tool and type of repository you pursue, here are five attributes that make research repositories easy to use and adopt.

Easy to Access

The tool you use for your repository should be easy to access, use, and learn by teams and stakeholders. A new tool that is unfamiliar or that is hard to learn could stop people from accessing or contributing to your repository.

Flexible Permissions

The right people should have access to the right data. For most organizations, the research repository should not be publicly accessible since research could involve proprietary designs or cause reputational damage. If the repository stores session recordings or identifiable participant data, the right people in your organization should have access to those assets to ensure that participant data is handled appropriately.

Intuitive Navigation or Tags

People should be able to easily find and discover research. If it is too difficult for stakeholders and teams to locate research, they will give up.

If your repository is a document library, folders should be labeled and organized sensibly. If you are using a database or user-research platform, then create clear and useful global tags, to help contributors label their research and people find specific research-related information.

Searchable

Repository users should be able to search by specific keywords (such as user groups, products, or features) to quickly find research insight. A strong and reliable search feature is often essential.

Exportable, Shareable, and Integrated

Sharing or exporting insight from the repository is important if research is to be disseminated widely. For example, if the repository tool supports integrations with other platforms, research snippets from the repository can be easily shared to Slack or MS Teams channels.

4 Steps for Creating a Research Repository

Step 1: Gain Buy-in

People won’t adopt a research repository if they don’t understand its value. Clearly present your arguments for the repository, including what teams might gain from having one. Gaining buy-in for the initiative and tool is especially important if you need to procure budget to purchase a specialized tool. You may need to show the return on investment (ROI).

Step 2: Do Your Research

Do research before choosing a tool or structure for your repository. Treat the process of developing a repository like building a new product. Start with some discovery and take a user-centered approach.

Some helpful questions to explore:

  • How do teams currently do research? What tools do they use?
  • How do teams write up or share research insights currently? What works? What doesn’t?
  • What questions do stakeholders ask researchers or teams when requesting research insights?
  • What counts as research? What kind of research insights need to be stored and socialized?
  • Which tools do researchers or teams have access to? What tools seem familiar and are easy to adopt?

If you are procuring a new tool for your repository, your research might include evaluating available tools to learn about their capabilities, pricing models, and constraints. You can also utilize free trials and demos and perform a trial run or private beta test with a new tool to find out what works.

Step 3: Start Simple and Iterate

When creating a tagging taxonomy for your repository, start with a few broad tags rather than getting too granular and specific. This approach will ensure that there aren’t too many tags to learn or apply. The tagging taxonomy may need to change over time as more research and contributors are added to the repository. It’s easier to make iterations if you have a small set of tags.

Consider testing your proposed tagging taxonomy or navigational structure. Methods like tree testing and card sorting can uncover the best labels, tags, or folder structures.

When thinking about adding content to a new repository, start simple. Instead of migrating all research (and research types) in one go, consider importing the most common or most useful items. Use this as a test run to refine the contribution process and structure for your repository.

Step 4: Onboard and Advocate

The key to successful adoption is a plan for onboarding and change management. Don’t expect the tool to be adopted straight away. Change aversion is common with any new process, design, or tool. Teams and stakeholders may need constant reminders or encouragement to use the repository. You may also need to run training sessions to help people learn how to use it and get value out of it.

Summary

Research repositories store and organize UX research, making research insights widely available and easy to consume throughout an organization. When creating a research repository, research available tools, gain feedback from researchers and teams who would use it, and plan to iterate after launch.