Building a flexible UX research roadmap
How to plan and prioritize research in changing environments
UX research teams often behave like order-takers, reacting to an endless stream of urgent, ill-defined requests from stakeholders.
To address this, some teams take a proactive approach by creating a UX research roadmap. Leaders collaborate with their teams, investing significant time and energy crafting a detailed, eye-catching artifact. But as product roadmaps shift, these roadmaps end up gathering dust, creating the sense that you’re chasing moving targets.
Ideally, a roadmap will adapt to reflect the ever-changing realities of your organization. The goal is a living document that evolves with your organization’s changing priorities. In this article, we’ll discuss a flexible approach for creating one.
1. Fill a backlog of research ideas
A backlog comprises all of the potential research efforts your team could be working on that aren’t ongoing or scheduled. This list serves as the foundation to any roadmap.
If you already have one, you can skip ahead. If not (or if it’s looking sparse), here are a few ideas that could help you get started:
Create an intake form. Start directing your stakeholders to a form that documents their problems and needs. This forces them to think through and clarify their requests, and will often preempt unnecessary meetings.
While you spin up a more robust roadmap, your intake form can serve as the basis of at least the most rudimentary form of one. Call it the “Deli Shop model”: stakeholders place their “order”, get a “number”, and requests are handled in chronological order.
Document future study ideas. Every project raises new questions. A “good hygiene” practice is to end each deliverable with proposed follow-up topics. You should document these in a centralized location (see, for example, Odette Jansen’s template). Over time, you can review these ideas, keeping the most relevant while discarding the rest.
Keep up regular check-ins with key partners. Don’t expect these conversations to automatically yield fully developed research ideas—you may need to ask probing questions to understand where there may be gaps in their understanding that need to be filled. At a minimum, being aware of upcoming initiatives will get you thinking ahead of future conversations.
Participate in planning sessions. These can be goldmines for backlog opportunities. Keep your ears open for any upcoming features that might benefit from user research; chances are these opportunities will jump out at you more quickly than any non-UX colleagues.
By combining these strategies, you’ll keep a healthy backlog of ideas and never lack for potential work to do.
2. Estimate time and resources required
For each of your backlog items, you’ll want a rough sense of size and scope. Time and resources are always limited, so tally up the cost for each project idea. Some studies will be smaller, quick wins; others will require significant investment.
In no particular order, here are three elements to consider:
Estimate time. Here’s a rule of thumb: research projects often take 3–6 weeks (though timelines can range from a week to six months depending on the method and scope). Assign each project a ballpark timeline and work backwards from deadlines to establish the latest start date.
Determine who will execute the work. Another rule of thumb: a dedicated UX researcher can handle 2–4 projects simultaneously (depending on complexity). Are your researchers available, and equipped with the right skills? If not, consider alternatives: hire additional staff, engage a vendor, or involve experienced designers or PMs who would be willing and able to pitch in.
Evaluate your budget. Projects come with costs, from tooling to participant incentives. Check what’s covered in your annual budget and identify any gaps. If additional funding is needed, document these requests for consideration. By the end of this process, you may be able to build a compelling case for stakeholder support.
Having considered the time, resources, and costs, you can start to arrange the pieces in time.
3. Rough out the sequence of events
You can’t do everything at once. Provisionally spreading these efforts out over time in a logical sequence makes the list more manageable and less daunting. Here are three considerations to help you do that:
The phase of development. Different research activities are better suited for different stages of the product development lifecycle. For example, benchmarking aligns best with measurement, while discovery research is common in strategy phases. If your team supports multiple products, consider the differing phases they might be in and plan methods accordingly.
Existing product roadmaps. Your stakeholders likely have their own timelines for initiatives. Your research won’t be useful if it doesn’t deliver insights ahead of milestones. Be mindful of key dates that aren’t likely to shift; for instance, ecommerce teams often institute year-end code freezes to avoid disruptions during peak periods.
Dependencies and timing. Some studies will rely on the results of others, so sequence these accordingly. Other efforts might align with seasonal or strategic milestones, such as preparing benchmarks ahead of annual planning or syncing data collection with a major release cycle.
With these considerations in mind, using a simple “Now, Next, Later” framework to organize the backlog items will suffice in most cases. Concrete weeks and months are nice to add where you have them. Naturally, you’ll have more certainty about nearer-term items, while anything too far out will be more tentative and subject to change.
By arranging the backlog into a logical sequence, you can start to identify conflicts or overcommitments, giving you a clearer picture of where prioritization is needed.
4. Prioritize research efforts
So far, we haven’t had to make any tough choices. If you’re looking at your list and thinking your team has the resources to handle it all, consider yourself one of the lucky ones. The rest of us must prioritize carefully to ensure we’re focusing what matters most.
One straightforward and effective tool for this is the Impact-Effort Matrix. Plot each project across two dimensions: high or low impact, and high or low effort. You’ve already estimated effort in step 2, so now it’s time to evaluate impact.
Evaluating impact means considering two things:
Return on Investment (ROI): Which projects deliver the biggest business benefits relative to their costs?
Alignment with KPIs: Does the work contribute to the goals your team or organization is judged by? Ideally, ROI and KPIs align, but if not, individual leaders should determine what best serves their long-term interests.
If you’re looking for stronger justification for judgments about high or low impact items, you may be able to bring user research into the discussion. For instance, some teams will have relevant quantitative research that provides more reliable estimates of what matters most to users, such as the Kano model or a Key Drivers study. You wouldn’t want to rush these complex methods if the planning cycle has already begun—but you might pencil them in to inform the next one.
Filled out, the matrix will guide your choices: focus on high-impact, low-effort projects, and cut low-impact, high-effort ones.
5. Prepare an artifact you can socialize
With decisions made about what to prioritize and when, it’s time to put it together in a way that people can react to it and use it.
Whatever format you choose, keep it functional. Avoid over-investing in a polished roadmap deliverable; instead, think about how you can leverage the tools your team uses daily. Whether that’s Miro, a Kanban board, Trello or some other project management software, or even a simple spreadsheet, what matters most is that the roadmap lives in a place where it’s actively used.
Now that you have a working draft, it’s important to seek feedback and perspectives from anyone who might have a stake in it, including your leaders, peers, and team members. They may have pieces of the puzzle that you’re missing—valuable context or information that can refine, improve, and keep your roadmap relevant.
As the artifact matures, it may be appropriate to disseminate it more widely in a larger setting, like org-wide town halls or the aforementioned planning sessions. Presenting your vision to a broader audience can raise your team’s profile, opening the door to new partnerships and opportunities. Make sure to share links or attachments to provide ongoing (even view-only) access, enabling stakeholders to revisit the roadmap whenever needed.
6. Keep it relevant over time
The heart of this approach is to create a living document that’s resilient to whatever shifts and changes come along, as inevitably, they will—whether that’s a new C-suite directive, a market disruption, or some other unforeseen event.
That starts with regular hygiene habits in day-to-day use. For instance, the project management software you use may support automations or “if-then” workflows that automatically clean up items with tags and dates. Even if you’re using a basic solution, you can dedicate time each day or week to review and revise items to keep them up to date.
Additionally, you should have occasional dedicated reviews, often on a monthly or quarterly basis, throughout the life of the roadmap. These sessions involve taking a step back to evaluate the plan holistically and assess its alignment with the current state and reality of the organization and its goals.
By treating your roadmap as dynamic and flexible, you’ll ensure that it remains relevant and actionable, even in the face of unexpected circumstances.
The bottom line
If you’re frustrated by roadmaps that quickly fall out of sync with reality, consider moving to a more adaptable system. Begin with a backlog of potential research initiatives, estimate the scope and logical order of each, and use prioritization frameworks to focus on high-value work. Then, house your roadmap in a system that’s easy to update and accessible to stakeholders.
This method won’t eliminate every last-minute pivot or unforeseen demand, but it gives your team the tools to manage unpredictability with confidence. By adopting a living, flexible roadmap, you’ll stay ahead of incoming work and establish your team as a trusted strategic partner for your stakeholders.
Drill deeper
Depth is produced by Drill Bit Labs, a leading UX and digital strategy consulting firm working side-by-side with UX and product design leaders to elevate their digital strategy, delight their users, and outperform business goals.
Whether you need guidance on specific methods or broader strategic support, we’re here to help you achieve your goals. How we help: user research projects to inform confident design decisions and optimize digital experiences, live training courses that teach teams user research skills, and advisory services to improve UX processes and strategy.
Connect with us to discuss your upcoming projects or ongoing UX needs.