Insight repository
An insight repository is a central, searchable store of research findings, where each insight is saved with its evidence and context so anyone in the organization can find what is already known before commissioning new research.
How it works
Where a research repository files reports and raw data, an insight repository stores the findings themselves, often broken into small units, an approach called atomic research. Each insight is tagged by topic, product, customer segment and date, and linked to the evidence behind it: quotes, clips and the study it came from.
Nielsen Norman Group sets out the trade-off between the two forms. A folder library is easy to add to, but the insights inside it are hard to find; an insight database puts findings within easy reach, but it takes more work to feed and to maintain, because insights need updating, refining or retiring as later studies come in. An insight database therefore needs rules for who writes each insight and which tags it carries, or contributions drift apart.
A worked example
Before commissioning research on paid in-car features, an automaker's connected-car team searches its insight repository. Fourteen findings from 5 earlier studies come back, including one in which 18 of 25 owners could not say which features their subscription covered. The new study drops its awareness questions and spends its time on a question no earlier study asked, which features owners would pay to keep after the free trial ends.
Related
Automate this in Pulse
Each Pulse study's themes and quotes are kept in the insight repository beside the studies before it, so the next brief starts from what the team already knows.