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Efficient Research: Improve the ROI of Understanding Customers
Learn practical techniques to improve research efficiency and effectivity to ensure your efforts truly pay off.
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Course overview
This course is designed to transform your research habits, enhancing research quality and impact without increasing time and effort. Ultimately it helps you deliver a better return on investment for customer research.
Efficiency is essential for achieving a higher ROI in research, as it goes beyond mere speed. True efficiency combines speed with quality and impact, ensuring that research efforts are both timely and meaningful. By optimizing each stage of research process with an Efficient Research Framework, you'll gather valuable insights faster, without compromising depth of understanding, which leads to actionable outcomes and informed decisions.
Thus, efficient research directly supports business goals and maximizes the return on every research dollar spent.
In this course, I’ll share 160 proven techniques from my 10 years of experience in both academia and UX research to elevate your research efficiency.
If you're looking to improve research quality and impact without increasing time cost, this course will transform your approach in a self-paced manner.
This is an asynchronous course designed to overcome time zone differences. There are no live sessions. Lessons are delivered through pre-recorded videos (with AI voiceover). Each chapter includes two assignments, which you’ll complete and submit. We’ll then discuss your work asynchronously through in-system chat.
Check the syllabus below for more details.
Who is this course for
01
People with 1-5 years of research experience looking to refine their skills and advance their careers.
02
People striving to balance speed, impact, and quality in their research projects.
03
Professionals aiming to train their teams to improve efficiency and maximize the ROI of customer research.
What you’ll get out of this course
Gain a clear understanding of the principles behind the ROI for customer research
You'll walk away with a practical framework for immediate use.
Transform your research habits for greater efficiency
Accelerate each stage of the research workflow, from planning to reporting, to reduce time while enhancing quality and impact.
Manage stakeholders smarter and quicker
Implement smart tactics to enhance stakeholder alignment success while minimizing your time and effort investment.
Efficient synthesis - Less time, greater quality and impact
Build your skills to efficiently discover key findings from complex data. Engage in hands-on practice to generate high-impact insights through effective data analysis.
Implement effective communication throughout the research process
Master the art of quickly and effectively communicating research findings to facilitate decision-making.
Take-away templates
This course offers you a diverse range of templates to guide you through future research activities.
What’s included
Live sessions
Learn directly from Weidan Li, Ph.D in a real-time, interactive format.
Lifetime access
Go back to course content and recordings whenever you need to.
Community of peers
Stay accountable and share insights with like-minded professionals.
Certificate of completion
Share your new skills with your employer or on LinkedIn.
Maven Guarantee
This course is backed by the Maven Guarantee. Students are eligible for a full refund up until the halfway point of the course.
Course syllabus
66 lessons • 13 projects
Week 1
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Efficient Research Framework: Speed, Quality and Impact
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Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions!
Submit by Feb 13
Chapter 1: Understand Efficiency and ROI of Research
Week 2
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Anticipation: Identify potential barriers ahead of time during research planning
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Time allocation: Small time slots, not big time blocks
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Prioritization: Begin by planning the most important sections first
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Collaboration: Work with stakeholders in every step of research planning
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AI Assistance: AI’s a supportive tool to enhance writing
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Depth of understanding: Gain sufficient knowledge of the research context
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Justification of methodology: Clearly explain how the research adds value
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Business actions: Create inspiration with a compelling research plan
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Individual engagement: Good questions and hypotheses keep people interested
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[Template] Research Planning
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[Template] Stakeholder Interviewing
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Assignment 1
Submit by Feb 20 - 📮
Assignment 2
Submit by Feb 20
Chapter 2: Efficient Research Planning for Stakeholder Alignment
Week 3
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Anticipation: Foresee future scenarios in later research stages
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Time allocation: Use time blocks to maintain focus and stay in the zone
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Prioritization: Start with the most essential and impactful questions
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Collaboration: Keep reviewing as a team
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AI Assistance: Use AI to refine and simplify questions
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Depth of understanding: It's from the depth of exploratory questions
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Justification of methodology: The rationale behind your interview or survey
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Business actions: Drive purposeful actions post-research
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Individual engagement: Immersion in the journey of designing questions
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[Template 3] Interview Discussion Guide
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Assignment 1
