Core: User to UX

#16 Some interesting truths about user research with Sridhar Rajendran

Fri, 08 Dec 2023 07:52:27 +0000

The danger sensing capability of user research (1:45) | The reason behind ed-tech crash (5:10) | Why user researchers will always be hated (8:08) | What to do when stakeholders says qualitative data is “not enough”(8:25) | Big data weds thick data (10:14) | Most practical advice for the first user research hire in a startup (10:44) | Don’t criticise creators who can’t empathise (25:02) | The silo-less nature of user research (26:03) |How being reflective helps in being a user researcher (32:24) | Sridhar’s story: From user research to mental health professional (35:17) | When you have to be user’s therapist (38:40) | Sridhar’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rajendransridhar | Sridhar’s website: www.sridhar.coach

#15 Let’s talk career and growth with Jessica Ivins

Sun, 26 Nov 2023 12:29:57 +0000

Being one person army in user research (2:04) | How to convince stakeholders when you are the only user researcher (4:43) | How to pivot with a dynamic roadmap (8:41) | Benefits of proactively spotting research opportunities (13:10) | Educate your stakeholders how you can help (13:53) | How can a single user research build trust (15:38) | Keep your network warm (20:45) | Career management document: your career saviour (24:09) | Jessica’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicaivins/

#14 When the founder is the user researcher with Lindsey Witmer Collins

Fri, 17 Nov 2023 08:39:06 +0000

How did Who farted (Lindsey’s app) come to life (00:52) | What goes into user testing with kids (8:37) | Note founders: don’t drown intro perfectionism (11:11) | From books to buttons: how UX changes with generation (13:27) | Empathy as the leading principle for a founder (14:47) | When you live the life of your user before building an app (23:32) | Founders, their fears and what they should cautious about (31:27) | Users don’t want to be educated about your product (38:10) | Who farted app- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/who-farted-kids-story-games/id1616569940

#13 UX, content and other ways to research with Gregg Bernstein

Sun, 15 Oct 2023 15:47:22 +0000

Content research and Gregg’s happy place (1:05) | Habit inducing context (3:08) | Parallels between product and content research (6:28) | Caution with the “new” user research ways (10:49) | Seeking validation from people of your own profession (14:42) | Business goals and how not to tunnel your approach (16:54) | The fine art of insight dissemination (21:29) | Highlight reels, make your report a little more interesting (25:35) | Gregg’s newsletter: https://buttondown.email/greggcorp

#12 Let's dissect market and user research with Parmita Joshi

Fri, 06 Oct 2023 13:56:35 +0000

Parmita’s journey from qualitative market to UX research (1:19) | Difference between market and UX research (6:59) | Is there a need to know your consumer thoroughly? (9:35) | Honing you soft skills (11:20) | The environment that lets you grow as a researcher (12:53) | It’s a woman’s world (in consumerism) (16:31) | How tech products affect men and women differently (18:49) | Do gender neutral spaces exist? (21:57) | How to look at India as a researcher (23:26) | How to work with heterogenous populations (26:15) | Judging vs understanding the reality (27:46)

#11 User research, its history and future with Bob Schumacher

Fri, 22 Sep 2023 12:21:21 +0000

Airplanes and the origin of user research (1:06) | Not just digital (4:58) | The story behind Bold Insight (7:29) | The DNA of user research (8:46) | Telegram, AI and mental models (10:00) | Human behaviour, extrapolation and anxiety (17:06) | User research as the preventive hero vs AI (19:16) | Can AI identify the golden nugget in your research (24:38) | The positives of AI in user research (28:24) | Accessibility, AI and user research (32:55) | Bold insight- https://boldinsight.co.uk/

#10 User research the practical way with Varun M.

