Retrospective №1.1

What is UX Research?

As I mentioned in my first Retrospective article, I’m going to write about a couple of different things over the course of this series: a large-scale competitive analysis, in which I gained valuable experience in leading a team of UXers and presenting our findings to executive leadership, and a mixed-method persona alternative we called “The Persona Kit,” in which I gained experience planning, running, and interpreting interdisciplinary workshops. That’s all still coming.

If we’re going to talk about the experience of a UX Researcher, however, we need to start somewhere a little closer to home. It’s hard out there for us HCI/UX people who have to explain — in thirty seconds or less — what it is we do to people who might not have the first idea about design, informatics, technology, or any of it, really.

So, here’s my shot: UX Design is designing with user-driven intention! By keeping the User Experience (UX) at the forefront of a design process, we achieve UX Design.

Now, as UX Designers, keeping the user at the forefront of all creative decisions is far easier said than done. To help keep us on track, we rely on various techniques (called methods) to help us identify and elicit user needs over the course of research. UX practitioners who focus on this part of the design process are called UX Researchers.

I don’t know if that was quite thirty seconds, but there you go.

UX Research can look like this — writing out ideas and avenues of exploration (or lines of inquiry for a project). This type of UXR, where people fill up whiteboards with notes and stickies is generally referred to as “exploratory” or “generative” in nature.

Confession time: one of the silliest things I did during my internship hunt was to not look at UX Research positions. This is in large part because I didn’t really understand what UX Research was as a specialized discipline, and how it mapped to the overall field of User Experience.

Once I learned what UX Research entailed, I fell in love — but if I didn’t know what UXR was, how is it reasonable for me to assume anyone else does?

Furthermore, this mysteriousness surrounding UXR vs UXD is symptomatic of a bigger issue: that even within our own industry, UX practitioners are not all speaking the same language. At least for this Retrospective, I want to make sure that we’re all on the same page — not just about the technical definition of UX Research, but about what it means.

So with that in mind, let’s begin by talking about watches.

Watches

People, as a rule, know some things about watches.

We know, for instance, that people use watches to tell the time, and that some watches are designed to be worn on the wrist, while others are well suited to our pockets. Some watches are digital, while others are mechanical. For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll speak specifically about mechanical watches.

Watches are also deeply symbolic, representing mortality, power, status, and time itself. One of the most famous examples of such symbolism is Tick-Tock the Ticking Crocodile from J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.

Tick-Tock the Ticking Crocodile is Captain Hook’s arch-enemy: a monstrous crocodile who swallowed one of Hook’s hands during a previous altercation with Pan (thus, the need for a hook).

Tick-Tock the Crocodile, from the 1953 Walt Disney animated film Peter Pan. (Image source.)

As it so happens, Hook was holding a clock when Tick-Tock ate his hand, and as such whenever Tick-Tock is near, Hook can hear the ticking of the clock somewhere inside the crocodile’s stomach.

This narrative is used to largely comedic effect in the Walt Disney production Peter Pan, but when considered at face value, is deeply unsettling imagery. Tick-Tock the Ticking Crocodile represents the fearful side of time; inevitable death, indefatigably plaguing our every step, sometimes unseen but always heard, always felt.

It’s no coincidence that the ticking of a clock is reminiscent of the beating of a heart. Life, death, time — they all go together.

Clockwork

Just like we understand the concept of watches, most people also know something about how a watch operates.

We might know, for example, that a watch can’t run without its clockwork — our word for the collection of cogs and coils that are inside of a watch. We might also understand that these cogs and coils must be well crafted, well planned, and set in perfect synchronization with one another, because if one tiny piece is wrong, or poorly made, or out of sync, the watch will — at best — tell poor time, and at worst, not run at all.

What most people might not realize, however, is that there are also jewels inside of a watch.

UX Research can also look like this; experimenting with new ways of imagining and framing problem spaces. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. UXR is in equal part methodical and innovative. (Shown above: An example of a Northstar Map, which you can learn a bit more about here.)

Rubies and sapphires, most likely; too low grade to be sold as proper gemstones on their own, perhaps — but jewels, nonetheless.

Isn’t that interesting? A jewel is a necessary component of making a watch run — and yet somehow, it’s the jewel that most people might not even know is in there.

This is a lot like how UX Research fits into UX — or more accurately, how good research fits into any organization. UX Research is a twisty, turny little constellation of cogs, coils and jewels. Like the clockwork inside a watch, when considered individually, the components that make up a research effort don’t amount to much, but when considered in aggregate, they allow us to do amazing things, like tell the time.

UX Research can also look like this. Shown above: an example of a UXR Method called a closed card sort, in which terms are listed on index cards and given to participants to place into buckets as defined by the testers. Closed card sorts can help Researchers better understand how their stakeholders understand and/or prioritize the contents of the subject being investigated.

Time

To extend the metaphor, time is an eerily appropriate parallel to the sort of thing UX practitioners contend with on a daily basis.

Like most of our problem (and product) spaces, “time” is simultaneously immaterial and yet deeply influential; five thousand obsessive years after the dawn of man and still, we know very little about it.

Time is the framework for nearly everything we do. It’s the one currency we all have, and the one currency we’re all running out of. Why, then, the unending confusion? I’m not sure, but here’s what I do know: Watches make time manageable. They allow us a way to comprehend the incomprehensible, by enabling us to carry it in our pockets.

If a good UX Design is a well-made watch, built to support the act of telling and setting our lives to time, then UX Research is everything that makes the watch tick. Research isn’t flashy. It isn’t glamorous. Instead, it’s mysterious, frustrating, and precise. It’s a hidden alchemy of low-grade jewels, cogs, and coils, all spinning away together, somewhere unseen.

UX Research can also look like this. (Shown above: The five phases of reflective thought as proposed by John Dewey)

Closing Thoughts

UX Research is fun. It can also be very, very confusing.

If you are interested in jumping aboard the UX train in a career change, or simply want to familiarize yourself with how UX designers and researchers think, consider this: every UX Designer is a researcher, but not every UX Researcher is necessarily a designer.

Good research is what makes good UX design…well, good UX design. It’s the research bit that really adds the “UX” part before the “design” part.

On the other hand, a single good design does not always need to arise out of UX Research for it to be considered good research — though arguably, a successful end product is what differentiates UX Research and academic research under the overall umbrella of HCI (Human-Computer Interaction).

Clear as mud, I know.

Yet it’s precisely this slippery, uncooperative resistance to easy categorization that defines so much of the UX field. Learning the frustration which can only come about from trying to really articulate the field is one of the best ways to learn! Try it. Pitch some of these ideas to UX forums and friends — watch how they wrestle and contend with them.

Next up on Retrospective №1.2, I’ll be discussing one well used UX Research method that I used during my time at Hewlett Packard Enterprise: the Competitive Analysis. It will be longer than the first two installments, so bring your reading glasses.

Stay tuned!