It’s the first anniversary of the second edition of Interviewing Users, and it’s now available as an audiobook. Listen to this episode for a sample. Show Links

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts, I talk with Emily Sun, the head of Design and Research at Hipcamp. We discuss staying engaged in work, designers doing their own research, and research at a small, growing company. There’s actually a big opportunity with smaller companies. At small startups, you are much closer to the […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my conversation with Tamara Hale, the Director of Product Experience – Research & Insights at Splunk. We talk about the long tail of impact, being an anthropologist of work, and having a creative practice. The ‘doing the research’ bit is only about a quarter of your job. The […]

In this latest episode of Dollars to Donuts, I talk with Vanessa Arango Garcia, Director UX Research & Research Operations at Delivery Hero. We discuss creating an engaged research community across a global organization, being accountable for impact, and how today’s challenges provide an opportunity for the research progression to grow. We care a lot […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my conversation with Sarah Gregory, Director of User Research for Consumer at Coinbase. We talk about research comms, archiving user research, and doing research that no one is yet asking for. Our email is designed for one very specific leadership stakeholder, and it is tailored to how that […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I speak with Jamika Burge, the head of research for Data and AI at Capital One. We talk about her journey through academia, discovering user research, and intersectionality. Doing good – for me, as a researcher, and as someone who wants to do good in the world, it […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my interview with Akshay Verma, the head of User Research at Duolingo. We talk about being qualitative focused in an experimentation-driven organization, research team structures, team rituals, and sharing knowledge between researchers. I don’t actually want to bemoan or belabor this concept of a room that we’re invited […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts Carol Rossi returns to update us on the last 9 years. She’s now a consultant who focuses on user research leadership. I’m happy making the contributions that I’m making, even though it’s hard to directly measure impact. I’m hearing from people that they’re finding value from the work […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I welcome Gregg Bernstein back for a follow-up episode. He’s now Director of User Research at Hearst Magazines. The thing that I always come back to is that there is no one way to do research. And I also think there’s no one way to do research leadership. […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my interview with Mani Pande, Director and Head of Research at Cisco Meraki. We used to do these immersion events where we would bring everybody who worked on, who was our stakeholder, to come and listen and talk to our customers. And we would do these focus groups, […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my interview with Vanessa Whatley, UX Director – Research & Documentation at Twilio. For many years, I had anxiety and regret around not starting my career in the field that I’m in sooner because I felt very very lost stumbling through all of the different fields and roles, […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my interview with Nizar Saqqar, the Head of User Research at Snowflake. For a domain that takes a lot of pride and empathy and how we can represent the end user, there’s a component that sometimes gets overshadowed, which is the empathy with cross-functional partners. With every domain, […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features a return visit from Noam Segal, now a Senior Research Manager at Upwork. AI will help us see opportunities for research that we haven’t seen. It will help us settle a bunch of debates that maybe we’ve struggled to settle before. It will help us to connect with […]

Today we’ve got a quick program note about new episodes of Dollars to Donuts, an announcement about my new book, and an interview with Steve Portigal. Show Links Interviewing Users (2nd Edition) Steve on The Rosenfeld Review Podcast “How-to with John Wilson” on HBO

