Advice on how to find your answer and deliver it with conviction
Since August 2020, I’ve been a UX research mentor with UX Coffee Hours — spending 40 minutes every Friday morning with anyone who wants to book a slot with me, focused on whatever’s on their mind. Once, I had someone who wanted practice being interviewed, so he did a quick portfolio presentation and then I grilled him with follow-up questions! Most chats are with grad students about to finish school or folks who are transitioning into UX research.
After nine months, I’ve realized there are a few things I tend to repeat every Friday… things that apply equally to researchers…
Presented May 30, 2019
When Brian first asked if I’d participate in his symposium, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into, but I knew that I’d do anything in celebration of him and his retirement. When he broke it down further and said I just needed to talk about what design studies ever did for me, that helped. Coming up with my answer was easy: design studies did EVERYTHING for me. Deconstructing why and figuring out how to explain that to a room of people through a pre-recorded video took a little more time…
With hundreds of researchers at Facebook, it makes sense that people have started to specialize in ethnography, qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, etc. It also stands to reason that as I shift from being a hybrid design / research / strategy consultant to landing an in-house research role at a large organization, I will need to rejigger the narrative on how my past experiences fold into my current research practice. So — here goes!
As a design researcher, my past training in graphic design and service design gives me extra tools to use when considering how to design artifacts and interactions with both users (i.e. research participants) and project stakeholders.
Graphic design at play
I create artifacts, prototypes, and exercises to make it easier for users to talk about things that are hard to articulate (e.g. latent needs)…
