Awkward Silences (User Interviews)

There are 6 key qualities for great facilitation:

• Starting with your core beliefs
• Maintaining neutrality
• Standing in the storm
• Honoring the wisdom of the group
• Upholding the agile mindset
• Honoring the group’s agenda

According to Marsha Acker, Founder, and CEO of TeamCatapult, 

In this episode, Marsha sits down with Erin and JH to discuss the art and importance of facilitation in group settings, focusing on the 6 key principles of great facilitation she wrote about in her book The Art and Science of Facilitation: How to Lead Effective Collaboration with Agile Teams.

Tune in to hear her approach to facilitation, including methods, the preparation process, and how to build your facilitation skills.

👇

Highlights: 

[00:01:05] Defining facilitation: the art of leading people through a process towards a goal

[00:04:50] Reading the room and speaking the language of others

[00:06:08] Maintaining neutrality as a leader

[00:14:24]Standing in the storm of conflict and handling differences

[00:20:43] Honoring the wisdom of the group

[00:23:25] Enhancing agile processes with intentionality

[00:28:54] Honoring the group’s agenda 

[00:33:12] Familiarity versus externality: the pros and cons of different facilitator types

[00:35:57] Guidelines for facilitating workshops

[00:44:56] The importance of navigating invisible team dynamics

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• userinterviews.com/awkward
• userinterviews.com/awkwardsurvey
• The Art and Science of Facilitation: How to Lead Effective Collaboration with Agile Teams 
• Build Your Model for Leading Change

About Our Guest

Marsha Acker, CPF, CPCC, PCC, is the author of Build Your Model for Leading Change: A guided workbook to catalyze clarity and confidence in leading yourself and others, available now. She is the founder and CEO of TeamCatapult, a leadership development firm that equips leaders at all levels to facilitate and lead sustainable behavioral change. She is also the author of The Art and Science of Facilitation: How to Lead Effective Collaboration with Agile Teams and the host of the Defining Moments of Leadership podcast. 

As a seasoned researcher who has led teams at Unilever, Netflix, and DoorDash,  Zach Schendel has come up against every type of skeptical stakeholder you can imagine.

He joined us to chat about the research myths he runs into most often, how he debunks them, and why he wants to banish “let’s do a qual” from everyone’s vocabulary forever.

Zach talked about…

• The 4 UX research myths he’d like to debunk once and for all.
• Stories from his time at Unilever, Netflix, and DoorDash.
• How he gets stubborn stakeholders onboard, even if they’re hesitant about the merits of research.

Highlights

• [4:22] Myth #1: You can’t just ask people what they want.
• [9:39] How to maintain trust in research when users don't do what they say they will.
• [17:14] Myth #2: Five people isn’t enough for a valid finding. 
• [29:20] Myth #3: People can reliably articulate what's good and what's bad.
• [38:01] Myth #4: User research is qualitative research

About our guest

Zach Schendel is the Head of Research at Doordash. There, he leads the product and UX research teams and partners with design, engineering, product management, strategy and operations, and data science to innovate on the consumer, driver, and merchant experiences. Before Doordash, Zach led research teams at Netflix and Unilever.

If you’ve ever presented research to a crowd of glazed over eyes, or sent around a detailed report only to hear back crickets, this episode is for you. After reading Caitria O’Neill’s article UX Research is Boring and No One Reads It, we knew we had to chat with her. 

Caitria has made sure research is heard, absorbed, and utilized in companies like Airbnb and Facebook before moving on to her current role as a Staff UX Researcher at Google. She shared tips on how to make research reports fun, storing insights so they’re used more often, and how she makes the whole process easier for herself and her team. 

How do you build a long lasting research practice? Aim for a healthy one. Gregg Bernstein you how. 

This week on the podcast, Gregg talked to us about how to contribute to a healthy research practice every day and what a healthy practice even means.

Highlights

• [3:26] Can you have a healthy research function without dedicated researchers?
• [14:20] Sharing contextualized insights with relevant teams can help you build value as you work.
• [24:40] What's an unhealthy research culture?
• [33:13] Contributing to a healthy research culture every day.
• [36:41] UXR Hot Topics: Democratization and research culture.
• [40:03] UXR Hot Topics: Burnout and research culture.

About our guest

Gregg Bernstein is the Director of User Research at Hearst Magazines (formerly UX Research lead at Condé Nast, and wrote the book "Research Practice: Perspectives from UX researchers in a changing field." He spends his days advocating for and practicing user-centered product development. Previously he managed innovative research practices at Vox Media and Mailchimp.

What do you do when your user research session doesn’t go according to plan? It happens all the time, in a lot of ways, for a lot of reasons. Fortunately we have Jaclyn Perrone, Design Director at thoughtbot, on the pod today to talk us through it all. She shares stories of times things didn’t go quite right, what to do when participants get stuck on the wrong things, and how to avoid (avoidable) mishaps. 

Episode Highlights

[4:05] Things go wrong when you do things with other humans (like user research)

[7:06] Jaclyn answers the question, “Is it more important to be prepared or ready to improvise?

[10:24] Test the test

[12:07] Jaclyn warns against the dangers of fake data

[14:53] What to do when you’re the note-taker and the facilitator strays from the script

[20:58] Jaclyn’s top tips for avoiding research mistakes

[22:29] How to be more comfortable asking stupid questions

About our Guest

Jaclyn Perrone is a Senior Product Designer at Groups Recover Together, an opioid addiction treatment solution. Formerly, she was Design Director at thoughtbot, where she hosted a podcast at centered around digital product design.

According to Derek Osgood, it takes a "great product and product marketing collaboration" to get people to adopt products. But with such a small window of opportunity and many moving parts, it's easy to get it wrong. So how do massively successful brands execute a winning product launch?

Join Erin and JH as they welcome guest Derek Osgood, CEO of Ignition, to examine the key components of a product launch. Derek shares his perspective on branding at scale as he outlines critical aspects to consider before, during, and after launch. He also provides a step-by-step walkthrough of a successful go-to-market strategy, complete with specific marketing tactics for planning, targeting, collaboration, and research.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What makes a successful product launch?
• The elements of a winning launch
• Best research practices, tactics, tips, and tools
• Common mistakes and oversights

Highlights:

• [00:03:37] The ingredients to a successful launch
• [00:08:34] Walkthrough of a successful launch (plus a laundry list of important questions to consider)
• [00:12:11] Internal marketing and the importance of communicating across teams
• [00:17:17] How teams get it wrong, dos and don'ts
• [00:20:39] A simplistic way to segment your audience
• [00:26:25] Message testing tips - the how, when, and why
• [00:32:02] Specific tactics and tools Derek uses to find pricing and understand features

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• http://userinterviews.com/awkward
• Ignition LinkedIn

About Our Guest

Derek Osgood is a product marketing specialist, entrepreneur, and Founder & CEO of Ignition, a platform that helps brands streamline go-to-market strategies. He has launched several products that have collectively generated over $1 billion in revenue. Before Ignition, Derek worked as Director of Product Marketing at Rippling, Director of Marketing and Growth at BBVA, and as a Product Manager at Playstation. 

Researchers talk a lot about the importance of empathy. But what the heck does ‘empathy’ actually mean? What does empathy really look like in practice? Babz Jewell—an ethnographic sociologist and Principal UX Researcher at Variant—is here to explain. She joined Erin and JH to share her practical approach to empathy and active listening, and how these skills have transformed her UX research practice.

Babz talked about…

• How active listening can help UX researchers improve their entire research process.
• Building better relationships with stakeholders. 
• Using notetaking to be a better active listener. 

Highlights

• [3:47] What is empathy anyway?
• [7:40] Being empathetic with your stakeholders can create more impactful research.
• [17:03] How radical listening can change your research practice.
• [24:52] How Babz uses note-taking skills she learned with Russian diplomats to improve her listening.

Resources and people mentioned in the episode

• Hmnty Cntrd’s courses
• Teresa Torres’ Continuous Discovery Habits
• Jor-El Caraballo
• Vivianne Castillo

About our guest
Babz is a sociologist and leader in leveraging ethnographic research methods for corporate UX, CX and product design. She is currently UX Research Manager at FanDuel. At the time of our interview, she was Principal User Experience Researcher at Variant, a driver-focused long-haul trucking company. There, she leads research operations and projects for driver-facing products and support with ethnographic methods.

Work smarter, not harder with the right UXR productivity hacks. Michele Ronsen, founder of Curiosity Tank and our first repeat guest, joins us for our landmark 100th episode to tell us about the best user research hacks she’s learned to increase productivity, reduce cognitive load, and save time. Make your life a little easier with these pro UXR tips on scheduling, archiving, recruiting, screening, and more.

In this episode:

• What is a UXR productivity hack?
• UXR productivity hacks examples and tips
• Enhancing productivity

Highlights:

• [2:48] The stakeholder kickoff sheet
• [5:14] The right balance between setting up systems and doing research
• [8:08] Defining every section of your UX research plan template
• [11:55] Scheduling hacks
• [14:03] Core screening criteria
• [16:26] PII tips
• [19:01] Saving time for the archiving process
• [21:12] Files and folders
• [24:03] Reducing fraudulent participants
• [25:39] Making sure your participants are prepared
• [27:59] How to build your own pool of participants

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• UXR Productivity Hacks Bundle (Curiosity Tank)
• Sample Stakeholder Kickoff Questions (Curiosity Tank)
• Research Countdown Planner (Curiosity Tank)
• Participant Question Starters Template (Curiosity Tank)
• “Ask Like A Pro” User research workshop series (Curiosity Tank)
• ‍Team Training (Curiosity Tank)
• Note-Taking for UX Research: Templates and Methods (User Interviews)‍
• Google Workspace‍
• How to recruit qualified participants, fast (User Interviews)

About our guest

Michele Ronsen is the founder of Curiosity Tank, a consulting and education firm specializing in human-centered research, design development, and hands-on learning programs. Her clients include Slack, Zillow, Facebook, Microsoft, and others. Michele is also an Instructor, Content Creator, and Workshop Facilitator at General Assembly. Previously, she worked at Wells Fargo as the Vice President and Creative Director and the Senior Vice President and Creative Director and held two positions at the Bank of America.

Creating a video game requires more than just development time and coding—to make sure the experience is enjoyable, you have to test it. In this episode, User Researcher Steve Bromley joins us to discuss the nuances of conducting user research in the video game industry.

He describes integrating user feedback with the developer's creative vision, recruitment for games research, and the evolution of the gaming industry since he first started.

Steve talks about…

• How to integrate user feedback with the developer’s creative vision.
• What playtesting is (and isn't).
• The surprising challenges of recruiting video game testers.

Highlights

• [00:01:16] So what exactly is “games user research?”
• [00:03:15] What do you mean by “playtesting?”
• [00:16:51] How do you navigate something as broad as “making a game fun?”
• [00:27:48] Steve talks about what it’s like to be on the bleeding edge of games research.
• [00:38:17] How the field has changed since Steve first started out.

About our guest

Steve Bromley specializes in establishing new user research teams and in user research for video games. He wrote Building User Research Teams and How to Be A Game User Researcher. He works with mobile studios, indie teams, AAA teams and VR studios to help them run playtests and integrate user research into the production process. Prior to this, he was a lead user researcher for the PlayStation VR headset.

It's time to take the next step in your research career, but is management right for you?

Erin & JH chatted with Amber Davis, UXR Director at Audible, about her journey as a research manager, how to evaluate what you really want from your career, and who to talk to when you're ready to level up.

Highlights

• [5:03] Even if you think you don't have management experience to look back on, research is full of management and leadership.
• [8:17] Being a manager gives you many more opportunities to contribute at the strategic level. 
• [12:00] Straying too far from day-to-day operations can make being a manager really tough, especially when you're managing researchers.
• [20:12] As a manager, being a coach is more important than telling people what to do.
• [23:12] You have to really connect with your direct reports and learn how to show up for them. Amber takes 10 minutes before every 1:1 to ensure she's grounded and there for that meeting.
• [34:21] Even though it's important to build good connections with your direct reports, make sure you keep enough distance socially so you can stay professional.

Sales demos are a great opportunity to get to know your customers. The person on the other end is interested in your product, looking for a solution to a problem, and likely have some pain points with their current solutions.

That's why Jane Portman, co-founder of Userlist, uses demos as an opportunity to connect with potential customers, keep pain points top of mind, and learn how to make her product even better.  She chatted with Erin and JH about why she's doing customer research and sales demos at the same time, how constantly talking to customers helps her develop a better product, and how she came up with the podcast name UI Breakfast. 

Highlights

• [2:16] During the MVP phase, all new customers had to go through sales demos to start using Userlist. 
• [4:24] Making early customers go through demos ensured that Userlist's customers were all well informed about the capabilities and what to expect from the product.
• [5:49] How do you combine meaningful research with sales demos?
• [8:35] Because Jane and her team are talking to people all the time, they're learning as things change.
• [11:57] The specific questions Jane asks in her demo calls.
• [14:40] If something is coming up in calls all the time, you can't forget about it. Since Jane and her co-founder are always hearing about pain points, they can focus on building solutions before logging insights.
• [20:43] Asking your most active customers for feedback as you go is helpful for product teams who like to stay in touch with customers. 
• [24:03] How do you stay objective when doing research in a demo?

About our Guest

Jane Portman is the CEO & co-founder of Userlist and the host of the UI Breakfast podcast. She's passionate about helping founders connect with their customers and learning more about their stories. 

Recommended Reading

• User Onboarding: The Ultimate Guide for SaaS Founders
• How to Design and Conduct a Customer Interview

Whether you are a team of one or one hundred, cultivating a healthy research culture starts with strong leadership. Strong leadership encourages UXR teams to promote better research practices across teams and manage healthy conflict. But what does a healthy company culture look like IRL? And how do you promote best practices throughout the organization to help scale your research?

Mike Oren, Head of Design Research at Klaviyo, has built and scaled several thriving research teams from scratch throughout his career. In this episode, he discusses the power of company culture and shares advice on culture building.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The overall impact of research culture on companies’ bottom-line goals
• The anatomy of a “healthy” company culture
• Establishing cultural norms in your organization
• Dealing with challenges and avoiding mistakes
• Tips and tricks for nurturing and developing a research-focused company culture

Highlights:

• [00:01:11] Planting the seeds of research culture
• [00:03:18] The importance of psychological safety for UXR teams
• [00:06:04] Maintaining healthy conflict and avoiding cognitive bias
• [00:12:21] Attributes of a healthy research culture
• [00:21:45] How research culture fits in with the rest of the organization
• [00:28:39] Tips on how to build research awareness and educate stakeholders

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• http://userinterviews.com/awkward
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/klaviyo

About Our Guest

Mike Oren, Head of Design Research at Klaviyo, a technology company that provides an automated email marketing and SMS marketing platform. He is also the Founder of Societech, an Adjunct Professor at Illinois Institute of Technology’s Institute of Design, and an independent UX Research Consultant. Mike holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree in Human-Computer Interaction and Sociology from Iowa State University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and English Writing from DePauw University. 

In this episode, Erin chats with Victoria Sakal, Head of Growth at Wonder, all about desk (or secondary) research—think web searches, checking internal resource libraries (like repositories), or interviewing colleagues. Desk research is a critical step when starting a new project.