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my interview with Danielle Smith, the Senior Director of Experience Research & Accessibility at Express Scripts. Something that I’ve really changed the way I thought about since I’ve been at Express Scripts — we are in the healthcare ecosystem. So the experiences we deliver, if they are not […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my interview with Amber Lindholm, the Head of User Research at Duo Security. That’s the sign of a really good researcher – it can never be just about research for research’s sake, like this is a cool project, this is a neat thing, I really wanna go in-depth […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my interview with Julia Nelson, the Director Of Research at MOO. All researchers say to some degree that they don’t necessarily have a traditional background when they come into the research field. But I think there’s a lot of strength in welcoming people with different perspectives onto your […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my interview with Chris Kovel, the Head Of Research at First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB). I look at needs as proximate needs and ultimate needs. An ultimate need is why the product exists in the first place. And then the proximate need is the experience of using that […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my interview with Noam Segal, the Director of Research at Wealthfront. Everyone from PMs to designers, researchers, obviously, engineers, data scientists, marketing, we’re all trying to to understand our clients, we’re all taking part in that process in some way, shape or form. And so I view my […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I speak with Laith Ullaby, the Head of Research at Udemy. I’m really into the idea of questioning what we do. That can be the methods and that conversation about getting out of our comfort zone. It can be thinking about our relationships with stakeholders and trying to […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I speak with Kathryn Campbell, the Director of Research & Insights at Ticketmaster. Whenever there is availability of somebody that might normally work on the marketplace side, they might tag team on an account manager project and that helps to inform them about that product. It gives them […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I speak with Laura Faulkner, the Head of Research at Rackspace. I’ve never just sat and done just what I was asked to do. I’m always looking for something new, something else. It’s probably just part of how I’m built but it’s also a conscious choice of, of […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I chat with Colin MacArthur, the Head of Design Research at the Canadian Digital Service. We talk about bureaucracy hacking, spreading the gospel of research throughout government, and embedding researchers in complex domains. Often the idiosyncrasies in people’s research and the sort of surprises that don’t fit within […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I talk to Jesse Zolna, who leads the User Experience Research Team at ADP’s Innovation Lab. We talk about driving change as an experiment, exposing the organization to how customers solve problems, and engineering psychology. One of the challenges we face is getting “credit” for the work that […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I speak with Juliette Melton, Director of User Insight and Strategy at The New York Times. We talk about updating the old “design research” label, user research in a journalism culture, and the role of coaching. I think that researchers can bring a kind of brightness into a […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features my conversation with Ashley Graham, a design research leader at IBM. We discuss synthesis as a collaborative, co-located activity, being mission-driven, and building a process that addresses complexity. When I look at the wonderful research community, I don’t see a ton of people that look like me and […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I speak with Michele Marut who leads user experience research at CBRE Build. We discuss the curation of research repositories, using research to go beyond fixing things, and building processes and tools that can be used by researchers and people who do research. The philosophy is that the […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I speak with Vicki Tollemache, the Director of UX Research at Grubhub. We discuss how to manage incoming research requests, running a weekly research session for testing designs, and why candidates should come into job interviews with a point of view about the company’s product. To me, researchers […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts I speak with Ruth Ellison, Head of User Research at DTA, the Digital Transformation Agency in Australia. We discuss the challenges of user research – and digital product development – in government, embedding researchers into product teams but maintaining a guild model to connect them, and how research […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts is part 2 of my conversation with Leisa Reichelt of Atlassian. If you haven’t listened to part 1 yet, you can find it here. We talk about corporate versus government work, scaling research, and changing organizational DNA. I love research, I love the way that we learn things and […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features part 1 of my two-part conversation with Leisa Reichelt of Atlassian. We talk about educating the organization to do user research better, the limitations of horizontal products, and the tension between “good” and “bad” research. If you’re working on a product that has got some more foundational issues […]

This episode of Dollars to Donuts features Kathleen Asjes of Schibsted Media. In our conversation, we talk about what happens when research need exceeds resources, the importance of keeping the knowledge inside the organization, and the benefit of diversity in a research team. It’s not so much about which university do I go to and […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts, I talk with Tomer Sharon, the Head of User Research and Metrics at Goldman Sachs. We talk about how to assess potential hires for user research positions, infrastructure for capturing and searching a body of data, and developing a practice inside a willing, yet large, organization. Some parts […]

In this episode of Dollars to Donuts, I speak with Marianne Berkovich, Head of User Research & Consumer Insights at Glooko. We talk about doing research through leadership changes, setting up opportunities for self-critique, and how to build empathy, especially in health technology, by experiencing some aspect of the condition and treatment yourself. It really […]

Welcome back to Dollars to Donuts. This episode features Leanne Waldal, Senior Director of Product Research at New Relic. We talk about establishing research in an organization for the first time, building up a diverse set of research collaborators, and the pleasure of taking on certain types of challenges. I’ve seen hopeful examples in startups […]

In the final episode of the season I speak with Monal Chokshi, Head of User Experience Research at Lyft. We discuss traditional paths to a user research career, creating routines for meeting different types of users, and the emergence of leadership roles in user research.

In this episode I speak with Kate Lawrence, Vice President of User Research at EBSCO Information Services. Our conversation covers where to place user research in the organization, emotions in fieldwork, and empowering others to advocate for information literacy.

This episode features Pree Kolari, the Senior Director of Design Strategy and Research at eBay. We talk about the career arc of a researcher, having impact on the product, and breaking down organizational walls.

This episode features Gabe Trionfi, the Manager of Research at Pinterest. We discuss the evolution of user research, collaboration between disciplines and the journey versus the destination.

In this episode I chat with Elizabeth Kell, the Senior Director of User Research at Comcast. We talk about the growth of Comcast’s user research practice, essential soft skills for research candidates, and putting a human face on the people that use your products.

