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Research repositories for tracking ux research and growing your researchops.

October 18, 2020 2020-10-18

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Every UX team needs to organize its user research in a research repository. I first worked on a research repository in the early 1990s. The lessons I learned then still hold true today, as the UX community gets serious about managing and growing user- research programs. These efforts now fall under the umbrella term “ Research Ops ” (with “Ops” being short for “operations” ) .

In This Article:

What is a research repository, relevant elements in a research repository, convenience and findability features in a repository.

A research repository is a shared collection of UX-research-related elements that should support the following functions at the organization level:

• grow UX awareness and participation in UX work among leadership, product owners, and the organization at large
• support UX research work, so UX professionals may be more productive as they plan and track research

There are two main types of content in a research repository:

• The input to doing UX research: information for planning and conducting research
• The output from doing UX research: study findings and reports

Before making a repository, analyze the UX-related processes and tools used (currently or in the near future) in your organization. Consider creating a mind map of how research gets done, or even a journey map or service blueprint of how research is initiated and results are used on development teams.

Some important components that can be housed in a research repository include:

Infrastructure

• Research team’s mission and vision communicate what the team is about, how it works, and how it hopes to work in the future. This information can help others to understand the team’s capabilities, what they can expect, and what they can request. An example mission is: The UX-research team provides user and customer research and guidance for all products, services, and systems at the organization in order to maximize usefulness, usability, efficiency, enjoyment, and support for the organization’s vision.
• Descriptions of research methods help the team learn or be reminded of a process and the reasons for different research types. Method descriptions and best practices can promote consistent high-quality work and even teach a less experienced researcher.
• Tools and templates for conducting and analyzing research , such as templates for test plans, protocols, reports, interview scripts, user tasks, consent forms, notetaking and tips for using remote-research or analysis tools could also be housed her

Research Planning

• Strategic research plans for the organization and for individual projects — like you might see in a research roadmap — can keep researchers and the rest of the team focused on the most important areas to research as opposed to every single product feature. When stored in a research repository these are easy to find and access
• Schedules make research accessible to everyone, by sharing the date, time, location, research method, and what’s being studied. Armed with this information, anyone can join or ask to join in on studies, or at least look for findings upon completion
• Detailed research plans communicate that research will be happening and how. When stored in a repository they serve as a vision document to align stakeholders and the rest of the team.
• Research requests enable product teams to request user research to be done. Depending on the research team’s size, mission, planning, and culture, research requests may not be available at all organizations. Research requests can give insight in the research needs at your organization and can drive UX-team growth.

Data and Insights

• Research reports tell what happened in the research study. They include overarching themes, detailed findings, and sometimes recommendations.
• Research insights are the detailed findings or chunks of information acquired from each research study. While findings also appear in reports, saving them as their own entities makes it easier to digest them, mark their severity , track their status, and link to specific design and development assignments in the backlog or project database. In other words, each insight is digestible and easy to see, and thus more likely to get addressed.
• Recordings and transcriptions stored in the repository or, alternatively, linked from the repository, They make user data easily accessible. Summarizing and transcribing each video allows teams to search for exactly what they're looking for. (Fun historical note: In the early 1990s, when usability-testing recordings were too large to store online, my team at Lotus created a video library. Developers could check out the physical videotapes as one would a book at a library. People were so dedicated that they borrowed them to watch the tests they had missed, and sometimes we had to make extra copies of tapes to meet the demand.)
• Raw notes and artifacts from research sessions are often trashed after they have been analyzed. But some teams keep the notes in case they might be useful for future analysis — for example, if a team was in a rush and focused on one area of the design at the time of the study,  later it may be able to revisit the notes to glean insights related to other aspects of the design. Those notes could help inform journey maps, personas, or other user-focused artifacts.

What Is NOT Always in a Research Repository

• UX-data analysis is usually done with specialized tools. The result of the analysis could be a text file (for example, for quantitative data analysis done in software such as R) or could be hosted online in a tool-specific format. If the latter, then the repository can link to the result of the analysis. For example, researchers may have conducted thematic analysis using Dovetail; the full research report can include a link to that board so team members can see the reasoning behind the findings.
• A participant repository or panel is usually not stored within a research repository, even though recruiting research participants is a core function of user research. That’s because the goals and audience for the two repositories tend to be quite different. But it can be helpful for them to link to one another.

There are many other components that research teams need to track internally but that are less likely to be part of a research repository, even though they may be linked from it: user stories in a backlog, participant recruiting tools, and budget tracking for research projects.

People should be able to easily find and discover information about research. Findable and accessible information makes it possible for the team to easily be part of a research project and feel ownership about the findings. Here are some repository attributes that make it easy to use:

• Supporting tags and metadata, to help people find items by the most granular topics
• Searchable by keyword (e.g. for research on a certain product feature), project, team, finding, severity, status, and more
• Hosted in a tool that people can easily access , use, learn and that matches the organization’s culture and mental model
• Portable, so that repository elements can be easily exported to other applications or formats

Research repositories store and organize information about UX research. They collect not only methodology-related documents, but also research results at various levels of granularity (from individual findings to reports). Their purpose is to streamline the work of the research team and also to make research widely available and easy to consume throughout the organization.

For more information about the growing ResearchOps community, see https://researchops.community/ .

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Jan 23, 2024

How to build a UX research repository (that people actually use)

Extend the shelf life of your research and set your team up for long-term success with a robust research repository. Here’s how to build yours from scratch.

Ella Webber

Every UX research report was once a mountain of raw, unstructured data. User research repositories help collate that data, disseminate insights, democratize research, and spread the value of user research throughout your organization.

However, building (and maintaining) an accessible user research repository is no simple task. Getting people to use it is a whole other ball game.

In this guide, we’ll break down the specifics of user research repositories, some best practices and the benefits of building your own research library, plus how to get started, and our favorite examples of robust research repositories.

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What is a research repository in UX research?

A user research repository is a centralized database which includes all your user research data, UX research reports , and artifacts. Different teams—like design, product, sales, and marketing—can find insights from past projects to contextualize present scenarios and make informed decisions.

Storing all your research data in a single place ensures every team has access to user insights and can use them to make research-driven decisions. Typically maintained by a research operations team, a well-structured research repository is an important step toward breaking down silos and democratizing user research for the entire organization.

If you’re looking to improve research maturity across your organization and start scaling UX research , building a watertight user research repository is your first step.

What’s included in a research repository?

Building a UX research repository can be challenging. Between compiling all the data, creating a collaborative space, and making it easily accessible to the teams who need it, you might be struggling to identify a start point.

Here’s a checklist of all the essentials to streamline the setup:

✅ Mission and vision ✅ Research roadmap ✅ Key methodologies ✅ Tools and templates ✅ Research findings ✅ Raw data and artifacts

Mission and vision

Whether you have a dedicated user research team or involve multiple departments in the UX research process , you need a clear mission and vision statement to create a shared purpose and foster collaboration. Not only should you include your wider UX research strategy and vision, but a ‘North Star’ for your repository, too.

For example, the mission statement for your repository could be, “Streamline our UX design process and promote informed decision-making with a centralized hub of user feedback and insights.”

Research roadmap

A clear UX roadmap makes it easy to prioritize your research efforts and seamlessly organize your repository. It analyzes your objectives and outlines all upcoming projects in a given timeline. You can use this roadmap to catalog your previous research campaigns and plan ahead .

Key methodologies

You should also list all the research methods you follow to create repeatable success. You can save SOPs for different methodologies to minimize the scope of error and set your team members up for success. Mia Mishek , UX Research Operations Program Manager at Pax8 , explains:

“Every repository should include common documents related to the research at hand, such as a brief, moderation guide/test script, and readout. Having all the documents easily accessible allows others to cross-reference while consuming research and use past research as a jumping-off point for further research.”

Tools and templates

Create a list of collaboration and product management tools for different steps in the product research process , such as usability testing , interviews, note-taking, data analysis, and more. Outline these and don’t forget to give quick access links to all your UX research tools .

Outlining instructions and key templates for specific research methods or analysis techniques can be useful. Consider including any tried-and-tested question repositories or best practices.

Research findings

Your repository should include a set of findings from every study. While you can add the final reports for all projects, it’s also a good practice to add quick takeaways and tags to make your collection easily searchable.

If you’ve conducted different types of analysis, it’s worth linking these here, too. Whether that’s a photo of your thematic analysis workshop, a walkthrough video of your results, or a link to digital affinity diagram.

Raw data and artifacts

Alongside research reports, you can store all the raw data from each study, like user interview recordings and transcriptions. Your team members can revisit this data to plan upcoming projects effectively or connect the dots between past and present insights.

Depending on how you store this, you may want to consider keeping piles of raw data in a ‘view only’ or locked area of the repository, to avoid risk of accidental tampering or deletion.

What are the benefits of a research repository?

User research is an ongoing process. The trickiest part for most teams when pursuing continuous research is breaking down silos and establishing a democratized approach to prevent wasteful overlap, unnecessary effort, and a lack of knowledge-sharing.

A good research repository fosters a culture of collaboration and supports user-centric design through collectively prioritizing and understanding your users.

Here are a few core benefits of building a user research repository:

Quickly access user research data

An easily searchable UX research repository makes it easy to filter through a mountain of data and find specific insights without pouring hours into it. Mia emphasizes the importance of making the information easily accessible:

“You should be able to go into the repository, understand what research has been done on X topic, and get the information you’re after. If you need someone else to walk you through the repository, or if there’s missing information, then it’s not doing its job.”

By creating a self-serve database, you can make all the data accessible to everyone and save time spent on reviewing prior research to feed existing efforts.

Inspire ideas and prioritize future research

A research repository can also help in identifying knowledge gaps in your existing research and highlight topics worth further exploration. Analyzing your past data can spark ideas for innovative features and guide your research efforts.

Different teams can utilize a research repository to help guide the product roadmap on areas that still need to be explored in the app, or areas that need to be revisited.

Mia Mishek , UX Research Operations Program Leader at Pax8

Build a shared knowledge library

One crucial advantage of a repository is that it helps democratize user research. Not only does it highlight the value of research and showcase the efforts of your product and research teams, but by centralizing research findings, you’re making it easier for everyone to make data-informed, user-centric decisions.

A research repository also provides versatility and other use cases to your research insights—from product managers to sales leaders, all stakeholders can access user insights for making research-driven decisions across the organization. Whether that’s informing a sales pitch, product roadmap, or business strategy; there’s endless applications for UX research.

This practice of knowledge-sharing and democratizing user insights is a big step in building a truly user-centered approach to product development.

Contextualize new data with past evidence

Your repository records all the raw data from past projects, making it easier to compare and contrast new findings with previous user research. This data also allows researchers to develop more nuanced reports by connecting the dots between present and past data.

Mia explains how these repositories cut down on the redundant effort of trying to dig up old research data on any topic: “A repository benefits UX researchers and designers because it’s not uncommon to ask what research was done on XYZ area before conducting more research. No one wants to do reductive work, so without a repository, it’s easy to forget past research on similar topics.”

What’s more, research libraries avoid the same research being repeated; instead allowing as many people as possible to benefit from the research, while minimizing the resources and time used.

4 Best research repository tools and templates

You don’t need a specialized tool to create a user research repository. A well-organized, shared Google Drive or Notion teamspace with detailed documentation can be just as effective. However, if you can, a dedicated tool is going to make your life a lot easier.

Here are four research repository tools to consider for storing existing and new research insights on, and working cross-functionally with multiple teams.

1. Confluence

Confluence is a team workspace tool by Atlassian that streamlines remote work. You can use this platform to create research docs from scratch, share them with your team, and save them for future reference. Plus, the tool lets you design wikis for each research study to organize everything—raw data, findings, and reports—in a structured manner.

You also get a centralized space to store data and docs from extra accounts, so multiple people can contribute to and access your repository.

Condens is a centralized UX research and analysis platform for storing, structuring, and analyzing user research data–and sharing those insights across your organization. You can collaborate on data analysis, create pattern recognition, and create artifacts for comprehensive outcomes.

With a detailed research repository guide to help you on your way, it's a great tool for teams of any size. Plus, you can also embed live Maze reports, alongside other UX research and analysis tools.

3. Dovetail

Dovetail is a user research platform for collecting, analyzing, and storing research projects. You can save and retrieve all documents from a single database, while tags, labels, and descriptions also simplify the task of cataloging past data.

The platform gives you a strong search function to quickly find any file or data from the entire hub. You can also use multiple templates to migrate data from different platforms to Dovetail.

4. Airtable

Airtable is a low-code tool for building apps that enables you to create a custom database for your UX research projects. It’s ideal for product teams looking to set up the entire repository from scratch because you need to configure everything independently.

You get a high degree of flexibility to integrate different data sources, design a customized interface, and access data in dynamic views. What’s more, you can build an interactive relational database to request resources from others and stay on top of the status of existing work.

Here’s a research repository database to get started.

Creating a UX research repository: 5 Best practices

Designing a bespoke repository to organize your research requires careful planning, a thorough setup workflow, and continuous maintenance. But once it’s ready, you’ll wonder how your product team survived without it. To get you started, here’s our five best practices to implement this process effectively and kickstart your repository.

1. Define clear objectives for your repository

Start by outlining what you want to achieve with a shared research library. You might want to standardize research methodologies across the board or build alignment between multiple teams to create more consistent outputs.

This goal-setting exercise gives all team members a purpose to pursue in upcoming projects. When they know what success looks like, they can strategically plan research questions and choose analysis methods.

Knowing your objectives will also help shortlist the best research and usability testing tools . You can invest in a good platform by evaluating a few core capabilities needed to achieve your goals (more on that shortly).

