The User Research Strategist
You wrapped the project. You asked the sharp questions, you ran the sessions, you pulled together insights that would have saved everyone a quarter of pain, and you walked into the readout quietly sure you’d cracked it.
Then the roadmap didn’t budge. Your findings got a warm, useless round of nods. And three weeks later someone shipped the exact thing you’d flagged as a problem, because a VP “had a feeling.”
If you’ve stood in that spot, jaw tight, watching good research get politely ignored, this one’s for you.
What this is
The User Research Strategist is for researchers who want two things at the same time: to use AI, mostly Claude, to take the grind out of the work, and to turn that work into research so clear and so useful it actually changes what gets built. I care about both halves equally, since AI that only makes you faster at producing reports nobody reads is just a more expensive way to get ignored.
Want a taste before you commit? Start with these (all free):
Hi, I’m Nikki
I once googled “how to write an insight that doesn’t suck” at midnight with a glass of wine in hand, and got served a Medium post from 2013 with zero examples, which helped me precisely none with the report due in under ten hours. I’ve been the team of one, the only researcher in a building full of opinions, the person whose work got skipped for being “too long to read.”
These days I run research training, AI courses, a community, and this Subtack for 15,000+ researchers, I’ve written 500+ articles, and I’ve spoken at more conferences than I’ve strictly enjoyed. Mostly I’ve built all the resources I wish someone had handed 25-year-old me before she cried into that ten-hour report.
The day AI changed how I work
For years I was sceptical about AI in research, and a bit precious about it too, since most of what I saw was either breathless hype or someone dumping a transcript into a chatbot and calling it synthesis. What turned me around was [your real moment here, for example the first messy round of interviews you let it help you make sense of]. I went in expecting to be unimpressed, and instead I watched it swallow the parts of the job that used to eat my evenings, the tagging, the first-pass clustering, the reformatting I could do in my sleep and hated every second of, and it handed me back hours I’d been bleeding for years.
And those hours are the whole point, since I pour them straight into the work that makes research move a decision, the framing, the storytelling, the quiet politics of getting a finding taken seriously. That’s the mix you’ll get here, AI to clear the grunt work, and everything I’ve learned about turning research into impact people can’t wave away.
What you get
Whether you’re free or paid, this is what you can expect:
Research advice that doesn’t read like it was written by a chatbot with a LinkedIn addiction
Real AI workflows you can copy, mapped to the actual stages of research
The impact craft: how to frame findings, handle stakeholders, and get your work into the decision instead of the archive
Tools, templates, and honest stories from someone who’s done the job, botched it, fixed it, and made it work
Free
An article every couple of months
The podcast and videos
Content that’s a lot better than something at a zero price tag has any right to be
Paid ($12 a month or $99 a year)
Go paid and you get the whole brain, plus every asset I’ve built:
Every article and deep dive behind the paywall
A private research Slack, plus access to me for the questions too sensitive for LinkedIn
The Hub, a Notion library with 40+ ready-to-use templates, scripts, checklists, and mini-courses, so you’re never starting from a blank doc
Seven mini-courses on surveys, workshop facilitation, report writing, and more
Eight modules of UXR business content and 21 ROI formulas to take your research from tactical to strategic
45+ recordings on impact, strategy, resumes, case studies, and stakeholder management
A lot of people expense the whole thing through their learning budget, so it can cost you nothing personally.
Come celebrate your wins:
Publishing schedule and holidays
Posting schedule:
All content goes out Tuesday’s at 9am UK time
For 2026, you can expect breaks in content:
August 24 - 29
I appreciate your understanding and thank you for your ongoing support.
This schedule can be changed in case of unexpected events. Last updated June 29, 2026.
Support, billing, and sharing
Need help or have questions? Email me: nikki@userresearchacademy.com
Gift subscriptions: get them here.
Update credit card or manage your subscription: go to your account here.
Change your email: follow Substack’s steps here.
Usage guidelines: one subscription = one person. Occasional forwarding is fine; regular forwarding → please consider a gift or group subscription.
Refunds: If you’re not happy, I’m not happy. I offer a 30‑day, no‑questions‑asked refund. Email nikki@userresearchacademy.com.
