TRIP | The Research Inclusion Project

As a founding member of the Accessibility Insights Consortium (AIC), Claire brought her expertise and shared with TRIP how accessibility participatory design can spark excitement from the top down and vice versa within an organization. Her first-hand perspective of celebrating incremental changes and pushing for better accessible processes gives listeners something to reflect on within the industry and in all of our work.

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Claire Ferrari holds a PhD in Rehabilitation Sciences & Human Computer Interaction, and a master’s in Interactive Telecommunications. As Principal UX Researcher at Verizon, Claire has built and continues to lead the company’s Accessible UX Research practice. Her work is dedicated to empowering others to include people with disabilities in product design – pushing practices beyond compliance, and improving experiences for all. 

Jennifer walks the TRIP co-hosts through project design choices her team has made to 'design with people, not for people' that have resulted in actionable insights and successful product and line launches.

Hear how REI uses their 'focused groups' methodology to make participants with similar contexts comfortable in research - and how they use these sessions to in turn making customers more comfortable in (and excited about getting out in) the great outdoors.  And they can see the results in their brand tracker to ensure the research is having the impact they intend.

Jennifer also shares an example of understanding the role of gender in sizing and fit. In that case they used 'friendship pairs' to create safe and relaxed environments that allow the team to get authentic insights to inform the design of the new Active Pursuits line.

Check out more info:

And to learn more about 828's cultural empathy work, reach out here

Dana Keilman from Morning Light Strategy shines on the opportunity for inclusive insights on aging. Aging is a commonality that, at its core, is a human need not impacted or influenced by politics, news, or pop culture. Over the decades, society has focused on the youth for new product development and marketing, but now it’s time to question that focus. Older adults, as well as caregivers, provide white space opportunities often overlooked by brands and corporations. There are stigmas associated with growing old, many of which feed into myths that result in a misunderstanding of who they really are. What you need to know is that they provide a wealth of insight and are a cohort with real purchasing power for business impact.

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For the past 25 years, Dana has worked with Fortune 500 clients to develop and launch new products and services. For Dana, innovation is grounded in thoroughly understanding people’s needs and identifying opportunities for her clients to meet those needs better than competitive options. 

Recently, Dana launched Morning Light Strategy with Nicole Munsey to focus on the aging population and caregivers. Building on their past experience in consumer insights, they help clients innovate by more deeply understanding the needs, wants and opinions of older adults and their caregivers. 

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Lisa and Lindsay joined forces recently on a research-on-research study with participants with a range of disabilities. They discovered many small, simple tweaks and changes that researchers can use to make research more accessible to those with disabilities.  In the episode they emphasize the value of including people with those needs in the research design, the importance of language and being sure to recognize assumptions you might be making as a research team along the way. 

For this participant group in particular, it's important to first make a conscious decision about if you will ask about the abilities and then, if it is relevant to do so, explain why you are asking for information about their abilities during the screening process.  It can be as simple as stating that you want to hear from a diverse set of participants.  Carry this simplicity and transparency into the research itself; ask simple, straightforward questions and specify why you're asking why you're asking the questions.  Then give people the space they need to answer the questions.  As Lisa says, "it doesn't have to be overwhelming and expensive. You can make simple changes to make your research more inclusive."  Tune in to get inspired on the small changes you can make - and how to explain the need to make those changes to your stakeholders

Recorded from the IIEX North America Conference in Austin, TRIP brings on Alka Baijal.

The Buzzback survey has identified 24% of the difference in ability, and many do not report this information. Alka leads the charge at Nissan in building foresight, which requires a deep understanding of the nuances of unique types of customers, including those who need accommodation or a disability to meet their needs. Having a positive experience with Nissan's products for those with different abilities is table stakes. From the screener to the qualitative research methodology, Alka and her team look to accommodate the person at the center of all our work.

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Alka Baijal is the Sr. Manager for Trends and New Methodologies in the Market Intelligence department at Nissan North America. She has over 20 years of experience in automotive and consumer insight research in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia. Alka partners with internal stakeholders and Nissan leadership to help define how best to serve future customers. Her current responsibilities include identifying the macro trends, values and mindsets that drive consumer behavior and mobility choices.

Before joining Nissan in 2006, she held various automotive research roles at General Motors and GM Holden. Alka holds a BA in Sociology from NYU, College of Arts and Sciences, and an MPA from the Wagner School of Public Service, NYU. Alka currently resides in New Jersey. In addition to keeping up with the lives of her two children and son in law, she enjoys travelling and discovering new places with her husband.

This is a Live Recording with guest Stacy Penna of Lumivero recorded at TQR (The Qualitative Report). Stacy is Lumivero's Growth Marketing Director and host of Between the Data, a NVivo Podcast Series. She shares her thoughts on the importance of inclusive insights with TRIP on the TQR stage, with time built for audience Q&A. 