2. Create a structure and define taxonomy

You can structure your UX repository as a database with multiple fields. For example, here are a few fields to easily categorize responses when documenting user experience research:

• Key insights
• User quotes
• Criticality
• Sources of knowledge
• Possible solutions that were considered

Besides creating a structure to document a research study, you also need a well-defined taxonomy to help people find information. Defining your research taxonomy will help you categorize information effectively and design consistent naming conventions.

For example, you can create a set of predefined categories for every research study like:

• Focus country: USA, Australia, Canada, France
• Collected feedback: Feature request, feature enhancement, bugs
• Methodology: Usability testing, user interview, survey
• User journey stage: Before activation, power user, after renewal

💡 Less jargon, more alignment

Involve multiple stakeholders when defining the terminology for your library, and check it aligns with any internal Style Guides or glossaries. This ensures alignment from the outset, and makes it easy for everyone to filter results and find what they need.

3. Distribute knowledge through atomic research

Atomic research is an approach to UX research that prioritizes user research data organization. It proposes that you conduct research so that every piece of the project becomes easily reusable and accessible to all stakeholders.

According to the atomic research approach , you need to consider four components to organize your repository:

• Experiments (We did this): Explain the research methodology and the steps you followed in conducting the study
• Facts (We saw this): Document the main findings evident from the data gathered in the study
• Insights (Which made us think): Capture the key insights extracted from analyzing the research data
• Opportunities (So we did that): List the decisions and action items resulting from the research analysis

Using atomic research, you can create nuggets to organize information in your repository.

Nuggets are the smallest unit of information containing one specific insight, like a user quote, data point, or observation. The different types of nuggets to categorize your research data include observations , evidence , and tags . By breaking down a vast study into smaller nuggets, you can make your repository informative at a glance. You can use your defined taxonomy to label these nuggets.

4. Identify the creators and consumers in your team

Before outlining your repository’s structure, you need to define workflows for creating, reviewing, and maintaining the library. Spend some time defining who will:

• Own the setup process and create the overall guidelines
• Access past documents and add contributions consistently
• Maintain the documents for easy accessibility
• Only need to access customer insights

Assigning these roles makes it easy to estimate your team's bandwidth for building and maintaining such a massive library. You can also manage permissions in your repository platform to give everyone access to relevant materials and protect confidential resources.

Mia explains why this is important to make your repository more meaningful for end-users:

“You need to keep in mind the JTBD (jobs to be done) framework when building a repository. What do the folks accessing your repository need to do? Who are those people? You need to build your repository with the purpose of those distinct users.”

5. Shortlist and finalize tools based on your goals

When evaluating different research repository tools, consider your requirements and compare different platforms against the essential features you need for this repository. If you’re creating one for the first time, it’s okay to create an experimental setup to understand the impact.

Here are a few key factors to consider when shortlisting research repository tools:

• Ease of setup and use: Choose a platform with a gentle learning curve, especially if you have a big team with multiple members. A quick setup and user-friendly interface can maximize adoption and make your repository more accessible.
• Collaboration capabilities: A good repository lets you interact with different team members through comments, chat boxes, or tags. You can also manage permissions and set up different roles to share relevant research with specific stakeholders and team members .
• Tagging and searchability: Your repository is only as good as its ability to show precise search results for any keyword. Consider the ease of labeling new information and test the search function to check the accuracy of the results.
• Export and integrations: You’ll need to export some data or streamline your entire research ops setup by integrating different tools. So, evaluate each tool’s integration capabilities and the options to export information.

Plus, your ideal tool might be a combination of tools. For example, Steven Zhang , former Senior Software Engineer at Airtable, used a combination of Gong and Airtable when first building a UX research repository . It’s about considering your needs and finding what works for your team.

Democratize user research in your organization

A UX research repository gives you easy access to insights from past projects, and enables you to map new insights to old findings for a more nuanced understanding of your users.

More importantly, building a single source of truth for your entire organization means everyone on your team can access research data to inform their projects.

Different teams can use this data to make strategic design decisions, iterate product messaging, or deliver meaningful customer support.

Sound good? That’s what we thought—build your repository today to evangelize and democratize UX research in your organization.

Need a seamless solution to collect meaningful research insights?

Maze helps you collect and analyze research to find purposeful data for your product roadmap

Frequently asked questions about UX research repository

How do I create a user research repository?

You can create a user research repository with these best practices:

• Define clear objectives for your repository
• Create a structure and define taxonomy
• Distribute knowledge through atomic research
• Identify the creators and consumers in your team
• Shortlist and finalize tools based on your goals

What makes a good research repository?

A good research repository tells the team's mission and vision for using research. It's also easily searchable with relevant tags and labels to categorize documents, and includes tools, templates, and other resources for better adoption.

What’s the purpose of a research repository?

A research repository aims to make your UX research accessible to everyone. It democratizes research operations and fosters knowledge-sharing, giving everyone on your team access to critical insights and firsthand user feedback.

The complete UX research repository guide for 2024

After you finish a research project, your hard-earned insights shouldn’t be left to fend for themselves. That’s how they get lost in inboxes, folders, or worse — the trash.

You need a home for your findings, one that's as easy to organize today as it is to search at a moment’s notice years later.

You need a UX research repository.

Without a central repository, your research efforts can become inefficient and even wasteful. Research lives scattered across multiple tools without a consistent format for collecting, synthesizing, and analyzing data. This makes it difficult to share what you learn to inform your organization’s key product decisions.

In this guide, we’ll cover all things research repositories – from definitions, benefits, and tools, to tips for building a healthy repository that enables your company to successfully conduct, organize, store, and access research.

Let’s get started.

What is a UX research repository?

A UX research repository — "repo" for short — is a central place to store, organize, and share an organization’s research artifacts and insights.

Think of it as a digital library dedicated to your company’s research knowledge and data.

Today, most research repositories are cloud-based. Content found in a repository typically falls into one of two broad categories:

• Input used in conducting UX research — information for planning and undertaking research.
• Output derived from conducting UX research, which may include the study’s findings and reports.

At the organizational level, the ideal repository should promote and advance UX research awareness by welcoming participation from leadership, product owners, and other cross-functional stakeholders. It should also encourage operationally-sound habits and practices for greater productivity at every stage of the research process, from planning through synthesis .

Benefits of UX research repositories

In recent years, research repositories have grown in popularity due to the variety of benefits they offer to researchers and their organizations. These benefits include:

Centralizing research data

One of the main benefits of having a UX research repository is that it provides a secure, centralized location to store and organize research data. This makes it easy for information to be quickly accessed and retrieved as needed, saving time and resources.

By storing all user research data in a single place, teams can avoid the costs of redundant work and even use existing insights to augment new research.

Additionally, a centralized UX research repository can help teams identify research gaps and areas to study in the future based on the needs of their organizations. For easy retrieval and use, it’s important to develop a repeatable system for tagging research artifacts and logging metadata. This ensures information is discoverable for everyone with access.

Ensuring consistency

Back to the two content types of research repositories. 

Input should include UX research methods and methodologies , protocols, and other standard approaches that help guarantee the consistency and accuracy of findings and insights gained from the research you conduct.

Consistency is vital. It ensures that your research isn’t arbitrary or subjective, and can be independently replicated by other people in the organization or elsewhere using the same or similar methods.

The same goes for output. Whether it’s a written insight report or a collection of clipped video highlights from a user interview recording, each should have its own standard format and conventions.

Enhancing decision-making

The importance of data-driven (or data-informed, as some prefer to say) decision-making can’t be overstated. After all, that’s really what having a healthy repository is all about. 

A centralized UX research repository is a valuable asset for product, design, and development teams because it allows them to store and access powerful data and insights. This enables product managers, designers, and development teams to better understand user behavior, challenges, preferences, and expectations — and ultimately, make user-centric decisions to build better products.

Streamlining the research process

Planning for future research. Taking notes during research. Transcribing interviews. Analyzing raw data. Identifying key highlights. Generating actionable insights. Preparing rich, engaging presentations and reports. 

Depending on how you work, each of these research activities may involve several tools. That’s a lot of jumping around and context switching, which isn’t great for productivity.

If you’re not careful, your research toolstack can grow too fast and too big, making it difficult to manage.

But, finding the right repository for your situation will help you streamline your research processes. This can significantly reduce the need for juggling multiple tools, save valuable time, and improve the quality of results. It also sets you up with the systems you need to scale as your organization — and its demand for research — grows.

Using a repository to streamline processes ensures insights can easily be traced back to the raw data they came from. It’s your organization’s source of truth for UX research.

Read: Scaling research that rocks 🤟(or at least isn’t rubbish) with Kate Towsey

Keeping all feedback in a single location

Conducting research isn’t the only way to uncover insights. Incoming user feedback is also incredibly valuable. That’s why researchers often include various feedback sources in their research repositories.

Feedback can originate from diverse channels such as public reviews on sites like G2 and TrustPilot, sales conversations, and customer support tickets.

Leveraging information from various sources helps keep a healthy mix of positive and negative feedback always coming in. Not only does this widen research perspectives for better decision-making, but it also strengthens the quality of research by using all available data and potentially minimizes the need or scope for new studies.

Greater collaboration

Having a repository makes research a team sport by facilitating collaboration across the entire organization, both in person and remotely. With a central repository, research findings can be shared and discussed collectively, which encourages cross-functional collaboration. 

This democratization of research insights boosts transparency while ensuring that teams are aligned and working towards achieving common goals. It helps prevent the duplication of research efforts since team members can easily see what others have and haven’t done.

A repository can also provide a framework that empowers non-researchers (e.g., product managers) to independently carry out safe, effective user research without having to depend exclusively on research staff.

Build & maintain a participant panel

All this talk about storing research. But what about your participants and their data?

While a participant database may not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about establishing a UX research repository, it should factor into your decision-making process.

A healthy participant panel helps researchers keep a pulse on participant interest, activity, and engagement. You can use it to filter and find candidates with the right attributes for your study. You can see who has participated in past research and provide insight into the recruitment of participants for upcoming research. It can also help prevent over-contacting anyone (because the last thing you want to do is annoy your panel).

These are all reasons why it makes sense to integrate your panel with your repository if possible. Keeping participant data and research data close makes for tighter execution at every step.

Read: The complete guide to panel management for 2023

Democratize research access

A research repository makes democratizing research in your organization possible. Access may not necessarily be reserved for only those in the research department (or R&D) but may also be granted to other teams, stakeholders, or everyone in the organization.

From product managers and designers to marketers and sales reps, access to an organization’s repository lowers the barrier to entry for getting involved in research, simply by exploring what others are working on.

That said, adequate access monitoring and control measures must be put in place, and training should be offered to those who are new to using a research repository.

How to build an effective UX research repository for your team

Before you pick your repository tool, it’s important to evaluate the other tools and processes your organization currently uses. The road to launching an effective research repository can be roughly broken down into the following five steps:

1. Set strategic goals

A common error when trying to find the best UX research repository for your needs is to dive straight into the search for tools and try to compare them. (It’s why we haven’t so much as mentioned a single option so far in this guide.) Like any type of software, comparing repositories is a difficult task if you don’t have a clear understanding of what to look for. 

First things first: seek support and input from your team and stakeholders early on.

It might help to conduct stakeholder interviews at this stage to ensure the collaboration and engagement with your future repository. Involving stakeholders can help you see things you might have missed and increase the likelihood of smooth operations once the repository is adopted.

Now, it’s time to define your goals for the ideal UX research repository in your organization. What do you intend to achieve (describe the best-case scenario in detail)? How will building a repository impact you as a researcher, as well as your stakeholders and the business as a whole? Does this decision to build a repository align with larger business objectives?

Consider developing a mind map of what research looks like for your team, or even a want a journey map for the entire research process, outlining what it looks from start to finish.Setting strategic goals for your repository will help your team to better understand its functions and benefits and help you maximize its adoption and impact.

2. Identify your team's requirements

Once you’ve set strategic goals for your UX research repository, the next step is establish your research team's requirements. This may require you to conduct a gap analysis.

The first thing to consider will be the repository tool itself and how its features align with your strategic goals. In most situations, it makes sense to place an emphasis on data security, accessibility settings for team members and stakeholders, user-friendliness, and ease of sharing research findings. Be as thorough as possible.

You’ll also need to consider potential workflow changes given the habits of the employees involved. The bigger your company is, the more sensitive this will be. What changes will have to be made to your current processes? What new tasks will need to be planned for? Which procedures will need modification, and which ones will be scrapped? In particular, think through challenges faced by the product managers as they hold a great deal of operational responsibility.

With these considerations in mind, draw up a rough list of potential repository tool candidates that match your goals.

3. Do your due diligence on repository tools

In a sea of tools, where do you even start? 

Likely with a Google search — but analyzing the top results one by one can get confusing fast. Using a software review comparison site like Capterra or G2 will likely be more effective in making your shortlist of tools that meet your requirements.

Better yet, ask fellow researchers you know for recommendations directly or post online where your peers hang out, such as the ResearchOps Slack Community .

Once you’ve developed your shortlist of tools, drill deeper. Depending on the size of your team and budget, pricing may be the first thing you check or the last. Either way, get a ballpark idea of how much you can expect to spend (and perhaps be wary if a company doesn’t make their pricing publicly available). Take a look at help centers to see how easy it is to find answers to problems and get in touch with support. Check out the blog – does this company put out educational content you might actually read? Do you have a library of helpful how-to videos or templates? And what about their social presence — do they seem to have an engaged community of evangelists or are their accounts littered with complaints from frustrated customers.

During your due diligence, you and your team will hopefully be able to weed out the pretenders and narrow your list down to the true contenders. From there, it’s time to take your new tool(s) for a spin.

4. Demo & trial your best tooling options

Most UX research repository tools offer two ways to get started: immediately with a trial (often free) in just a few clicks or in the next few days by scheduling a demo with the sales team. (If you’re shopping for an enterprise plan for a larger team, it’ll be the demo.)