Today I chat with Kavita Appachu, the Senior Manager of User Experience Research at Kelley Blue Book. She describes the different roles she’s had in different organizations, moving from design to research, and explains the change effort underway at Kelley Blue Book.

In today’s episode I speak with Aviva Rosenstein, the Senior Manager of User Experience Research at DocuSign. We explore how to make all types of research actionable, the benefit of doing your own recruiting, and the evolution from building a usability lab to having an in-house research capability.

We kick off the second season with Judd Antin, the Director of Experience Research at Airbnb. Judd and I speak about their model for embedding talented generalists with product teams, skill-sharing among researchers, and just what exactly makes research “sexy.”

Today’s guest is Carol Rossi. She’s the Senior Director of UX Research at Edmunds.com. In our conversation, we discuss her small-but-mighty team, Edmund.com’s collaborative workplace culture, and the personal driver of “doing good.”

Today’s guest is Kerry McAleer-Forte, the Director of User Experience Research for Sears Holdings. We discuss how researchers need to think like storytellers, getting at the underlying need behind a research request, and the risk of using research to make recommendations.

My guest today is Nancy Frishberg, the manager of user research at Financial Engines. We discuss recruiting participants in an enterprise setting (where users are customers of your customers), finding the generative in the evaluative and how to think about collaborative workspace as entirely separate from reporting structure.

Today’s guest is Frances Karandy, a senior manager within the Customer Experience Group at Citrix. We discuss doing product-focused research in a company with a large number of products, what to look for when hiring researchers, and how to select projects that not only support the business but also help team members to develop.

Today’s guest is Alex Wright, who is the director of research at Etsy. We discuss the partnership between qualitative and quantitative research at Etsy and how his background in journalism helps him with the storytelling aspects of managing the research function.

Welcome to the debut episode of Dollars to Donuts. Today’s guest is Gregg Bernstein, who manages customer research at MailChimp. We discuss how MailChimp uses research to uncover new product opportunities, how the right research artifacts can best provide value to different internal audiences and how humility is an essential soft skill for successful researchers.

Reposting from Johnan’s newsletter — the newsletter is written in his voice; the italicized portion is a quote from me

Many years ago, after completing my Master’s, I was accepted as a PhD student and moved to Copenhagen to join a European research team focused on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) in complex work environments. While other teams were studying, e.g., subway control rooms in London or ambulance coordination in Paris, Maria Normark and I focused on Air Traffic Control (ATC) in Copenhagen. At that time over 260 controllers, assistants, and supervisors managed roughly 1,500 aircraft traveling through Danish airspace daily, and that number was expected to grow. To manage this increase without risking safety or driving up costs, we needed a deep understanding of their work.

I spent over a year at the ATC center—not daily, but frequently enough to gain a true sense of their work. The insights we gained from just being in their workspace, observing firsthand, were invaluable. When I later transitioned into the private sector, in-person observation became a cornerstone of my work as a designer. My projects led me to farmers in their fields, biologists in forests, chemists in labs, clerks in shops, and soldiers during military exercises. The details—the farmer’s crop listings, the chemist’s notebook, or the sticky notes on a lottery terminal—offered irreplaceable insights, ultimately leading to successful products and services.

Now, remote research is certainly nothing new. It’s been in our toolbox for more than 10 years. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, it has accelerated dramatically, often at the expense of traditional field studies. It’s been a while since I did any research myself, but I can’t help but worry about what might be lost in this shift.

When I talked about my experiences and concerns with Steve, he added some, perhaps even more important perspectives:

“You describe the scenarios that you go into, and the amount of context that’s there. And I 100% agree with that. But I want to point out something that we talk about less, what happens to us as researchers. While doing this work, we have these experiences: there’s surprise and overwhelm and joy, and just being fundamentally changed. If you spend a year in air traffic control, you’re gonna be changed as a consumer of air travel, but you’re also changed in how you understand that work and those people.

We use the word empathy kind of easily, but think about that. It’s just a big bucket for stuff that gets added to us. And for the kind of research that we can be doing—which is to really richly understand the world in a new way in order to innovate for that world—that’s the aspiration that I have for research.