Victoria shares her framework for thinking about the differences between primary and secondary research, suggesting that instead of distinct categories, they exist on a continuum. She argues that primary research is sharper, more impactful, and has better ROI when it's supported by secondary research.

In addition to sharing best practices for desk research, Victoria walks through research her team conducted on how organizations approach research, offering strategies to maximize your efforts based on specific company growth stages and product demands. The episode closes by exploring how desk research is changing in light of emergent technologies such as large-language models and the benefits of reading widely.

Episode Highlights

• 06:39 - Integrating desk research into your research strategy
• 12:30 - Desk research techniques and best practices
• 17:41 - Unpacking trends in the kinds of questions asked during desk research
• 23:31 - How desk research is evolving alongside AI technology
• 25:14 - The role of curiosity in desk research and innovation
• 34:20 - How research repositories and agile methods impact desk research

About Our Guest
With a passion for turning complex inputs (data, research, behaviors) on customers, market dynamics, and competitors into smart strategies that drive growth, Victoria has spent the last decade helping companies ask better questions to get better data, source more powerful insights, and stay on top of important dynamics that matter. Previously at Morning Consult and Kantar, Victoria now focuses on all things demand gen, product marketing, market research, and growth strategies to deliver more value for Wonder users.

More Resources on Desk Research

• How to conduct (and write) a research literature review
• UX research is better with market research collaborations
• This database showcases AI-powered desk research tools

Roberta Dombrowski, VP of UX Research at User Interviews, is back for the second instalment of Tacos and Tide Pods with Erin and JH. In this episode, they discuss the importance of an effective personal productivity process, overestimated expectations, and the (very Tide Pod-y) state of the global economy.

In this episode:

• Creating a research repository at User Interviews
• Setting up an effective personal productivity process
• Overestimated expectations
• Meetings vs asynchronous collab

In this episode Carol and Erin are joined by Ruby Pryor, founder of Rex, a consulting firm specializing in UX research and strategic design.

They explore the world of measuring the impact of UX research. with Pryor introducing a four-level impact assessment framework. Ruby shares a four-level assessment framework and the conversation moves to prioritization, making "strategic" decisions, and increasing your research influence.

This episode also gets into what it means to demonstrate the "business value" of one's work, specifically how researchers can and should quantify their impact in terms that are tangible to the company. Ruby will share ways to score early wins, build momentum, and overcome communication frictions to find shared value.

Episode Highlights

• 03:14 - UX researcher impact: insights, optimization, prioritization, strategy
• 09:14 - Understanding organizational structures and strategy development collaboration
• 20:22 - Challenge of quantifying impact and strategic level
• 21:33 - Measuring strategy impact: challenges and indicators
• 30:04 - Prioritizing investments based on strong market indicators
• 38:51 - Stakeholders prioritize growth, revenue, and cost reduction

About Our Guest
Ruby Pryor is the founder of Rex, a service design and UX research consulting firm. Her previous roles include UX research at Grab, strategic design at Boston Consulting Group and management consulting at Nous Group. She has taught courses on increasing the impact of UX to learners from 5 continents and has spoken about design and UX at conferences in Asia and Europe.

Resources on UX Research Impact

• How to Track the Impact of Your UX Research
• Leading an Impactful User Research Team
• Use Stakeholder Interviews to Drive Impact

You’ve mastered the basics, but now it’s time to take your interviews to the next level. This week, we chatted with Therese Fessenden, Senior User Experience Specialist at NN/g about how to get even better at interviewing. She talked about how to master the basics, hone your skills, and become an A+ interviewer.

Highlights

• [3:40] You can get more out of your interviews by going in with a solid plan.
• [9:44] Mastering probing questions.
• [20:36] Common mistakes people make when they get comfortable doing research, like oversharing.
• [29:19] Staying objective as you get further into the research and learn more.
• [33:52] How do you know you're getting better at interviews?
• [35:10] Doing inclusive research. 

About our guest

Therese Fessenden is a Senior User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group, host of the NN/g UX Podcast, and manager of the 1-Hour Talk program. Her research focuses on understanding human behaviors, attitudes, and expectations in order to better orchestrate system and service design strategies.

Erin and JH chat with Michele Ronsen, founder of Curiosity Tank and General Assembly instructor. Michele talks to a lot of different people about user research, and she's found there are some situations where user research is (😱) not the best move forward. In fact, there are 7. Michele walked us through each one, and what teams should do instead. 

About our guest

Michele Ronsen is a UX and design researcher, founder of Curiosity Tank (formerly Ronsen Consulting) and an instructor at General Assembly. She loves digging deep into research, being people’s research buddy, and introducing teams to the power of research. 

134 episodes. 

That’s how long Awkward Silences has been going with Erin and JH as hosts.

But now it’s time for something new.

JH says goodbye to Awkward Silences as he kicks off a new chapter in his career. Today, he and Erin reflect on the years. They share a bit of the original background to the podcast, their favorite memories, and even some behind-the-scenes aspects and outtakes that may surprise you. 

Tune into this episode to learn all about Awkward Silences and bid a fond farewell to JH 👇

Highlights: 

[00:02:01] Why did Erin pick JH as co-host?

[00:05:03] JH’s favorite part of the podcast

[00:06:52] A look back to when the podcast first felt “real”

[00:10:07] Favorite episodes, memories, and guests

[00:13:26] Secrets of the intro

[00:14:50] JH’s podcast future

[00:17:01] Where is JH heading?

[00:20:25] Funny outtakes and memories

We’ve talked a lot about how researchers do research, now it’s time to hear from the participants. We invited our Participant Marketing Lead, Brittany Rutherford, and had some recent participants leave voicemails about their experience.

We asked participants, "why do you participate in user research?" to help us understand how participants think about user research and how we can make their experience better.

Learn more about why people like being part of User Interviews.

This week, we’re doing something a little bit different. We’re talking to the CTO of User Interviews, Bob Saris, and a bunch of random strangers about one of the biggest questions out there—is it ok to recline your seat on an airplane? We got our whole team involved to do some on-the-street research. Read all about it here: https://bit.ly/2w3iUfU 

YouX 2023 is a wrap! No big deal, just us and 3500 other UX-obsessed friends. The half-day virtual event featured breakout sessions and presentations conducted by some of the brightest minds in UX, who covered a number of topics from personal wellness and professional growth to work-life balance and community.  

We’d like to thank everyone who attended the event, especially our guest speakers, panelists, and moderators. It was a truly extraordinary YouXperience for everyone. Head over to our blog to get a full recap of the 2023 YouX conference and videos of the sessions—we clipped all the awkward silences parts out, so you don’t have to. You can also download a recording of the entire event at the YouX event page.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Interviewing with confidence
• Mentorships and coaching
• Wellness and UX
• Your unique UX career path
• Dealing with imposter syndrome

Highlights:  

• [00:02:59] Interviewing with Confidence (Danny Essner) – Awkward silence is your friend and dealing with self-doubt
• [00:07:38] Will You Be My Mentor? (Paul Derby) – Navigating the mentor-mentee relationship
• [00:12:36] Reframing the Imposter Syndrome (Panel) – You are not a computer! The panel address imposter syndrome and getting to the root of the problem
• [00:18:06] Wellness and UX: Going Beyond the User Experience (Dr. Christelle Ngnoumen) – Dealing with stress through mindfulness. The power of language on your perspective
• [00:24:32] Research for All: Building Healthy Teams Through Democratization (Kate Kalcevich) – for all, How can we democratize research? Democratizing generative and evaluative research

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• userinterviews.com/awkward
• YouX 2023 Recap: Learnings, Session Recordings, and Additional Resources
• YouX 2023 - The Event for You, Researchers

About our guests  

Danny Essner is VP of Marketing at Chameleon, a SaaS platform that allows startups to create personalized and engaging experiences for their users. 

Paul Derby is a SR. Manager of UX Research at ServiceNow. Paul is also the founder of Paul Derby Coaching, LLC, where he provides 1:1 coaching to UX researchers who want to establish their personal style of leadership.
Devin Harold is Director of UX Research at Capital One, where he leads a team focused on design and research for Capital One's Financial Services in New York.
Erika Spear has ten years of experience in qualitative and mixed-method research design and execution. She is currently a Research Manager at AnswerLab.
Varun M is a Senior UX Researcher at SeatGeek and the Co-Founder of Apple & Banana. 

Tiffany Eaton is a talented and creative self-employed graphic designer with expertise in logos, cover art, graphic design, children's illustration, and children's book illustration.

Nikki Anderson-Stanier is Founder & Managing Director of User Research Academy, a company that offers coaching, mentoring, and remote courses on UX Research. 

Fredrick Royster is an accomplished educator and UX/Web/Graphic Designer with over twenty years of experience in web design and front-end development.

Dr. Christelle Ngnoumen is Principal User Experience Designer at Headspace Health, where she leads internal and external research programs dedicated to the design of Headspace's evidence-based digital interventions.

Kate Kalcevich is Head of Accessibility and Innovation at Fable, a platform for people of all abilities, where she works on democratizing design and accessibility. 

For our guests' full bios, visit https://www.userinterviews.com/blog/best-highlights-from-youx-2023 

65% of homeowners have experienced anxiety related to their home. Adam Sigel wants to figure out how to get that number down. As the VP of Product at Hometap, a home equity startup, he talks to homeowners about their hopes and fears about their homes. We talked to Adam about his experience interviewing users and how he's become a more empathetic researcher.

Highlights

• [2:21] Adam talks about his research at Hometap
• [4:32] Resist the urge to pitch
• [9:15] Let discovery conversations be open ended
• [12:39] The difficulties of pattern recognition in complicated discovery interviews
• [17:40] Can someone productize dads?

About our Guest

Adam Sigel is VP of Product at Hometap. He once shared an elevator with Michael Keaton.

In this special episode, two UXR CEOs geek out about their work, the challenges of building tools for user researchers, and the future of UX research tools.

This week we’re mixing things up a bit. Basel Fakhoury, CEO and cofounder of User Interviews, and Benjamin Humphrey, CEO and cofounder of Dovetail, braved transpacific timezone scheduling to chat about starting a company in the UX research space, what their teams are working on now, and what they think the future holds for user research tools.

Their conversation is available as both a video recording and an audio episode, so go ahead and pick your poison!

Basel and Benjamin talked about…

• How User Interviews and Dovetail began
• The future of the UX research software space
• How they think about the value of UX research

Highlights

• [2:15] How User Interviews and Dovetail began.
• [9:22] User research tools take a whole lot of user research to build. 
• [13:32] What’s behind the rise of user research?
• [18:32] How do researchers measure the effectiveness of their work?
• [26:18] Where does user research fit into an organization?
• [32:07] What’s next for Basel and Benjamin?

About our guests

Basel Fakhoury is the CEO and co-founder of User Interviews. User Interviews’ goal is to help companies make smarter decisions by connecting them with consumers who are interested in sharing their feedback on your products and ideas. The User Interviews platform simplifies the entire process of recruiting, vetting, and scheduling qualified participants for product tests and market research interviews.

Benjamin Humphrey is the CEO and co-founder of Dovetail. Dovetail helps you store, analyze, and collaborate on user research in one place, making it easy to see patterns, discover insights, and decide what to do next. Thousands of researchers, designers, and product managers use Dovetail worldwide.

Is your company truly customer-centric? Are your systems actually helping you create better experiences for your customers?

Last week, Kim Salazar, Senior User Experience Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group, joined us for a live podcast episode to share valuable insights from her own work with teams trying to create truly customer-centric companies through CX transformation. She highlighted the importance of drawing from multiple sources of data and communicating the business benefits of CX work.

Highlights

• [4:51] To achieve CX transformation, we have to break down silos to connect people and technology.
• [10:29] User-centered companies typically have better business outcomes, which is why so many organizations are focused on this now.
• [17:05] When undertaking a CX transformation project, you can refine, rebuild, or remodel.
• [18:57] Make yourself a casserole of data with lots of different sources and ways to measure data. This means if your NPS score goes down, you have things like click data to tell you why.
• [25:36] Start with passive data collection, which can give you the clues you need to know where to dig a little deeper.
• [33:09] Showing user frustration to build buy-in is okay, but it’s showing the business impact of poor experience that really brings stakeholders on board.
• [45:40] Use metrics your company is already familiar with to build stakeholder buy-in.

About our guest

Kim Salazar is a Senior User Experience Specialist with Nielsen Norman Group. Kim combines her background as a developer and education in Computer Science and HCI with her user experience expertise, particularly around complex applications, to bring well-rounded insights to her work.

Context acts as the bridge between an abstract idea (’a comfortable user experience’) and a tangible design (‘cushioned, breathable running shoes’). Although gaining context through remote research can be tricky, our UXR friends with an anthropological background know the solution: Digital ethnography.

This week, we’re joined by Megan McLean, User Researcher at Spotify. Megan shared the who-what-and-how of digital ethnography, what she’s learned about mapping the digital landscape, and how she ensures her ethnography projects succeed.

Highlights

[03:55] The core tenets of ethnography

[06:50] Spend more time with your data throughout your study to get the most out of it.

[10:01] What is digital ethnography anyway?

[14:09] How Megan gets her participants to go deep on the subjects she wants to learn about

[16:05] Pros and cons of the pandemic’s effect on research

[19:28] How Megan recreates more real life context in her interviews

[23:20] How does the audio first platform of Spotify change the way you look at things?

[27:17] Who is digital ethnography a good fit for?

[30:28] How Megan makes things simpler for her participants

[36:36] The difference between writing analysis for usability studies and for ethnographies

[39:14] What Megan’s learned about people and technology through her work

About our guest

Megan McLean is a User Research Manager at Spotify. Before Spotify, Megan received a Masters in Anthropology, worked in academia, and on UX research teams at places like Ipsos. 

There is a growing need for research operations.

As more companies embrace the importance of user research and scale their UXR efforts, a dedicated ops function is quickly becoming a necessity.

Research ops—which involves things like participant recruitment, research processes, and programs to help non-researchers do better research—can be a career path for many different kinds of people. Roy has worked with ops pros who come from traditional business operations, marketing, UX, and of course, research. He says the key to succeeding in a research ops role isis to being comfortable with blazing a new trail and taking joy in creating processes that work.

Roy talked about…

• How to decide if research ops is a good career for you
• What he does on a day to day basis
• How research ops works at Zapier

📖 Read more: Research Ops: What It Is, Why It's So Important, and How to Get Started

Highlights

• [4:50] Roy was the first research ops hire at Zapier. He's happy to be brought on early in the process so research can scale with the company.
• [6:45] The first thing Roy did was research the way UXR is done at Zapier. He wanted to understand where the problems were and what he could do to fix them.
• [10:52] You'll enjoy research ops if you're comfortable being an explorer. Research ops is a really new space and you'll be in uncharted territory most of the time.
• [16:06] Does Roy use Zaps to get his work done?
• [27:02] Roy has been most surprised to learn who he is serving in his role. He thought he would mainly be working to create services for the UXR team, but has spent a majority of his time working on things for people who sometimes do research, like PMs and marketing folks.
• [34:10] A typical day for someone in research ops

About our guest

Roy Olende has been involved in user research and service design for nearly a decade. He is currently the Head of UX Research at Zapier, where he launched the company’s Research Operations practice to support user research across the entire company and accelerate product development. 