Then, it’s time for more due diligence. If possible, work with your team to trial and/or demo multiple tools at once. You’ll want to evaluate everything from ease of setup and onboarding to actually organizing and storing your research. It’s also important to get a feel for the company representative(s) who will be managing your account. Do they inspire confidence or concern? Are they invested in achieving your team’s goals or just here to check the boxes?

Not all trial and demo processes will look the same. Make sure to take copious notes throughout, as these will come in handy later if you need to build a business case to present to your procurement team.

5. Create an onboarding plan

Your due diligence is done. Your team has collectively determined a winner (after duking it out in a spirited debate over two final options, of course). You’ve even made your way through procurement and legal with any major issues. Now, it’s time to onboard your new UX research repository.

By now, you should already have a solid idea of what to expect from your trial run and product demos. Next, you need to delegate implementation to one or more capable individuals. Key roles here include purchasing the the repository product and managing billing, defining the repository’s data structures, and granting access to users. If you're leaving an old tool for your new tool, that also means gearing up for a repository migration of all existing research artifacts . 

You’ll also want put together an onboarding plan for all involved stakeholders and a presentation to share with the company as a whole.

Adopting a research repository can be a gradual process that takes time and requires an effective implementation plan to ensure success. It won’t happen overnight.

Consider ranking such goals and focusing on those you intend to achieve earlier to avoid exerting too much pressure on yourself and your team.

Read: The 5 Cs of a successful research repository with Julian Della Mattia

8 of the best UX research repository tools

I know what you’re thinking.

Finally, the millionth edition of the the “# Best [ Software ] Tools in 2023” I’ve been waiting for! Surely there won’t be any bias and the company writing this guide won’t rank itself #1 above all its competitors.

You’ve made it this far and we’ve covered a lot. It’s only right we mix in a joke.

On a serious note, there’s no one-size-fits-all repository tool. (And if anyone tells you that, run.) So in the interest of transparency, we’ve compiled 8 of the top research repository tools on the market. They’re in no particular order, but Great Question is first because, well, it’s our website.

Great Question

At Great Question, we’re building the home of research user-centric teams, like Canva , Drift , and Brex to name a few. A cornerstone of this is our repository. Think of the Great Question Research Repository as an insights hub where you can:

• Capture, store, and tag all of your research. Never forget to hit record again with automatic interview recordings. Get free transcriptions that you can easily search. Organize everything with AI-suggested tags specific to your study or used globally across your team’s whole account. Upload or import external recordings in bulk for free transcription any time. Integrations include Zoom, Google Met, and Microsoft Teams.
• Analyze research data and create artifacts. Select interview transcript text to create instant video highlights of your key moments, then combine multiple highlights into a single highlight reel for maximum impact. You can also embed highlights and reels in your written insight reports.
• Share and collaborate with your team. Copy and paste a link to share any highlight, reel, or insight with your team wherever they work — even if they don’t have a Great Question account. Integrations include Figma, Zapier, and Slack, which allows you to send automatic notifications to your team’s channel when an interview is scheduled, survey is completed, and other research events occur.
• Discover and learn from past research. Search the repository using keywords or custom filters, and view research artifacts in grid, table, or kanban layouts. Quickly find what you’re looking for to prevent duplicate work or augment new research.
• Protect data with enterprise-grade security. Great Question is SOC-2, GDPR, and HIPAA compliant , and meets enterprise security requirements through regular penetration testing. Your data is safe with us.

We’re also hard at work building smart, ethical ways to leverage AI for UX research . This means helping researches save time on tedious tasks so they can focus more on more important, impactful work. Think AI-suggested interview summaries, survey questions, highlights, titles, and tags. 

What makes Great Question different from other tools is that it’s much more than just a repository. With our all-in-one platform, you can:

• Manage a panel of your own users via CRM integration or list upload, or build a panel of non-users through our third-party integrations with Respondent and Prolific .
• Sync your work calendar with your research calendar to prevent conflicts and streamline scheduling with continuous invites and availability .
• Personalize participant recruitment with branded emails and landing pages, send automatic reminders, and prevent over contacting by setting guardrails.
• Run your favorite research methods, like user interviews , focus groups , surveys , unmoderated studies, and more. (Coming soon: prototype testing , tree testing, and card sorting .)
• Set global incentives for research participants with 1,000+ options in 200+ countries and automatically distribute upon study completion.

If you’re ready to take our repository for a spin (or interested in learning more about some of the features listed above), book a demo here to get started.

Founded in 2017, Dovetail is a popular research repository that enables users to generate research reports in a matter of minutes. This cloud-based customer knowledge software assists product, design, and development teams with user research and collaboration. Notable features include full-text search, usability testing, pattern recognition, file sharing, tagging, analytics, and graphical reporting.

Through the Dovetail platform, administrators can store user research data in a unified location, develop procedures for customer interviews, embed videos, images, and recordings in notes, as well as capture demographic and qualitative data. Dovetail also allows teams to analyze data, including survey responses, transcripts, and notes; create a standard set of tags for different projects; leverage natural language processing (NLP) for sentiment analysis; and explore metrics on graphs and charts.

Dovetail helps managers boost collaboration between user experience designers, product teams, and other stakeholders, in addition to providing role-based permissions to users, maintaining project data, and storing billing information for a multiplicity of customers. Team members can search for tags, notes, or insights across various projects as well as export data in CSV format.

Grain is a UX research repository that helps researchers collect and organize user interviews as well as create and share research insights and findings with visually appealing stories. During these user interviews, Grain can record, tag, transcribe, and organize your qualitative data. It also allows users to import their pre-recorded interviews from Zoom Cloud or manually upload them.

You can add your team members, stakeholders, and collaborators to your workspace so that they can access all your research data at any time. As soon as you’ve recorded your interview in Grain, you can slice and dice your data in a variety of ways to make sharing insights easy. Selecting the text in the transcript will enable you to clip and share important moments in a user interview. You can also create an engaging story by combining insights obtained from multiple interviews.

Copy and share the Grain AI summary with one click. Also, share insights and key moments with other teams by copying and pasting to embed Grain videos in communication software such as Slack and collaboration tools such as Notion or Miro. Grain is equipped with a native integration capability that makes it possible for you to send research insights directly to your product board.

Userbit is a tool that not only enables you to collect and store data from user interviews (with highlights, transcripts, and tags) but also includes a suite of features to help you transform data into meaningful insights.

Easily convert your transcripts to visual word clouds or affinity diagrams with Userbit's visualizations. Userbit offers a great way to quickly spot patterns and relationships in your data in order to start generating insights. Another valuable Userbit feature is the capacity to develop user personas directly from research data, allowing you to save a lot of time since it eliminates the need to manually create personas from scratch. With Userbit, you’ll have a mental picture of your users based on how they think and behave. This can be very helpful when attempting to design an intuitive user experience.

Userbit ensures easy sharing of findings with your team members and stakeholders, thus enabling the whole team to collaborate effectively so as to develop the ideal design process and user path.

Condens is a tool that can help you structure and organize your user research data effectively. With Condens, you can create a UX research repository that's both easy to use and well-organized. Condens is designed for anyone: researchers, product managers, designers, and those with little or no technical background.

One distinguishing feature of Condens is its pleasant visual interface, which allows you to view all your data at a glance. You can quickly filter and search for particular items, making it easy to locate what you're looking for, even when faced with a huge amount of data. The AI-assisted transcription feature can speedily transcribe user interviews to ensure prompt data analysis.

Condens boasts a broad range of integrations that include the capacity to easily import data from Google Sheets, Excel, and other research repositories. One advantage of this is that you can start using Condens without having to worry about transferring your data manually. So if easy onboarding and an appealing visual interface are your top priorities, Condens checks all the boxes.

Acquired by UserZoom in 2021 which later merged with UserTesting in 2022, EnjoyHQ is a cloud-based repository that helps UX and product teams learn faster from customers by streamlining the customer research process. EnjoyHQ facilitates the easy centralization, organization, and sharing of all customer insights and data in one location. It has the components needed to build an effective research system that scales.

EnjoyHQ integrates with popular communication and collaboration tools, providing the ability to gather all your data together in seconds. Third-party platforms that seamlessly integrate with EnjoyHQ include Google Docs, Zendesk, Jira Service Desk, Drift, AskNicely, Dropbox, Trello, Trustpilot, and more. Organize all your data in one place, accelerate your analysis process, and easily share insights with team members and stakeholders through EnjoyHQ.

Key features include a collaborative workspace, user management, customer segmentation, sentiment analysis, and app review translations. You can categorize data through tags, metadata, and highlights and also develop a taxonomy to classify research findings for analysis. Managers can prepare summaries and reports as well as monitor audience engagement with respect to the displayed insights. Additionally, presenters can save reports in graphical formats and use links to share them with team members.

Aurelius is a repository that was built by UX researchers for UX researchers. It’s a balanced blend between cost-effectiveness and a suite of features to collect, organize, and synthesize research data. Aurelius helps you analyze data and quickly turn it into valuable insights. Its lean features ensure that you pay for only what you need and nothing else. The Aurelius magic uploader enables you to easily upload your data into the program. Use the Aurelius-Zapier integration or the Aurelius-Zoom integration to import spreadsheets, audio, video, notes, and other file types.

The powerful global tagging feature can be used to tag notes, key insights, and recommendations. AI-powered intelligent keyword analysis helps you identify patterns even in large datasets. The universal search feature will help you quickly locate old research reports, notes, and other data. Add recommendations to each key insight, and Aurelius will automatically generate an editable report you can share with other users.

Aurelius can serve as an extension of your daily workflow in terms of promoting collaboration, encouraging independent research, and helping you obtain research insights that can drive stakeholder action.

Looppanel is a newer repository founded in 2021 with the goal of enabling product and design teams around the world to build products their users love. This AI-powered research assistant streamlines user research by managing everything from initiating calls to creating the perfect user interview templates, recording and transcribing sessions, and assisting teams in discovering and sharing insights faster

Some of its most popular features include taking time-stamped notes during a user conversation and sharing video clippings from a call with a single click. With Looppanel, teams can analyze and share their findings from Zoom-based user interviews in minutes and centralize research data in one place. It offers highly accurate transcripts across multiple languages, allows users to collaborate with team members for free, and lets them share reports and summaries via a link.

Other general tools that can be used as research repositories

Aside from these core UX research repositories, there are other general tools that can be adapted to get the job of a repository done. Here are a few of them:

Notion is a powerful, versatile tool you can do a lot with, from research documentation to project management. It's easy to use, incredibly flexible, and has a tidy interface, making it great software for housing user research data. Notion enables you to create custom databases, which is great for organizing your data. You can also attach rich media such as video, audio recordings, and images to your databases.

Like most modern apps, Notion provides a wide range of integrations. For instance, you can easily import data from other programs such as Google Sheets and Excel. This can be useful if you wish to consolidate all your user research data in a single location. Furthermore, extensions such as Repo can help you transform Notion into a dedicated UX research repository with features like highlighting and tagging. Enrich your research data in Notion by adding videos and key moments from your interviews. 

Notion is a potential option for researchers, product managers, and designers looking for a versatile tool that can serve a variety of purposes.

Though Jira is mainly a project management tool popular for software development teams, it can also serve as a storage medium for UX research data and projects. Jira boasts a variety of features that make it suitable for user research. For instance, it can be used to track interviews, facilitate user testing sessions, undertake other user research tasks, and create custom reports. Jira also allows you to create a dedicated research project, making it easy for your team to keep all research data in one place. You can use it to follow the progress of user research and identify areas where improvements are required.

The ability to add attachments to Jira tickets makes storing and sharing user research data, such as screenshots and interview recordings, easy. Jira can be somewhat overwhelming if you are new to project management tools, but it is nonetheless a good tool to store your user research data.

Airtable is another database tool capable of serving diverse purposes, including UX research. It comes with a user research template that helps you avoid the stress involved in having to set up a database. A combination of that user research template and another feature — the user feedback template — can help you organize your user research data and feedback in one location.

Easily add attachments such as images, audio files, and videos to enrich your user research data. Organize and find your user research data using the views feature to filter and sort your data or create custom formulas to calculate things like the net promoter score . You can also visualize your data through bar graphs and other means.

Confluence is a shared workspace developed by Atlassian to create and manage all your work. Confluence makes it easy to organize and find the information you need. This is one of the main reasons it can be adapted into an effective repository. You can group related pages in a dedicated space for your work, team, or cross-functional projects. Depending on permissions, access to a Confluence workspace can be reserved for only you or other members of your company. Page trees create a hierarchical list of pages within a workspace, highlight topics on parent pages, and help ensure you and your team work tidily.

To find something, just do a quick search of existing pages. You can even locate comments posted to a page by others. Visual improvements for UX concept documentation not only make sense but are simple in Confluence. It facilitates the easy integration of a variety of add-ons through which you can quickly attach visual information such as image maps, flow charts, and other diagrams via your editor.

Concept visualization, prototypes, and spec files are all integral components of UX design and should form part of your UX documentation as well. Confluence provides you with the opportunity to visually preview a wide range of file types that you can utilize to bolster your written research documents.

Final thoughts

To build a healthy, mature UX research practice in any organization, you need a repository. But a research repository without a clear strategy won't last long.

That’s why it’s essential to align with your team on strategic goals for your repository, perform due diligence on your tooling options, and run collaborative onboarding to maximize adoption and impact.

With this guide in your back pocket, you’re well on your way to building an effective repository that makes research vital to your organization.

Enjoy this article? Subscribe to the Great Question newsletter.

Jack Wolstenholm

Jack is the Content Marketing Lead at Great Question, the end-to-end UX research platform for customer-centric teams. Previously, he led content marketing and strategy as the first hire at two insurtech startups, Breeze and LeverageRx. He lives in Omaha, Nebraska.

