Awkward Silences

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 researchersThe relationship between stakeholder buy-in and UX researcher job fulfillmentGetting philosophical about survey distribution and representative audiencesThe “Great Survey” and Domesday Book of 1086 ⚔️Read the full report: The State of User Research 2021Highlights[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 episodeThe State of User Research 2021 Report6 Strategies for Doing Faster User Research—Without Sacrificing ValidityHow to Organize, Automate, and Tidy Up your User ResearchResearch Ops: What It Is, Why It's So Important, and How to Get StartedEp #15: Kate Towsey on Starting a Research Ops PracticeHistory Extra podcast: Domesday Book: Medieval big data*About our guestKatryna 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. 🐟🐍

Learn about the importance of breaking down silos in CX transformation, refining, rebuilding, or remodeling strategies, making a 'casserole of data' for insights, and showing the business impact of poor experiences to stakeholders. Discover the significance of diverse metrics in measuring CX transformation, the value of including the SUS metric in evaluations, and blending qualitative and quantitative methods in research.

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 methodsHow to get stakeholder buy-inTips 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.

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 commonHow teams can ensure their work is more secureSome of the common issues and myths he encountersHighlights[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 guestTed 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.

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 episodeHexagon UXDesign for Good Nikki AndersonKevin Liang About our guestImani “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. 

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 guestAmanda 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.

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?

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 youWhat he does on a day to day basisHow research ops works at Zapier📖 Read more: Research Ops: What It Is, Why It's So Important, and How to Get StartedHighlights[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 opsAbout our guestRoy 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. 

Understanding your product from start to finish is easier said than done. The same goes for integrating research into every stage of a project. Danielle Smith found that she would often work on foundational projects for a product team, then move right along to the next thing, losing sight of the end-to-end experience. When she was tasked with building the research team at Express Scripts, she knew she wanted to have a better view of the big picture. So she brought  data scientists, analysts, pro survey designers, and user researchers together to create a superpowered experience team.Danielle talked about…How combining different disciplines has improved her recruitment process.Being able to support more cross-functional career interests.What she’d do differently if she built a team like this from the ground up again.Highlights[2:28] Combining different disciplines is the best way Danielle has found to actually get that end-to-end view of the product.[5:23] Danielle's multi-disciplinary team grew out of a need to understand complex analytics more thoroughly.[8:22] Having everyone involved in research from start to finish helped Express Scripts build more representative research panels.[10:27] Career development is easier for team members who would otherwise be siloed. [20:08] Working in cross-functional teams means there's more buy-in from stakeholders, since they're working with researchers more often.[21:23] If Danielle did it all over, she'd focus on finding more mixed-methods people to help build connections between specialists. About our guestDanielle Smith is a user research leader, most recently Managing Director of Digital Inclusion & Research at Express Scripts. She became passionate about building an end-to-end experience team when she saw there was a gap in her team’s understanding of core analytics. She has previously worked on the User Research teams at Dell and Paypal. 

User research and anthropology have more in common that you may realize. Both involve studying the way people interact with their surroundings and make critical decisions, though anthropologists focus on the cultures and societies that shape behavior. This week on Awkward Silences, Erin and JH chatted with Vanessa Whatley—a Senior UX Researcher at Google—about what researchers can learn from anthropology.Vanessa talked about…How anthropology can teach user researchers to look more closely at the context of participants’ decisions and behaviorsThe benefits of a diverse research team,And how she puts insights into perspective for stakeholders.Highlights[4:58] Anthropology is about looking at the differences we may not notice in our own familiar environments, which is also an important mindset for researchers to adopt.[7:14] It's easier to see bias with lots of practice and by starting in your analysis. It's something that you grow in as you grow in experience and exposure to other researchers.[10:28] Vanessa illustrates how race and experience may color how different researchers think about a situation.[19:13] Having a team of diverse researchers that reflects the population you're studying is incredibly important because we're all human and can miss important context or cues.[26:07] How Vanessa puts things in context with contextual inquiries and video clips.[32:15] Everything is by design, so when something bad happens, we need to look to the systems to see why.About our GuestVanessa Whatley is the UX Director - Research & Documentation at Twilio (previously at Google). Her background in Anthropology has inspired her to think about ways in which companies can prioritize user/customer needs when building products and executing business strategy. She seeks to promote humanistic/people based solutions to the challenges that institutions and individuals face.