In the 5th episode of Personas, Cha-nese speaks to me about; the course she took at centennial college which helped her learn more about UXR, how UX is organized at CBC, how to present research findings when you find everything important!, how to use rainbow charts to get other disciplines involved in the UXR process and a “meta skill” that all researchers should have!

The UXRTO podcast is now The UXR Podcast! Brought to you by The UXR Collective. Emily dabbles in a little bit of futurism by talking about 5 consumer trends we'll likely see in 2019, as well as how valuing design and great user experiences in business can make a world of difference to the health of a business. On top of that, Emily shares some great job openings that are looking for interns to senior UX Researchers and everyone in between.

The Business Value of Design (McKinsey) : http://bit.ly/BusinessValueDesign

5 Trends for 2019 (TrendWatching.com):

http://bit.ly/5Trendsfor2019

In the 4th episode of Personas I visited Canada Post and chatted with UX Research Manager, Dale McRae. Dale shared his interesting background and transition into UX research from UX design. We talked about current popular research topics such as service design and human centred design. Dale also shared an article he read from Beaker and Flint on how to 'Stop UX research from being a blocker' in product development.

Read the article here!: https://medium.com/beakerandflint/how-to-stop-ux-research-being-a-blocker-225d91105de8

Qualitative data speaks to researchers, but it can be harder for others to see the value through the mountains of data created from interviews and other qualitative methods. In our first segment, Emily speaks about codifying qualitative data in order to back up your insights instead of asking people to trust the hunch that only you can decipher from an article written by Erika Yi, Ph.D. Read here: http://bit.ly/CodingQualData

User stories are research-backed insights that separate a product that solves problems from one that doesn't. In the second segment, Emily discusses how user stories fit into the larger software agile world, using the User Interviews Blog: http://bit.ly/BetterUserStories

Bullet Journalling has taken the world by storm as a new way of keeping yourself organized both at home and at work. Why not use it in your research practice? Read more about it here: https://bulletjournal.com/

Brian is the UX Lead at Platterz! He spoke with me about: his interpretation of the importance of process, how and why to allow your team to be creative, what UXR can look like at a startup and how startup funding works! (Please note that we had some technical difficulties during this episode so there is some minor fragmentation)

Chatbots and automation are creeping into many aspects of our lives... Including interviews! Emily talks about how Chatbots may be a way into more user data on top of whether they are an improved experience from human recruiters. Unpacking privilege is hard; it can be scary and painful to see what you've been profiting from without knowing it. We talk about privilege in research and how being more empathetic will make you a better researcher who uncovers better results. Finally, Emily details some new job postings available around the world for UX Researchers and gives advice on applying to UXR jobs in between. Join us for another great instalment of Insights!

Articles mentioned in this episode:

How to Nail an Interview with a Chatbot by Gwen Rowan:

https://bit.ly/2vZtZ1J

Vivianne Castillo's "Part II: The P Word" on Medium:

https://bit.ly/2rs8dSX

In the second episode of Personas you'll hear from Christina Chung, UX Specialist at Moneris! Christina Spoke to me about: what a UX specialist is, how she built her portfolio, what working as a 1 person UX team is like, how she involves stakeholders as soon as possible and how she landed her first job in UX.

In the second instalment of Insights, Emily talks about making room for synthesis in your research work; a hot environmental topic that is a great example of why users are the experts; an article on Medium giving us a new perspective on different research methods; and an awesome platform you should consider utilizing in your research. Quick, insightful, and a grab bag of research related goodies: this is Insights by UXRTO. Questions, suggestions, comments? Email us at [email protected]!

I sat down with Dennis Lagman, Lead User Researcher at Ecobee. Some topics discussed were: tips about how to get Stakeholder buy-in, the structure of his team at Ecobee and some personal experiences about what his family and friends think his job entails, and my favourite, how he got into User Research.

Insights episodes focus on interesting tidbits of information, news, articles, discussions, advice, and everything else to do with UX Research and related fields! Episode one covers: a potential app to replace all of your existing research organization tools; quotes and commentary on a recent UXRTO interview for the "Meet the Instructors" blog series on Medium; job postings in the Montreal and Toronto areas.