In this episode of Awkward Silences, hosts Erin May and John Henry Forster welcome Ryan Glasgow, CEO of Sprig, to discuss the importance of in-product research. They dive into Sprig’s generative and evaluative research tools, as well as recruiting current customers and reaching out to prospective users for market research. The conversation concludes with a discussion about best practices for in-product research.
 

In this episode, we discuss:

• What is in-product research? Why is it important?
• The power of real-time research post-launch
• Strategies and best practices for conducting in-product surveys
• Shortening the feedback loop with Sprig

Highlights:

• [00:01:46] The role of in-product research in the process of product development
• [00:04:39] How Sprig streamlines gathering feedback for in-product research experiments
• [00:08:26] Best practices: advice on how to maximize response rate and more
• [00:14:49] The benefits of hyper-targeted product research
• [00:17:55] Advanced use cases for Sprig - combining sentiment data with conversion data

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• http://userinterviews.com/awkward
• Sprig

About Our Guest

Ryan Glasgow is the Founder and CEO at Sprig (formerly UserLeap), a research platform that provides advanced usability testing and in-product survey capabilities to companies such as Dropbox, Loom, and Shift. He is the author of The Customer‑Obsessed Product Manager's Playbook and current host of the People Driven Products Podcasts. Ryan has a strong background in product management. Prior to founding Sprig, he was the Group Product Manager at Weebly, Product Manager at Vurb, and Product Designer at Extrabux.

Sylvana Rochet, Founder and Principal Coach at Elan Vital Coaching, visits the show to discuss what UX business coaching entails and how to maximize your professional growth opportunities with business coaching. Sylvana shares her past experiences coaching in the world of UX so you can learn what to expect from business coaching, how coaching works, and what the path of building a coaching career looks like.

In this episode, we discuss:

• What does coaching entail?
• The individual benefits of coaching
• Finding the right coach
• When is it a good idea to consult a coach?
• What qualities do effective coaches have?
• Advice for aspiring coaches

Highlights:

• [01:48.73] Sylvana defines coaching and shares her career journey
• [07:05.40] Sylvana explains why most people look for leadership coaches
• [10:59.60] The difference between mentorship and coaching
• [19:40.69] When not to call a coach and the duration of a coaching arrangement
• [21:52.00] Factors to consider when choosing a coach
• [27:14.36] What you can expect from working with a UX coach
• [39:51.76] Career tips for aspiring coaches 

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• http://userinterviews.com/awkward
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/sylvanarochetbelleri
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/elan-vital-coaching

About Our Guest

Sylvana Rochet is the Founder and Principal Coach at Elan Vital, a leadership coaching and personal development company that helps founders and executives tap into their full potential and achieve their goals. Before founding Elan Vital, she worked as a Partner and Executive Coach at Evolution, a leading coaching, consulting, and investment firm that specializes in working with high-growth companies.

Maintaining a huge insights repository can be overwhelming. It’s even more difficult to extract the right insights from research findings. Atomic research is an approach developed concurrently by Tomer Sharon and Daniel Pidcock to manage and break down research knowledge to their smallest modular form. 

This week on Awkward Silences, Daniel Pidcock, the co-creator of atomic UX research and founder of Glean.ly, joins Erin and JH to explain this new approach to research knowledge management. Additionally, Daniel shares success stories of companies that have used Glean.ly to integrate data from disparate sources and glean meaningful insights. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• What is atomic UX research?
• The pillars of atomic research
• How atomic research can improve your research strategy
• How does Glean.ly power atomic research?

Highlights:

• [01:38.75] What is atomic research? What is Glean.ly?
• [08:24.98] Daniel discusses why atomic research works, including how it helps organizations solve crime cases
• [11:14.58] How Glean.ly enabled Just Eat to grow and expand
• [14:06.67] One big benefit of atomic research powered by Glean.ly
• [23:59.45] Applications for atomic research and research strategy tips
• [38:27.70] The atomic research origin story

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• Glean.ly
• Cheat sheet

About Our Guest

Daniel Pidcock is the co-creator of atomic UX research and founder at Glean.ly, a UX research repository platform used by some of the world’s largest brands. He has spoken about atomic research at several events, including the UX Brighton Conference and Atomic UX Research for agencies. Before founding Glean.ly, Daniel worked as a UX consultant at Neighbourly, JUST EAT, and ie Marketing Communications. 

This week on the podcast, Erin and JH talk to Susan Rice of Toast.

As Toast developed their Toast Go, a handheld POS system for restaurants, Susan learned a lot about researching for both hardware and software at the same time. She also talked about her passion for service design, what she loves about working in design and research, and how she juggles design for B2B, B2C, and everything in between.

About our guest

Susan Rice is VP, User Experience at Workiva. She previously led Product Design and Research at Toast, where she built and scaled the UX function 500% in 1.5 years to create right-sized product teams focused on solving customer needs across mobile, web, hardware, and services platforms

To celebrate our launch on Product Hunt, we're taking some time to reflect on what Awkward Silences is all about. 

Guests featured in this episode, in order:

Jon Macdonald, Founder of the Good

Cat Noone, CEO of Stark

Roy Opata Olende, Research Operations Manager at Zapier

Maria Rosala, User Experience Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group

Joel Klettke, Founder of Case Study Buddy

Erika Hall, Co-Founder and Director of Strategy at Mule Design

Harrison Wheeler, Senior Manager, Product Design at LinkedIIn 

This week we’re joined by Zack Naylor, CEO and co-founder of UX research tool Aurelius. We spoke about what researchers need to know about their company, why tying research outcomes to business impact is so important, and how to navigate the waters when business goals and user research don’t align.

Zack talked about…

• Conducting stakeholder interviews to deeply understand your business.
• Choosing a company that aligns with your values and personal goals.
• Using business knowledge to get high level stakeholder buy-in.

Highlights

• [3:52] Get to know the business by taking the time to conduct stakeholder interviews.
• [7:31] Talk to people as high up the ladder as possible. 
• [10:01] What happens when what you learn in research doesn’t line up with business goals? 
• [20:14] Striving for business impact with your research projects. 
• [24:38] Examining your internal drivers can help you do more meaningful work.

About our guest

Zack Naylor is the CEO and Co-Founder of Aurelius. He’s helped organizations from startups to Fortune 500s build and establish user experience design practices to deliver valuable products and services.

How do you measure success in a still-evolving field? 

Joey Encarnacion has been working in research ops since 2017. He joined Erin and JH on the pod to talk about Slack’s Rolling Research program, what success looks like for his team, and how he builds systems that scale.

Joey discussed…

• Ensuring research ops can scale by building the smallest operable system first
• How he measures the success of his efforts in such a new field 
• Slack’s Rolling Research program

Highlights

• [2:14] Research operations as connective tissue within an organization.
• [8:45] To make your operations scalable, build the smallest operable system first.
• [16:34] Slack's Rolling Research Program.
• [21:54] How Joey knows if his research ops program is working.
• [24:48] Trends in participant recruitment during the pandemic.
• [28:08] Research ops as a signal that user research as a field is growing in importance. 
• [36:08] How to measure success in research ops.
• [36:42] Checking your biases in civic research.

About our guest

Joey Encarnacion is a Research Operations leader (Twitch, Slack, Airbnb). He has been working in research operations since 2017. He’s a black belt cat herder and loves bringing organization to chaos. 

How do you get everyone on board with research? Vicki Tollemache has found that building a branded research practice that's fun, engaging, and impactful is pretty effective. She started Grubhub's Parts Unknown research practice to involve everyone in researching emerging markets and exploring new ideas within their product. 

Erin and JH talked to Vicki about how she set up Parts Unknown, the effect its had on Grubhub, and her tips for establishing your own standing research day. 

How often do you think about content design? The answer, most likely, is: “not enough”.

The work of a Content Designer involves fitting the right words in the right places, understanding the nuances of things log in vs. sign in, and knowing the right words to use to engage customers. Content Design is an important part of the user experience—and the ROI is high. Like, “millions of $s saved through content-testing” high.

Erica Jorgensen is a Staff Content Designer at Chewy.com and the author of Strategic Content Design: Tools and Research Techniques for Better UX. She joined Erin and Carol on the podcast to discuss the ins and outs of content design, the importance of clarity for effective communication, and how to involve your audience in content design.

Highlights from the episode:

• 00:02:03: What is content design in the context of UX research?
• 00:06:48: Gaining clarity by thinking about the words you use frequently 
• 00:14:00: How Erica used simplified language to get customers to buy more insurance plans
• 00:26:42: Using cloze testing to ensure general content clarity
• 00:29:26: The importance of syllables and length 
• 00:39:46: Resources and guides for better content design
• 00:42:56: How Microsoft saved $2 million through content testing

  Sources and people mentioned

• BrainTraffic
• Chewy.com
• Cloze testing — “Cloze Test for Reading Comprehension,” NN/g.
• Curtis Kopf, Chief Experience Officer at REI
• Dylan Romero, Affiliate Instructor at University of Washington, UX at Microsoft
• Flesch–Kincaid – Wikipedia 
• Hemingway Editor
• Jorgensen, Erica. Strategic Content Design: Tools and Research Techniques for Better UX. (2023) — GET 15% OFF AT ROSENFELD MEDIA WITH CODE AS15
• MeasuringU (Jeff Sauro)
• Merriam-Webster Dictionary
• Metts, Michael and Andy Wefle. Writing Is Designing: Words and the User Experience. (2020)
• Scott Kubie
• System Usability Scale
• Tracy Vandygam, Senior Content Designer at Mozilla
• Visual Thesaurus
• Winters, Sarah. Content Design. (2017)

About our guest

Erica Jorgensen is a staff content designer at Chewy.com and the author of Strategic Content Design: Tools and Research Techniques for Better UX, published in April 2023 by Rosenfeld Media. 

She's a content designer, content strategist, and team leader determined to bring greater respect to the content field. To that end, Erica speaks frequently at conferences including UXDX USA, UX Lisbon, Microsoft Design Week, the Web Directions Summit, and Button: The Content Design Conference, and on podcasts like The Content Strategy Podcast with Kristina Halvorson and Content Insights podcast with Larry Swanson. In addition to working in content roles for companies of all sizes, she has taught at the University of Washington and Seattle’s School of Visual Concepts. 

Erica earned her B.A. from the University of Connecticut and M.A. from the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism. In her free time, you can find her exploring Washington State’s wineries or hiking with her husband and rescue dog, Rufus.

In the world of product design, wordsmiths go by many names—UX writers, content strategists, product writers, and so on. But whatever you call them, these folks play an important role in developing seamless user experiences.

Yuval Keshtcher is the Founder of the UX Writing Hub, an online education platform helping hundreds of people perfect their UX writing. He joins us to explain the difference between UX writing and content design, how the discipline is growing, and his favorite writing resources.

In this episode:

• Creative ways to do research for UX writing
• How the UX writing process works in theory and practice
• What makes a great UX write

Highlights

[2:00] Are UX Writing and Content Design the same?

[6:27] Where do UX writers sit in an organization?

[8:40] To be a great UX writer, you need to master research.

[11:05] How to use conversation mining to communicate better with users.

[17:23] How many emojis can we really use in UX copy?

[25:04] How easy is it to change product copy later?

[28:37] If you don't have a UX writer, start with a content design system.

Sources mentioned in the episode

​​Top 16 Content Style Guides 2022 (and How to Use Them)

Words Matter: Testing Copy With Shakespeare

About our guest

Yuval Keshtcher is the founder of the UX Writing Hub. UX Writing Hub is an online education platform for all things UX writing. The UX Writing Hub has helped hundreds of professionals transition into UX writing and content design. He also hosts the Writers in Tech podcast.

People are 22% more likely to remember something when it’s presented as a story, rather than a cut and dry fact. So if you’re struggling to get stakeholders to care about and utilize your research, storytelling can be the key to getting research to stick. 

This week on the podcast, Erin and JH chatted with Harrison Wheeler, UX Design Manager at LinkedIn and host of Technically Speaking, about the power of storytelling. Harrison talked about how getting everyone on board with storytelling can make the facts of research stick around for longer, learning if your research presentations are engaging, and reminding everyone that it’s all about the users. 

Highlights

• [4:13] Ideally, research is the base for everything. Your whole team starts with research and learns to use it to tell compelling stories about the product.
• [8:17] Understanding your audience, their expertise, and how they like to consume data is incredibly important to telling a story that sticks.
• [13:47] Telling your user story by using quotes is really impactful at the beginning of a project.
• [19:07] Practicing telling fact-based stories about research helps you reflect on how well you know the information.
• [23:23] Knowing what kinds of media resonates well with your key stakeholders can help you tell a better story on their terms. 

About our Guest

Harrison Wheeler is the Director of Product Design at LinkedIn and the host of the podcast Technically Speaking. He’s passionate about UX, design, and empowering everyone to tell great stories. 

In this special edition episode, we're talking about what we think about the podcast so far and where we hope to go. We want your feedback to help us decide what to do next! Let us know what you think here: https://bit.ly/2uoijV9 

Thomas Aquinas once said, “Tacos cannot exist without tide pods”. 

In this bittersweet edition of Tacos and Tidepods—Erin and JH say their goodbyes to Roberta and reflect back at her time at User Interviews. Roberta talks about her decision to pursue a career in coaching and leadership development training at Design Dept. From career challenges and memories to lessons she’s learned, Roberta shares her journey with User Interviews as Erin and JH do their best to make her cry.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Roberta's career path
• Roberta's legacy at User Interviews
• Career development (finding your niche)
• Coaching for design leaders

Highlights:

• [00:02:54] Roberta shares the most important lessons she's learned from working at User Interviews
• [00:06:11] They discuss Roberta's contributions
• [00:14:52] How to grow as a leader through self-care and teamwork
• [00:16:22] Roberta's tacos: what she's looking forward to the most as
• [00:18:21] Career tips on networking and finding your niche

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• userinterviews.com/awkward
• Design Dept. Leadership Coaching
• Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

About our guest

Roberta Dombrowski is a Research Partner at Maze (formerly VP of User Research at User Interviews). She is also an ICF certified Coach & Mindfulness Teacher, Level II Reiki Practitioner, and Predictive Index (PI) Certified Talent Optimization Leader. Roberta has been instrumental in creating and shaping cultures of learning at User Interviews, edX, Predictive Index, and Year Up. 

‘Ethical design’ is a term that encompasses a process of designing useful, empowering, and accessible products that do not harm, manipulate, or deceive people. It is, in essence, about treating people you design for with respect and consideration.

That’s a deceptively simple goal, and many companies miss the mark. Kat Zhou joins us today to talk about the challenges, opportunities, and urgent need for ethical design and research.

