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 behaviors
• The 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 Guest

Vanessa 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.