Japan is not an easy market for international companies to conduct UX research in. The language barrier, lack of Japanese participants on international research panels, and unique processes of local research companies can make it a difficult market to access. After working with many different global companies conducting research in…

Ever forgotten your wallet or smartphone in a toilet cubicle? In 2015, the Japanese highway company NEXCO was dealing with close to 20,000 instances per year of people leaving their wallets or phones in toilet cubicles at rest stops. Forgetting your phone at a rest stop in the middle of a cross country drive is a pretty unpleasant experience, and…

Since establishing a local office in 2014, Uber has had difficulty growing in Japan. The cheap and convenient public transport means that ride-sharing is unnecessary, and the huge number of local restaurants and convenience stores means that food delivery is an extravagance reserved for pizza parties. But this is changing…

Personas are one of the most popular tools in user research, and are a great way to create shared understanding about users. But they are useless unless people know what they are and how to utilize them. I’ve found that the best way to do this is through a workshop…

*Except when they’re being attacked by children Walk into any of the near 500 outlets of Hamazushi, one of Japan’s top sushi conveyor belt restaurants, and you’ll be greeted by Pepper, SoftBank’s humanoid robot. He bows and greets you, then asks you how many people are in your group, and…

こんにちは！ NewsPicks Advent Calendar 2019の6日目を担当させて頂きます、今年4月にNewsPicks初のUXリサーチャーとして入社しましたマックスです。（オーストラリア出身で高校の時から日本に住んでいます！） UXリサーチャーがいる会社はまだ少なく、UXリサーチって何？と思っている方が多いと思うので、今日は自分がこの半年でやったこと、困ったこと、良かったことなどを共有できたらと思います。 どうやってNewsPicksのUXリサーチャーに？ 私は以前PM系の仕事をしていたのですが、業務の中でユーザーと話したり、ユーザー体験を考えるのが最も楽しかったです。去年UXリサーチャーという仕事の存在を知って、これは自分に合ってる！と思い Interaction Design Foundationというデンマークの通信学校で勉強することにしました。 勉強し始めて1年ぐらいが経った時に、UXリサーチャーとして仕事がしたいと思い、NewsPicksのことを思い出しました。

How smaller companies can get impactful user insights without breaking the bank. — User interviews are a great way to know exactly what your users think about your product. While large companies might recruit from a research agency and conduct interviews in expensive facilities with two way mirrors, there’s nothing stopping smaller companies from getting results with less resources. I’ll share some tips…

Hold a watch party and let your users do the talking. — One of the biggest challenges that UX researchers face is convincing stakeholders of the value of their research. Long reports on qualitative research like interviews and are rarely read, and the benefits of user research are difficult to measure in the short term. Working in a new company that doesn’t…

Japan has always been a largely cash based society and it is still common for small shops and restaurants to only accept cash. …