The User Research Round-up
Pirates, atomic research, career frameworks + organizing a repository
đ Hey, Nikki here! Welcome to this monthâs â¨Â free User Research Round-upâ¨â the worldâs most creative, helpful, new, and informative user research-based articles, podcasts, events, books, and academic resources and send that straight to your inbox. Plus, you get to submit all your questions I personally answerâbecause you canât salsa dance until you see how itâs done, right?
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01.
âHow user research impacts the AARRR metrics (Article) by Nikki Anderson-Stanier
Tying metrics to user research can be an absolute nightmare and, often, we focus on product-based metrics when business metrics are just as important. In this super detailed article, I take you through actual examples of how I tied my previous research studies to business metrics using the Pirate Framework.
02.
âAtomic Research: how to dynamically manage qualitative research (Podcast) by UXPeditious
Atomic research has always intrigued me - I've never fully implemented it at an organization, but have always found it so interesting. This podcast episode was really interesting in learning, from the master himself, how to use atomic insights in your organization for a huge benefit.
03.
âState of User Research - 2023 (Report) by User Interviews
This report looks at the annual survey on what the state of user research is in 2023. This year was hugely interesting due to changes in the field, such as budgets being cut and AI being introduced. I was surprised to see many people using AI in their research practice and interested to see how that will evolve with time! Overall, really interesting report. Although, I do always feel the salaries are conflated đ
04.
âShape Your Path with a UXR Career Framework (Article) by Nikki Anderson-Stanier
You đ need đ a đ career đ frameworkđ
Career frameworks set you up for success not only at your current organization but also in your future as a user researcher. I have had many mentees and members who struggled so much because their organization didn't have a career framework for them to follow. This led to muddled promotions/pay rises and also an uncertain career trajectory. I highly recommend checking this out if you feel lost in your career!
05.
âPractical Empathy (Book) by Indi Young
This amazing book is all about practical tips on how to listen deeply to develop empathy with users. Indi emphasizes the importance of resisting the urge to play the researcher: âTake off the metaphorical white lab coat; put aside the notepad. When youâre actively listening to someone, youâre just a person, a human, trying to understand another human. The session is not the time for doing your own thinking or synthesis.â I love this and am looking forward to writing an article on my experience with listening sessions in the near future!
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Have a question? Submit here!
Q: I've been asked to create a central repository for research for my org & I am a one person research team mainly. How do I go about this? How do I arrange and organise that it is best accessible to other stakeholders and what tool could I use? Notion? Or create a website?
Nikki's thoughts: So exciting! This is something that I've been tasked with a lot in the past. Back in 2015, I remember creating a research repository. I used a WordPress template and begged my developers to help me with custom coding. It was painstaking work. I filled out an extensive form for each research project, and eventually, I had one and a half year's worth of research in our repository.
I unveiled my work. I turned into a salesperson conducting a demo with all the enthusiasm in the world. My colleagues were happy, and I left them to explore this new wonderful world I created.
Except, people didn't. I got constant slack messages or emails asking where this or that project would be and how to find a particular insight they had thought they heard. That's when I learned two essential lessons:
Don't do big revealsâget feedback early and often on your work, especially if it involves other people
I didn't employ my user research hat as I would for any other projectâstakeholders are my users, and I failed them
Eventually, I went back and undid most of my work. Instead of just running forward with organizing and tagging data, I go through the following steps:
1x1 interviews. Before I go off and create a whole taxonomy, I have 1x1 interviews with colleagues, asking them about how they would search and categorize particular insights. In this session, I give them many insights and understand what words they would use to search for them. We then discuss global tags (such as pain points, needs, goals, etc), and they give me preliminary feedback on these.
Card sorting. Once we have feedback for the global tags, I conduct card sorting sessions to understand the hierarchy of the tags. These sessions give me an idea of what global tags might commonly go together. I also use this opportunity to throw in some project-based tags to see how people respond.
Usability testing. After we establish our preliminary tags, I will conduct several rounds of usability testing to ensure the search, filtering, and overall experience makes sense.
Constant feedback. Once there is research in the repository, I give colleagues a feedback form to constantly log any bugs, usability issues, or confusing tags.
In terms of the tool, pick whatever is easiest for your stakeholders to access - is there a tool they are already using that they already use and can you use that? If not, maybe try an MVP of a few tools to see which is easiest for stakeholders to access and use.
Patience and constant iteration are vital for taking on a research repository with a proper taxonomy. The most thriving research repositories enable colleagues to get what they need whenever they need it. By taking the time to create a collaborative taxonomy dictionary and experience, you are saving work for yourself and making research more accessible across your organization.
I hope this helps!