The UX Life Chose Me Newsletter #44
June 2024
Hello
Already half way though the year — how did that happen?
I hope you enjoy this months newsletter. If you have any feedback on how I can improve the newsletter hit reply.
And if you find the newsletter interesting or helpful, please do pass it on to your friends and colleagues. The more the merrier!
Penny
From the Editors Keyboard
Years ago, before I really knew what UX was, I had a manager who told me “Don’t confuse unfamiliar with complicated or hard-to-do”.
At the time I think I was struggling with some new system that had been bought in to ‘make things easier’, but of course it was different from what I had been using just fine and I was probably complaining about the change.
What he said made me realise that learning new things always feels hard, be it a new system, language, or craft.
Yes some of these things can be complicated, but if you take it one step at a time and don’t panic or worry too much about it, you can come out the other end with a new skill or understanding of a platform and a realisation that it wasn’t that bad after all.
And this is where I think UX comes in. It’s working out how we show our customers or the people using our products that it’s only unfamiliar, not complicated or hard.
A great example of this is Adam Silver and his newsletter. His expertise is on webforms and he shares new tips and tricks each week on keeping webforms simple and easy to use.
People might be unfamiliar with the individual form, but the format helps to keep them simple and means even long complicated forms don’t feel that way.
While as researchers we might not be designing these experiences, we can help our designers and product owners understand where the pain points for our customers are — the points where our customers say, ‘this is complicated’, or the ones who say its fine but have just spent 20 minutes of your test very lost or frustrated.
Then hopefully we can make things only unfamiliar rather than complicated or hard-to-use.
(Yes design patterns help to make things more familiar for our customers, they aren’t always right and make things kinda boring in my opinion.)
Interesting Stuff
It’s Time We Seriously Talk About Users And Experiences
Jared M. Spool, May 2024, 8 min read
“If your stakeholders and product leaders can’t name a single user or describe a genuine experience that user had, where do the product requirements come from? How can we craft accurate user stories when we don’t know the first thing about our users?”
Strengthen Your UX Research With Ethnographic Skills
Ben Wiedmaier, Oct 2023, 8 min read
While many of us don’t get to conduct ethnographic research very often, there’s no reason why you can’t use these skills in the rest of your research. This article has some great examples of skills you can try next time.
What Is Atomic UX Research?
Daniel Pidcock, May 2018, 9 min read
I am fascinated by this approach to organising research findings. This is a detailed look at how it works, but includes a 30 min video from 2022 if you’d rather watch/listen to it.
User Research And Its Inevitable Evolution
Dave Hora, Jan 2024, 10 min read
This is a long read, but it’s interesting to look at how UX research has evolved in the short time it’s been a discipline especially as we look to the future.
How To Build Better AI Products With User Research
Claire Jin, Feb 2024, 12 min read
As more businesses hurry to add AI to their offerings, it’s more important than ever that we test them and make them as human-centric as possible. Claire explains how we can do this.
Finding The Intersection Between Market Research & User Research
Nikki Anderson, 8 min read
I’ve found there’s always been tension between market and user research, but Nikki shows us how we can use our strengths and differences to make super research!
Desire Lines In Interaction Design
David Bishop, March 2024, 9 min read
As someone who studied landscaping at college I’m very aware of desire lines, but had never thought to look for them in the digital world. A fascinating idea.
Book of the Month
This months book is Remote Research by Nate Bolt and Tony Tulathimutte. If you’re looking for a blast from the past this is the book for you. Published in 2010 it takes you through how to do remote research before there was video conferencing or mobile was a big thing. While some of the content is out of date now, there is still some useful information about what and how to test remotely.
Events
UXRConf 2024
Learners, 6 June
This UX Research focused conference is in its 7th year and covers a massive range of relevant subjects. You can either join in person or for free online.
Quant UX Con 2024
Quant UX Association, 12–13 June
If you’re more of a numbers person, or want to learn more about the quant side of research, then this is the conference for you. Run across timezones, there will always be something to watch for the 32 hours of the conference…
And Finally
Taken from this months book, I really couldn’t agree more.
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.
