As a UX researcher, it’s easy to assume that your primary responsibility is to gather insights and data that will inform the design and development of products and services. But there’s another critical skill that goes unnoticed: playing politics. This involves understanding the power dynamics within your organization and using that knowledge to navigate your […]
I’ve noticed a recent uptick in interest in two provocative articles about user research: (1) First Rule of Usability? Don’t Listen to Users and (2) Walmart’s $1.85 Billion Dollar Mistake. In my view, both of these are being used to advocate for exactly the wrong things. User research involves studying how people interact with products, […]
tl;dr know which participants you need to conduct research that generates value and design screeners to ensure that you get them. We recently finished a round of interviews designed to put ourselves in a position to explain how experienced middle school teachers select literary texts to use in their ELA curricula. We recruited people through […]
tl;dr If you need research participants, you’re on a tight deadline to collect data, and you’ve exhausted your personal network(s), including current users of your product, then here are two suggestions that produced decent results for me: (1) get stakeholder buy in so that you can offer good incentives and (2) expand your participant pool […]
We are making great progress with the Dive mobile app. Adi and Adam have created some stellar mock-ups and a clickable prototype, we’re close to finishing the manuscript for our first paper, and app development is underway. In short, people should be able to read about our work and download Dive on the app store […]
Another new pre-print dropped this week. This paper is a first draft of our findings from an interview study conducted with a fascinating group of practitioners who work to support people with visual impairments (PVI). Here’s how the service works: PVI connect with a remote sighted assistant via a mobile app and, using a smartphone […]
design inquiry 