The cost of skipping UX research (and how to make sure it doesn’t happen)

“My stakeholders think research is a waste of time. They’d rather ‘just build it’ and see what happens.”

👋 Hey, Miranda here! Hope you’re surviving another week.

Today, I want to share one of the biggest challenges designers face in low UX maturity organizations: convincing stakeholders that research is worth the time and effort.

A designer in our community recently shared this frustration:

“My stakeholders think research is a waste of time. They’d rather ‘just build it’ and see what happens.”

Sound familiar? If you’ve ever tried to push for usability testing or discovery research only to hear, “We don’t have time for that,” you’re not alone.

Let me tell you what I’ve seen work in my many years in this field—and how you can start changing minds too.

The "Too Late" Research Regret

Not that long ago, a designer I was mentoring was working on a product team that was excited about a new feature idea. The stakeholders wanted to move fast—no time for research, just ship it.

Three weeks of development later, the feature launched. And then… crickets. Hardly anyone used it.

Turns out, if they had run jus…