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Unlocking the Power of Research Repositories for Product Managers

Zita Gombár

Bence Mózer

A centralized system is required to develop a good understanding of your users across teams and across your firm. Here's when research repositories come in handy. They bring together various points of user input and feedback. So, whether you're a UX researcher, designer, or a product manager, this post is for you.

Have you ever wished for faster answers to your research questions? If your team has already conducted a few studies, you likely have a solid understanding of your users and may already have the answers you need.  

However, various other departments within your organization are likely also receiving feedback from customers. How do you connect your data with insights from other teams?  And how can you ensure that people have access to research data when they need it?  Discover the solution in a research repository.

Based on our extensive experience working with diverse clients, including large enterprises and NGOs, UX Studio has developed a comprehensive ebook on research repositories for UX research . This resource covers all the essential aspects, starting with the definition and key principles of research repositories, along with insights on building and maintaining them for long-term success.  We would also like to provide you with a sneak peek from the book about why a research repository is crucial for your organization.

What is a research repository?

Any system that keeps research data and notes that can be quickly retrieved, accessed, and used by the entire team is referred to as a research repository (or research library). Let’s look at the key components of this definition.

A research repository is a system that stores all of your research data, notes, and documentation (such as research plans, interview guides, scripts, personas, competitor analysis, etc.) connected to the study. It allows for easy search and access by the entire team.

Let’s take a closer look at the elements of this definition:

Storage system. 

A system of this type is any tool you use to store and organize your research data. This can take various forms and structures. It could be an all-in-one application, a file-sharing system, a database, or a wiki.

Research data. 

Any information that helps you understand your users can be considered research data. It makes no difference what format is used. Text, images, videos, or recordings can all be used to collect research data. Notes, transcripts, or snippets of customer feedback can also be used.

Ease of use. 

Anyone on your team can access, search, explore, and combine research data if it is simple to use. Developers, designers, customer success representatives, and product managers are all examples of this. Any of them can gain access to the research repository in order to learn more about users. The researcher is no longer the gatekeeper when it comes to understanding users.

Since it’s a massive collection of research, the research repository is also the team’s go-to place for learning about users and their pain points. Instead of searching three different locations for reports, all research information is centralized in one single place. 

How can a research repository help your company?

As a company starts doing more and more user research, this means more studies, more reports, and a whole lot of information that you cannot really access unless you know who worked on what.  

If you work in a company without a research repository, you probably rely a lot on file sharing software like SharePoint or Google Drive. This means you spend a lot of time navigating through folders and files to find what you’re looking for (if you can find it at all), as well as sharing file links to distribute your work and findings. 

How often do you wish for a simpler way of organizing all this data?

Let’s explore how research repositories can elevate your research work!

The go-to place to learn about users

Since it’s a massive collection of research, the research repository is the team’s go-to place for learning about users and their pain points. Instead of searching three different locations for reports, all research information is centralized in one single place. 

Speeding up research.

Whenever you have a new research question, you can start by reviewing existing data. Since it’s all organized according to tags, you don’t have to go through multiple reports to find it. This way, if there’s relevant information, you get the answers faster. 

Get more value from original research.

If research observations are no longer tied to report findings, they can be reused to answer other questions. Of course, if they’re relevant. This builds on the previous point of speeding up research. Also, it allows you to get more value from original studies.  

No more repeated research.

As reports get buried and lost in file-sharing systems, so does the information they contain. We briefly mentioned this before. But you’re probably familiar with the situation. Someone performed a study on a feature at some point. Let’s say that another person joins the team and wants to learn about that feature. Without any knowledge of existing research, researchers start a new study for the same question. If, on the other hand, all the research data is centralized, you can see what questions have already been asked. 

Enable evidence-based decisions.

Probably this is one of the biggest wins for a research repository. It allows teams to see the big issues that need to be solved. Also, teams get to see on their own, how these issues come up. On top of that, they can now use that data to prioritize projects and resources. This makes it easier than using gut feelings or personal opinions.

Anyone can learn about users – to increase UX research maturity.

By default, the researcher is the person who knows everything about users and their problems. A research repository opens up this knowledge to anyone who is interested. With a bit of time and patience, everybody can get to know users. 

You can prioritize your roadmap.

Putting all the data together will give you an overall view of the user experience. This, in turn, will help you see what areas you need to prioritize on your roadmap.

Yes, it takes time and resources to set up and maintain a research repository. But the benefits are clearly worth that investment. Even more so since information, along with access to it are essential for high-performing teams. Besides research, it is about building trust and transparency across your team and giving them what they need to make the right decisions. 

When to use a research repository?

Whether you are thinking about setting up a research system for an ongoing project or you would like to organize your existing insights, there are a few things to consider.

Long term, ongoing research. 

This is common for in-house research. It may also occur if the user research is outsourced to a third party. Data will begin to pile up at some point in long-term, ongoing research. It will become more difficult to locate information as it accumulates. We’ve also discussed the issues that may arise if you only rely on reports. In this case, you will undoubtedly require a solution to organize and structure all of the research findings.

This is the first major scenario in which you should strongly consider establishing a research repository. Even if you’re a one-person team, and you’re the only one doing the research, it’s a good idea to start promoting research repositories. Explain your situation to your manager or team .

Multiple researchers are working on the same project.

It doesn’t really matter whether this is a short-term or long-term project. When multiple researchers are working on the same project, they require a solution that will assist them in compiling all of the data. You can collect all of the observations using a research repository. Even if the two researchers discuss their findings, using a research repository increases the likelihood that important data will not be overlooked.

Good products are developed from great insights. However, teams require access to these insights in order to integrate them into the product. This is where research repositories can be helpful.

Setting up a research repository may take some time, but it is a great investment for scaling research operations in the long run and increasing UX research maturity. Despite the initial effort required, a research repository can take your entire research to the next level. For this, you can use the tools you have at hand such as Notion or Google Sheet, or you can try out dedicated tools such as Dovetail or Condens .

At UX Studio, we have assisted numerous companies in setting up their research processes, enabling them to conduct in-house research and enhance their product development with a user-centered approach.

For comprehensive guidance on research repositories, we invite you to download our complete book here .

Do you want to build your in-house research team or create your own repository?

As a top UI/UX design agency , UX studio has successfully handled over 250 collaborations with clients worldwide. 

Should you want to improve the design and performance of your digital product, message us to book a consultation with us.  Our experts would be happy to assist with the UX strategy, product and user research, or UX/UI design.

Let's talk

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How to find the right UX research repository in 5 steps [plus an evaluation template from Condens]

You've decided you need a user experience (UX) research repository, but you’re not quite sure where to start, and the number of software vendors and tools seems overwhelming. How do you find the right tool for your team, so you can keep your research organized and easily accessible to every stakeholder?

We're here to help.

A user research repository is a touchpoint knowledge base that stores and organizes user data, insights, and research to address feedback, help teams effectively analyze information, and collaborate to improve the product experience (PX).

The 5-step evaluation process in this article shows a structured way of finding the right and best digital tool for your team. And you can support your decision with this free, downloadable goal and evaluation template from Condens.

How extensive the evaluation process will be for your product team depends on the size of your organization and the number of people involved. It may take just a day to decide for a research team of one, but can last several weeks in a large enterprise or business.

So let's get started!

A note: we recommend following the five steps of the following process chronologically, but you may have to go back to earlier steps in some cases. For example, if you learn about an interesting aspect of a repository during a demo that you didn’t think of before (in step 4), you'll want to add it to your requirements list (back in step 2). Some flexibility is helpful here.

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1. Define and prioritize your goals

A common mistake with choosing a user research repository is jumping straight to the tools and starting a comparison . But comparing repository tools is hard to do if you’re not clear on what to look for.

Instead, start by defining what you want to achieve with the repo. Having strategic goals is a crucial step in product development that helps your team understand the functions and benefits of a UX research repository . 

Then, set up a document to put your goals in writing. Here's a goal and evaluation template you can use, including the most frequently mentioned goals UX researchers have for a repository. Make a copy and fill it with the information you gather throughout the process:

Columns A–C: preliminary goals

A key element of the template is column B , which states the goals the repository should serve. A goal consists of: 

The desired result, e.g. centralize existing research data

The end goal’s benefit, e.g. to answer questions from colleagues more quickly

Simply delete the rows in the spreadsheet which contain goals that aren’t relevant to you, and add goals that aren’t listed yet.

Column A describes the overarching function a respective goal belongs to that can help you organize your goals into categories to spot and prioritize them easily. 

Then, use column C to describe expected changes and desired results as concrete examples, potentially referring to concrete roles or scenarios from your organization. The template includes some example references, which you can easily adapt or change to fit your product and market.

Keep in mind: it's important to get buy-in and input from your team and stakeholders early on. Based on your initial draft of goals and use cases (what you fill in and select in columns A and B), you'll know who will be working with the repository and who will be affected by it. Beyond researchers, this can include designers, product managers , sales colleagues, and more. Keep reading to learn how to use column D to note the people involved.

Column D: involve the team and stakeholders

Next, talk to the stakeholders you identify in column D —ask about their pain points, stories, and goals with UX research. It might also help to conduct a stakeholder analysis at this stage to ensure buy-in and support from executives and investors. Involving stakeholders helps to see things you might have missed and increases acceptance once the repository is implemented.

When you involve your team and stakeholders at this stage, it's helpful to be as detailed as possible. For example, if you want to make it easier for stakeholders to find existing research, ask about the last time they tried to learn something from existing research and the research methods they used. Try to discover what a repository needs to offer so stakeholders can use it to reach their product and business goals.

Continuously adapt and refine the spreadsheet according to stakeholder input. You can also add a priority ranking by putting the important goals in the top rows and the less important goals below.

2. Identify your team’s requirements

Now that you have an idea of what the repository should help you do and who to involve in the process, the next step is to think about how to meet the team's needs. Perform a gap analysis to consider: 

The repository tool itself, and the features the software needs to offer

The changes in workflows and habits of the people involved. The larger your organization, the more relevant this aspect will be.

In the template, use columns E and F for each of the two requirement types:

Columns E and F: identify requirements

Column E concerns the capabilities of the tool itself—which features does the tool need to have? Again, be as detailed as possible, and consider things like accessing possibilities for stakeholders and how easy it is to share findings.

Next, column F describes workflow changes: what needs to change compared to the current process? What new tasks do you need to plan for, which procedures will change, and which tasks will disappear? Thinking about the challenges of product management will help you here.

The template includes example answers in columns E and F. Filling out these columns properly—and in collaboration with stakeholders—will help your team discover potential blockers or hurdles early on.

"Whose time is crucial to make the activities work? Why would they invest their time in using the repository? Is this aligned with their goals and wishes?"

3. Create a shortlist of tools

Now you have a good foundation based on your team's needs, you can start looking for research repository tools . 

Start by checking lists of popular and reviewed tools from sites like G2 . This quantitative research gives you different insights from UX designers and product teams. From there, you can create a long list of possible tools, then narrow it down by checking some of your non-negotiable or crucial criteria listed in Column E. 

Try to get to a point where you've only got two or three SaaS (Software as a service) vendors to choose from, then do a more in-depth evaluation (keep reading to learn how).

Pro tip: a question that comes up frequently in the process of shortlisting tools is, should I get a general-purpose tool, like Confluence or Notion, or a dedicated research repository tool?  

There's no right or wrong answer—it depends on your product and company goals and your team's specific needs—but here are a couple of things to consider: 

The main advantage of a general-purpose research repo tool is that typically everyone in your organization already has access, so there's no need to add another tool to your stack , or onboard the team to anything new. 

On the other hand, a dedicated tool for research can support your team beyond simply storing research data and is specifically designed to organize and structure UX data, including ways to search, cross-reference, and share.

4. Use demos and trials

With the two or three vendors on your shortlist, you can now move forward to collect more information. The tools' respective websites and Help Centers should give a good overview of their capabilities—but to tailor your search, contact their sales teams and share your specific goals with them to learn how their tool will meet your product and user needs. This step is where you will conduct usability testing to determine if the tool is a good fit for your team.

Use page two of the goal and evaluation template to structure your evaluation.

The first row is for entering the respective vendor’s name. Then, the template has two main categories:  

User experience , which evaluates how easy and fun it is to use the tool

Functionality , which evaluates whether the tool provides the features you need to accomplish your goals

Beyond the scores (1 is worst, 5 is best), also use the comments section to capture qualitative aspects of each tool.

We recommend you evaluate tools as a team, as employee feedback will help you make a choice that works for everyone. You can either fill in the sheet together, by blocking some time in your calendars to demo the tool as a team, or let each team member and stakeholder evaluate the tools asynchronously. Either way, have each person enter their impressions into the evaluation template so you can keep everyone's information in one relevant spot.

You'll find three more categories for evaluation: 

Security & privacy is usually a question of 'OK' or 'not OK', and requires the involvement of your security or legal team. 

Support & onboarding considers several aspects, like the scope of support and onboarding services included in respective plans; available channels to communicate with the vendor; or even time zone differences to ensure sufficient overlap during a workday.

Pricing is (surprise!) about the tool’s cost for your team.

Most tools offer a live demo to help you understand how the tool would meet your product requirements and achieve your business goals. We also highly recommend making use of any free trials that the tools offer. Ideally, you should use actual research data with a free trial (if your legal team allows it), which is the best way to assess whether the tool is right for your team.

"Pilot the tool and process with a small subset of data before integrating into formal processes and promoting its existence across the company."

5. Assign team roles and make an onboarding plan

After collecting information from demos and trials, it’s time to make a decision. You may want to set up a short meeting with the team, your manager, and other key stakeholders to discuss their feedback and make the final choice together. Cross-functional collaboration helps improve team alignment on the plan throughout the research process. 

Once you decide on a tool, assign someone to be responsible for implementation . This concerns purchasing the tool, defining data structures in the repository, coordinating migration of existing research material, providing access to all users, communicating the repository within the organization, and ensuring everyone is properly onboarded. Getting clear on these roles is especially important for onboarding and working in remote teams . 