Submit by Feb 27 - 📮
Assignment 2
Submit by Feb 27
Chapter 3: Efficient Discussion Guide and Survey Writing
Week 4
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Anticipation: Challenges in recruiting the right participants
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Time allocation: Use different time blocks for different recruitment activities
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Prioritization: Multiple ways of prioritization for efficient recruitment
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Collaboration: Your team is as eager as you are to know the research target
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AI Assistance: You still need manual selection for qualitative research
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Depth of understanding: Understand both your participants and sampling strategy
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Justification of methodology: Rationalize sampling strategy
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Business actions: Identify and explore those "VIP" cohorts
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Individual engagement: Consistent updates
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[Template 4] Recruitment and Sampling Strategy: Tiered Approach
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[Template 5] Team Recruitment Planning
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Assignment 1
Submit by Mar 6 - 📮
Assignment 2
Submit by Mar 6
Chapter 4: Efficient Recruitment & Sampling
Week 5
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Anticipation: Potential challenges in analysis and communication
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Time allocation: Time management affects your data quality
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Prioritization: Quick prioritization is key to effective communication
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Collaboration: Data collection can be collaborative too
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AI Assistance:AI's capability to collect quality data is still unclear
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Depth of understanding: Don’t just 'collect' data, try to understand it
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Justification of methodology: Justifying while collecting data
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Business actions: Data collection reveals potential actions
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Individual engagement: Greater engagement leads to a bigger data impact
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[Template 6] Bias Reflection Checklist
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[Template 7] Quick Data Review & Debrief
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Assignment 1
Submit by Mar 13 - 📮
Assignment 2
Submit by Mar 13
Chapter 5: Efficient Data Collection and Communication
Week 6
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Anticipation: Foresee patterns and future report
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Time allocation: Allocate time well to obtain both speed and quality
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Prioritization: Prioritization starts before reporting
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Collaboration: Collaborate to some extent
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AI Assistance: Analysis is driven by your curiosity instead of any AI tools
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Depth of understanding: Understand what data means, not just what it says
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Justification of methodology: Bring stakeholders to your approaches of analysis
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Business actions: Actions don’t naturally emerge during analysis
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Individual engagement: Encourage stakeholder engagement through reflection
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[Template 8] Insights Prioritization
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[Template 9] Team Collaboration on Data Analysis and Thematic Review
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Assignment 1
Submit by Mar 20 - 📮
Assignment 2
Submit by Mar 20
Chapter 6: Efficient Data Analysis and Synthesis
Week 7
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Anticipation: Pause briefly before starting the report
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Time allocation: Start by using time to write more, not better
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Prioritization: Highlight the important information and show them early
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Collaboration: Less applicable to report writing but...
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AI Assistance: ChatGPT is our second brain for writing
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Depth of understanding: Seek for meaningful insights
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Justification of methodology: An insight is not just a title
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Business actions: The last chance to inspire actions
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Individual engagement: Thinking, writing and asking questions
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[Template 10] Report Structure
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[Template 11] Question Preparation for Research Presentation
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Assignment 1
Submit by Mar 27 - 📮
Assignment 2
Submit by Mar 27
Chapter 7: Efficient Insights Writing and Reporting
Meet your instructor
Weidan Li, Ph.D
Weidan Li, Ph.D
Weidan believes that the more efficiently we conduct research and share insights, the greater the impact.
Because everyone’s curiosity has an "expiry date".
Over the past 10 years of his research career, Weidan has led over 70 UX research projects, designed and facilitated hundreds of surveys and interviews, and coached numerous cross-functional teams on conducting user research efficiently and effectively.
Weidan’s coaching approach is deeply influenced by his experience with Google rapid research. Now, he is keen to share what he has learned and practiced with the broader community. Before entering the UX industry, Weidan was an academic researcher specializing in "user experience and social theories".