The User Research Round-Up: CW 17

Qual vs quant, Learn quant UXR, creating mindful experiences, how AI can help with research tasks, ethical AI-driven UX

Hello curious human!

I’ve been working with a client to revisit their onboarding experience. Before jumping into new research, we wanted to understand what had already been learned across past studies, stakeholder interviews, and feedback channels. The problem was (as many clients have) all of that was fragmented across tools, docs, and slide decks with no central way to connect the dots.

I used Condens to bring everything into one place. I imported user interview transcripts, past moderated studies, and stakeholder summaries going back almost two years. Then I created a tagging system across common onboarding themes, like “signup friction,” “account verification,” “value clarity,” and “activation moment,” and applied those across all the transcripts. I also brought in past product feedback reports and layered in a competitor onboarding teardown, tagging those with similar themes so I could spot overlaps and gaps.

Condens’ filtering made it easy to zoom in on patterns across user segments and time, like which issues only affected first-time users, or which friction points kept coming up in year-on-year research. It became clear that three of the major problems they were about to commission new research on had already been identified multiple times. That helped us avoid an unnecessary (and expensive) foundational project and move straight into prototyping.

I saved the team weeks of work and a chunk of budget, and they’ve now brought me back in to support usability testing on the redesigned flow. While this kind of work can be tedious, it is hugely important in showcasing our impact as UXRs, both in-house and as consultants.

If you’re sitting on a pile of past research and not sure where to start, Condens is the tool I’d recommend to actually make use of it. Use this link to grab a 60-day free trial.

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Resume review

I’ve had a lot of people ask about resumes recently and so I decided that I’m going to do something different. I’m going to take five resumes and review them via video so that not only is that person getting feedback BUT others can learn from the review as well—this video will be posted on Substack, LinkedIn, and Youtube. I will be taking the name off all resumes.

I will randomly select five resumes and record in the upcoming weeks. If you’re interested in being a part of this and also helping others learn, please fill out the quick google form below:

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Link roundup

01.

The Complex Landscape of UX Quant vs Qual Research with Surveys Deep Dive (Podcast) by Blatz Chatz

Okay, full disclosure, this one’s a bit special because it’s me and Ruby being interviewed by Jen. We got deep into the messiness of using surveys in UX, what works, what doesn’t, and why so many teams get it wrong. It’s honest, opinionated, and full of the little behind-the-scenes moments that don’t always make it into polished talks. If you’ve ever felt stuck between wanting better survey data and not knowing how to get it, I think you’ll really appreciate this one. It was such a fun and thoughtful conversation to be part of.

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02.