In this episode:

• Why is ethical design so critical for both users and companies?
• How to integrate ethics and respect in your UX research
• How ethical design empowers inclusive and equitable representation

Highlights:

• [0:51] What is ethical design in UX?
• [2:35] Where can you learn about ethical design for UX?
• [4:38] Ethical design resources for researchers
• [5:29] What does it mean to treat people with respect?
• [8:33] Could we balance business goals with respect?
• [12:40] Pragmatism versus idealism
• [15:52] What does deceptive design imply?
• [17:40] Ethical design practices for UX researchers
• [24:28] Boosting inclusive representation
• [29:44] Changing the world for the better
• [34:11] UX regulations
• [43:00] Kat’s key takeaways on ethical design and research

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• < Design Ethically >
• Race After Technology by Ruha Benjamin
• Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble
• This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate by Naomi Klein
• The UX Designer's Guide to User Research

About our guest

Kat Zhou is a product developer and designer who focuses on integrating ethics into the design of AI systems. Currently, she is the Senior Product Designer at Epidemic Sound. Before that, Kat was the Creator of the < Design Ethically > project, a Member Of The Board Of Advisors at The YX Foundation, and a Product Designer at Spotify and IBM. Kat is also a strong advocate for more inclusive and privacy-friendly approaches to AI.

In this episode, Erin and Carol tackle one form of research impact growing in importance and necessity: revenue. Their guest is Claudia Natasia, co-founder and CEO of Riley AI. Before starting Riley, Claudia grew product teams at early-stage companies and worked in the financial industry. These experiences showed her the importance of linking user research outputs to the bottom line of a business.

During their conversation, Claudia breaks down what revenue typically looks like for a company and where you can find the specific revenue goals for your company. Then she digs into the important processes of weaving those revenue goals into a research strategy from the start, offering examples from her time on product teams.

The discussion also explores the importance of triangulation, or combining multiple data types to form a more complete whole. Claudia explains that user researchers should balance conducting primary research with existing information to help clarify how UX is linked with wider business goals. She offers suggestions for teams big and small looking to make impact with the highest level decision makers and company executives.

Episode Highlights
06:07 - Strategic frameworks for company growth and revenue
12:05 - Leveraging competitive analysis for market success
22:06 - Creating meaningful insights for your business
30:05 - Tracking research impact: Setting expectations and routine updates
37:13 - Elevating projects: Moving from junior to senior stakeholders
44:39 - Triangulating data: Connecting research to company success

About Our Guest
Claudia is a leader with 10+ years experience leading product, strategy, and data teams across the enterprise and financial technology space. Her work has directly influenced companywide strategies, leading to a $5B total valuation, a successful international acquisition, and multi-million dollar growth fundraising rounds.  She advises and angel invests in early stage startups, in North America and Southeast Asia. Her areas of focus are enterprise, finance, and consumer AI-generated content.

Resources on Research Impact and Revenue

• A guide to showing the value of user research
• Claudia's textbook of choice for learning about revenue
• The three aspects of high-impact UX research
• The Business of Research Slack Community

Our third annual State of User Research survey gathered insights from 525 people who do research around the world. Katryna Balboni, our Content Director, joined the hosts of Awkward Silences to talk about how the 2021 report came together. They discussed the challenges of survey design, the changing landscape of user research, improving stakeholder buy-in for user research, and (nerd alert!) large-scale medieval surveys.

In this episode, Katryna talks about…

• How we (re)designed our survey and distributed it to user researchers
• The relationship between stakeholder buy-in and UX researcher job fulfillment
• Getting philosophical about survey distribution and representative audiences
• The “Great Survey” and Domesday Book of 1086 ⚔️

Read the full report: The State of User Research 2021

Highlights

• [8:20] Thinking about ways to improve survey distribution for a more diverse audience—and the implications that has on how representative that makes the results.
• [11:40]  On average, researchers rated their fulfillment at work as 6.4/10. How does stakeholder buy-in and engagement with UX research affect that score? 
• [18:51] A staggering 90% of user researchers said they worked exclusively remotely since the pandemic began. How has that affected research? 
• [27:00] How to get stakeholders engaged with research by involving them early and often.
• [28:34] 34% of people who do research start planning their research sessions 2-4 weeks in advance. We ask: Will we see that timeline shrink in the future?
• [32:20] Survey nerds need to know about the Domesday Survey of 1086, and Katryna’s here to tell you about it.

Resources mentioned in the episode

• The State of User Research 2021 Report
• 6 Strategies for Doing Faster User Research—Without Sacrificing Validity
• How to Organize, Automate, and Tidy Up your User Research
• Research Ops: What It Is, Why It's So Important, and How to Get Started
• Ep #15: Kate Towsey on Starting a Research Ops Practice
• History Extra podcast: Domesday Book: Medieval big data*

About our guest

Katryna Balboni is a marketer by day, thankless servant to cats Elaine Benes and Mr. Maxwell Sheffield by night. Loves to travel, has a terrible sense of direction. Bakes a mean chocolate tart, makes a mediocre cup of coffee. She is leads Creative Content & Special Projects at User Interviews.

*Psst—Katryna here… Bonus extra fun fact that I forgot to mention: In the 11th century, many rents were paid in kind (i.e. not with money). One of the most common forms of payment was eels. Yes, as in the slippery fish. Domesday data shows that people in England paid their landlords over 500,000 eels each year. 🐟🐍

This week on the pod, we chatted with Elyse Bogacz, who has worked on product on Drift, Runkeeper, and now NDVR. She walked us through how she uses session replay tools like FullStory to supercharge her user research. She talked about how she shares replays with developers and stakeholders, how she deals with privacy issues, and how other teams can use session replay tools to add to their user research programs.

Highlights

• [1:11] Tools like FullStory hand Hotjar have helped Elyse learn important things about users at early stage startups
• [4:43] You only get a limited number of time to speak with each user, use it wisely
• [6:20] How Elyse uses session reply to decide who to reach out to for user research
• [9:35] Actually seeing users struggle in session replay helps stakeholders build empathy
• [16:40] There's no replacement for a one on one chat with a user, but replays can be a good icebreaker
• [19:46] How privacy and GDPR plays into all this
• [25:21] Session replay is not screen recording
• [28:59] How Elyse keeps track of all the insights that surfaces
• [31:33] How to cope with backlog

A solid UX research strategy serves as the compass that guides research ops and helps ensure repeatable success. But how do you envision, create, and execute a strategy that helps you achieve your goals in the most effective way possible? 

In this episode of Awkward Silences, Devin Harold, Director of Research at Capital One, unpacks how to craft and refine a winning UXR strategy, including tips to help you make team playbooks, win stakeholder buy-in, and inform your strategy with maturity models.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The significance of a robust UX research strategy
• The definition of a good and bad strategy 
• Essential components of an effective research plan
• Aligning research with stakeholder needs and expectations
• Metrics and KPIs to evaluate progress and success

Highlights

• [00:01:17] Strategy vs delivery, prioritizing projects and allocating resources  
• [00:10:13] The role of flexibility and adaptability
• [00:15:38] Gaining stakeholder buy-in and tying research to organizational objectives
• [00:21:05] Establishing KPIs and metrics to measure progress and success
• [00:33:46] Periodic reviews and updates to maintain relevance and effectiveness

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• userinterviews.com/awkward
• Good Strategy/Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt
• UXR Maturity Models: Move to a more advanced level in your org by Nikki Anderson of Dovetail
• UX Strategy Components by Nielsen Norman Group
• The Organizational Appetite for Research by Behzod Sirjani

About our guest:

Devin Harold is the Director of UX Research at Capital One, where he leads a team dedicated to improving end-to-end experiences and touchpoints for one of the company’s primary business units. With over eleven years of experience in UX design and research, he has a deep understanding of research methodologies, leadership, strategy, frameworks, and interaction design. Devin’s expertise and leadership have been recognized with multiple awards, including the IDEA Award, Verizon Beyond Award, and Verizon Credo Award. 

When Andrew joined Adobe back in November, he faced an interesting design challenge. How do you manage a vast library of help content, spanning tons of different products in different industries, so that users can easily find what they need to know to fix their problems? Andrew has learned a lot about leveraging the power of community to problem solve, experimenting with different formats to make technical explanations more accessible, and proving the value of great help content. 

Erin and JH chatted with him about how he positions help content to stakeholders, tackles creating content for products that have evolved from box software to the cloud, and uses research to focus on the right things at the right time. 

Highlights

• [1:43] Great product doesn't need as much help content, but people will always need help, and the more powerful your product is, the more help they will need.
• [8:53] By connecting customers with the right information through communities, they're 3x less likely to reach out to support for help.
• [10:59] Early engagement = better retention, so Adobe segments out its customers to focus on what gets them started.
• [13:35] Adobe has segments and chapters to keep everyone on the same page and communicating well.
• [25:20] People who get value from help content actually end up having a higher lifetime value. It's all about trust and mutual respect.
• [27:41] How Adobe creates help content for different languages and cultures.
• [32:09] How Andrew is thinking about simplifying solutions, and making help content work smarter, not harder
• [37:58] Help content and product can work together to create even better solutions for users.
• [39:32] Quantitative information can tell you what some of the issues are, while qualitative can help your team dig deeper into why they're there
• [43:03] Building out recommendations for other things you may be looking for helps your help content build a story for the user. 

Pluralsight is built on continuous discovery and continuous delivery, which means they are constantly building and shipping code, while constantly digging in to how customers feel about their product. We talked to James Aylward about the framework that keeps his team moving while creating products that are all about the customer.

Episode Highlights

[1:45] James talks about how Pluralsight thinks about continuously delivering and discovering

[4:10] Culture and values at Pluralsight

[5:57] The directed discovery process

[13:05] Who you should have on your team to bring the most value to your products

[17:15] How a culture of learning promotes research

[19:10] Different teams will work together in different ways

About our Guest

James Aylward is GM and Chief Product Officer at PerkSpot (at the time of our interview, James was SVP and Head of Data Product at Pluralsight). He’s passionate about identifying customer needs and rapidly designing and developing products that offer solutions. He has 10 years of experience managing products and nearly 20 years of experience in the field.

With so many research tools on the market, it can be hard to nail down exactly which ones are right for your team. This week on the pod, Erin and JH chatted with Daniel Loewus-Deitch and Leo Smith, who are the Directors of User Experience and Research, respectively, at a large insurance company. They wanted to learn more about how Daniel and Leo choose the tools with the best ROI for their team.

Daniel and Leo have spent a lot of time building out their tool stack. Since they have a lot of experience working for large organizations with many people conducting research and even more consuming it, it was important to them to get it right. In this episode, they talked about how they evaluate the ROI of tools, the summit they assembled to identify the tools their team could and would use, and how important it is to leave your assumptions at the door when tool-hunting.

Highlights

• [10:15] Leo used to spend 20-30 hours just on recruiting.
• [12:53] Sometimes the simplest tool is the most effective.
• [14:23] It's important to consider how accessible the tools you're using are to everyone on your team. Even if you choose the best tools, your team won't use them if it's not easy to do so.
• [16:23] How the team defined their user-centered design process, mapped tools to the right parts of it, and moved forward from there.
• [20:43] Why Leo and Daniel's team prefer a customized toolset over an all-in-one solution.
• [24:07] Applying the thinking behind design systems to a larger ecosystem is helping the team build a better toolkit.
• [33:56] The shiny new tools everyone is eager to try.
• [38:58] Usability test the tools your team will be using.
• [42:09] Going for an all in one tool is like going to the Cheesecake Factory, lots of choices, all pretty mediocre. Choosing a few specialized tools is like going to a farmer's market, less choice from each vendor, but better results.

Tools mentioned in the episode

• Loom is great for recording your screen and sharing it with your team. It can also be used for usability testing. 
• Dovetail is a research repository tool that makes it easy to organize and analyze your insights.  
• Lookback is a great tool for conducting usability tests and taking notes live. 
• Descript is a video, audio, and text editor. We’ve recently switched to it for editing the podcast, and I am absolutely in love. It does really good automatic transcription and makes pulling clips incredibly easy. 
• Rev is a transcription tool that provides really accurate, done-by-a-human transcription. 
• Zapier is a workflow automation tool that helps us make connections between apps that don’t naturally talk to each other. 
• Userbit is a research repository tool that makes it easy to code your analysis into deliverables. ‍
• Dedoose is a research repository tool that makes the academic process of analyzing research more collaborative. 

About our guests

Daniel Loewus-Deitch is the Assistant VP, User Experience at Unum. He has over 20 years of experience in UX, and has worked at companies like IBM and Microsoft. Daniel is interested in holistic wellness and technological harmony. 💻🎵.

Leo Smith is the Director of UX Research at SS&C Technologies. He has over 20 years of experience in UXR, and has worked for companies of all shapes and sizes in roles ranging from research to design. Leo is also a certified Hatha Yoga Instructor 🧘.

The year is wrapping up and it’s finally time to say bye forever to 2020 👋. The hosts of Awkward Silences, Erin May and JH Forster, took this opportunity to reflect on some of the things that happened in research this year, what changes they think are here to stay, and what they see on the horizon in 2021.

They also revisited some of the best conversations we’ve had on the podcast so far, like chatting with Vivianne Castillo about self-care, Cat Noone about accessibility, and Randy Duke about diversity and inclusion in UXR.

Erin and JH talked about…

• How work and research changed this year.
• What changes they think are going to stick.
• What they expect for 2021.

Highlights

• [2:48] Erin and JH talk about the world going remote and vulnerability at work.
• [16:08] Dark design patterns and how UXers are working on fixing them.
• [19:31] UX Collective's 2020 lessons and what we learned.
• [22:49] Accessibility is a growing focus for researchers and designers.
• [26:46] How are we going to adjust to life after COVID?

AI is a big part of Notion's strategy for the future of knowledge work, and they're exploring ways to use AI to make people's lives easier.

Linus Lee, a Research Engineer at Notion, spends his time researching and learning about AI—how users interact with it, the challenges of building trustworthy AI systems, and its - potential to help people work more effectively.

In this episode of Awkward Silences, he sits down with Erin and Carol to discuss Notion’s approach to designing interfaces for Generative AI tools. 

Tune into this episode to learn more about the challenges of instructing AI, the importance of user feedback to the AI design process, security considerations, use cases, and more. 

Highlights: 

[00:05:03] Tools Linus is excited to see come to market

[00:06:50] Generative AI and its function at Notion

[00:10:22] Recognizing AI is useful versus finding the use cases for it

[00:13:58] Lessons from the Notion design process

[00:22:09] Breadth versus depth in workflows

[00:26:10] Learning about models in the wild

[00:28:52] Security considerations with AI products

[00:32:13] Understanding the difference between AI generated and human written text

[00:36:34] Should we be scared of AI?

About Our Guest

Linus Lee is a Research Engineer at Notion, prototyping new software interfaces for augmenting our collaborative work and creativity with AI. He has spent the last few years experimenting with AI-augmented tools for thinking, like a canvas for exploring the latent space of neural networks and writing tools where ideas connect themselves. Before Notion, Linus spent a year as an independent researcher in New York City. 

This week on the pod, Erin and JH talk to Maggie Crowley, Director of Product Management at Drift, about research as a product manager at a rapidly growing startup. They talk about how to do great research in a conversational way, how Drift's research practice is growing, and how Maggie thinks about research as a PM. 

Highlights

[4:50] How do you establish the outcomes you’re looking for? 

[8:08] Since you use your own product, do you still need to test with outside users?