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As the Growth Marketing Director of Lumivero’s research software: Citavi, NVivo, @RISK and XLSTAT, Stacy is committed to managing the research growth marketing team to develop global campaigns from strategy to final marketing execution. Her team develops and implements successful marketing initiatives, such as thought leadership events, the Lumivero Community, Lumivero Conference, across digital and traditional channels to promote their software globally. 

Think about it in 3 steps, based on your level of control and influence:

1 - Start by reflecting on yourself: take a personal Inventory of yourself and your practices, and personal education. 

2 - Then reflect on your work/your team: take a second inventory, this time of your work- what biases are built in there, what do you have the power to control.

3 - Finally reflect on your environment/industry/larger picture. Think about the larger systemic changes of the way you work and the way your company does business.

Tune in to hear more about Discover’s Equity Sequence Model and their recent ESG Report: https://www.discover.com/company/esg/2022-esg-report/home/?cmpgnid=leap____&utm_campaign=&utm_medium=LEAP&utm_source=LinkedIn.

And try Jessica's tip to 'language challenge' yourself using The Micropedia of Microaggressions https://www.themicropedia.org/

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As Director of Consumer Insights, Jessica uses consumer insights to drive growth in Discover's lending and deposits products. She leads a team of insights professionals, with expertise across the product suite, combining macro consumer trends, competitive intelligence, syndicated data, and custom qualitative and quantitative research to drive decision making. She has a passion for understanding the "whys" behind consumer behavior and choices through consumer research. 

In episode 5 of season 4, we meet Ricardo and Hung, the founders of BIEN, a motion design company driven by diversity and inclusion and a pioneer in their industry. Their personal experiences and cultural backgrounds led them to create BIEN in 2017 with the mission of making inclusion the foundation of their business. The motion design industry has historically has lacked representation of diverse voices, but Ricardo and Hung have actively strategized to make their company inclusive in every aspect. From their practices to resourcing, they've fostered an environment that promotes diversity. BIEN is sparking a new generational shift in the motion design industry, inspiring change and broader representation for designers and artists. Join us as we explore their inspiring journey and learn how embracing diversity can bring positive transformation to the creative world.

In our conversation with Anouar, we discussed that behavior-based methodologies bring authenticity to work versus analyzing claims on wants and needs. Anouar shares his academic background and brings a new perspective to inclusivity, sharing how authentic behavior is not tied to personal identity. And we can forecast the future by looking at habits and wagering on different scenarios. As we continue the strides of data quality and inclusion in our work, Anouar brings a fresh challenge by staying proactive, understanding bias' in the methodology to different audiences, and putting in place an auditing method to verify the data responses.

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Anouar El Haji is the Founder and CEO of Veylinx. He is known for introducing with Veylinx a Nobel Prize-winning methodology to the world of market research. Veylinx supports leading brands with a better understanding of wants and needs to make strategic product decisions with confidence.

Anouar is the recipient of several awards among which the Young Talent Award from the Dutch Market Research Association. Anouar holds a PhD degree in Marketing and two master's degrees all from the University of Amsterdam. His articles have been published in scientific journals and various media. He is a visiting scholar at the Amsterdam Business School.

Veylinx currently has offices in Amsterdam, New York and Casablanca.

Today's episode discusses the evergreen benefits of working with diverse-owned suppliers including driving increased brand consistency, benefiting the communities the supplier operates within and represents, and improving work quality through different perspectives and approaches to problem solving, and how those benefits increase when using a supplier who authentically represents a specific target audience.

Guest, Wynter Blanquet-Warren, cautions that so much of the hurdle to effective DEI efforts and supplier diversity programs is the "lack of humanity." The solution: proactively put more partners and suppliers in front of marketing teams to remove barriers and help them meet their diversity goals, learn how to "be the face" and champion of supplier diversity within your organization, dig into your history, find your own triggers and motivations to be vulnerable, and have conversations about what you want to achieve so you can create community around the discussion.

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Wynter Blanquet-Warren, is the current Director of Creative & Business Operations at Walmart, is a marketing leader with deep experience in creative operations, account management, and outsourcing strategies. During her time in advertising, she led cross-functional teams in support of partners across financial services, CPG, and lifestyle brands. Transitioning into the tech industry, Wynter joined Sage Software to stand up project management and creative operations as part of a new global brand team. As Head of Agency Operations & Purchasing at Meta, Wynter led strategy, implementation and operations for a global preferred supplier program aimed at improving quality of work, performance, and cost savings for outsourced global business marketing programs and content. As a DEI champion, she also launched an internal supplier diversity initiative at Meta to galvanize incremental spend and support for diverse businesses.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/wblanquet-warren/