In case you missed it, there are a lot of new episodes of Dollars to Donuts (and more coming)!
New guests:
Returning guests:
I hope you’ll check them out!
In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I speak with Daniel Escher, Director of UX and Research at Remitly. We talk about more ways for researchers to add value, business questions over research questions, and the things that researchers worry about.
Where I think collective identity can be limiting is when someone thinks of themselves as a researcher and says, “Therefore, that means this is my small box of things that I do and ways that I contribute.” And what I always want to do is push that box to be bigger, right? I’m not at all saying that the box doesn’t exist in any way. But we as researchers can drive far more decision-making, far more strategy, far more hypotheses than I think we realize. I think that we tend to want to hand off work to other people when actually what I encourage my team to do is figure out where are the places where actually a handoff doesn’t make sense, but a handshake makes sense. There’s some contact there. Or where does hand-holding make sense, where there’s really extended involvement? – Daniel Escher
Help other people find Dollars to Donuts by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.
Let’s talk about what happens when user research fails to land. How do you deal with this? Video embedded below, or here.
Buy the second edition of Interviewing Users!
This episode of Dollars to Donuts features part 2 of my two-part conversation with Reggie Murphy of Zendesk. We talk about psychological safety at work, Reggie’s career journey, and online career resources for UX researchers.
That helps the team be better researchers when they feel like they have a space where, man, I don’t have to be perfect every time. I’m going to definitely strive really hard to do great work and try to be successful. But I have a leader who’s going to have my back if something goes wrong. It works. I want every people leader who’s listening to this to understand that. That you’re not going to get it right every time. But if you set the environment and the intention of being a leader who understands that people will make mistakes, but it’s not that you made the mistake. It’s, okay, how do you learn from it and not do it again? And how that we can set up parameters within the team to address that particular mistake if it was something like a research protocol or something. – Reggie Murphy
Help other people find Dollars to Donuts by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.
Being in an in interview is a powerful opportunity to provoke deeper reflection – beyond but not limited to the ‘data’ – about what it is that you’re trying to understand and even change about the world.
Here’s a short excerpt from my recent appearance on the NN/g podcast.
This episode of Dollars to Donuts features part 1 of my two-part conversation with Reggie Murphy of Zendesk. We talk about aligning the work of the research team with stakeholder OKRs and empowering non-researchers to do user research.
The researcher would go into these meetings and say we’re going to do a “I Wish I Knew” exercise, where we start thinking about what we’re building for our customers, what are the questions outstanding that we still don’t have an answer to. We’d go through that exercise, and then we’d prioritize that list. I can’t tell you how valuable those exercises were and how our stakeholders looked at us and said, “Wow, I did not know that research could add this kind of value to our conversation,” because it really helped them see. You know, that question that we’ve been battling around in these meetings isn’t really the one that’s most important. It’s this one. And to see it all together was a revelation for some of our stakeholders. I can’t tell you how important that was. – Reggie Murphy
<
Help other people find Dollars to Donuts by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.
Can anyone interview users? Should anyone interview users? Here’s my short take on this classic question! In this video, I share my perspective. What do you think?
Interviewing Users, 2nd edition available here.
What are emerging areas for applying user research that you are excited about? In this video, I share a bit about what’s been interesting to me of late. What about you?
Interviewing Users, 2nd edition available here.
I’m looking forward to this Ask Me Anything session hosted by Rally, May 30 at 12 pm ET.
Register here.
In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I catch up with Leanne Waldal, five years after she first appeared on the podcast. She’s now a Principal in User Experience at ADP.
A couple of years ago, I realized I know things. We all know things, but sometimes we go through life thinking there’s always something more for us to know, or we don’t know as much as others. A couple of years ago I was like, oh, I know some stuff. I could share it. If I think of myself at 23, 24 years old, I had people who were my age now who were telling me things that I listened to and got advice from. I’m that person now. I can be the person who like gives people advice or says, I don’t actually know everything, but here’s some things I learned over the years that might help you. It makes me feel good to do that. It boosts my confidence. It helps me feel like I can actually do something that’s not just my craft or not just my job for a paycheck or not just this, but I actually have something to offer. And that’s a great feeling. – Leanne Waldal
Help other people find Dollars to Donuts by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts.