Moderation and interviewing are hard. Bloody hard. Conversations in life can be difficult enough, but it’s especially difficult when you need to build rapport with people you’ve never met before from all walks of life and in the space of an hour. I interviewed over 160 people in my last role alone and yet some user testing sessions still do not go as planned. Asking the right questions, in the right way, keeping the conversation flowing and not being creepy can be overwhelming. Even after your 200th user.

Users are bombarded with companies and their adverts screaming for their attention. Choosing which brands to part their money with, takes time. The slower it takes a user to find what they’re looking for, the faster they realise your site is not for them. — Here I have hand-picked the themes of issues websites have put my users through. Along with best practices of how to design filters for your eCommerce website and how you can empower your users through filtering.

This week I interviewed 6 users for a financial advisory service. Hand on heart, it was one of the most difficult user testing days I have endured. The participants were not difficult. The website, albeit a prototype, did work. It was the moderation which proved the hardest. — Empathy and compassion are key qualities to any researcher. Even for anyone who works with people to understand them. Yet sometimes our desire to help people can get in the way.

User experience designers and marketers both communicate the company in different ways. Whether that be through adverts, websites or emails. Both roles need to build empathy with the people they’re talking to. “The first thing I’ve learned from UX is empathy, helped me understand my audiences need, pains, etc and…

Why must we jump through so many hoops in our online experiences for the same deals in-store? All too often websites do not highlight incomplete offers or apply promotions to orders for which we qualify. — When people go into a store, there are promotions everywhere you look. on stickers, shelves, products themselves. Special items are showcased on the edges of aisles. Reds, black, yellows dance their way into our line of sight. Yet online retail experiences make the same offers difficult to obtain.

Today technology connects us more than ever. The Internet allows us to connect with people all around the world by the click of a button. Even though the Internet has created cultures of its own, traditional cultures still prevail. Take your product abroad and these differences will quickly become apparent. …

User Experience is rarely something that we see. The times we see it most is in our users’ faces, when we’re allowed to spend time with them. But most of the time, it takes a long, hard sell to get the budget to do so. — I have done many workshops and presentations throughout my time as a consultant, for clients, employees and students. The one thing that I’ve seen consistently work is putting the audience in the shoes of a user. At the end of the day, everyone is a user. Everyone can relate to…

This February I presented a 5 minute lightning talk at Ladies That UX London on localisation. Culture changes all the around the globe, and UX too changes with it. Join me on this journey, from America, through to Egypt, and all the way to China. Discover the what, why and the how of things that change in the UX. — America The first thing to note about America is that it’s an individualist culture. The language when selling happiness targets the individual rather than a group. Adverts will target you, with slogans like “Go on treat yourself!” and “You deserve it!”.

As UX researchers it is our job to understand, not users, but the people we build for. The characters who walk through our door can differ, from charming to downright rude. But the feelings, the love, the obsession, we have with participants is one hard to explain. …