Research is all about learning, and usually, that means making a mess first. 🫠 Here are three universal lessons from the field:
- Check the maturity. Always ask about buy-in before joining a team (only 58% of researchers say leadership actually gets it).
- Protect your bandwidth. You can't run 3 studies in a week without burning out. Learn to say "not right now."
- Don't boil the ocean. Stakeholders always have a million questions. Pick the few that matter, or break the project into phases.
Research is all about learning. And let’s be honest—the learning process always involves some mistakes!
While mistakes are inevitable, learning from others can speed up your growth.
Drawing from personal experience (and the latest data from 2025), here are three major pitfalls researchers face and how to navigate them:
Mistake 1: Failing to Assess Research Maturity
The Story
It was my first official role as a user researcher, and in a space that I love very deeply: education. It wasn’t until my first week on the job that I realized I didn't ask questions during the interview process around recent projects the team had done. When I asked a PM when he last spoke to a customer he said “two years.” 🤯
The Lesson
Always make an effort to understand the environment you're stepping into. Asking about leadership buy-in and how research is currently used during the interview process can help set realistic expectations for what the role will actually look like.
2025 Industry Context
Research maturity may be related to organizational buy-in—and buy-in can vary significantly. According to the State of Research Strategy report, while 74% of researchers say their peers see the value in research, only 58% say leadership does.
Team tenure can also play a role: the State of User Research 2025 found that about half of research teams are fewer than five years old.
Together, this suggests it may be more common to join a team that's still building its foundation than one where research is fully embedded and supported.
Actionable tip: If you are interviewing, ask: "Can you walk me through the last time a research insight changed a product decision?"
Mistake 2: Taking On Too Much at Once
The Story
Same role, same excitement for the work. I wound up trying to conduct three different research studies during the same week. I soon found myself in session four of the day and my energy was just lagging. I needed some help—and fast! But help wasn't necessarily easy to come by.
The Lesson
Don’t be afraid to say “not right now to research” demands as they come up. You can do research for almost anything, but doing it at the most optimal time to bring value to your organization is a skill.
2025 Industry Context
Learning how to prioritize research projects is even more necessary for those at a smaller company, where you might be flying solo as a UXR: the State of Research Strategy 2025 found that 78% of respondents with just one researcher come from companies with fewer than 1,000 employees. But even if you're at an enterprise, you might be balancing all the operational work on top of running sessions: only 51% of researchers at enterprise companies (>1,000 employees) have a dedicated ReOps team, according to the State of User Research 2025.
Actionable tip: Make sure you protect your bandwidth. For guidance on prioritizing, see our article on when to do UX research (and when to say "not right now").
Mistake 3: Designing Studies That Are Too Broad
The Story
Shortly after joining the team at User Interviews, I was focused on leading a study that would inform the future of Research Hub (the CRM made for user research). It was the first time we did a deep dive into the experience, and stakeholders had a ton of questions. Needless to say, I tried to boil the ocean with the number of questions in the study plan. 😓
The Lesson
Slow down, take the time to scope your questions, and don’t be afraid to push back on stakeholders or move a project into multiple phases.
2025 Industry Context
When stakeholders have lots of questions, it's tempting to try to answer them all—but 74% of researchers cite time as a primary factor when selecting research methods, per the State of Research Strategy 2025.
Actionable tip: Google's Maria Sbrocca recommends asking three questions before committing to any research:
- What questions do we need to answer?
- How will we use these insights?
- Do these insights have an expiration date?
If you can't answer these clearly for each request, it may be time to phase the project or deprioritize certain questions.
The art of making mistakes
Making mistakes is a guarantee in life. You can’t avoid them and they're excellent learning opportunities. What mistakes have you made in your past research?