Remember, introducing a repository takes time, and a proper implementation plan is critical for success. You don’t have to implement each goal right from the beginning—consider the ranking of goals (from step 1) and focus on the most important goals first to make the task of implementing the research repository more manageable and create momentum.

Finally, assess the value of the repository after some time by benchmarking what you achieved against your initial goals. Ideally, you've defined success measures and metrics upfront (see column G in the template ). Now you can collect data on these success measures, identify where you achieved the goals, and determine where there's room for improvement.

UX research repository FAQs

What is ux research.

User experience (UX) research is the practice of studying user behavior and interactions to help product teams design with the end-user in mind. This focus on delivering a great user experience for the target audience is an approach that helps guide design teams, product teams, and marketing.

What is the role of a UX researcher?

UX researchers will conduct a heuristic evaluation of user interactions with a product to find ways to improve the user experience. Through data analysis, and by asking the right questions, a UX research team can identify product pain points and offer the best solutions.

What is a UX research repository?

A user research repository is a central hub for product teams to store, organize, and analyze information while they collaborate on user research tasks in an effort to improve their products and user experience.

How do I create a UX research repository?

Define and prioritize your goals

Identify your team's requirements

Create a shortlist of tools

Use demos and trials

Assign team roles and make an onboarding plan

Previous chapter

UX design mistakes

Next chapter

Building A Research Repository? Here’s What You Need to Know.

Posted by Joseph Friedman on Feb 9, 2023

You’re a UX Researcher. It’s a Tuesday morning and you have some agile ceremony to go to. Your product owner has changed hands a few times in the three years you’ve been in research at this organization, and they bring up a request for research that they’re interested in doing.

You pause because the request sounds slightly familiar. Didn’t you do this before? Don’t you have some personas that match this discovery need…they might be outdated, but couldn’t this help with steering? Oh, no, wait, maybe that was your peer in the Insights & Analytics department that ran this UX study last year?

This happens a lot on UX teams. This design, this test, this ask, this vibe, these trends are sometimes cyclical. How do we, as a team, help to steer our product towards committing to the new research that matters, especially when there’s existing research that might support some of the questions we have? How might we approach existing research from other departments, other teams, and other products with a lens of how it might impact our own peoples’ needs? Or, even deeper still, how might we move beyond what is this project and move into the realm of what is this product , or even who is this person ?

Without getting too existential, this is what’s known as UX Ops work and there is a clearly identified gap to pair with an opportunity: a Research Repository. One place - searchable, taggable, and trackable - across your entire organization that houses whatever research you’ve accomplished. Survey work from Marketing? Voice of the Customer from Sales wins and losses? Usability testing on the new component update? All of that beautiful customer journey vision work you presented to your SVP last Q2? It’s all there.

Whether you’re new to the idea of a research repository, or you’re just coming in to nod aggressively in this UX-positive echo-chamber, here are some things to keep in mind to make sure your research repository sees success.

6 Considerations for Building Your Research Repository

Always work towards your goal of who this repository is for.

Some people set up a repository for researchers themselves. Or, they extend it to the entire UX team, allowing UX designers the freedom to easily see previous insights or have gut-checks on some of their work without having to engage in a study. Others set up repositories for their entire company. Product people, SVPs, customer success, sales, you name it can all access whatever is uploaded and pull from the knowledge you’ve built. Whomever you build it for, make sure you identify this and set up clear objectives to drive the need and use.

Without a purpose, the repository becomes a chore - people don’t visit it, and contributors half-heartedly go through the motions without seeing any real benefit. Understanding your audience, how you want to give others access, and how they might glean insights from existing work or even craft their own cross-research insights, optimizes usefulness, navigation, and storage.

Set yourself up for future flexibility

When getting started with what a research repository could be, the first step is to identify how your research could be sorted. Ask yourself: what are your taxonomies, tags, or filters, and how can you ensure that they’re not set in stone?

Some teams start simply, knowing they’re open to grow as they need it - Title of work, Department/Team, Researcher Name, Some relevant tags, and the deliverables themselves (artifacts from prep, fielding, and analysis). Other teams use it as an excuse to introduce some needed consistency in the process. This is an opportunity to standardize how everyone is storing research - if there are user interviews involved, for example, make sure to leave a field for 2-3 relevant video clips. Or, if a project is completed, each entry might require a very brief summary of insights for others to skim.

Once things start to be entered into the system, you have the ability to grow and change. Don’t worry about nailing all of it down immediately. The power of your repository is in its flexibility. As you continue to add research and tag information, you’ll find additional ways to sort, filter, or even add new connections and taxonomies that you may have not had before.

Consider permissions and data management

Once you have your audience and basic structure in mind, consider permissions and data management. As you continue to share and socialize this work, there’s an additional opportunity to show off the rigor and craft of your organization’s research ethics.

Most teams already obfuscate PII, but sometimes that isn’t enough. How are you ensuring that each piece of research uploading also stays in line with any GDPR requirements , and that you can easily  remove any specific participant data based on request? Similarly, what other professional privacy ethics does your team want to establish and champion through this kind of solution?

In addition to participant privacy, it’s also important to think through product privacy. Not all organizations are comfortable with every department sharing the intricacies of sometimes sensitive or confidential product research. Giving a template or guidebook to other teams so that they can contribute pieces of their research, even if they can’t be specific about the product or project, is a huge help in empowering your repository.

Build a living and evolving product

If you have a repository currently set up, consider the ways in which your research repository needs to be organic and living, alive and active, and connected to other teams, departments, or even across years of previous research. A successful repository requires maintenance. Links will break, research will need to be scrubbed retroactively, folks will move on to other roles, new people and teams will need to be engaged, and even you might eventually take on a different opportunity.

Some organizations have a curator - this doesn’t need to be one person’s entire role, nor does it even need to be a role that just one person takes on. Some organizations even use this need to establish a cross-department committee of people interested in the care of an organizational repository.

Socialize with pride

So you’ve got a curator or a small committee. Along with being alive, a successful repository also requires discoverability. How are you consistently reaching out to people? Who might be interested in this work, but needs to be kept engaged? How are you playing the role of librarian if someone reaches out with a request?

Jennifer Bohmbach, a UX Researcher here at AnswerLab who chatted with me about repositories, said it best: “ There will always be different pockets of things going on that people can’t see, and so how do you make sure there’s a way that people can go in and do research on the research? How can people inform themselves ahead of time of what’s been found instead of going out and repeating research?” The more excited you are to socialize research insights and the work you’re doing to connect the dots or to curate information, the more likely others will be to share in the benefits of your work.

Finally, just simply start simple

A research repository can add value no matter what stage of maturity your UX Ops practice is in. Not everyone is able to have an internal team build a custom product, and that’s OK. Shopping around for some tool might be useful down the road, but many teams need to show the value to get buy-in first. The best way to garner support for a transparent storage solution is to start storing your team’s work in a transparent way - and building the networks and partnerships that can encourage other teams to do the same.

Case Study: Utilizing an Existing Tool to Get Started

One of our clients, a large and established organization, identified the need for a research repository after running successful UX research across a few departments both internally and with the help of AnswerLab’s services. Because of the costs and time associated with recruiting and logistics, leaders wanted a better way to track and glean information from work they’d already done.

We were able to set up something simple for them using Confluence, an internal tool they were already using for other use cases. The main page of the repository was just a table. Searchable? Sure, as long as you knew how to CTRL+F. Taggable? Absolutely, via some text in a column. Uploadable? Sometimes, but you can always provide a link if a file is too large. What was most helpful, in this first iteration, is that it was one place that easily housed everything they might want to reference in the future.

Case Study: Building a Repository from Scratch

Another client of ours had the initiative and resources to develop their own custom repository. For this client, they accomplish so much research across so many different products and teams, that sometimes it was difficult to see how interconnected insights could be. While research on different teams had different overall objectives, there were common themes and consistent insights that could be gleaned no matter which team took on the work. Using other teams’ findings as a starting point, broad research questions could be guided and vague research questions could be made more specific before digging into new work.

This solution certainly didn’t house everything, but it did allow for the opportunity to standardize and socialize all types of work done. And, more importantly, it was open to the entire company to search. Where some teams were more secretive in their work and company shared drives were less accessible, in this tool, they could easily redact any confidential information and still contribute. Additionally, when getting ready to network with a UXR, some colleagues appreciated being able to reference the repository and simply look up the projects that someone’s led.

For me, whenever I consider any UX ops work, it comes out of a more existential need. A need to reflect, a need to organize, a need to operationalize - these are all efforts to reach more mature conclusions, develop a more consistent practice, and deliver a more human experience at every stage. Especially internally.

AnswerLab’s UX research experts can help you plan and execute UX research to populate an existing or future UX repository. We also offer consulting and retainer services in case you need that extra push to dig deeper, develop strategy, or build and implement a research pipeline. Get in touch with a Strategist today to start the conversation.

Joseph Friedman

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How to build a research repository: a step-by-step guide to getting started

Research repositories have the potential to be incredibly powerful assets for any research-driven organisation. But when it comes to building one, it can be difficult to know where to start. In this post, we provide some practical tips to define a clear vision and strategy for your repository.

Done right, research repositories have the potential to be incredibly powerful assets for any research-driven organisation. But when it comes to building one, it can be difficult to know where to start.

As a result, we see tons of teams jumping in without clearly defining upfront what they actually hope to achieve with the repository, and ending up disappointed when it doesn't deliver the results.

Aside from being frustrating and demoralising for everyone involved, building an unused repository is a waste of money, time, and opportunity.

So how can you avoid this?

In this post, we provide some practical tips to define a clear vision and strategy for your repository in order to help you maximise your chances of success.

🚀 This post is also available as a free, interactive Miro template that you can use to work through each exercise outlined below - available for download here .

Defining the end goal for your repository

To start, you need to define your vision.

Only by setting a clear vision, can you start to map out the road towards realising it.

Your vision provides something you can hold yourself accountable to - acting as a north star. As you move forward with the development and roll out of your repository, this will help guide you through important decisions like what tool to use, and who to engage with along the way.

The reality is that building a research repository should be approached like any other product - aiming for progress, over perfection with each iteration of the solution.

Starting with a very simple question like "what do we hope to accomplish with our research repository within the first 12 months?" is a great starting point.

You need to be clear on the problems that you’re looking to solve - and the desired outcomes from building your repository - before deciding on the best approach.

Building a repository is an investment, so it’s important to consider not just what you want to achieve in the next few weeks or months, but also in the longer term to ensure your repository is scalable.

Whatever the ultimate goal (or goals), capturing the answer to this question will help you to focus on outcomes over output .

🔎 How to do this in practice…

1. complete some upfront discovery.

In a previous post we discussed how to conduct some upfront discovery to help with understanding today’s biggest challenges when it comes to accessing and leveraging research insights.

⏰ You should aim to complete your upfront discovery within a couple of hours, spending 20-30 mins interviewing each stakeholder (we recommend talking with at least 5 people, both researchers and non-researchers).

2. Prioritise the problems you want to solve

Start by spending some time reviewing the current challenges your team and organisation are facing when it comes to leveraging research and insights.

You can run a simple affinity mapping exercise to highlight the common themes from your discovery and prioritise the top 1-3 problems that you’d like to solve using your repository.

💡 Example challenges might include:

Struggling to understand what research has already been conducted to-date, leading to teams repeating previous research

Looking for better ways to capture and analyse raw data e.g. user interviews

Spending lots of time packaging up research findings for wider stakeholders

Drowning in research reports and artefacts, and in need of a better way to access and leverage existing insights

Lacking engagement in research from key decision makers across the organisation

⏰ You should aim to confirm what you want to focus on solving with your repository within 45-60 mins (based on a group of up to 6 people).

3. Consider what future success looks like

Next you want to take some time to think about what success looks like one year from now, casting your mind to the future and capturing what you’d like to achieve with your repository in this time.

A helpful exercise is to imagine the headline quotes for an internal company-wide newsletter talking about the impact that your new research repository has had across the business.

The ‘ Jobs to be done ’ framework provides a helpful way to format the outputs for this activity, helping you to empathise with what the end users of your repository might expect to experience by way of outcomes.

💡 Example headlines might include:

“When starting a new research project, people are clear on the research that’s already been conducted, so that we’re not repeating previous research” Research Manager

“During a study, we’re able to quickly identify and share the key insights from our user interviews to help increase confidence around what our customers are currently struggling with” Researcher

“Our designers are able to leverage key insights when designing the solution for a new user journey or product feature, helping us to derisk our most critical design decisions” Product Design Director

“Our product roadmap is driven by customer insights, and building new features based on opinion is now a thing of the past” Head of Product

“We’ve been able to use the key research findings from our research team to help us better articulate the benefits of our product and increase the number of new deals” Sales Lead

“Our research is being referenced regularly by C-level leadership at our quarterly townhall meetings, which has helped to raise the profile of our team and the research we’re conducting” Head of Research

Ask yourself what these headlines might read and add these to the front page of a newspaper image.

You then want to discuss each of these headlines across the group and fold these into a concise vision statement for your research repository - something memorable and inspirational that you can work towards achieving.

💡Example vision statements:

‘Our research repository makes it easy for anyone at our company to access the key learnings from our research, so that key decisions across the organisation are driven by insight’

‘Our research repository acts as a single source of truth for all of our research findings, so that we’re able to query all of our existing insights from one central place’

‘Our research repository helps researchers to analyse and synthesise the data captured from user interviews, so that we’re able to accelerate the discovery of actionable insights’

‘Our research repository is used to drive collaborative research across researchers and teams, helping to eliminate data silos, foster innovation and advance knowledge across disciplines’

‘Our research repository empowers people to make a meaningful impact with their research by providing a platform that enables the translation of research findings into remarkable products for our customers’

⏰ You should aim to agree the vision for your repository within 45-60 mins (based on a group of up to 6 people).