Wed, 21 Dec 2022 17:12:01 +0000

Timestamps - About Apple and Banana (00:23) | Research the practical way (2:01) | Accelerating the research process (5:27) |Research and replication (9:58) | Randomness and A/B testing (12:00) | The benefits of batch recruitment (13:44) | Chain sampling: pros and cons (16:52) | Which methodology is the best in your situation (17:56) | The pseudo-hack for startups (18:48) | Be brutal in what you choose to research (20:35) | Close the distance between stakeholder and research (25:59) | Designing surveys collaboratively (34:45) | Designing efficient surveys (39:45) | How to avoid data paralysis (42:57) | The benefits of writing as a user researcher (46:37) | Giving a shot to an analysis journal (51:37) | The analysis planet: breaking down analysis (54:05) | How startups can use research for survival (1:04:09) Asking questions when you are new in a company (1:12:50) | Links discussed in this episode- Apple and banana: https://www.appleandbanana.org/ | What I learned losing a million dollars: https://www.amazon.in/Learned-Million-Columbia-Business-Publishing/dp/0231164688

#9 Learning to become a great user researcher with Arvind Chandrashekar

Sun, 13 Nov 2022 13:30:10 +0000

Time stamps - Arvind’s newsletter (00:50) | How to develop the researcher’s instincts (2:12) | Develop your instincts but make sure the cost of error is not high (8:13) | The information hoarding behavior of a researcher (8:50) | Research report and understanding your audience (13:24) | How effective is the question “why”? (18:13) | Do no ask “why” excessively, here’s why (20:08) | What else if not “why” (23:00) | Doing research with children (25:00) | Learning from acupuncture (25:35) | Why learning different languages is important (metaphorically and literally) (26:33) | Simplifying vs dumbing down (32:16) | How to include elements of on-site research in remote research (37:36) | Understanding semiotic analysis and its cautions (43:11) | Introspection and research (45:32) | Blurring lines between profession and personality (49:57) | Be cautious of looking “nice”, especially as a researcher (50:24) | Freelance researcher: pros and cons (51:10) | Behavior of a freelance researcher vs full time (53:15) | Links discussed in the podcast - Arvind’s newsletter: https://zennmaster.substack.com/p/what-is-research-why-is-research?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=auto_share&s=w

#8 India: a user researcher's most interesting puzzle with Dharmesh Ba

Fri, 28 Oct 2022 03:26:27 +0000

Time stamps - How India is different from the west for a user research (1:31) | India and the best research methods (5:33) | The plateau in the Indian user base (7:23) | Scaling to Indian tier 2 and tier 3 cities (13:53) | How user researcher fits seamlessly with the product creators (16:56) | The minority rule and why we need cultural research (18:17) | Challenges of implementing cultural nuances (20:09) | Why the founder should be the first user researcher (23:27) | The bootstrapped vs funded startup and user research (30:09) | Make sure your experiments don’t threaten your survival: the small and fast approach (35:41) | understanding rural and semi-urban Indian population (40:43) | Why public spaces are not public for everyone (47:23) | Fintech, rural India and the Jan Dhan Yojna initiative (50:09) | Winning the trust of your participants (56:47) | Understanding Jan Dhan’s scalability success (58:04) | Important link - The India notes newsletter: https://newsletter.theindianotes.com/ | India notes YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_rrXiG5ojE | Dharmesh’s website: https://dharmeshba.com/

#7 Data science and UROps: an underrated combination with Grishma Jena

Fri, 30 Sep 2022 10:10:32 +0000

Time stamps - Let’s understand what is a data scientist doing in user research operations (2:35) | Creating an in-house repository: Understanding how research ops at IBM work (6:24) | The journey of creating a research repository (9:36) | Hunting for honest textual data (15:30) | Natural Language Processing for data analysis (18:35) | Sentiment analysis (19:40) | Clustering (20:07) | Named entity recognition for competitive analysis (20:52) | Choosing the appropriate source of data (22:24) | Benefits of having a vision for your data and data analysis (23:43) | Human intelligence and artificial intelligence going hand in hand (24:43) | Connecting the dots between qualitative and quantitative data (28:19) | Pitfalls of NOT triangulating (31:05) | Getting more honest data out of surveys (33:05) | Actions vs words (34:10) | Research the researchers: setting researchOps(35:56) | Winning the confidence of your stakeholders (42:55) | Getting the quantitative edge as a user researcher (44:36) | Navigating as a user researcher in the world of numbers (49:12) | The biases of a data scientists and user researchers (50:14) | Grishma’s learnings from the world of user research (54:27) | How lack of team collaborations can negatively affect users (59:28) | The importance of the honest metrics (1:01:50) | How not fatigue your users when it comes to user interviews (1:03:10) | Links of topics discussed in the podcast - Dovetail: https://dovetailapp.com/ | Airtable: https://www.airtable.com/ |