[9:40] Using shared Slack channels with your biggest customers

[12:10] How do you balance getting feedback with moving fast?

[18:31] The risks of pushing through your pet features without talking to users.

[22:07] Learning how to speak your customers language

[26:28] How do you balance qual and quant data?

About Our Guest

Maggie Crowley is VP of Product at Toast (formerly Director of Product Management at Drift). She has her own podcast, Build, about all things product. She competed in the 2006 Winter Olympics as a speed skater and can confirm wearing spandex in front of the whole world is just as uncomfortable as it sounds.

Being a research team of one isn’t easy. When you’re the only researcher at a company, you have to do every type of research, recruiting, planning, and analysis by yourself—all without the resources of a large team. 

But for Imani “Izzy” Nichols, being a UX research team of one is an exciting challenge. She’s been a team of one twice now and has learned a lot from her experience. In this episode of Awkward Silences, Izzy talked about how being a team of one allowed her to focus on championing research, leveling up her career in meaningful ways, and growing her skills.

Izzy talked about…

• How she finds mentors and a sense of community.
• How to educate your teammates about the differences between market and UX research.
• How to conquer the inevitable imposter syndrome that comes with being the first and only researcher.

Highlights

• [4:16] Doing UX research as an introvert.
• [9:20] Level up by finding good UXR mentors outside your organization.
• [13:55] The biggest challenge of being the first and only researcher is educating the company about what UX research is—and why it matters.
• [17:53] There are a lot of benefits to working in a team, like each member having expertise in a specific area.
• [23:21] Conquering imposter syndrome.

Resources mentioned in the episode

• Hexagon UX
• Design for Good 
• Nikki Anderson
• Kevin Liang 

About our guest

Imani “Izzy” Nichols is the Founder & Principal Researcher at Yzzi Research. There, she uses her research skills to help businesses understand her customers. She also coaches aspiring UX researchers to help them break into UXR and has her own podcast. She has also worked at WeWork and Octane. 

There are many ways to become a UX Researcher. To learn more about the winding career paths many researchers take, Erin and JH talked to Jud Vaughan, Khalida Nicole Sebree, and Christianne Elliott, who are all UX Researchers at Mailchimp. 

Though they all hold the same job at the same company, they took very different paths to get there. Jud started at a Support Technician at Mailchimp and worked his way over to the Research department. Khalida wanted to go into medicine and studied Psychology in college. Then she got into the startup scene and began doing freelance design and research and eventually found herself at Mailchimp. Christianne also studied Psychology and wanted to go into medicine, but fell in love with academic research and moved into that after school. She wanted a new challenge and found her way to UX Research at Mailchimp. 

– Kevin Kelly, Founding Editor of Wired magazine

Whether you are designing a research project, prototyping a product, or carving out your career path, unlearning plays an important role in learning new things. But how do we embrace them in a practical way that leads to viable success?

For Kevin Kelly, Publisher and Founding Editor of Wired, leaning on failure is a crucial aspect of the creative writing process—and the motions of life in general. From giving advice on embracing mistakes to finding true joy and fulfillment, Kevin Kelly shares a raw perspective on applying important life lessons to both work and life.

In this episode we discuss:

• Understanding “known failures” and “unknown failures”
• Forgetting and unlearning your bias. 
• Prototyping and experimentation in research and in life
• Career advice, tips, and hacks

Highlights:

[00:01:51] Navigating failure: tractable vs. intractable failures

[00:05:37] Understanding other people's beliefs and questioning our own

[00:12:25] The value of prototyping and experimentation in life and your career

[00:16:47] Redefining success and exploring unique opportunities

[00:22:15] Learning what to ignore and discarding unnecessary information

[00:33:44] Kevin's current project on a 100-year desirable future!

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• userinterviews.com/awkward
• https://kk.org/books/the-inevitable

About Our Guest

Kevin Kelly is an accomplished author, speaker, and “evergreen optimist,” known for his work on technology, innovation, and the future. As the founding executive editor of Wired, Kevin has been instrumental in shaping discussions around technology and its implications on society. He has authored several influential books, including "The Inevitable," which delves into the technological forces that will impact our future. Currently, Kevin is working on a project envisioning a desirable 100-year future.

Are your research discoveries really discoveries? Or are you collecting validation for your own assumptions?

That’s just one of the big questions Maria Rosala, Director of Research at Nielsen Norman Group, tackled in our second-ever live “podinar.” Maria shared her expertise on conducting thoughtful discovery research and user interviews.

Listen to (or watch!) the episode to learn:

• Why the discovery process is a non-negotiable part doing quality user research 
• Maria’s favorite discovery methods
• How to get stakeholder buy-in
• Tips for conducting better, more insightful interviews
• & more...

Highlights

• [00:01:33] What exactly is discovery research?
• [00:04:41] Are your discoveries really discoveries? Maria explains what many research teams get wrong about the discovery process.
• [00:12:16] The importance of evangelizing the discovery process to get the buy-in you need.
• [00:16:40] Does discovery research have to be a big, lofty undertaking? Maria shares how teams can adapt the process to the needs and constraints of their project.
• [00:24:25] How do you know when you’ve gathered enough insights? How many people do you need to talk to?
• [00:30:02] How to use an interview guide (not a script) for better user interviews.
• [00:32:04] Recommended tools and processes for analysing discovery research results.
• [00:34:36] Discovery research for B2B software.
• [00:40:04] Measuring the ROI of discovery research.

Surveys are everywhere. They bombard us at every turn, and most of them aren't even helping teams learn what they need to know. We chatted with Erika Hall, co-founder of Mule Design and author of Just Enough Research about why most surveys suck and what we can do about it. Check out our blog post about this episode here 👉 https://bit.ly/2O5oDOg

About our guest

Erika Hall is the co-founder of Mule Design and the author of Just Enough Research. She loves design, getting to the bottom of things, and well-designed research.

In this episode of Awkward Silences, Carol and Erin dive into the world of conference networking and planning with Bryan Dosono, a staff UX research lead at eBay known for his extensive experience curating and organizing conference programs.

Bryan share insights on how to prepare for conferences such as using apps to schedule meetings and emphasizing networking over solely focusing on content. He also discusses strategic scheduling to align conference participation with career goals and offers advice on making spontaneous, serendipitous connections.

The conversation also covers practical tips for adding value during small talk, how to approach and connect with other researchers, and the importance of being open, vulnerable, and willing to face rejection in the pursuit of meaningful interactions. Bryan provides guidance for both newcomers to the UXR field and seasoned professionals: overcoming imposter syndrome and leveraging transferable skills from related fields.

Episode Highlights

• 03:58 - Navigating the Unpredictable: Strategies for Introverts at Networking Events.
• 08:24 - Strategic Networking: Maximizing Opportunities Before and During Conferences.
• 12:33 - Networking strategies for academic and professional growth.
• 22:36 - Balancing Attendance: Prioritizing Conferences with Active Roles.
• 28:03 - Maximizing Remote Networking: Strategies for Engagement in Virtual Conferences.
• 33:07 - Conference Insights: Making the Most of Your Experience through Pre-Planning.

About Our Guest
Bryan Dosono, PhD, is a user experience research leader in the consumer technology space. He applies human-computer interaction research methods with visual storytelling to modernize the design of global marketplaces and online communities. He currently volunteers as a Conference Chair at UXPA International and serves on the User Interviews Research Council.

Looking for a UX community? Here are 16 to join for networking and development.

Building great products is hard. Building great, secure, products is even harder. This week on Awkward Silences, we talked to Ted Harrington about the intersection between security and UX. He outlined what exactly ethical hackers do, how he challenges stakeholder assumptions about security work, and what teams can do to ensure their systems are secure.

Ted talked about…

• What UX and security work have in common
• How teams can ensure their work is more secure
• Some of the common issues and myths he encounters

Highlights

• [2:53] In both UX and hacking, bad systems are built on bad assumptions.
• [8:04] How stakeholder research helps security teams understand what data they need to protect.
• [14:10] How security teams deal with psychological acceptability in their work.
• [22:58] Making security matter to the user is a huge part of ensuring more secure practices.

About our guest

Ted Harrington is the author of HACKABLE: How to Do Application Security Right and the Executive Partner at Independent Security Evaluators (ISE), the company of ethical hackers famous for hacking cars, medical devices, and password managers. He’s helped hundreds of companies fix tens of thousands of security vulnerabilities, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, and more.

Most people have no idea what UX researchers do. Even less known is what Research Ops Specialists do, which is why one of the Research Ops community’s main priorities is to shine a light on the people, mechanisms, and strategies that set research in motion.

In this episode of Awkward Silences, Hosts Erin May and John-Henry Forster chat with research design leader Benson Low about why it’s time to bring attention to Research Ops. They discuss the emerging role of Research Ops specialists, and Benson provides several strategies that can help communicate the value of Research Ops to stakeholders.
 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Ways to communicate the value of your work in Research Ops
• Tactics and strategies to gain support in your organization
• How to leverage the power of the ReOps community
• Tips for Research Ops advocates on dealing with roadblocks

 Highlights:

• [00:02:32] What is Research Ops? What is the Research Ops community?
• [00:07:50] How to start advocating for Research Ops
• [00:14:49] Use ReOps community resources to create awareness
• [00:17:30] Stress the importance of research in the product development lifecycle
• [00:19:55] Communicating the impact and value your work to stakeholders
• [00:32:36 ] Advice on overcoming barriers during advocacy work

About our guest
Benson is leading and scaling the UX Research practice as the Head of Design Capability at REA Group. For over 20 years, he's led design and UX teams throughout Australia, across the emerging web, games development, start-ups, design consultancies, and enterprise product design teams. He is also a board member of the ResearchOps community, organizing workshops and meetups, and has been part of other global projects.

We’re changing things up a bit! Introducing a brand new series: Tacos and Tide Pods! Every month or so, Erin and JH will chat with User Interviews’s VP of Research, Roberta Dombrowski. They’ll talk about what’s going on behind the scenes at User Interviews, reflect on recent lessons learned, share their thoughts on the UXR space right now, and discuss what they're hoping to see more of in the future.

This week on the podcast, Erin and JH talk to Shipra Kayan. After 10 years of working in UX design and research at Upwork, she's launched her own consultancy. On the pod, she talked about getting your research started on the right foot, no matter what kind of research you're doing or how big your team is.

Highlights

• [5:47] How do you decide between what to do long-term and short-term?
• [7:49] Do research your team is ready to listen to
• [17:16] Always plan on learning from your research
• [20:05] Democratize your research planning process
• [24:21] Always document your research
• [27:48] There’s a lot of value in actually getting people together in a meeting 

About our guest

Shipra Kayan worked on UX design and research at Upwork for over 10 years. She is now an Evangelist at Miro and runs her own consultancy, helping teams create amazing research-driven UX.

Doing user research in an agency setting comes with its own set of challenges—from context switching to stubborn clients to less-than-optimal tool stacks.

Karen VanHouten, Director of Product Strategy at Philosophie by InfoBeans, spent most of her career in enterprise B2B before transitioning to agency life. In this podcast episode, Karen shared some great advice on setting expectations, fostering ongoing client relationships, and why she thinks more researchers should be involved in the sales cycle.

Episode highlights

• [00:01:29] Transitioning from enterprise B2B to agency life
• [00:03:05] The value of getting involved in the sales cycle as a researcher
• [00:06:04] Which clients does Karen not want to work with?
• [00:13:00] Setting clear client expectations
• [00:20:10] Why her team only uses essential tools
• [00:24:35] Building trust by saying “no”  
• [00:27:59] Finding your champion
• [00:33:14] Recruiting for client projects
• [00:37:54] Should you make the move to an agency?

Resources mentioned in this episode

• Kim Goodwin on stakeholder research
• Essential tools: Google Sheets, MURAL, Miro
• Just Enough Research, Erika Hall

About our guest

Karen VanHouten has over 20 years of experience as a UX professional and strategist, with a focus on B2B & SaaS. She uses human-centered design principles to build useful & accessible digital products and healthy and impactful product teams. Karen is currently the UX Practice Lead at TMG.

What company isn’t “customer obsessed”? Well, a lot, as it turns out. 

That’s not for lack of caring—but building a customer-centric culture is easier said than done. And how you do this depends on whether you’re starting from square one or trying to change a company’s culture from the inside.

According to Prayag Narula, CEO and Co-Founder of Marvin, changing a culture towards customer centricity requires starting from the bottom-up. Building something new? Leaders should be obsessing over customer feedback, actively placing research and customer insights front and center from the very beginning. 

In this episode of Awkward Silences, Prayag sits down with Erin and Carol to discuss his strategies for building a customer-centric product culture at Marvin. Tune in to learn more about what it means to obsess over customers, doing research versus using research, how customer centricity is put into practice at Marvin, and more. 👇

Highlights: 

[00:00:31] The origins of Marvin

[00:04:40] Building a culture around customer centricity

[00:08:35] Why leaders should obsess over a customer centric culture

[00:13:59] How the rest of the team can keep customers front and center

[00:18:04] Balancing doing research and using research

[00:21:46] “Capital R” versus “lower case r” researchers 

[00:28:21] Getting researchers more involved in strategic conversations

[00:30:35] Practicing customer centricity at Marvin

[00:39:36] The Marvin repository

[00:46:53] Prayag’s parting words of wisdom: talk to your market

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• userinterviews.com/awkward
• heymarvin.com

About Our Guest

Prayag Narula is an entrepreneur and trained researcher with a passion for building technology he always wished for when conducting user research. He is currently the Co-Founder and CEO of Marvin, a qualitative data analysis platform and research repository for user-centric teams across the globe. He is further the Co-Founder and a Board Member for LeadGenius, a demand generation automation company automating and accelerating outbound sales and marketing for mid-marketing and enterprise companies across the world. 

This is the second episode in our three part series on cross-cultural research. In this episode, Erin and JH chat with Leia Atkinson, Staff Researcher at Shopify. 

Leia chatted with Erin and JH about how her degree in Anthropology helps her learn more about international audiences through research. She shared her technique for recruiting participants through "snowballing", how she deals with culture shock, and how she maximizes her learning each time she takes a research trip abroad.  

Information architecture is everywhere. Page Laubheimer, Senior User Experience Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group, joins our hosts to shed some light on the complicated topic of IA and how the way we organize data impacts how we interact with products. He explains how and when to do IA work on a UX project, which research methods you’ll need, and how to launch your IA career.

Page talked about…

• How and when to do IA work on a UX project
• Which research methods you’ll need to use to improve your IA
• How to launch your IA career

Highlights

• [1:15] What is information architecture anyway?
• [10:07] Why IA is the eternally relevant UX discipline.
• [12:40] The term "architecture" makes many people think IA has to come first, but this isn't always the case.
• [23:17] How Page got started in IA.
• [27:11] What kind of research do you need to do to create good IA?
• [36:00] If you're doing IA as a part of your UX work, take some time to really focus on words.

About our guest

Page Laubheimer is a Senior User Experience Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group. His background in library and information science helps him create usable and organized interfaces. At NN/g he performs independent research, leads courses and seminars, and works with clients to create well organized UX. 

