Awkward Silences

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.

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. 

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 

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.

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. 

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. 🐟🐍

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.

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.

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.

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.