#6 Learning from real-world UX experiences with Jonah McLachlan

Tue, 05 Jul 2022 08:31:29 +0000

Time stamps - The principles of a mentor: Jonah’s story (1:32) | What articles can’t teach you (3:44) | Learning from struggles of getting into UX (4:33) | The UX vs UI debate (7:09) | Creating for the sports and entertainment industry (9:12) | What worked for Sportbuff (14:21) | The ignored but pervasive “Second screen phenomenon” (17:13) | Back to basics: Jonah’s story of working for e-commerce (22:12)| Balancing the general and the particular (27:53) | Learning from mistakes: what new UXers can learn from Jonah’s mistake (30:58) | Data hunting: how different kinds of data help a user researcher (39:27) | How a learning plan helps (40:56) | Crossing the hurdles of stakeholder engagement (43:31) | Links discussed in the episode - UX energy newsletter by Jonah - https://get.ux.energy | Fathom, UX and service design agency - https://www.fathom.pro | Firefly, additional need adaptive equipment - https://www.fireflyfriends.com/row/

#5 Clinical UX: applying its learnings to other UX domains with Dr Gyles Morrison

Fri, 17 Jun 2022 01:27:55 +0000

Time stamps - What is clinical UX? (2:04) | When to be cautious about the feeling called “empathy” (6:16) | What are the “unknown unkowns” and why Users should be cautious about it? (8:17) | The major difference between clinical UX and other UX domains (9:22) | When failure can cause death (14:20) | The organisational challenges with clinical and healthcare UX (17:09) | Why is our obsession with “simplicity” a problem (19:01) | What happens when we don’t learn from previous crises: The Elizabeth Holmes fraud (21:59) | How do entrepreneurs and investors look at healthcare UX (24:58) | When users who face the problem and those who can pay are not the same (27:30) | How to apply an low risk and minimal error approach to other UX domains (31:07) | Taking help of secondary data in evidence-based research approach (40:22) | How to make sense of quantitative and quantitative data together (46:27) | Difference between invention and innovation (47:17) | How to make sure our sources of secondary research are trust-worthy (50:48) | How misinformation and distrust disproportionately harms healthcare (54:23) | Keeping a scientific research towards user and UX research (57:08) | What should one avoid as a new user or UX researcher (58:18) | Do we validate or test the validity of our hypothesis? (1:03:35) | What to do when you can’t afford the conventional UX career path of a Master’s degree? (1:04:25) | Links discussed in the podcast - Dr Gyles Morrison’s website: https://drgylesmorrison.com/ux-mentoring-coaching/ | Dr Gyles Morrison’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gylesmorrison/ | Learn more about clinical UX: https://clinicalux.org | The Black UX society: https://www.linkedin.com/company/blackuxsociety/

#4 Switching from arts into UX and navigating the UXverse with Deepika Dutta Kapoor

Tue, 07 Jun 2022 14:10:24 +0000

Time stamps - Switching from arts to UX (1:33) | Things to keep in mind when switching to UX (6:34) | “Fight for the $50 feature instead of the 5 cents feature” (8:47) | Sometimes UXers need to blur the lines between business, design and research (12:19) | Why a new UXer NEEDS a solution-oriented mindset (14:06) | One challenge every new user researcher faces (15:09) | Moving different teams towards the same goal (16:36) | How to be resourceful to your team as a user and UX researcher (20:35) | Making your research honest, holistic and bottom-up: Deepika’s story (25:26) | Decoding your user research: when to start, stop and come back (33:54) | Understand the present of your users and not just the future of your product (41:00) | What is the solution mindset? (51:21) | Understanding low-code platforms (55:52) | Deepika’s journey of becoming a NASSCOM disruptor (1:03:55)

#3 The ABC of becoming a good user researcher with Joel Barr

Sun, 22 May 2022 12:17:12 +0000

Time stamps - How to smoothly switching sectors in user research (1:02) | The analysis process (6:38) | What homelessness taught Joel (11:17) | Finding balance between user empathy and business goals (16:48)| Applying Buddhism to user research (20:59) | UX goes beyond the digital world (26:04) | Is UX a science or just common sense? (27:27) | The beginnings of human factors an ergonomics psychology (31:59) | The bright and dark side of business science and research (34:18) | Science can enable and disable humans (36:15) | Usability testing in the real stressful environment (42:03) | How to improve your usability tests (43:27) | How will Web 3.0 affect a user and UX researchers? (46:41)| Blockchain and Twitter: The noise and the signal (1:00:51) | Links discussed in the podcast - ‘Start, stop, continue’ Debrief by George Zhang and Yuri Choi - https://medium.com/ssc-make-it-easy-to-drive-team-actions/start-stop-continue-debrief-b02be7431a53 | Works by Joel Barr - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelmbarr/details/featured/