In this episode of Awkward Silences, Erin May and John-Henry Forster are joined by Holly Hester-Reilly, CEO and Founder of H2R Product Science. They delve into how research can go  wrong, how bad research processes can give research a bad reputation, and how the methodology and timeline of your research can complement each other. Holly also outlines the best way to determine the right research method for your product. Tune in for an engaging conversation on research best practices with industry experts.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How bad research processes can give research a bad reputation
• Top most common ways that research can go wrong
• The relationship between research methodologies and project timelines
• Figuring out the right method for your research

Highlights:

• [00:04:27] Holly’s unique perspective from academic research and into tech
• [00:07:58] How can research go wrong?
• [00:10:20] The components of a good research model; what you need to get right
• [00:14:32] What to do with a research plan once you have it to ensure maximum alignment
• [00:16:54] How to combat biases in research and questionnaires
• [00:21:54] The interaction between methodology and the timeline in research
• [00:24:18] Figuring out the right method for your research
• [00:31:01] Interacting with stakeholders and organizations for the best research outcome

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• Holly’s LinkedIn
• H2R Product Science Website
• H2R Product Science LinkedIn

About our guest

Holly Hester-Reilly is the Founder and CEO of H2R Product Science, as well as a Product Discovery Coach and Consultant for the company. She also serves as an Adjunct Professor at New York University, a Member of the Board of Advisors at Octane11, and a Product Advisor at Ergatta. Needless to say, Holly is an undisputed expert in her field, and we’re lucky to have her on the show! 

Tacos = the great. Tide Pods = the not-so-great. An honest chat about the (mostly really great) state of User Interviews.

Roberta Dombrowski, VP of UX Research at User Interviews, is back for our third installment of Tacos and Tide Pods. She joins Erin and JH to talk about the 100th episode of Awkward Silences, the importance of prioritizing authenticity over patterns on LinkedIn, and Roberta's upcoming wedding.

In this episode:

• The 100th episode of Awkward Silences
• Why you should focus on bigger things
• Maintaining LinkedIn content format while expressing authenticity

AI has recently become hugely popular with the likes of ChatGPT becoming a staple in day to day life, and it looks like it is here to stay. Could it replace the job of a researcher completely? Mike Adams, CEO and Founder of Grain doesn’t think so. Join the conversation as they discuss the potential perks and limitations of utilizing AI in research and product development, tips for getting started in the world of AI, and an insight into the current shift in the roadmap for research products.

In this episode we discuss:

[00:02:37] The potential of AI for automating away the monotonous 

[00:14:23] Utilizing AI: building versus buying

[00:18:05] Tips for getting started with AI applications

[00:25:55] A shift in the roadmap of potential research products

[00:31:43] How utilizing AI could go wrong for researchers

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• userinterviews.com/awkward
• grain.com

About Our Guest

Mike Adams is the CEO and Co-Founder of Grain, a communication platform for teams that helps capture video snippets with ease. Self-describing as a three-time founder with over ten years of experience building skills for job education software programs, Mike is a pioneer for fully immersive cohort-based education. His current mission with Grain is to help teams to share more understanding with each other and the people they work together to serve, thus creating a more cohesive working environment. Mike has authored several useful articles, including “The Founder’s Guide to Actually Understanding Users”. 

Incentives do more than just attract quality participants to your study. Ultimately, offering great incentives helps you collect great data.

But if logistics aren’t your thing, managing and distributing incentives can be a nightmare. Nick Baum founded Tremendous, the payouts management platform, to take the pain out of that process. He joined us to chat about how Tremendous makes researchers’ lives easier, tips for managing research incentives, and how to choose the right type and amount of incentive.

In this episode:

• How Tremendous helps UX researchers pay incentives simply
• In-person versus digital incentives
• How to choose the right amount of incentive
• Managing incentive budgets

Highlights:

• [1:14] Why Tremendous?
• [1:57] How Tremendous helps UX researchers
• [5:06] Let the UX researcher research and not deal with incentives
• [6:24] What do UX researchers need to understand about incentives?
• [8:55] Incentive options
• [10:07] Choosing the right level of the incentive
• [11:41] In-person versus digital incentive
• [16:22] Managing incentive budgets
• [17:43] International incentive challenges
• [20:57] How can you make the incentive appealing?
• [24:41] Why should you set up authentic expectations for participants about incentives?

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• The Ultimate Guide to User Research Incentives
• The User Research Incentive Calculator
• Recruit qualified participants with User Interviews 

About our guest

Nick Baum is the Co-founder and CEO of Tremendous, a payouts platform enabling businesses to send money, pre-paid cards, and gift cards to people around the world. Before Tremendous, Nick was the Co-founder and CEO of GiftRocket and the Quantitative Equity Analyst of MDT Advisers. 

If there’s anyone who can link stakeholders to the awesome power of user research, it’s Holly Hester-Reilly. 

Holly is a champion of research that is connected to every member of organizations; research that reaches across teams and unites companies towards a common product goal. 

Highlights

[3:55] How research falls away from growing companies

[7:12] Creating change even if you’re not at the top of the pyramid

[9:15] Giving stakeholders options to help them make decisions

[11:33] Creating snapshots of your sessions

[13:30] Avoiding bias in your research presentations

[17:23] Who to invite to your kickoff workshop

[19:07] Are there certain roles or org structures that inspire better research environments? 

[24:25] Why stakeholders may not be using your research the way you expect them to

About Our Guest

Holly Hester-Reilly is a die-hard New Yorker and user advocate. She worked in the NYC startup scene for ten years before starting H2R Product Science, which helps companies of all shapes and sizes embrace user insights.

The decision to leave academia can be difficult. Often, it involves giving up a stable career path and a lifetime commitment to a particular field of study. 

But as Joe Stubenrauch explains, the move also offers researchers the opportunity to pursue new career paths, improve work-life balance and geographic flexibility, and reinvent their lives.

And he should know: Formerly a professor of history, he walked away from tenure to join a big tech company as a UX Researcher at AWS. In this episode, Joe discusses his decision to walk transition to the private sector and shares thoughtful advice for others considering a similar move.

Highlights from the episode

• [04:06] Joe reflects on feeling burnt out, bored, and doubtful in academia 
• [11:23] What makes you happy? Joe weighs the pros and cons of things like mental health, geographic mobility, and proximity to family and friends.
• [19:41] Breaking into a new field, experimenting, and talking to people. 
• [34:47] The importance of having a portfolio that includes compelling stories 
• [41:35] Tactical advice for job seekers (resumes, LinkedIn profiles, job interview strategies, etc)
• [44:23] Working in a team environment as a former academic

About our guest

Joe Stubenrauch is a former professor of British history at Baylor University, and the author of a prize-winning book published by Oxford University Press. During the height of the pandemic, he walked away from tenure and joined a big tech company in order to redesign his life. Now as a UX Researcher at AWS, Joe has found unexpected similarities between his work as Victorianist and his work in the cloud. He also writes regularly about the transition from academia to industry and is obsessed with how people can reinvent their lives and careers.

You can follow Joe on LinkedIn.

Onboarding is a customer’s first impression of your product. The way you research, design, and implement user onboarding can make or break the overall experience. So how do you refine this important aspect of your product’s UX?

Pulkit Agrawal, Co-founder and CEO of Chameleon, joins us to discuss just that: How to optimize the user onboarding experience to get your customers off to a great start.

In this episode:

• What is onboarding?
• Best practices for onboarding users
• How to integrate personality into onboarding

Highlights:

• [1:24] What is onboarding in an app?
• [3:50] Measuring the onboarding trade-offs
• [6:24] Where should UXers start optimizing their onboarding?
• [8:42] Limited segmentation in onboarding
• [12:09] How can UXRs understand the customer's core issues?
• [15:06] Onboarding golden practices
• [18:01] Great onboarding examples
• [22:40] Increasing user motivation
• [26:55] Implementing the right triggers and motivations to match the user and the product
• [28:49] Onboarding mistakes UXers make
• [30:38] The big picture versus the details
• [33:06] Top tips and takeaways about onboarding

About our guest

Pulkit Agrawal is the Co-founder and CEO of Chameleon, a product adoption platform for SaaS that helps companies create better user onboarding. He is also an Angel Investor at product-led startups and a part-time featured speaker at Product School. Before founding Chameleon, Pulkit was the UX and User Onboarding Mentor at 500 Startups.

In this episode, Carol and Erin dive into all things research sample sizes with Lauren Stern. No matter your experience with user research, you'll need to recruit folks, making this an evergreen topic. Lauren has coached both new-to-research and junior UXRs on this critical topic and she shares some of her best advice.

Lauren shares importance considerations and nuances around different types of studies and even analysis approaches. She also unpacks her approach for international samples, the impact of drop-off rates, and participant compensation strategies.

Going beyond sample sizes, we conclude with a discussion of how to better engage with stakeholders when advocating sample sizes, making these conversations about "how many to recruit" more informed. She also shares resources to use when making the case to stakeholders.

Episode Highlights

• 05:41 - Crafting research goals and parameters: a collaborative journey
• 13:48 - Flexible research design: navigating sample sizes and methodologies
• 19:57 - Tailoring sample sizes to research objectives: finding the right fit 
• 26:30 - Qualitative confidence and stakeholder expectations
• 34:11 - Diverse methodologies in quantitative research: beyond surveys
• 43:05 - Departing research wisdom on sample sizes generally

About Our Guest
Lauren Stern is a mixed-methods research leader focused on creating the most human-centered technology possible. Over the last ten years her work has explored how perception and social cognition shape our experiences with automated systems from military zones to living rooms. Whether exploring individual experiences in the field or looking at large-scale data collections, she loves the puzzle of study design and coaching new researchers through the process.

Resources on Sample Sizes

• This free calculator gives sample ranges based on your study needs.
• Need some research-backed sample size help? Bookmark this today.
• You must pay participants. This calculator helps ensure an fair amount.

Vivianne Castillo’s career has always been human-centered. She started off as a counselor, helping people navigate through complex issues, but eventually found her way to UX research, helping companies better understand their users. 

Though she loves user research, she’s found it frustrating that it doesn’t adopt the same standards of care for its practitioners that counseling and other human service work does. Since researchers deal with the messy task of human emotion, all those sessions can take a toll on them. Things like compassion fatigue and vicarious trauma occur often, but without a name for what they’re feeling or the tools to do something about it, researchers are left feeling burned out and unsuccessful. Erin and JH chatted with Vivianne about how researchers can take better care of themselves and how they can empower their teams support each other psychologically.

Resources

Vivanne Castillo’s “Self-Care for UX”

About our guest

Vivianne Castillo (she/her) is the Founder and CEO of HmntyCntrd, an award-winning professional growth community supporting UX and Tech professionals in transforming the status quo of what it means to be human-centered in their professional and personal lives through courses, community, and consulting. 

It's our 150th episode! To celebrate, we brought together three thought leaders for a discussion about UX research's future. Erin and Carol are joined by Judd Antin, Dave Hora, and Christiana Lackner, who bring over 40 years of combined experience in UX research, both as practitioners and leaders.

This wide-ranging conversation combines our guests' reflections on the trends that brought UX to its current moment with an analysis of what the future holds—and how we can prepare ourselves (and our teams) for it. From strategies on creating more business value for our work to tips for creating stronger cross-functional partnerships, this conversation will equip you with practical steps to future-proof your research practice.

Episode Highlights

• 09:28 - The evolution of the UX research industry
• 15:48 - Adapting UX methods for team dynamics
• 21:56 - Balancing our focus between the business and the user
• 30:45 - The role of UX research in fostering shared understanding 
• 41:18 - Planning strategically and anticipating team needs
• 47:27 - The promise of AI for user experience professionals

About Our Guests
Judd Antin is an executive coach, consultant, advisor, writer, and teacher, leveraging his 15 years of experience as a research, design, and product executive at top companies (Meta, Airbnb) and his PhD in Social Psychology & Information Systems from UC Berkeley to help individuals and organizations achieve their goals and overcome their challenges.

Dave Hora is the founder of Dave's Research Co. where he helps product teams drive critical initiatives with the right mix of data, insight, and common sense. He began professional research work in 2011, eventually starting the practice as the first research hire at six companies, including PlanGrid and Instacart.

Christiana Lackner is a UX research leader and dot connector. She's building research maturity within organizations so that teams involve the right people, ask the right questions, and act on the answers.

More Resources on the Future of UX Research

• The role AI will play in the future of UXR
• Connecting UX research to business revenue
• The 2023 State of User Research Report

What does good “scrappy” user research look like?

According to Varun Murugesan, Co-founder of Apple and Banana,

Being good at scrappy user research is like being the Jason Bourne of research: being effective with what you have, even if you’re shot down by a tight research budget or limited in bandwidth.

Varun joins Erin and JH to discuss his tips for doing scrappy research, advice for finding and utilizing creative techniques in research, and the potential positive and negative effects of the AI explosion.

Highlights: 

[00:01:38] The value of “scrappy” research in tough economic times

[00:05:50] Being “scrappy” is about speed

[00:08:51] Innovating with scarce resources during the pandemic

[00:17:33] Enhancing creativity through messiness

[00:21:40] Sources of inspo for creative research

[00:25:07] Re-evaluating your work and success

[00:31:03] Research during the AI explosion

[000:35:55] 7 years strong doing research, plus new opportunities for the future

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• userinterviews.com/awkward
• fruitful.appleandbanana.org

About Our Guest

Varun Murugesan is the Co-Founder of Apple and Banana, a UXR training and development company helping to build better products through fruitful research. He is also the author of Fruitful, an online UX research library and toolkit of resources for researchers and UX teams aimed at conducting user experience research that drives impact. He is also the Senior UK Researcher of SeatGeek, a mobile ticketing marketplace. Before these positions, Varun worked in UXR roles at Best Buy and Facebook. An entrepreneur, author, and researcher, Varun has spent his career immersed in psychology, technology, and design, and has been featured on a various media platforms sharing fruitful research and his personal UXR career journey.

A gift from Apple & Banana and Awkward Silences

Interested in trying Apple & Banana for your next research project? Use our code AWKWARD-FRUITS-35 to save 35% on Fruitful, an advanced UX research repository used by 100s of teams around the world.

Shortly after Lucy Denton joined Dovetail as Product Design Lead, she was tasked with running a large-scale opportunity research project—and then making sense of all the insights. And the stakes were high; after all, she was researching user researchers! This week on the podcast, Lucy chatted with Erin and JH about how she knew it was time for a big generative research project, how she got the whole team involved, and what she did with all that research. 

Lucy talked about…

• How she and the team knew it was time for a big generative project.
• What Dovetail built with all this research.
• What she would do differently if she had to do it all again.

Highlights

• [4:30] How to know when you need to zoom out and look at the big picture rather than taking feature requests as they come.
• [11:13] Turning over 300 atomic insights into a roadmap.
• [17:30] What the Dovetail team has shipped from their research.
• [22:01] How Dovetail fast-tracks customer empathy by creating onboarding packs with key insights and interviews for new team members. 
• [26:42] What Lucy would do differently if she had to do it all again.

About our guest

Lucy Denton is the Head of Design at Dovetail. She leads the team’s design and research efforts. Before joining Dovetail, Lucy was a designer at Atlassian for over five years. At Atlassian, she led user-centered design projects, a multidisciplinary team, and contributed to strategic design decisions. 

