The UX Life Chose Me Newsletter #40
February 2024
Hello 👋
This month I start by wondering what assumptions I still hold, before a set of excellent articles including how to run a UXR retrospective; setting up your own research ops practice and how to make better partnerships with your stakeholders.
Annoyingly it’s getting harder to share the really interesting articles as Medium hides them behind a paywall. (no space to get into that debate here!)
Then one event which is very close to my heart, and a conference with early bird tickets now on sale.
And lastly a book to get you started in UXR.
I hope you enjoy it.
Penny
From the Editors Keyboard
I’ve started the new year by getting my apprentices to create their first unmoderated tests. They’ve had to come up with a hypothesis, write questions and tasks which will help them to prove or disprove their hypothesis, write screener questions to find the right people to test with, then watch the videos and analyse the results.
Although they’ve seen what I do to create tests and interviews, I don’t think they realised just how hard writing good questions can be.
It also brought to light some assumptions and biases that they have. Both are young guys right at the start of their careers, so when I asked them who they would like to test with it was interesting to hear what they said.
Apprentice one, who was interested in how people navigate the website, made me laugh when he stated that everyone would use the search bar.
Having run a similar test myself, although with a different hypothesis of what would happen, I knew this would not be the case. But I didn’t say anything — it would be more interesting for him to watch what real people did.
I was a bit shocked by his next statement though — he wanted to test with people under 40, ‘as over 40s don’t use the internet’. I guess I best pack up my things and go work on something more suitable for an ‘old’ person then. 🙄
I suggested he might find interesting trends about what different age ranges do if he left it more open.
But it did get me thinking about assumptions and biases, and wondering what assumptions and biases I still hold that I’m not aware of.
It’s a hard thing to check when they are deeply ingrained into your identity.
I hope that I am more aware of mine than some people, due to the work I do, but I’m also pretty sure there are some I’m not aware of.
How do you make yourself more aware of your assumptions and biases before you run a project? What can we do to bring these things to our attention, even if we can’t change them?
(Apprentice one was shocked to find that people tended to scroll down the page to find things and no one used the search bar at all! I’ll be asking him to create another test that builds on these findings.)
Interesting Stuff
User Research Retrospectives: Your Key To Running Smoother Studies
Nikki Anderson, 10 min read
Having spent a couple of days on retros in the last couple of weeks due to some pretty large projects coming to an end, this article really resonated for me. Feedback is a gift and Nikki sets out a simple format for gathering some.
Kate Towsey On Starting A Research Ops Practice
Carrie Boyd, May 2019, 44 min listen
This podcast might be from a while ago, but a lot of the advice still stands for those of us looking to create a research ops practice from scratch.
A 3-Step Guide For A Better Partnership With UXR Stakeholders
Bo Liu, July 2022, 7 min read
I love that Bo talks about a partnership with stakeholders in this article. She suggests practical ways of creating good relationships which should lead to more successful projects.
How To Put Well-being At The Center Of Product Design
Alex Klein, July 2022, 10 min read
While this article might be aimed at designers, I think it includes some interesting ideas about what people are really looking for from the products we shape and build.
Step-by-step Guide To Create An Effective User Research Survey
Sarah Doody, April 2020, 27 min watch
Surveys aren’t quite as easy to create as you think they might be, but Sarah takes us back to basics and takes us through the whole process.
The Problem With Research Democratization That People Aren’t Talking About
Kyle Soucy, June 2023, 5 min read
Kyle makes a really good point in this article. It’s all very well training other people up to do research, but what if they don’t want to do it?
The Black UXR Blog
Brandon Crosby, PhD
Brandon has created a group on LinkedIn, along with his own blog which features interviews with Black UX researchers. Well worth a read.
Book of the Month
This months book is UX Research by Brad Nunnery and David Farkas. Written by and aimed at UX designers, it’s still a good one for a researcher just starting out covering the full end to end process.
Events
Ladies That UX London — 10th Birthday Event
LadiesThatUX London, 14 March
This should be a lovely event looking back at the last 10 years for both Ladies That UX and UX in general. I’m looking forward to cake! Details will go up on LinkedIn closer to the time.
UXinsight Festival 24
UXinsight, 15–17 April
This years theme is Stay Curious, Be Bold. It’s all about how we stay adaptable as the UX research field matures and so many things change.
And Finally
I love this quote, probably because it’s so true.
“A user interface is like a joke. If you have to explain it, it’s not that good.”
Martin Leblanc
Seen something out in the wild you think other UX Researchers would be interested in or a new research related book perhaps? Send me the link and maybe I’ll include it in my next newsletter.