Creating a plan to realise your vision

Having a vision alone isn't going to make your repository a success. You also need to establish a set of short-term objectives, which you can use to plan a series of activities to help you make progress towards this.

Focus your thinking around the more immediate future, and what you want to achieve within the first 3 months of building your repository.

Alongside the short-term objectives you’re going to work towards, it’s also important to consider how you’ll measure your progress, so that you can understand what’s working well, and what might require further attention. 

Agreeing a set of success metrics is key to holding yourself accountable to making a positive impact with each new iteration. This also helps you to demonstrate progress to others from as early on in the process as possible.

1. Establish 1-3 short term objectives

Take your vision statement and consider the first 1-3 results that you want to achieve within the first 3 months of working towards this.

These objectives need to be realistic and achievable given the 3 month timeframe, so that you’re able to build some momentum and set yourself up for success from the very start of the process.

💡Example objectives:

Improve how insights are defined and captured by the research team

Revisit our existing research to identify what data we want to add to our new research repository

Improve how our research findings are organised, considering how our repository might be utilised by researchers and wider teams

Initial group of champions bought-in and actively using our research repository

Improve the level of engagement with our research from wider teams and stakeholders

Capture your 3 month objectives underneath your vision, leaving space to consider the activities that you need to complete in order to realise each of these.

2. Identify how to achieve each objective

Each activity that you commit to should be something that an individual or small group of people can comfortably achieve within the first 3 months of building your repository.

Come up with some ideas for each objective and then prioritise completing the activities that will result in the biggest impact, with the least effort first.

💡Example activities:

Agree a definition for strategic and tactical insights to help with identifying the previous data that we want to add to our new research repository

Revisit the past 6 months of research and capture the data we want to add to our repository as an initial body of knowledge

Create the first draft taxonomy for our research repository, testing this with a small group of wider stakeholders

Launch the repository with an initial body of knowledge to a group of wider repository champions

Start distributing a regular round up of key insights stored in the repository

You can add your activities to a simple kanban board , ordering your ‘To do’ column with the most impactful tasks up top, and using this to track your progress and make visible who’s working on which tasks throughout the initial build of your repository.

This is something you can come back to a revisit as you move throughout the wider roll out of your repository - adding any new activities into the board and moving these through to ‘Done’ as they’re completed.

⚠️ At this stage it’s also important to call out any risks or dependencies that could derail your progress towards completing each activity, such as capacity, or requiring support from other individuals or teams.

3. Agree how you’ll measure success

Lastly, you’ll need a way to measure success as you work on the activities you’ve associated with each of your short term objectives.

We recommend choosing 1-3 metrics that you can measure and track as you move forward with everything, considering ways to capture and review the data for each of these.

⚠️ Instead of thinking of these metrics as targets, we recommend using them to measure your progress - helping you to identify any activities that aren’t going so well and might require further attention.

💡Example success metrics:

Usage metrics - Number of insights captured, Active users of the repository, Number of searches performed, Number of insights viewed and shared

User feedback - Usability feedback for your repository, User satisfaction ( CSAT ), NPS aka how likely someone is to recommend using your repository

Research impact - Number of stakeholder requests for research, Time spent responding to requests, Level of confidence, Repeatable value of research, Amount of duplicated research, Time spent onboarding new joiners

Wider impact - Mentions of your research (and repository) internally, Links to your research findings from other initiatives e.g. discovery projects, product roadmaps, Customers praising solutions that were fuelled by your research

Think about how often you want to capture and communicate this information to the rest of the team, to help motivate everyone to keep making progress.

By establishing key metrics, you can track your progress and determine whether your repository is achieving its intended goals.

⏰ You should aim to create a measurable action plan for your repository within 60-90 mins (based on a group of up to 6 people). ‍ ‍

🚀 Why not use our free, downloadable Miro template to start putting all of this into action today - available for download here .

To summarise

As with the development of any product, the cost of investing time upfront to ensure you’re building the right thing for your end users, is far lower than the cost of building the wrong thing - repositories are no different!

A well-executed research repository can be an extremely valuable asset for your organisation, but building one requires consideration and planning - and defining a clear vision and strategy upfront will help to maximise your chances of success.

It’s important to not feel pressured to nail every objective that you set in the first few weeks or months. Like any product, the further you progress, the more your strategy will evolve and shift. The most important thing is getting started with the right foundations in place, and starting to drive some real impact.

We hope this practical guide will help you to get started on building an effective research repository for your organisation. Thanks and happy researching!

‍ Work with our team of experts

At Dualo we help teams to define a clear vision and strategy for their research repository as part of the ‘Discover, plan and set goals’ module facilitated by our Dualo Academy team.  If you’re interested in learning more about how we work with teams, book a short call with us to discuss how we can support you with the development of your research repository and knowledge management process.

Nick Russell

I'm one of the Co-Founders of Dualo, passionate about research, design, product, and AI. Always open to chatting with others about these topics.

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UX research repository

Store and track insights across projects to identify any common patterns in research.

Searchable source of truth

Collect, analyze, and store your customer, feedback, and UX research in Dovetail's searchable insights hub, making research widely available and easy to consume throughout the organization.

Overview of UX repository tools

Think of a product with an excellent user experience (UX). That UX isn't the result of chance. The company's engineering team didn't meet all of the product's technical specifications and, by happenstance, get the look and feel of the product right as well. Nor did the marketing team assemble the right packaging, positioning, and price in isolation.

Today's UX success stories stem from a great deal of time and effort researching what consumers and customers want. Cross-functional teams typically conduct such research, with each member assigned specific and relevant tasks. Companies rely on well-organized UX research repositories to ensure these product teams collaborate effectively.

What is a UX research repository tool?

A UX research repository is a secure knowledge base that product teams use to organize, store, and share their UX research internally. It's a vital tool that helps companies avoid common pitfalls in product development, including siloed research efforts.

The UX research repository makes collaboration easier for different team members and departments to access completed research to apply to aspects relevant aspects of product development.

Companies with large decentralized workforces often find themselves with multiple product teams engaging in similar or overlapping research. By making all completed research accessible, a UX research repository can help product teams avoid duplicative and wasteful research efforts. It can also highlight research insights with a finite shelf life and help product team members maximize the value of those insights before they expire.

A UX research repository can also help business leaders synthesize information across the organization. Too often, businesses miss out on strategic insights because their elements are scattered in emails, spreadsheets, raw data, and research reports. But when you have all those items in one place, it can be easier to identify patterns, spot trends, and draw practical conclusions.

Finally, a UX research repository can help marketing and product team members justify marketing research expenses internally. Making a case for market research, especially without a sound method to calculate marketing research ROI, is challenging.

However, when you've compiled all of your research and data from across departments and offices into a single UX research repository, you have a tangible product you can use to help you justify additional marketing research requests, as necessary.

What is included in a UX research repository?

In a well-organized UX research repository, you'll typically find the raw research data collected from internal or external sources, surveys, or studies. That data may include everything from survey responses to timed task results.

Keeping all of this data is important, as it allows you to defend any conclusions you may have reached. Further, maintaining it in an organized and searchable format will help you leverage the raw data in new studies as needed.

Additionally, you'll have your quantitative and qualitative research studies in your repository. They should be organized, searchable, and easily accessible across your organization.

Of course, you should maintain strict controls over who can make changes to these documents and place restrictions on sharing outside your company. But for those who have permission, your UX research repository should be as easy to use as possible.

You should also include observations and conclusions from evaluating your UX repository's content. When you've completed and uploaded multiple research projects and data sets, you'll undoubtedly find some interesting insights by periodically reviewing and analyzing your UX research repository's contents.

And when you conduct a meta-analysis or systemic review of your repository's content, preserve that as well. You'll want to save those insights for future reference so that others can build on that work.

Finally, incorporate data analysis tools into your repository. Many platforms, like Dovetail, include data analysis tools that allow you to evaluate, visualize, and synthesize the raw data in your repository. And some companies that custom-build their own repositories incorporate such tools.

To maximize its utility, you'll want to incorporate such tools or use platforms with built-in tools that allow repository users to analyze data and engage in further research.

How to start building a UX research repository

Building a UX research repository is not as simple as dumping all of your files into a shared folder. An effective repository should be organized, searchable, and regularly updated, which requires some upfront and ongoing work.

1. Determine what platform you should use to store your data

Consider your data and research and what you expect to generate over time. Ask whether the platform you consider is easily scalable and includes easy ways to share the insights you've gathered.

2. Assign who is building and managing your repository

If you're appointing a team, clearly delineate who is responsible for what to avoid duplicative efforts and mistakes.

3. Decide how you'll organize your data

Determine what your classification system will be, keeping current and future needs in mind, as well as access controls.

4. Create the appropriate taxonomy

Appropriate tags are critical to ensuring your repository is organized and searchable. Tagging, in particular, can make it easier for team members to find helpful and relevant information, even if they don't have a precise search query in mind.

After you've uploaded and organized your existing data into your fledgling repository, you'll want to include a summary of the findings and data in the repository. Though you'll need to update it regularly, this summary will help team members understand what is inside at a glance, making it more user-friendly and facilitating adoption across your organization. And by synthesizing your repository into a single report can often lead to additional avenues for exploration or insights.

How to maximize the value of a UX research repository in your organization

Of course, the value of a repository is determined by how many of your colleagues use it, how easy they find it to use, and how effectively they can use it to find existing and generate new insights. And many teams can be slow to adopt and regularly incorporate new applications and resources into their work. However, you can increase the likelihood your repository will be widely used with the following tips:

1. Communicate with stakeholders about the repository before and while you build it

Ensure you incorporate feedback from your team along the way to ensure you're designing a repository tailored to their needs.

2. Keep repository organized and up-to-date

One of the primary benefits of a repository is that you can easily find research conducted across the organization. But if your colleagues are still needing to request specific reports from individual departments, your repository will be less useful and consequently see less use. Ensure that every department is uploading research across the organization to maximize its utility.

3. Incorporate data analysis and visualization tools

The best repositories can inspire additional research. And when your colleagues can quickly evaluate and synthesize the data you've gathered across studies in new ways, your repository will help generate new lines of inquiry.

4. Choose the right platform to begin with

Custom-built platforms can take time and resources you likely don't have. But when you use Dovetail, you can easily migrate existing data, use a flexible and scalable business taxonomy and tagging system, and easily share insights with your colleagues across departments.

Dovetail also offers multiple templates to make migration and organization easy, as well as access controls to share information appropriately. If you're looking for a platform that makes building and managing a UX repository easy, contact us for a free demo.

FAQs about UX research repository tools

How does a ux research repository differ from a regular database.

Unlike a regular database, a UX research repository is tailored to house user-centered data, focusing on insights gathered from user research activities.

Can a small design team benefit from a UX research repository?

Absolutely! A UX research repository enhances collaboration and decision-making, which are valuable for teams of all sizes.

Is a UX research repository suitable for remote teams?

Yes, a repository facilitates seamless collaboration for remote teams by providing a centralized platform accessible from anywhere.

What is the role of data security in a UX research repository?

Data security is paramount. Access controls ensure that sensitive information is shared only with authorized individuals.

How frequently should a UX research repository be updated?

Regular updates are essential to maintain the relevance of the repository. Aim for consistent additions as new insights are gathered.

Are there any free tools available for creating a UX research repository?

Yes, some tools offer free plans with basic features. Notion and Confluence have free versions that can be a great starting point.

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Research repository software: Definition, types, and examples

What is a research repository software?

A research repository software is defined as a chief source of research insights that organizations and researchers use to uncover findings from research conducted in the past and present. The user research repository  is a platform of consolidated insights that allows researchers to organize, search, and discover all research and survey data in one organized user repository.

The research repository, also known as an insights hub or insights desk, assists researchers in looking for past and present research insights quickly. Meta tagging and structuring the insights help them pull up information much quicker than traditional methods of sifting through research reports.

Think of it like Wikipedia for researchers, where they store data and can easily retrieve it. Researchers, stakeholders, and decision-makers can go back and refer to insights for defining problem areas or spotting trends.

What are the steps to create a research repository software?

Research repository software has the potential to transform the efficiency of your market research activities. Gathering insights and making quick decisions makes a world of difference in the marketplace today. Creating a research repository is simple. However, there are some essential steps you need to follow to ensure the success of the insights hub. 

If adopted correctly, the user research repository can solve micro and macro problems.  It gives better insights into long-term and short-term issues. A unified repository software can provide you with access to millions of data points under a single roof. Let’s dive into the steps of creating a research repository software within an organization.

Change can be challenging, and not everyone accepts it quickly. The core team and leaders must ensure that there is only one source of information and truth for everyone to be on the same page.

• Organize research data for better usability: The key to unlocking high-quality insights from the repository is organizing data for efficient recovery. It may seem essential to manage current projects, but organizing data from historical projects gives you that extra step to unlocking actionable insights. We highly recommend the use of grouping and meta-tagging to help everybody reach insights more quickly. As time is always of the essence, a well-organized repository with a group of tags helps stakeholders understand and use the insights hub more effectively. Organize data by location, time, product, or anything that can help individuals discover insights quickly, thereby boosting research ROI.
• Never forget to add supporting insights: Ensure to display the whole story behind decisions taken during the study. Somebody who has not worked on a particular project must find it easy to understand the rationale behind decisions. Also, list down the best practices and steps to avoid giving everybody else a better picture of any project. Add notes, observations, feedback, challenges, and all such information that explains why researchers conducted specific activities. Teams will benefit from tagged details and save ample time while going back in time to inspect past projects. Sometimes too much information can get overwhelming, but tagging it can help researchers retrieve specific information.
• Collaborate with different types of data: Data is usually collected from various sources in various forms. Also, researchers apply multiple research techniques like qualitative and quantitative research , as per research need. When collated under one roof, all this data can open up a world of possibilities by reducing the time to derive valuable insights. Again, tagging the information leads to better searchability of insights and a better understanding of the research study as a whole. A consolidated platform helps researchers find everything in one place rather than looking at multiple repositories and multiple data storage locations.
• Create snapshots to highlight important information: Business stakeholders and decision-makers never have the time to study a project in detail. Ensure to create critical insights, reports, and findings and display them for a faster reach. Easily digestible reports are beneficial for colleagues who do not reside within the core research team. It also helps other, or new research teams locate insights faster and save a lot of time. Information like the research methodology, costs, and timeline will help external stakeholders get a snapshot of the critical aspects of the research project.
• Tag your insights smartly: Too many tags can confuse others, and too few may let information slip away. Tag your insights with the proper business taxonomy. The index in the insights hub is handy if the tags are correctly maintained. Define tags in advance and ensure everybody has a high-level understanding of the tags to keep everybody on the same page. Try grouping tags. It will boost the implementation of the user research repository. Some tags may overlap with others, but that will help users search for and never miss out on any information.