Erin and Carol explore the complexities of healthcare research with Nadyne Richmond, a healthcare design advisor with a background in big tech who pivoted to healthcare research a decade ago to tackle the pressing issues she saw in the system.

Nadyne underscores the nuances of conducting user experience (UX) research within healthcare settings, unpacking the intersections of patients' lives, their health, financial well-being, and spiritual factors that can come with many diagnoses. She emphasizes the importance of being well-prepared to manage deep conversations, maintain objectivity while being viewed as human, and handle the delicacy of information with privacy and sensitivity.

Nadyne shares practical advice on approaching sensitive research topics, providing control to participants, giving space for the research team, and even using diary studies for a more comprehensive understanding of patient experiences. Additionally, she talks about the intricacies involved when working with healthcare players, from insurance providers to medical staff, and how their differing incentives shape patient care.

Episode Highlights

• 03:56 - Transitioning from tech to healthcare research
• 13:56 - Challenges when researching with medical professionals
• 21:32 - Navigating Sensitive Topics when recruiting patients
• 28:45 - Planning for legal requirements in user testing
• 35:24 - Data protection in healthcare research
• 41:11 - The unique rewards of healthcare research

About Our Guest
Nadyne Richmond is a user researcher and experience design leader with a track record spanning two decades. She has worked and led teams at places like IBM, Microsoft, Included Health, and Babylon. She started her career as an engineer, giving her a unique window in the challenges of creating products and services that are excel technically and meet the demands of customers and the business alike.

Resources From Nadyne

• Crucial Conversations book
• An Arm and a Leg Podcast
• Interviewing Users book

More Healthcare Research Resources

• A researcher's guide to data privacy guidelines
• Designing experiences for healthcare companies
• UX research strategies for building healthcare apps

UX benchmarking may seem like a lot of work, but Kate Moran is here to show you how to do it effectively. She's VP of Research & Content at Neilsen Norman Group and leads UX teams to better benchmarking, teaches newbies how to get started, and explains this complicated subject with clarity. She joined Erin and JH on our very first live episode to explain how UX benchmarking can help teams show the ROI of their work. 

She walked through how benchmarking can help get stakeholders on board, how to choose the right metrics early on, and most importantly, how to translate that to real ROI. 

Our very first live podcast was a great learning experience and a ton of fun! We really enjoyed the interactive aspect, and our audience asked a lot of thoughtful questions. 

Highlights

• [2:01] Kate explains what UX benchmarking is
• [3:37] How to choose benchmarking metrics
• [12:01] The difference between summative and formative studies, and why you need to distinguish between them.
• [17:21] Why context matters when evaluating benchmarking metrics
• [21:28] How to translate benchmarking results to ROI
• [29:11] Kate talks about case studies from NNg's ROI for Usability report
• [35:34] Q&A - How do you limit bias in unmoderated studies with non-users and users?
• [38:16] Q&A - How do you measure time spent on a task? Stopwatches aren't great.
• [39:59] Q&A - How do session replay tools fit into this?
• [41:10] Q&A - What happens when your stakeholders have different metrics for success?
• [44:57] Q&A - If a participant thinks they completed a task successfully, is that a success?
• [46:42] Q&A - How do you benchmark for emotional aspects, like how fun a product is?
• [49:07] Parting words of wisdom

Kate's recommended resources 

• NN/g full-day seminar: Measuring UX & ROI
• NN/g articles about benchmarking, ROI, and quantitative research
• Jeff Sauro’s articles about quantitative UX research (he also has very useful confidence interval and statistical significance calculators): measuringu.com 
• Jeff Sauro’s book about benchmarking: Benchmarking the User Experience
• Two great books for getting started with statistics: Straightforward Statistics and The Cartoon Guide to Statistics

Eniola Abioye—user research career coach—joined us for a special live episode of Awkward Silences. She answered audience questions and shared some of her best tips for crafting a research portfolio that stands out, transitioning from different fields, and why not everyone needs a bootcamp.

Highlights

• [6:16] How to learn more about user research on your own. 
• [17:17] Tailoring your resume to UX research roles.
• [22:38] Building a standout user research portfolio.
• [26:40] Eniola’s honest opinions on bootcamps.

Resources mentioned in the episode

• EniolaAbioye.com 
• Thinking Fast and Slow
• Levels.FYI
• UXRC UX Research Salary Report
• Coursera
• LinkedIn Learning
• Austin Kleon
• Also recommended: 81cents.com
• More from Eniola: Getting in the Game: Driving Inclusive Innovation – UXRConf21

About our guest

Eniola Abioye helps UX Researchers improve their research practice. From seasoned researchers looking to level up to new researchers looking to get their bearings, Eniola helps researchers focus their practice. She’s also a Senior UX Design Researcher at Silicon Valley Bank. With a background in biotech, healthcare, fintech, she enjoys holding space for users to have real conversations.

This week on the pod, Erin and JH talk to Cat Noone, CEO of Stark, a suite of tools designed to help teams ship accessible work. They chatted about how accessibility is constantly evolving, what teams can do to get started, and inclusive design.

Highlights

• [1:50] Accessibility is continually changing and evolving, so it's important to think of it that way.
• [3:01] Accessibility is a side effect of inclusive design.
• [12:59] Identify other people in your organization that may be able to work with you on accessibility and create a bridge between teams.
• [15:08] Accessibility helps everyone, and framing it that way can help teams to understand its importance.
• [23:09] Ethics change team culture, exposure changes executive's minds, profit and customer loss changes action. 
• [31:11] If you can, speak up about having the tools to do your job well.

What are the best UX career options? How do you vet a potential employer to ensure it’s the right fit? Should you join a smaller firm that offers plenty of autonomy and flexibility, or does it make more sense to work for a larger company with a ton of resources? Erin, JH, and Marieke McClosky, Director of UX Research at LinkedIn, address these questions, examining UX research as a career and a practice as they discuss Marieke’s journey as a UX researcher. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Navigating a career path in UX research
• Making career moves that align with your goals
• How to start a career in UX research
• Pros and cons of different working environments 
• Vetting potential employers

Highlights

• [01:27] Marieke’s first job was at Nielsen Norman Group
• [04:42] The benefits of working at a large organization like LinkedIn
• [7:12] Getting started with– choosing a direction when you are new to UX research
• [12:57] How to vetMarieke shares valuable advice on vetting employers
• [19:37] How does the UX research team come up with research questions?
• [25:29] TJH summarizes the differences between working at a large company vs. a smaller firm
• [39:24] The best thing about consulting is “the breadth of who you get to work with, the different industries, different teams”

About our guest

Marieke McCloskey is the Director of UX Research at LinkedIn. For over a decade, she has worked as a UX researcher and consultant with the world’s most innovative companies, including Nielsen Norman Group and the NFL. She completed her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience at the University College Utrecht and earned a MA in Cognitive Science at John Hopkins University. 

Carol and Erin welcome George Whitfield, an expert in applying AI to the analysis of qualitative data. George discusses the intricate challenges of leveraging language models to interpret expansive open-ended data (like interview transcripts), emphasizing the importance of context and not just keyword or topic identification.

They'll dig into the crucial role of human oversight in AI, what preliminary analysis might look like using AI, how to check and refine the work of an AI assistant without derailing your project delivery date, and recommendations for etiquette regarding the reporting of AI-informed results.

The episode closes with an exploration of the limits of AI and where user experience researchers can play a larger role in its development. George believes AI can (and should) inspire new directions of research, but not dictate them.

Episode Highlights

• 03:48 - Innovating consumer insights using AI
• 12:21 - Importance of human involvement in AI tools
• 20:04 - Enhance discussion sections with  AI tools
• 26:50 - AI-inspired insights provide inspiration, not guidance
• 34:12 - Interpretation beyond analyzing transcripts
• 36:46 - Applying engineering rigor to the process of building a business

About Our Guest
George Whitfield is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and CEO at FindOurView. As CEO of his most recent company FindOurView, he launched a Gen AI product to help user researchers synthesize insights faster from high volumes of customer interviews. George holds 4 patents and has 3 degrees from MIT including a Bachelors in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a Masters and Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering.

Resources on Qual Data and AI

• Our AI in UX Report shares findings from a survey of over 1,000 researchers
• What does it mean to "code" qualitative data? This breakdown explains it all.
• Interested in trying an AI tool for your analysis? Here are 20 worth considering.

What is participatory research? And how do you include it in your UXR practice? Alexis McNutt Unis, Lead UX Researcher, Homeowner Experience at Better is here to explain.

Alexis shared how she involves stakeholders in engaging workshops, co-creates with participants, and takes research readouts to the next level to drive a participatory research practice that works for everyone.

Highlights

• [1:29] What is participatory research anyway?
• [4:58] How Alexis does participatory research.
• [11:54] The five Es—Entice, Enter, Engage, Exit, Extend.
• [23:09] How do you decide when to involve which people in participatory research?
• [32:35] Participatory research strategies for beginners.
• [37:20] How Alexis sets expectations for participatory sessions.

Erin May, John Henry Forster, and Carlos Tellez, Growth Research Manager at Nubank, get to the bottom of growth research. This episode is focused on two of Erin's favorite things – optimization and research. They discuss how research informs growth teams as Carlos describes the moving parts involved in the research process. Listen to hear what Carlos loves the most about his job, the scope of growth research, research design methods, tools, and tactics.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The value and impact of growth research
• Key differences between growth research and product research
• Research workflows and the dynamics of working relationships
• Research methodologies, tactics, and toolkits

Highlights:

• [00:01:08] What is growth research? What is platform research?
• [00:06:52] One big difference between growth research and product research
• [00:12:07] How does growth research "operate within the growth context"?
• [00:09:39] Support from leadership and the value of research in the context of growth
• [00:15:18] Carlos shares Nubank's approach to qualitative research
• [00:18:34] Carlos details his team's creative approach to data collection
• [00:28:41] Tactics for identifying the impact of research
• [00:28:41 Triangulation is a requirement of UX research; it's also the trickiest part to get right

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• userinterviews.com/awkward
• Nubank website
• Nubank LinkedIn

About our guest

Carlos Tellez is a digital strategist, UX researcher, service designer, and education enthusiast. Currently, he is the UX Research Manager at Nubank. Much of his work is focused on creating effective research teams and advancing the field of UX research. Carlos has a Master's degree in Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design. He also has a Bachelor of Arts in Urban Studies from Vassar College.

In March 2020, Google Classroom’s user base grew from 30 million to hundreds of millions almost overnight.

As schools closed, teachers needed new ways to conduct lessons and manage their work. This meant that Amanda Rosenburg, a Staff UX Researcher & Team Lead working on Google Classroom, had a lot of work to do. Research requests were suddenly piling up, and her team needed to execute quickly to help the product team adapt to new and unexpected challenges.

Amanda talked about…

• How she adjusted her research strategy to cover more ground, faster.
• Her biggest challenges, and the changes she’s sticking with.
• How students and teachers are coping with all this change.

Highlights

• [2:23] Google Classroom went from 30 million users to hundreds of millions overnight
• [6:32] Amanda is grateful to have a team that values research—and each other's opinions. At the beginning of the pandemic, her biggest challenge was turnaround time.
• [10:26] The hardest thing for the Google Classroom team to tackle was the sudden change in primary use case. 
• [25:44] At the beginning of the pandemic, Amanda started getting way more requests from PMs for research—so she had to change her strategy for taking on projects.
• [28:17] How are the kids coping with all this change? 
• [33:10] Amanda is excited about the conversations people are having around equity in education as we move into the new year.

About our guest

Amanda Rosenburg is Team Lead & Head of Google Classroom, where she leads a team whose work impacts close to 200 million students and educators on a daily basis globally.She comes from a background in education and research.

Whether you’re paying a parking ticket or getting a divorce, chances are high that you’ll go through some (if not all) of that process online. Chances are also good that the UX of that process will be… not great. Cyd Harrell wants to change that.

Cyd—prominent Civic Design Consultant and Service Design Lead at the Judicial Council of California—has been working in civic tech since 2012. She’s passionate about helping governments create digital services that meet people where they are. In this episode, Cyd joins Erin and JH to talk about her past projects, navigating the public sector, what inspired her to get involved in civic tech, and how people can contribute to the field.

Cyd talked about…

• The unique difficulties that come with designing for the public sector
• The importance of creating equitable digital experiences 
• How to get started in civic tech, even if you don’t code

Highlights

• [1:23] Civic tech, explained. 
• [4:09] Metrics for public services have to be different from the private sector because growth really isn't the focus. 
• [7:54] How Cyd got started in civic design.
• [13:23] Cyd talks through a project she worked on for California’s court system.
• [22:13] How do civic tech projects get started anyway? 
• [32:46] How to work with stakeholders in the public sector.
• [36:42] Checking your biases in civic research.

Resources mentioned in the episode

US government agencies

• U.S. Digital Response
• Code for America and Code for [Insert your city]
• U.S. Digital Service
• 18F

Consultancies that work with the US government

• A1M
• Bloom Works
• Nava
• Pluribus Digital

Communities, conferences, books, etc.

• Cyd’s book: A Civic Technologist’s Practice Guide
• Rosenfeld Media’s Civic Design 2021
• Code for America’s Slack channels
• #CivicTech on Twitter

About our guest

Cyd Harrell is Chief Digital Services Officer for the City and County of San Francisco and on the Board of Directors for Technologists for Public Good. She has previously worked at Code for America, 18F, and Charles Schwab doing UX, research, and product work. She’s the author of A Civic Technologist’s Practice Guide. Her favorite tools are empathy and duct tape.

According to Andrea Amorós, Associate Principal Research at ADP, giving research a seat at the big table is all about building meaningful connections with the people you’re presenting to.

Andrea joins the Awkward Silences podcast to provide insight into how she learned to make research meaningful for stakeholders at higher levels of the organization. Having been hired to conduct discovery but with no plan set up for her, she took the initiative to interview the leaders within the company to understand their needs and identify opportunities for strategic research. 

Tune into this episode to hear Andrea’s advice on building relationships with stakeholders, approaching push-back, and creating meaningful change in the current research landscape.

Highlights: 

[00:00:50] Andrea’s motivation to give research a seat at the big table

[00:07:46] What bringing research to the big table really means

[00:11:06] Presenting research to bigger audiences versus smaller audiences

[00:14:08] Making presentations meaningful to the audience

[00:17:47] How Andrea made it to the big table

[00:22:26] How product-specific research can be escalated to the big table

[00:24:53] The marginalization of research today

[00:30:27] How changes in research apply to other fields

[00:32:23] Andrea’s advice for building courage

[00:36:17] The possibility of getting to the big table without presentations

[00:38:46] Navigating push-back

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• 📘 Awkward Silences blog
• 🔗 Andrea's LinkedIn
• 📘 Andrea's article: How to Present Research Insights to Executives with Ease
• 🎁 Get 3 free participants for your next research project with User Interviews
• ✍️ Take our survey to let us know what you want to see next

About Our Guest

Andrea M. Amorós is the Associate Principal Researcher at ADP, a payroll solutions provider leader globally. She has always been a really deep thinker, curious about understanding human behavior and the unconscious mind. Her expertise lies in conducting strategic research and discovering patterns at scale to improve people's lives. She has a background in Design Engineering and has worked in various startups, consultancies and large-scale corporations.

