We are lucky to have so many wonderful sponsors and exhibitors at this year’s Advancing Research conference–and we thought you might like to get to know them better! We’ve asked all of them some questions in the coming weeks that get at the heart of why they’re passionate about ResearchOps, what it’s like to work with them, and what makes their products and services special to Design and Research Operations professionals.

SEAN MCKAY, FOUNDER AND CEO AT HANDRAIL, INC.

Rosenfeld Media: Why are you sponsoring the Advancing Research conference?

Sean McKay: Handrail is all about helping organizations succeed with research at scale. And that’s a big part of what the Advancing Research conference is about too. We’re so excited to be a part of this inaugural event. This community is so creative and generous with sharing how they are approaching all of the various challenges that come with establishing and building up ResearchOps. We can’t wait to see what everyone is taking on this year!

 

Rosenfeld Media: What excites you about Research and/or Research Operations?

Sean McKay: As designers and researchers ourselves, we’re interested in understanding people. We know that good decisions in any organization start with understanding the people behind the clicks and metrics. Learning about the problems they face, their needs, motivations, and reasoning. And research is how we develop that understanding. It’s the foundation for success. When you add on the layers of complexity involved in creating high quality, unified experiences for customers across a diverse suite of products and services, that’s when things really get interesting! It’s also where ResearchOps shines. We believe in the value of that work and helping organizations do it well.

Rosenfeld Media: What types of value and benefits does your product bring to the practice and our community?

Sean McKay: Handrail is an enterprise research management platform. We help organizations with various aspects of ResearchOps—managing a private pool of participants, templates for interview guides and surveys, keeping files related to studies organized and accessible, etc. Most importantly, we’re a research repository built specifically for teams to easily store, find, and share research and insights. Unlike others, we also provide workflows for planning research, collecting or referencing data, and performing analysis. For example, you can create interview guides, take notes together as a team, synthesize data, and share insights with stakeholders, all inside of Handrail. Our booth will be set up at the conference. We’ll be giving demos. Everyone should stop by! We genuinely love hearing about different research practices and processes in different organizations.