#2 The current state of UX and why UXer is a superhero job with Darren Hood

Tue, 10 May 2022 13:47:12 +0000

So many new understandings and fields emerged from this two letter adventure called User experience. It is still constantly changing, sometimes for good and sometimes for not so good. If you want deeply to retrospect your moves and strategies as a UXer, there is no better person to guide you than the OG Darren Hood. A UXer since 1995, Darren had the beautiful chance of witnessing the evolution of UX. He has never hesitated to call out ineffective and misdirected UX practices. One of the current missions of Darren is to make budding UXers aware of the misinformation out there. This episode will help us understand the qualities and methods we should and should not imbibe to understand our users better. Time stamps - History of UX: a quick interesting timeline (1:59) | The current pitfalls in UX education (3:23) | Are UX jobs really booming? (6:02) | The true nature of a UX (12:38) | The pervasive nature of UX (17:10) | Why being a UXer is not just a job: risk mitigation and saving lives (19:21) | What is Lean UX: eliminating waste and moving with speed (27:31) | What has pop UX media made of lean UX (32:56) | Eliminating waste leads to speed (34:41) | UX the superhero job (38:27) | The costs of insincerity (46:36) | Leading your UX self-education: personalized learning network. (52:47) | Links discussed in the podcast - UX 2050: talk by Jakob Nielson on future of Jobs - https://www.nngroup.com/videos/ux-2050-keynote/ | Overcoming the whirlwinds of ux misinformation: talk by Darren Hood -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n47xgpdIgdg | If you want to know more about UX misdirection and misinformation - UX and the age of misinformation by Darren Hood: https://www.notion.so/Core-podcast-notes-0a28362690464bf5a0e6bef4fe6c638a | Overcoming UX misdirections by Darren hood: https://uxuncensored.medium.com/overcoming-ux-misdirection-e3efc7b47764

#1 Getting started with UX research in new settings and startups with Debbie Levitt

Tue, 19 Apr 2022 17:08:08 +0000

Debbie Levitt is a veteran in the UX and CX industry. She knows every nook and corner of the UX universe. The foundation of UX was set by the likes of Don Norman and Jakob Nielsen, it is people like Debbie who grew the field to what it is today.

In this episode Debbie shares her stories of working with various clients. She shares some common mistakes newbies and startups make in user and UX research. Whether you are starting your career in UX research or part of a startup wanting to understand its users thoroughly, you have landed on the right podcast.

Timestamps - Deep dive into Delta CX’s motto: Being Omnichannel, Omnidevice and Omnitouchpoint (1:36) | Slice of the real world to new UXers (5:01) | One thing new UX researchers should be careful about (8:54) | An efficient UX designer and researcher interaction (13:05) | The order taker vs the problem finder: Different types of UX people (17:26) | What is product market fit exactly? (23:15) | Important questions startups can ask themselves when it comes to users. (24:33) | Who should be the first UX hire of a startup. (30:00) | How not to approach UX research in a startup. (32:00) | Debbie’s story: An app people needed but didn't want (37:37) | Understanding user needs: The rookie mistake you should avoid when (39:45) | How can users’ culture affect your research (43:24) | The cost of echo chambers and lack of research (53:55) | Numbers are not the entire story (58:21) | When can A/B test fail (59:12) | Things to take care of with an A/B test (1:02:51) | Usability tests and A/B tests (1:04:36) | Debbie’s story: From A/B to A/B/C testing (1:05:48)

Links and websites discussed in the episode - Delta CX official website-https://deltacx.com/ | The coming CX/UX correction shift- https://rbefored.com/the-coming-cx-ux-correction-and-shift-19b23ed8af22 | Your CX and UX metrics are myopic- https://rbefored.com/your-cx-and-ux-metrics-are-myopic-9470d5956969 | Questions to ask during UX interviews by Debbie Levitt-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEmohwlbfwo | Think out loud sessions by Debbie Levitt-https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLSaGB80mfUaSP84austEHD0Js376rL3Jo