JH and Erin talk to Laura Powell about making user testing easy and fun for users and for companies. She’s just wrapped up her 9th User Test Fest, this time in Austin, TX, and was excited to chat with us about all things user testing.

Highlights

• [3:18] Drunk User Testing becomes User Test Fest
• [8:20] Do people get meaningful insights out of this kind of testing? 
• [9:53] Plan and rehearse for your testing
• [18:25] You can always do more research 
• [22:50] Testing is a great way to get your team excited about the product again

About our guest
Laura is a self-proclaimed Specialized Generalist who helps companies get it together. She's worked on everything from user research to marketing strategy to organizational process and all of the fun in between. Clients include Appcues, MIT Media Lab, VETTA, Bow Market Somerville, Metaplane.

Should everyone do research? It’s a tricky question. Yes, research is a craft that takes years to master. But on the other hand, if we want research to happen all the time, everyone needs to be able to do some of the basics on their own. Today, we talked to Jonathan Widawski, Founder and CEO of Maze about how the democratization of research is actually advancing the craft. He talked about the need for researchers to be good teachers, how research can grow in the same way data and design did, and why the future is user-centric.

Highlights

• [4:52] Ultimately, research teams need to scale to meet the rising demand. But democratization is a good way to increase an organization's learning potential and the visibility of research.
• [8:25] How do we balance good research practices with letting everyone participate?
• [14:55] Unlike disciplines like data and design, research needs to be guided by an expert at multiple points in the process.
• [19:13] The Maze team’s research process.
• [23:07] How to balance being your own user with getting out of the building. 
• [25:06] What Jonathan is excited about as research advances.

About our guest

Jonathan Widawski is the Founder and CEO at Maze. He’s a veteran Product Designer & former UX teacher. As a UX lead working with clients like McKinsey, Rocket Internet & PSG, he saw first-hand how hard it is for product teams to get the data, insights, and feedback they need to make confident design decisions. Now he’s co-founded Maze, the continuous product discovery platform for user-centric teams.

Personas are polarizing, some love them, but many love to hate them. This week, Erin and JH talk to Andy Budd, co-founder of Clearleft about why the social mediaverse should stop freaking out about the evils of personas. They're a tool in the toolkit, and come with contextualized nuance all their own.

Read our blog post about it here: https://bit.ly/2KA7B5H

About our Guest

Andy Budd is the co-founder of Clearleft, an agency that helps design leader, founding member of the Adobe Design Circle, Venture Partner at Seedcamp, and executive coach. He writes down some of his thoughts about UX and design on his blog, and is a big fan of nuance.

What is design psychology? Thomas Watkins of 3Leaf compares it to ergonomics—both fields aim to make products feel as comfortable as possible for their users. Where ergonomics is concerned with things like the shape of your office chair’s back or the height of its armrests, design psychology is all about making software experiences more intuitive and reducing cognitive load.

This week on the podcast, Thomas chatted with Erin and JH about the similarities and differences between design psychology and UX research, risks and need-to-knows for psychologists transitioning into business research, the power of mental models, and more.

Highlights

• [01:08] What is design psychology?
• [05:44] Similarities and differences between design psychology and UX research
• [08:32] Practical examples: Superiority effect, perpetual intermediates, mental loads
• [13:59] What psychologists need to learn to thrive in business research
• [18:26] Risks of applying design psychology in UX
• [26:03] Why Thomas likes bringing his expertise to UX research
• [26:59] The power of mental models like JTBD

About our guest 

Thomas Watkins is UX architect and Principal and Founder of 3Leaf. He is a life-long learner who has a passion for bringing greater clarity to the world.  Thomas has made it his career’s focus to combine technology with design psychology in order to drive business success. He specializes in helping his business partners bring their own brilliant ideas to life, by translating complexity into simplicity. The scope of his work has included interface design for mobile, SaaS system architecture, usability research, and data visualization.

Your research question is where it all begins. It’s what drives your research forward, informs when you’re ready to wrap up your project, and it’s what gets everyone involved on the same page. But how do you know you’re asking the right research questions? 

This week on the podcast, Amy Chess, UX Researcher at Amazon, chatted with Erin and JH about how she chooses which questions to ask in her user research projects.

Amy talked about…

• The difference between research questions, research objectives, and interview questions
• How to ask the right research questions
• Why you can’t pick a methodology before you know your research question
• How building trust with stakeholders can push your research questions further

Highlights

• [1:30] What's the difference between a research question and an interview question?
• [7:38] What comes first? The research question or the methodology? 
• [11:13] How to not to ask bad research questions. 
• [19:07] Go where the research leads you, even if it’s not where you planned to go. 
• [25:53] Structuring user interviews to answer your research questions.
• [36:09] Work with user research before you have it all figured out.

About our guest

Amy Chess is a UX research leader (formerly at Amazon, Walmart) and educator. She specializes in qualitative data collection techniques and the meaningful synthesis of qualitative and quantitative user data. Amy is intensely invested in developing new methodologies to evaluate integration efforts from a UX perspective, promoting the value of UX research amongst stakeholders, and pioneering approaches for UX practitioners, technical teams, and product management to collaborate and partner together.

The State of User Research 2022 Report unpacks the data from our international survey of UX researchers and people who do research as part of their jobs. 

This week, we met with Roberta Dombrowski, VP of User Research at User Interviews and one of the creators of the report, to talk about how it was made and what she thinks of the insights. She talked about the rise of buy-in and demand for research, what democratization means for professional researchers, and her predictions for the future of user research.

Doing research with users from different cultures is (very, very) important. It can also be complicated. In this episode, we are joined by Norah Abokhodair, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft, who spoke about conducting research in Arab cultures.

She explained some of the nuances of Arabic and Arab cultures, how to recruit diverse participants, and how to adjust your research style depending on the context.

Highlights

• [2:11] If you want to build products for everyone, include a more diverse audience in your research.
• [6:44] Diversely designed experiences are our right—overcoming a cultural hesitancy to critique “Western” products.
• [12:57] Context matters—adjusting your research style to different cultural expectations.
• [18:07] Norah's top recruiting tip for recruiting participants from Arabic cultures.
• [20:02] How to remain sensitive when doing research in a culture that is not your own.
• [31:56] Balancing confusing research logistics with recruiting a diverse population.

About our guest

Norah Abokhodair is a product manager and UX leader focused on global, ethical, and inclusive tech. At the time of our interview, Norah was a Senior Program Manager at Microsoft where she led UX research planning and strategy for Microsoft Learning Innovation Studio including projects focused on machine learning, personalization, and AI fairness. Prior to Microsoft, Norah received her PhD at the University of Washington, where her research focused on social media in Arabic cultures. 

Erin and Carol are joined by Jo Widawski, founder and CEO of Maze, to discuss the major findings from their "Future of User Research" report, which unearthed three trends animating researchers, PMs, and founders alike: 1) the demand for research is growing, 2) research democratization empowers stronger decision making, and 3) new technology—like generative AI—allows teams to scale their research.

Erin, Carol, and Jo unpack each of these trends, flagging what they mean for both the work of researchers and the value of research more broadly. For example, these trends signal a rise in importance of the research generalist, the critical value of stakeholder influence, and the skills tomorrow's successful researcher must build today. Together, these trends and skills help create a roadmap for how researcher's can grow from a tactical resource to a strategic partner.

Episode Highlights

• 03:57 The nature of research in organizations
• 11:01 Transitioning researcher roles: from operational to educational
• 18:01 The importance of democratization in design
• 22:43 Overcoming resistance to research in design
• 30:25 AI's impact on user research trust
• 37:59 Understanding competitive landscape in building products

About Our Guest
Jo Widawksi is the Founder and CEO at Maze. He’s a veteran Product Designer & former UX teacher. As a UX lead working with clients like McKinsey, Rocket Internet & PSG, he saw first-hand how hard it is for product teams to get the data, insights, and feedback they need to make confident design decisions. Now he’s co-founded Maze, the continuous product discovery platform for user-centric teams.

More Resources

• Read the 2024 State of User Research Report (from UI)
• Read the Future of User Research Report (from Maze)
• Learn how to create stronger stakeholder relationships

How can UX researchers enable other teams to do research? Show, don’t tell.

According to Helen Devine, UX Research Manager at The Economist, upskilling product people to do research means letting them observe, sit in, and be present during each stage of a research project—not just being told what to do.

Helen went from doing scrappy research with 0 researchers to supporting 50 product people at The Economist to conduct great research with the help of 2 other UX researchers.

Tune into this episode to learn how she established UX research as a valued discipline at The Economist, plus how to balance developing research as a craft while supporting non-researchers at the same time. 

👇

Highlights: 

[00:04:11] From 0 researchers to 3 UXRs and 50 product people 

[00:13:30] The art of observation and note-taking during moderated interviews 

[00:18:59] Generative research? Bring in a pro researcher

[00:24:34] Helen’s biggest wins in instructing others on how to do research better

[0:31:07] Researchers develop the craft, but they don’t own it. 

[00:33:54] Actionable tips on setting guardrails for non-researchers’ research

Sources mentioned in the episode:

• userinterviews.com/awkward
• userinterviews.com/awkwardsurvey

About Our Guest

Helen Devine, UX Research Manager at The Economist, is a user-focused research expert with experience in insight, ethnography, design, and user research across commercial, government, and non-profit sectors. Her current role involves telling user stories that uncover opportunities and inspire action across the organization’s portfolio of digital properties. Before joining The Economist, Helen has had an illustrious career involving positions at The Guardian, a housing and homeless charity shelter, Lloyds Banking Group, and Asda. Recently she spoke at the Insight Innovation Exchange 2023.

Teresa Torres is a master of continuous interviewing. As a product discovery coach and founder of Product Talk, she works with teams of all shapes and sizes to help them build better stuff. Part of that is talking to customers all the time, and establishing a cadence that keeps customer needs top of mind.

In this episode, she talks to Erin and JH about what it takes to establish a continuous interview practice, shares some tips for doing better interviews, and encourages everyone to get out there and start talking to customers.

Highlights

• [3:31] What's continuous interviewing all about anyway?
• [11:52] Focus on the frequency of your interviews, not the number of interviews. 
• [14:56] Automate your recruiting process first
• [17:03] Make customer interviews a part of your weekly schedule, just like any internal meetings you might have.
• [22:21] Throw away the discussion guide
• [35:55] Map everything on an opportunity solution tree
• [37:07] Make your synthesis visual
• [42:00] It's all about the magic lightbulb moments

Resources

• Continuous Interviewing Course Teresa Torres
• Why does every product have to be agile these days? Jeff Gothelf
• Pencil Me In Christina Wodtke

Recruiting participants for user research is hard. Recruiting participants from a pool of your own customers? Somehow even harder. There’s client relationships, privacy concerns, and lots of red tape. This week on the podcast, Matthew Morrison joins Erin and JH to share what he’s learned after a year of B2B recruiting at Braze.

Highlights

• [2:04]The key problems with B2B recruiting.
• [8:22] Make your sessions as short as possible, 30-45 minutes is best.
• [12:53] How to make users feel connected to research, even if you can’t offer an incentive.
• [16:53] How to work with internal stakeholders to get better response rates from participants.
• [23:08] How Matt built a study about new Braze users with a lookalike panel of people who had never used Braze. 
• [33:09] Steering clear of over contacting participants, even with a small pool. 
• [38:09] What Matt's thinking about going into 2022.

About our guest

Matthew Morrison is a UX Research Manager at Braze. Before Braze, he worked on the research teams at Etsy and WillowTree. He’s excited by the challenge of B2B recruitment and is looking forward to continuing to improve his practice.

Indi Young has been researching people (not users), coaching, writing, and teaching about inclusive product strategy for over 25 years. Earlier this week, she joined Erin and JH for a live podcast episode to explain why researchers and designers are doing it all wrong! 

Okay, not exactly. But she did explain how researching and designing for the majority or “average user” actually end up ignoring, othering, and harming the people our designs are meant to serve. Indi shared how she finds patterns in people’s behaviors, thoughts, and needs—and how she uses that data to create thinking styles that inform more inclusive design decisions.

Indi talked about…

• Why researchers should look for patterns, not anecdotes, to understand real user needs.
• What are thinking styles and how to uncover and use them.
• Why your “average” user often doesn’t exist in the real world, and how we can do better.

Episode highlights

• [00:04:13] How do you simplify the world without losing sight of the individuals within it? 
• [00:07:47] When is it important and meaningful to consider demographics—and when does using them in your research cause harm? 
• [00:11:23]  Speaking of harm… what does Indi mean when she talks about causing harm in the context of user research and product design? 
• [00:15:20] What are thinking styles, exactly? 
• [00:28:43] Why you should never ask: “what is the right number of thinking styles for us to have?”
• [00:31:33] How Indi looks for patterns.
• [00:33:57] How can you uncover thinking patterns through user interviews (vs. ethnographic observational research)?
• [00:44:41] The “average” often doesn’t really exist. So why do we design for them?

Resources mentioned in the episode

• Practical Empathy (2015) and Mental Models (2008) by Indi Young
• Mixed Methods (2019) by Sam Ladner
• Weapons of Math Destruction (2016) by Cathy O’Neil
• Joy Buoalmwini’s work toward algorithmic justice
• Online courses and resources available through Indi’s website
• Articles on thinking styles and more at medium.com/inclusive-software
• You can follow Indi on Twitter @indiyoung
• 54 Templates for User Personas, Jobs to Be Done & Other Mental Models

About our guest

Indi is a renowned researcher with over 25 years of experience who coaches, writes, and teaches about inclusive product strategy. Her work is rooted in the problem space where the focus is on people, not users. Indi pioneered opportunity maps, mental model diagrams, and thinking styles. Indi has written two books, Practical Empathy and Mental Models. She was also one of the founders of Adaptive Path, the pioneering UX agency.

There's a lot of data out there. Keeping track of Google Analytics, NPS scores, site metrics, usability test results, industry data, and everything else can be downright overwhelming. Which is why Hannah Shamji, Head of Research at Copyhackers, likes to say she's doing data-informed work, not data-driven work.

For Hannah, her team, and her clients, working with tons of data can be overwhelming. Since you can usually find at least one graph to support a research point, it's important to put data in context. Hannah outlined how she gets in the zone with large amounts of data, puts things in context while doing her best to stay unbiased, and frames data around her research questions.

Highlights

[2:12] The difference between being data-informed and data-driven.

[6:21] Why it's important to put data in context and pull from many different sources.

[9:25] How Hannah approaches data through the lens of her research question.

[16:40] How Hannah tries to build data narratives that tell both sides of the story.

[23:21] Digging deep into data is a little bit like meditating.

[27:07] Hannah, Erin, and JH chat about data and COVID-19. (This episode was recorded on April 24, 2020.)

About our Guest

Hannah Shamji is a Consumer Psychologist, formerly the Head of Research & Insights at Copyhackers. There, she helped clients create great, data-informed, copy and marketing strategies. She blends qualitative and quantitative research to tell client stories.