Ruth Ellison & Michelle Pickrell - 10 things NOT to say to user researchers

“User research is just having a chat with someone, anyone can do it!”

How many times have you heard this before? If you are a researcher and someone said this to you, you probably felt undermined and frustrated. If you were the one that had said this, then even more reason for you to come to our talk on the 10 things NOT to say to user researchers.

In this talk, we’ll cover 10 frustrations of user researchers that come up in projects and teams. We’ll share ways to mitigate them to get better results, and happier researchers.

Transcript

1. 10 things NOT to say to user researchers UX Australia 2020 28 August 2020 Ruth Ellison & Michelle Pickrell @RuthEllison & @uxmich
2. 2 Ruth Ellison @RuthEllison Hello! Michelle Pickrell @uxmich
4. 4 Research is a craft
5. 5 “Isn’t your job just chatting with people”
6. 6 “Why do you need to do research? Can’t you just design based on your experience?”
7. 7 “My team can do user research, they did a half day of user research 101 training.”
8. 8 Value the research process
9. 9 “Can I have a quote from your user research for the sales poster for the conference.” Marketing Manager
10. 10 “We need to save money so we’re not going to pay incentives”
11. 11 Embed research throughout
12. 12 “No, you can’t meet with the executive, they’re too busy, just go through me”
13. 13 “There isn’t time to do analysis. Can’t you sum up the findings from your memory of the sessions”
14. 14 “We’re bringing you in to make sure people can use it”
15. 15 Include researchers in the decision making process
16. 16 “You don’t need to be in the strategy meeting, just the product manager goes to that”
17. 17 “If you just provide us with a specification document, the developers will build it from there”
18. 18 Embed research throughout Otherwise you are at risk of solving the wrong problem. Value the research process Look to your researchers for guidance Research is a craft Support your researchers to do what they do best Include researchers in the decision making process- They will uphold the voice of the user
19. Say hello @RuthEllison @uxmich
20. QUESTIONS ?