AMSTERDAM, Netherlands, 12 November 2025 — Canadian UX staffing CEO, Design Educator and Silicon Valley veteran Sara Fortier debuts her book Design Research Mastery: How to Lead Research That Builds Buy-in and Great Products, in global partnership with Netherlands' BIS Publishers. It frames an optimistic future of design research, teaching teams to ensure qualitative user data drives better product decisions, while future-proofing UX careers in the process.
The book — created for intermediate-to-senior UX practitioners and learners — addresses mounting concerns that artificial intelligence and industry downsizing threaten roles in product design, service design, and user experience. It sets out a different view: human-centred design is evolving, not disappearing. Fortier says that those who focus on building stakeholder buy-in and trust; developing actionable, business-relevant insights; strategic design storytelling; end-to-end research project ownership; and theoretically robust methodology, will steer the next era of digital growth across public and private sectors, including fintech, healthcare and SaaS. The book promises to teach readers these skills, across four core qualitative research methods.
With the UK Government’s consultation to strengthen its £100 billion design sector and the European Union's reform of design protection laws for the new AI era, Fortier believes that Design Research Mastery arrives at a crucial moment. It was written to help the design community get better at aligning their work with business goals, "speaking stakeholder," and earning buy-in for the kind of user research that leads to meaningfully improved products and services, and ROI for clients. Fortier’s seen first-hand how practitioner success in these areas can actually generate design demand within organisations.
As a recent example of this demand generation, she has shared that the company she founded, Outwitly Inc., a UX talent and training partner, saw its design staffing services push annual revenue past $11 million CAD in 2024. Despite broad industry anxiety around automation and workforce disruption in tech, Outwitly is reporting contractor renewal rates of over 90% in 2025, and is setting a goal to double staffing growth by the end of 2026.
The research frameworks, templates and practical tools that Fortier includes in her book were originally built for her own use on consulting projects as she grew her company. She also includes many real-life examples and anecdotes from her career journey, from Silicon Valley Design Strategist, to design consulting "solo-preneur," to UX talent CEO.
No longer believing in gatekeeping a "secret sauce," Fortier aims to share these tools and insights with the greater industry, as well as those emerging from post-secondary and master's programmes. Multiple design professors in the EU have requested exam copies of the book, interested in guiding future grads toward meaningful market impact and career longevity.
As a former Sessional Instructor at Carleton University's School of Industrial Design in Canada with a MDes (Master's in Interdisciplinary Design), Sara hopes to continue bridging conversations and key industry knowledge-sharing between overseas UX and UXR practitioners, all the way through to the North American launch of the book in April 2026. Media ramp-up so far has included Fortier’s appearances on the This is HCD podcast (hosted by Gerry Scullion of Humana Design in Ireland) and the Insights Unlocked series (hosted by Washington State's UserTesting).
“Every shift in technology is an invitation for design research to rise,” says Fortier. “When we examine our own thinking, stay open to change and act with purpose, we expand what our teams—and our discipline—can achieve.”
UX practitioners, strategists, students, educators or design leaders interesting in upskilling their teams can learn more about the book and the author at designresearchmastery.com. The book is available for purchase on Amazon, the BIS bookstore, and other joining EU/UK retailers.
Editor's note: Sara is available for interviews and additional comments via emailed request to the media contact listed. Additional images of the book cover, book spreads, and photographs of Sara can also be provided upon request. Sara’s last name "Fortier" is pronounced “FORE-tee-YAY.”
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You can also reach the marketing manager at daniellemallet@outwitly.com or marketing@outwitly.com.
