TERM TUESDAY: “Stakeholder” is the term used to describe anyone who holds a significant interest or concern in the research outcomes. Typically stakeholders include cross-functional team members, clients, and/or others that may be affected by the research study, responsible for contributing to it (e.g. creating stimuli, providing background data, etc.,) or are required to act on the learnings.

A stakeholder may be anyone (e.g. product manager, designer, developer, project sponsor, etc.) responsible for or impacted by the research.

Stakeholder involvement is critical to your success as a user researcher. Stakeholder needs, goals, and perspectives should inform the research plan. Crafting a plan with stakeholder buy-in is critical to the success of any user research study

Learn more about stakeholders in the full UX Lex entry (see link in the comments) to increase your understanding and please discuss it with some colleagues and clients. Find out how their interpretation of the term compares and contrasts to expand your awareness and help us mitigate the amount of confusion surrounding our terminology.

Learn how to craft a winning UX research plan with stakeholder buy-in the Ask Like A Pro workshop called PLAN (see link in the comments)

UX Lex is an evolving, interactive glossary of UX research terms.

Or learn more

Ask Like A Pro PLAN Workshop: https://www.curiositytank.com/workshops
UX LEX full definition of stakeholder: https://www.curiositytank.com/ux-lexicon-blog/stakeholder