Medium · Workflow

Research repo → ask

Ask the research repository for cited answers before you invent a persona quote.

Purpose

Medium track starts when AI touches evidence, not just chrome. Dovetail Magic/Ask and the AWS case show synthesis and cited retrieval save hours — and invent risk if nobody checks the citation. This workflow forces ask → cite → decide before any UI change.

Steps

1. **Name the question** — one decision the product needs (e.g. “why do users abandon checkout step 2?”). 2. **Ask the repo** — use Ask/Magic/search against tagged projects only; forbid free-chat without a project scope. 3. **Pull citations** — keep quote + source session IDs. Drop answers with no cite. 4. **Theme in human words** — three themes max; note contradictions as contested, not averaged. 5. **Decision note** — what changes in the next design pass, or “insufficient evidence — run a study” (`study-build-moderate`).

When to use / Skip

Use when a research repository already holds interviews or tests. Skip when you have no corpus — then run `study-build-moderate` or classic research first. Falsifier: if the answer reads like a generic UX textbook with no session cite, reject it.