3 tools in the modern research tech stack

Doing user research used to mean making the tradeoff between quality and scale. You could either:

1. Get a lot of "what" with quantitative

2. Get a bit less of "why" with qualitative

Well... times are changing.

Now you can leverage AI to conduct all types of research at essentially an infinite scale. This makes your choice of tools more important than ever.

So I asked Noam Segal (research leader at Upwork, Meta, Twitter, Airbnb, Wealthfront, etc.) a simple question:

"If you were building a modern research tech stack from scratch, which tools would you use?"

Here's Noam's answer 👇

🔍 The modern research tech stack

Tool #1 — Sprig

​Sprig is the complete in-product research tool. You can run surveys, get feature feedback, watch video replays, and use AI to analyze everything behind the scenes.

We use this at Maven and it's awesome 👌

One of my favorite features is how well they handle embedded Figma prototypes in surveys.

Noam also highlighted the value of their research-backed templates you can use as starting points 💪

Tool #2 — Genway​

Genway is a newer product that uses AI interviewers to help researchers run qualitative interviews at scale.

It's kind of wild actually...

Interviewees can choose to interact with AI via text or human-like voice (and they even have a sentiment model to measure emotion in speech 🤯).

"Genway is breaking the boundaries between quant and qual research"
​- Noam Segal

Tool #3 — Dscout

Dscout makes it easy to recruit participants for diary studies, usability testing, or any other type of research tactic you want to use.

The platform then handles all of the backend management to streamline the process of pulling out key insights.

Here’s the part I found particularly neat though 👇

They make it really easy to add clips to playlists so you can share research highlight reels with stakeholders 😎

"Dscout allowed us to get a ton of video survey responses to questions in a really important segment that was hard to recruit for. We edited the videos into a super cut to some inspirational music and changed stakeholders’ perspectives. It’s a powerful tool”
— Tregg Frank (from his time at Chase)

With tools like Sprig, Genway, and Dscout, not only can we gather much richer and more comprehensive data than ever before… we can also outsource much of the synthesis to AI.

This means you can focus more of your time on activating those insights for your team 💪

That's why this week's interview will teach you how to be a masterful research storyteller 👇

👤 Tools and tactics of the modern user researcher

​Noam Segal has led research at companies like Meta, Airbnb, Wealthfront, Twitter, and most recently Upwork.

He also teaches the #1 UXR course on Maven. So this episode is a masterclass in user research that includes:

• How to conduct better interviews

• The keys to an effective research plan

• How to become an elite research storyteller

• How AI is impacting the practice of user research

• Why he uses interview guides instead of interview scripts

• How to ensure research is integrated in the product process

Listen on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts 👇