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

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Show Links

• Interviewing Users, second edition
• Portigal Consulting services, including training
• The Product Manager Podcast: How To Master User Interviews To Build More Lovable Products
• Reggie on LinkedIn
• Zendesk
• The Maze podcast: Scaling research through democratization with Reggie Murphy
• OKRs
• Zendesk Relate

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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

Show Links

• Interviewing Users, second edition
• Beyond The Surface: Navigating The Depths Of User Research With Steve Portigal (Greenbook Podcast)
• Leanne Waldal on Dollars to Donuts, 2019
• Leanne on LinkedIn
• ADP
• Badass: Making Users Awesome by Kathy Sierra
• Dropbox
• Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie
• Organic Online
• Howard Rheingold
• NASDAQ crash, 2000
• San Francisco 2004 same-sex weddings

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Thanks to Therese Fessenden having me on the NN/g UX Podcast (in support of launching the second edition of Interviewing Users).

Our 45-minute conversation is on YouTube (and embedded below), and Spotify (and embedded below).

Topics/outline

• What is a User Interview
• Steve’s Journey
• Why to Choose User Interviews
• When to Choose Other Methods
• What has Changed in User Interviews
• Remote User Interviews
• What has NOT Changed in User Interviews
• Improving User Interview Skills

One of the things I do like about interviews is that it’s a method that changes the researcher — it changes their understanding of people, of the problem, of the opportunity and it does that in this experiential kind of immersive way. If I’m going to talk to a number of people over the course of a week, I’m going to be scratching my chin on the dog walk or thinking in the shower. It gives you a lot of experiential stuff to chew on. The conclusions that you take are not obvious, they’re not in the interview. For me it’s a very rewarding experience to be pushed into this sustained creative state as you’re thinking about the people that you met and how they talked and how they how they view their work and how they view their lives because it even if it doesn’t directly go there; It goes there indirectly. You start to understand something about other kinds of people so it’s really rich and rewarding which is nice on its own I guess but it’s a really powerful way to stimulate thinking about what it is that we’re trying to answer. I get a lot out of it with the data and I get a lot out of it with the experience.

For this episode of Dollars to Donuts I had a wonderful conversation with Celeste Ridlen, the Head of Research at Robinhood

This is a fundamental leadership-y thing where no two people are going to do that same leadership role the same way. You’re never going to do them the same way as somebody else. And that’s actually a really good thing because the situation may call for exactly what you can offer. But because of that, if you’re looking to other people to decide whether or not you’re going to be suited to doing that role, it’s kind of like thinking about whether or not you should be a writer based on whether or not you can write exactly like Mary Shelley. – Celeste Ridlen

Show Links

• Interviewing Users, second edition
• Steve on the CX Chronicles
• Celeste on LinkedIn
• Robinhood
• Cognitive Psychology, Florida State University
• Dr. Michael Kaschak
• Dr. Roy Baumeister
• Dr. Dianne Tice
• San Jose State University Human Factors and Ergonomics Master’s Degree Program
• Oracle
• Symantec Corporation
• Time by Pink Floyd
• Airbnb
• Mary Shelley
• Grateful Dead

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I had a fun time signing copies of Interviewing Users, 2nd Edition, and Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries, at the Advancing Research conference last week.

I had a great conversation with Jane Portman about interviewing users (to coincide with the launch of the second edition of Interviewing Users).

Do listen to our fifty-minute conversation on the episode page, embedded below, and at Apple.

I think some of our fear is that that are questions are kind of probing and confrontational, inappropriate, but you can even just acknowledge that thing that someone said right now, you can say “divorce.” The person will say “Yes, yes, yes.” If you build this connection with them and so you have to make an ethical decision because we have a lot of power to ask about a lot of stuff. I like to go into that a little bit because I think when they bring it up…I don’t want to hear about their divorce if I’m not working on a relationship thing I want to respect their privacy. But they’re bringing it up as something that is relevant.

I talked with someone about digital photography and they brought up their relationship ending and it was actually was relevant because it was about trying to document their new baby and share those images with relatives who weren’t around when the family structure was shifting. I didn’t ask about the relationship and they gave more information than I needed to hear, but they needed to share something and I was able to hear it, but not push into something that was not appropriate. I wanted them to feel heard and accepted but I also didn’t want to push into it. But it was relevant context to we’re trying to understand, what they were trying to share about doing the work or the process of the tools.

If someone brings it up they’re testing to see “Do you want to hear about it? Is it ok to share?”

In promoting the second edition of Interviewing Users, I spoke with Mike Green on Understanding Users: The UX Podcast.

Go check out one-hour conversation (and a transcript) on the episode page, embedded below, and at Spotify, and Apple.

Highlights

• 05:20 – How user research has evolved in the last 10 years and the genesis of the second edition of the book
• 11:00 – Remote research and the impact of COVID
• 17:22 – Developments in user research tooling
• 23:40 – Emergence of ResearchOps as a career path
• 31:40 – Navigating challenges in running user research
• 39:37 – Steve’s own key takeaway from the book
• 45:11 – Feedback loops and ways of building rapport with users
• 50:35 – The joy and privilege of researching and learning
• 57:25 – The impact of AI on research as a discipline