Keep learning!, we recommend you read our article where we explain everything about an Insights Engine .

Types of research repository software

Research repository softwares can take many forms but let’s talk about the most commonly used ones.

A couple of examples are Airtable and Google Business Suite. Because of the minimum stress laid on the standardization of practices, these tools can’t be reliable, especially in massive organizations where thousands of data points are captured daily. Limited provisions for tagging and searching for information puts you in a tight spot when research insights are needed quickly. Such internal research repositories make storing information a challenge.

• Custom-built research repositories: Larger organizations with healthy research budgets often recognize the shortcomings of the repositories mentioned above and develop their own customized insights hubs. Some work closely with organizations like Microsoft and WeWork to build custom repositories. While this may help solve most challenges, creating a custom repository from scratch is not for everybody. Small or medium-sized organizations would not have the budget or the time to build software from scratch, even though a third party does the heavy lifting. It still costs a lot of money and is often not tested in the actual marketplace to understand the tool’s shortcomings. Any changes that need to be made may take time and depend on the type of contract with the developers. You need to ask yourself whether your organization has the time, resources, and budget to build a repository from scratch?
• Specialized research and insights repository softwares: These platforms have been game-changers in recent years. Due to the shortcomings of the two repositories mentioned above, research organizations took it upon themselves to deliver a product that researchers love. Moreover, they focused more on tool capabilities to reduce the researcher’s efforts, time, and money spent.

Examples of good user research repositories

Let’s take a look at four such examples of leading research repository tools.

• QuestionPro Insights Hub: QuestionPro’s Insights Hub is robust repository software that’s purpose-built and picked by leading brands and market researchers all over the globe. With provisions to have qualitative and quantitative insights under one roof, it is the most preferred software in the market. The tool is built by researchers for researchers and so speaks their language. The convenient-to-use yet highly sophisticated tool uses an advanced analytical setup that guarantees quick insights, no matter the size of the data sets.
• Aurelius Lab: Aurelius lab is a lightweight yet powerful tool that helps researchers bring data under one roof. They aim to help handle the end-to-end research processes without letting researchers face complexities that slow the research process down.
• Bloomfire: Bloomfire boosts collective intelligence and collaboration. They offer a centralized knowledge base for teams within the organization and aim to banish silos. This empowers team members to make confident decisions.
• Dovetail: Dovetail helps researchers make sense of customer research data. This collaborative platform is intuitive and allows researchers to search for insights in the repository software easily. Their motive is to collate insights within minutes, not hours.

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• What Are Research Repositories?

A research repository is a database that helps organizations to manage, share, and gain access to research data to make product and brand decisions. It is a central database where your organization’s research team uploads all research data and insights for others in the organization to access.

Research repositories typically contain insights, raw research data, observations, and suggested information. In the research repository, these contents are classified as either inputs or outputs.

Inputs are typically data testing videos, interview transcriptions, or other customer data, while outputs are findings like showreels, clips, insights, or reports.

The Business Need For An Insights & Research Repository

Optimized collaboration and productivity..

This ensures that an organization’s collaboration and productivity are seamless. The research team will most likely be able to extract insights from the research and send them to the product development team to make changes that will make the product more appealing to the target audience .

Seamless Information Distribution

Using a repository reduces the likelihood of repeating the same research. Without repositories, new team members may conduct duplicate research, wasting the organization’s time and resources.

Disorganized Storage

The majority of studies are likely to go unnoticed when research is not compiled in a repository. It may also lead to data misinterpretation as there’s a high tendency they will be used outside of the context of the research objectives.

Comprehensive Research Data

When research data is compiled into a repository, it becomes easier to understand. For example, grouping different research on a single product by demographics, or use cases, makes it easier to effectively pull relevant data from the system.

However, without repositories, team members are forced to grasp seemingly incoherent data. It is extremely difficult for researchers to draw valid conclusions from data that is dispersed across multiple storage locations.

Makes It Easier to Get Insights From Research

Researchers and stakeholders can effectively extract actionable insights from research findings by using research repositories.  It is easier and faster to gain insights from studies when they are organized and allow you to consult multiple sources on the same research in one place.

Organized Workflows

Without a standardized requisitioning process or a repository, different employees will use different research methods and project intake forms. This makes workflows and onboarding for new hires more complex and difficult to understand.

Types Of Insights And Research Repositories With Examples

Custom-built insights and research repositories.

Large organizations that are dissatisfied with the commonly available repository types use this method. For example, the Microsoft Human Insights System is a custom repository that Microsoft uses to organize its research data.

Specialized Insights and Research

This type of repository democratizes access to insights and combats siloing of insights. It allows you to link specialized but related research within the repository.

Internal Insights and Research Repositories

Most small to medium business use this type of repository. It’s easier to design, and use, and allows you to integrate it with third-party collaboration and productivity tools.

Examples include Google Business Suite, Airtable, and others.

Components of an Insights & Research Repository

Mission and vision.

This defines the organization’s goals and instructs all teams on how to achieve them. It also allows all members of the organization to track goals, be accountable, and be transparent.

Research Request Workflows

The repository should have samples of workflows and request documents. This provides everyone in the organization with a template for making requests.

There will be consistency in style and format throughout the organization when all employees follow the samples. Also, the reusable workflow instructs team members on how to make requests, sets expectations for timelines for the fulfillment, and the procedures involved.

In-Depth Schedules

Detailed schedules encourage transparency and accountability. It helps team members know what to do and when they should do it.

In-depth schedules also inform stakeholders when intervention is required, particularly when expectations are not met.

Research Plans, Methods, and Tools

By publishing research plans, research methods, and tools, everyone in the organization will understand the research terms and understand how to conduct research.

When people know where to look for information and how to organize it, research becomes easier. This also ensures that the entire organization is on the same page and uses research insights in the same way.

Business Taxonomy and Meta-Tags

Your repository of research and insights should include a clear definition of business taxonomy and meta-tags. This standardizes the way everyone in the organization searches for information in the repository. 

It also tells them what to look for when they need information. This negates the impact of tribal knowledge and localized knowledge.

Research Reports

This is a crucial component of repositories; the repository must have clear documentation of the projects and studies.

For example, insights documentation should include cost metrics, use of the research study, application of the research, sources of information, etc.

Insights are derived from raw data such as interviews, survey statistics, notes, and recordings. Storing them comes in handy if you ever need to reevaluate the insights. 

You can also use the raw data can be used to gain additional insights in the future.

Snapshot View and Analytics

This allows the team to compare previous study results and determine the direction of future research. Also, snapshot views are easy to understand and can help showcase multiple cases at once.

Characteristics of an Insights & Research Repository

Retrievable.

Employees should be able to easily access the repository’s research insights. They should also be able to use self-service.

Insights and other data should also be filtered by organizationally relevant attributes. For example, they could be filtered by date, country, demographics, or market. 

It allows the repository users to easily retrieve previous research and incorporate it into current studies.

Approachability

The research repository must be accessible to both researchers and all other members of the organization, including executives. Insights should also be well-organized, simple to understand, and concise.

This enables stakeholders to easily absorb and interpret information, allowing them to make more informed product decisions and conduct future research.

Traceability

A good research repository does not contain disorganized or disconnected insights. Rather, the insights can be traced back to the raw research data that generated them.

All research findings should include references to their sources. This helps stakeholders in properly understanding research findings and insights in their original and relevant contexts. It’s also useful when you need more information about an insight.

When reviewing insights, the original evidence on which the insight was developed should be examined to determine whether it is still accurate and relevant. It could also help you figure out if you need to conduct a need study.

Also, Keeping a good reference of raw research materials on hand, helps in developing new insights from previously collected data.

Accessibility

Every member of the organization should be granted access to the repository via an official account or device. Accessing your research repository should not involve employees or executives sending requests back and forth.

All team members preparing reports that require a repository should be able to simply hyperlink the repository. This is way better than sending the repository information as static attachments because some people can’t access it.

The research repository is the most comprehensive and trusted source of verifiable and accurate information for everyone, the repository will likely contain sensitive information and identifiable personal data. Your legal, security, and IT teams must all approve the repository.

You have to follow the best security practices for your industry. For example, you can choose to encrypt or anonymize data.

You should also adhere to data protection laws while developing your repository security policy. 

Benefits Of Modern Research Repositories

It saves time.

Stakeholders and decision-makers no longer need to go out and gather data every time they need to access research. Researchers do not have to manually search for research or stumble through many files in disjointed locations offline or online once the research has been fed into the repository. 

Faster Decision Making

Decisions will not only be made faster but also more accurately because they will be based on reliable data. Also, the presence of a research repository eliminates the need to repeat the same research.

Repositories are also excellent places for an organization to begin automating record retrieval and even decision-making.

Transparency

A research repository serves as a centralized data bank for everyone in the organization. Everyone has access to the same information. 

This means that the information’s integrity is preserved because it isn’t subjected to multiple manipulations. As a result, conflict over manipulated research data will be minimal in the organization.

Since all data flows into a centralized storage that is accessible to everyone in the organization, no one can withhold data from another person in the organization. Data is also better managed since it is to be secured in only one place- the central repository. 

Reusable Workflows

A research and insights repository, in addition to being a centralized storage location, standardized the process of accessing information within the information. It creates a reusable workflow within the organization, making it easier for team members to request access to research, and both requests and access can be easily audited.

How To Build A Robust Research Repository

Appoint a team to manage and maintain the research repository.

This team should primarily consist of researchers and the organization’s broad-based research team. There must be team leaders among them who will champion the organization of information in the repository and assign specialized tasks to the entire team. They will create and manage the taxonomies, workflows, and metatags.

Organize Your Current and Past Research Information and Projects

The repository team is now responsible for categorizing existing and previous research using the appropriate taxonomy, tags, and metatags. The research can be organized by location, company name, date, location, products, and projects.

One research can be classified under multiple headings as long as the metatags reflect each topic and the workflow created shows how the information will be retrieved from the repository.

Add Supporting Insights to Research Works in the Repository

By adding notes, relevant commentaries, feedback, observations, and data to the research works and insights you’ve organized into the repository, you’ll be maximizing its usefulness to those who consult it. Information will be easier to find, and user insights will be more accurate. Make these changes based on what works best for your brand.

Synthesize and Analyze Data

Use or integrate a tool that allows you to do both quality and quantitative analysis of your data. This makes your repository a research platform, product management platform, and communication platform. That way, all your relevant data will be in one centralized location and be better managed and secured. 

Create Critical Insights, Reports, and Findings

It is best to create summaries and reports of previously complex and lengthy research works for members of the organization to easily adopt insights. These summaries and reports will be simpler to understand.

The name of the research study, requestor, business unit, research methodology, cost, and timelines should all be included in these summaries and reports.

Tag and Share

Each study should be labeled with the appropriate taxonomy and metatags. This enables grouping and indexing research by providing relevant phrases that organization members can use in their searches.

Insights and research repositories enable an organization to save time, conduct relevant research, properly group research, understand research within appropriate contexts, and leverage that research to improve products and operations.

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Data Sharing

6 repositories to share your research data.

Dear Diary, I have been struggling with an eating disorder for the past few years. I am afraid to eat and afraid I will gain weight. The fear is unjustified as I was never overweight. I have weighed the same since I was 12 years old, and I am currently nearing my 25th birthday. Yet, when I see my reflection, I see somebody who is much larger than reality. ‍ I told my therapist that I thought I was fat. She said it was 'body dysmorphia'. She explained this as a mental health condition where a person is apprehensive about their appearance and suggested I visit a nutritionist. She also told me that this condition was associated with other anxiety disorders and eating disorders. I did not understand what she was saying as I was in denial; I had a problem, to begin with. I wanted a solution without having to address my issues. Upon visiting my nutritionist, he conducted an in-body scan and told me my body weight was dangerously low. I disagreed with him. ‍ I felt he was speaking about a different person than the person I saw in the mirror. I felt like the elephant in the room- both literally and figuratively. He then made the simple but revolutionary suggestion to keep a food diary to track what I was eating. This was a clever way for my nutritionist and me to be on the same page. By recording all my meals, drinks, and snacks, I was able to see what I was eating versus what I was supposed to be eating. Keeping a meal diary was a powerful and non-invasive way for my nutritionist to walk in my shoes for a specific time and understand my eating (and thinking) habits. No other methodology would have allowed my nutritionist to capture so much contextual and behavioural information on my eating patterns other than a daily detailed food diary. However, by using a paper and pen, I often forgot (or intentionally did not enter my food entries) as I felt guilty reading what I had eaten or that I had eaten at all. I also did not have the visual flexibility to express myself through using photos, videos, voice recordings, and screen recordings. The usage of multiple media sources would have allowed my nutritionist to observe my behaviour in real-time and gain a holistic view of my physical and emotional needs. I confessed to my therapist my deliberate dishonesty in completing the physical food diary and why I had been reluctant to participate in the exercise. My therapist then suggested to my nutritionist and me to transition to a mobile diary study. Whilst I used a physical diary (paper and pen), a mobile diary study app would have helped my nutritionist and me reach a common ground (and to be on the same page) sooner rather than later. As a millennial, I wanted to feel like journaling was as easy as Tweeting or posting a picture on Instagram. But at the same time, I wanted to know that the information I  provided in a digital diary would be as safe and private as it would have been as my handwritten diary locked in my bedroom cabinet. Further, a digital food diary study platform with push notifications would have served as a constant reminder to log in my food entries as I constantly check my phone. It would have also made the task of writing a food diary less momentous by transforming my journaling into micro-journaling by allowing me to enter one bite at a time rather than the whole day's worth of meals at once. Mainly, the digital food diary could help collect the evidence that I was not the elephant in the room, but rather that the elephant in the room was my denied eating disorder. Sincerely, The elephant in the room

Why share research data?