And then, if we’re wearing the researcher hat, we are also facilitating other people going through those changes; teammates, designers, PMs, tech people, marketers, content producers, you name it. We’re in the organizational culture change business. Every researcher says, “How can I have impact? How can I have influence?” And encourage people to participate is a big one; show them videos, let them come into the Zoom meeting, but boy, take them to the forest, and spend an hour at 6 a.m. watching those people load up their gear or come back at 4 p.m. after walking through mud in boots with insect bites… I hesitate to call that empathy because I think that minimizes it. It changes us, it excites us and frustrates us and confuses us, and it just gives us new things to chew on because we’ve experienced them.

Participant observation is the old buzzword. If you don’t participate, you’re sort of limited. I want to “yes and” what you described. We’re losing all that context, but we’re also losing what happens to us from being in that context. It’s just so important to… being excited about how the world is different than what we assumed. That’s the thing that I feel is lost, that I want to find small ways to incorporate wherever I can.”

Steve’s words reminded me that this shift is about more than losing contextual insights; it’s about losing the transformation that in-person observation brings to the researcher and the team—and, ultimately, the design. “Being excited about how the world is different than we assumed,” as Steve put it, and including others in that excitement, can be the driver you need to move a product or service toward real innovation.

Thanks to Lija Hogan for a fun conversation on Insights Unlocked. There’s a nice summary here, and you can find the interview embedded on that page, as well as Amazon, Spotify, and Apple. It’s also embedded below.

Looking to the future of UX research

As the field continues to grow, Steve envisions a future where research may drive business decisions even more directly. He posed an intriguing question about the potential for research-led companies, where user research forms the core of innovation strategies. While the idea is still a “fantasy” in many ways, it’s clear that research will continue to play a key role in shaping the products and services of the future.

Steve leaves us with a valuable reminder about the importance of intention in research: “We don’t always know what we don’t know… but if we create space for synthesis and exploration, we open the door to deeper insights and bigger breakthroughs.”

I’m thrilled to announce that my book, along with other popular titles from Rosenfeld Media, is now available as an audiobook on Audible!

Whether you’re commuting, working out, or just relaxing, you can now tune in and learn from your favorite UX experts on the go. In addition to my book, Interviewing Users you can find books by Donna Lichaw, Jim Kalbach, Harry Max, and more.

Check us out on Audible, here!

It’s the first anniversary of Interviewing Users, 2nd edition. I’m sharing some of the conversations I’ve had about the book and user research. Check out the following podcasts that I’ve appeared on in the past year.

• The Informed Life (part 1, part 2)
• The Rosenfeld Review
• Design Bubble
• Advancing Research

Buy the book here, and use the discount code ANNIVERSARY for 12% off, through October 31st.

It’s the first anniversary of Interviewing Users, 2nd edition. I’m sharing some of the conversations I’ve had about the book and user research. Check out the following podcasts that I’ve appeared on in the past year.

• Content Strategy Insights
• Tent Talks
• Experiencing Data
• CXChronicles

Buy the book here, and use the discount code ANNIVERSARY for 12% off, through October 31st.

It’s the first anniversary of Interviewing Users, 2nd edition. I’m sharing some of the conversations I’ve had about the book and user research. Check out the following podcasts that I’ve appeared on in the past year.

• Greenbook
• Rally
• UX Research Geeks
• Understanding Users
• Rock n’ Roll Research
• UXRMX
• Get Curious

Buy the book here, and use the discount code ANNIVERSARY for 12% off, through October 31st.

A little while ago I spoke with Anshul Divakar on his GetCurious podcast. We spoke for an hour about the history of user research, classic examples of research informing business decisions (for better or worse), the value of storytelling, and a lot more.

You can watch our conversation on YouTube, and embedded below.

(See also: Janelle Ward recommends Interviewing Users)

It’s the first anniversary of Interviewing Users, 2nd edition. I’m sharing some of the conversations I’ve had about the book and user research. Check out the following podcasts that I’ve appeared on in the past year.

• Design Better
• NN/g UX
• UX Podcast
• UI Breakfast
• World of UX

Buy the book here, and use the discount code ANNIVERSARY for 12% off, through October 31st.

It’s the first anniversary of Interviewing Users, 2nd edition. Over the next week I’ll share some of the conversations I’ve had about the book and user research. Check out the following podcasts that I’ve appeared on in the past year.

• Product Quest
• Product Thinking
• Product Manager
• Product Mastery Now
• One Knight In Product
• Making Things That Matter
• Vit Lyoshin

Buy the book here, and use the discount code ANNIVERSARY for 12% off, through October 31st.

Thanks to Darinka Buendía for a lovely conversation about user research. It’s up as a one-hour episode, on Spotify and embedded below.