Sharing information stimulates science. When researchers choose to make their data publicly available, they are allowing their work to contribute far beyond their original findings.

The benefits of data sharing are immense. When researchers make their data public, they increase transparency and trust in their work, they enable others to reproduce and validate their findings, and ultimately, contribute to the pace of scientific discovery by allowing others to reuse and build on top of their data.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants." Isaac Newton, 1675.

While the benefits of data sharing and open science are categorical, sadly 86% of medical research data is never reused . In a 2014 survey conducted by Wiley with over 2000 researchers across different fields, found that 21% of surveyed researchers did not know where to share their data and 16% how to do so.

In a series of articles on Data Sharing we seek to break down this process for you and cover everything you need to know on how to share your research outputs.

In this first article, we will introduce essential concepts of public data and share six powerful platforms to upload and share datasets.

What is a Research Data Repository?

The best way to publish and share research data is with a research data repository. A repository is an online database that allows research data to be preserved across time and helps others find it.

Apart from archiving research data, a repository will assign a DOI to each uploaded object and provide a web page that tells what it is, how to cite it and how many times other researchers have cited or downloaded that object.

What is a DOI?

When a researcher uploads a document to an online data repository, a digital object identifier (DOI) will be assigned. A DOI is a globally unique and persistent string (e.g. 10.6084/m9.figshare.7509368.v1) that identifies your work permanently. 

A data repository can assign a DOI to any document, such as spreadsheets, images or presentation, and at different levels of hierarchy, like collection images or a specific chapter in a book.

The DOI contains metadata that provides users with relevant information about an object, such as the title, author, keywords, year of publication and the URL where that document is stored. 

The International DOI Foundation (IDF) developed and introduced the DOI in 2000. Registration Agencies, a federation of independent organizations, register DOIs and provide the necessary infrastructure that allows researchers to declare and maintain metadata.

Key benefits of the DOI system:

• A more straightforward way to track research outputs
• Gives certainty to scientific work
• DOI's versioning system tracks changes to work overtime
• Can be assigned to any document
• Enables proper indexation and citation of research outputs

Once a document has a DOI, others can easily cite it. A handy tool to convert DOI's into a citation is DOI Citation Formatter . 

Six repositories to share research data

Now that we have covered the role of a DOI and a data repository, below is a list of 6 data repositories for publishing and sharing research data.

1. figshare

Figshare is an open access data repository where researchers can preserve their research outputs, such as datasets, images, and videos and make them discoverable. 

Figshare allows researchers to upload any file format and assigns a digital object identifier (DOI) for citations. 

Mark Hahnel launched Figshare in January 2011. Hahnel first developed the platform as a personal tool for organizing and publishing the outputs of his PhD in stem cell biology. More than 50 institutions now use this solution. 

Figshare releases' The State of Open Data' every year to assess the changing academic landscape around open research.

Free accounts on Figshare can upload files of up to 5gb and get 20gb of free storage. 

2. Mendeley Data

Mendeley Data is an open research data repository, where researchers can store and share their data. Datasets can be shared privately between individuals, as well as publicly with the world. 

Mendeley's mission is to facilitate data sharing. In their own words, "when research data is made publicly available, science benefits:

- the findings can be verified and reproduced- the data can be reused in new ways

- discovery of relevant research is facilitated

- funders get more value from their funding investment."

Datasets uploaded to Mendeley Data go into a moderation process where they are reviewed. This ensures the content constitutes research data, is scientific, and does not contain a previously published research article. 

Researchers can upload and store their work free of cost on Mendeley Data.

If appropriately used in the 21st century, data could save us from lots of failed interventions and enable us to provide evidence-based solutions towards tackling malaria globally. This is also part of what makes the ALMA scorecard generated by the African Leaders Malaria Alliance an essential tool for tracking malaria intervention globally. ‍ If we are able to know the financial resources deployed to fight malaria in an endemic country and equate it to the coverage and impact, it would be easier to strengthen accountability for malaria control and also track progress in malaria elimination across the continent of Africa and beyond.

Odinaka Kingsley Obeta

West African Lead, ALMA Youth Advisory Council/Zero Malaria Champion

There is a smarter way to do research.

Build fully customizable data capture forms, collect data wherever you are and analyze it with a few clicks — without any training required.

3. Dryad Digital Repository

Dryad is a curated general-purpose repository that makes data discoverable, freely reusable, and citable.

Most types of files can be submitted (e.g., text, spreadsheets, video, photographs, software code) including compressed archives of multiple files.

Since a guiding principle of Dryad is to make its contents freely available for research and educational use, there are no access costs for individual users or institutions. Instead, Dryad supports its operation by charging a $120US fee each time data is published.

4. Harvard Dataverse

Harvard Dataverse is an online data repository where scientists can preserve, share, cite and explore research data.

The Harvard Dataverse repository is powered by the open-source web application Dataverse, developed by Insitute of Quantitative Social Science at Harvard.

Researchers, journals and institutions may choose to install the Dataverse web application on their own server or use Harvard's installation. Harvard Dataverse is open to all scientific data from all disciplines.

Harvard Dataverse is free and has a limit of 2.5 GB per file and 10 GB per dataset.

5. Open Science Framework

 OSF is a free, open-source research management and collaboration tool designed to help researchers document their project's lifecycle and archive materials. It is built and maintained by the nonprofit Center for Open Science.

Each user, project, component, and file is given a unique, persistent uniform resource locator (URL) to enable sharing and promote attribution. Projects can also be assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs) if they are made publicly available. 

OSF is a free service.

Zenodo is a general-purpose open-access repository developed under the European OpenAIRE program and operated by CERN. 

Zenodo was first born as the OpenAire orphan records repository, with the mission to provide open science compliance to researchers without an institutional repository, irrespective of their subject area, funder or nation. 

Zenodo encourages users to early on in their research lifecycle to upload their research outputs by allowing them to be private. Once an associated paper is published, datasets are automatically made open.

Zenodo has no restriction on the file type that researchers may upload and accepts dataset of up to 50 GB.

Research data can save lives, help develop solutions and maximise our knowledge. Promoting collaboration and cooperation among a global research community is the first step to reduce the burden of wasted research.

Although the waste of research data is an alarming issue with billions of euros lost every year, the future is optimistic. The pressure to reduce the burden of wasted research is pushing journals, funders and academic institutions to make data sharing a strict requirement.  

We hope with this series of articles on data sharing that we can light up the path for many researchers who are weighing the benefits of making their data open to the world.

The six research data repositories shared in this article are a practical way for researchers to preserve datasets across time and maximize the value of their work.

Cover image by Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IG .

References:

“Harvard Dataverse,” Harvard Dataverse, https://library.harvard.edu/services-tools/harvard-dataverse

“Recommended Data Repositories.” Nature, https://go.nature.com/2zdLYTz

“DOI Marketing Brochure,” International DOI Foundation, http://bit.ly/2KU4HsK

“Managing and sharing data: best practice for researchers.” UK Data Archive, http://bit.ly/2KJHE53

Wikipedia contributors, “Figshare,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Figshare&oldid=896290279 (accessed August 20, 2019).

Walport, M., & Brest, P. (2011). Sharing research data to improve public health. The Lancet, 377(9765), 537–539. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736(10)62234-9

Foster, E. D., & Deardorff, A. (2017). Open Science Framework (OSF). Journal of the Medical Library Association : JMLA , 105 (2), 203–206. doi:10.5195/jmla.2017.88

Wikipedia contributors, "Zenodo," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zenodo&oldid=907771739 (accessed August 20, 2019).

Wikipedia contributors, "Dryad (repository)," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Dryad_(repository)&oldid=879494242 (accessed August 20, 2019).

“How and Why Researchers Share Data (and Why They don't),” The Wiley Network, Liz Ferguson , http://bit.ly/31TzVHs

“Frequently Asked Questions,” Mendeley Data, https://data.mendeley.com/faq

Dear Digital Diary, ‍ I realized that there is an unquestionable comfort in being misunderstood. For to be understood, one must peel off all the emotional layers and be exposed. This requires both vulnerability and strength. I guess by using a physical diary (a paper and a pen), I never felt like what I was saying was analyzed or judged. But I also never thought I was understood. ‍ Paper does not talk back.Using a daily digital diary has required emotional strength. It has required the need to trust and the need to provide information to be helped and understood. Using a daily diary has needed less time and effort than a physical diary as I am prompted to interact through mobile notifications. I also no longer relay information from memory, but rather the medical or personal insights I enter are real-time behaviours and experiences. ‍ The interaction is more organic. I also must confess this technology has allowed me to see patterns in my behaviour that I would have otherwise never noticed. I trust that the data I enter is safe as it is password protected. I also trust that I am safe because my doctor and nutritionist can view my records in real-time. ‍ Also, with the data entered being more objective and diverse through pictures and voice recordings, my treatment plan has been better suited to my needs. Sincerely, No more elephants in this room

Diego Menchaca

Diego is the founder and CEO of Teamscope. He started Teamscope from a scribble on a table. It instantly became his passion project and a vehicle into the unknown. Diego is originally from Chile and lives in Nijmegen, the Netherlands.

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Recommended Repositories

All data, software and code underlying reported findings should be deposited in appropriate public repositories, unless already provided as part of the article. Repositories may be either subject-specific repositories that accept specific types of structured data and/or software, or cross-disciplinary generalist repositories that accept multiple data and/or software types.

If field-specific standards for data or software deposition exist, PLOS requires authors to comply with these standards. Authors should select repositories appropriate to their field of study (for example, ArrayExpress or GEO for microarray data; GenBank, EMBL, or DDBJ for gene sequences). PLOS has identified a set of established repositories, listed below, that are recognized and trusted within their respective communities. PLOS does not dictate repository selection for the data availability policy.

For further information on environmental and biomedical science repositories and field standards, we suggest utilizing FAIRsharing . Additionally, the Registry of Research Data Repositories ( Re3Data ) is a full scale resource of registered data repositories across subject areas. Both FAIRsharing and Re3Data provide information on an array of criteria to help researchers identify the repositories most suitable for their needs (e.g., licensing, certificates and standards, policy, etc.).

If no specialized community-endorsed public repository exists, institutional repositories that use open licenses permitting free and unrestricted use or public domain, and that adhere to best practices pertaining to responsible sharing, sustainable digital preservation, proper citation, and openness are also suitable for deposition.

If authors use repositories with stated licensing policies, the policies should not be more restrictive than the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license .

Cross-disciplinary repositories

• Dryad Digital Repository
• Harvard Dataverse Network
• Network Data Exchange (NDEx)
• Open Science Framework

Repositories by type

Biochemistry.

*Data entered in the STRENDA DB submission form are automatically checked for compliance and receive a fact sheet PDF with warnings for any missing information.

Biomedical Sciences

Marine sciences.

• SEA scieNtific Open data Edition (SEANOE)

Model Organisms

Neuroscience.

• Functional Connectomes Project International Neuroimaging Data-Sharing Initiative (FCP/INDI)
• German Neuroinformatics Node/G-Node (GIN)
• NeuroMorpho.org

Physical Sciences

Social sciences.

• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
• Qualitative Data Repository
• UK Data Service

Structural Databases

Taxonomic & species diversity, unstructured and/or large data.

PLOS would like to thank the Open Access Nature Publishing Group journal,  Scientific Data , for their own  list of recommended repositories .

Repository Criteria

The list of repositories above is not exhaustive and PLOS encourages the use of any repository that meet the following criteria:

Dataset submissions should be open to all researchers whose research fits the scientific scope of the repository. PLOS’ list does not include repositories that place geographical or affiliation restrictions on submission of datasets.

Repositories must assign a stable persistent identifier (PID) for each dataset at publication, such as a digital object identifier (DOI) or an accession number.

• Repositories must provide the option for data to be available under  CC0  or  CC BY  licenses (or equivalents that are no less restrictive). Specifically, there must be no restrictions on derivative works or commercial use.
• Repositories should make datasets available to any interested readers at no cost, and with no registration requirements that unnecessarily restrict access to data. PLOS will not recommend repositories that charge readers access fees or subscription fees.
• Repositories must have a long-term data management plan (including funding) to ensure that datasets are maintained for the foreseeable future.
• Repositories should demonstrate acceptance and usage within the relevant research community, for example, via use of the repository for data deposition for multiple published articles.
• Repositories should have an entry in  FAIRsharing.org  to allow it to be linked to the  PLOS entry .

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In areas where well-established subject or data-type specific repositories exist, we ask authors to submit their data to the appropriate resources. If there are no discipline-specific repositories suitable for your data, we are glad to support the use of generalist repositories. 

The example generalist repositories listed below are able to accept data from all researchers, regardless of location or funding source. If your institution, funder, project, or nation has its own generalist data repository, you may wish to use this instead. Authors may also wish to explore repository registries such as  FAIRsharing.org and re3data.org .

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