Links

1. Jobs to be done personas

   @productherapist’s advice in creating personas supported by JTBD research.

2. Testing content and user research

   Jonathan Richardson outlines some techniques for researching and testing content.

3. Jobs To Be Done

   An excerpt from @jimkalbach latest book The Jobs To Be Done Playbook.

4. A simple technique for evaluating content

   Pete Gale’s brilliant highlighter technique for testing content.

5. Zoompathy. Coming to a research project near you?

   @bowmast on the importance of context in qualitative, the tradeoffs we incur with remote research and how to challenge them.

   Tradeoffs and risk.

   …short-term reliance on research methods without explaining the tradeoffs may risk training our clients to accept what appears to be a more convenient option. As design-at-pace sometimes seems more user-scented than centered…

6. Undemocratising User Research

   @SaswatiSM’s argument against democratised research.

   Love this definition of a researcher ❤️

   A researcher is a dynamic thinker who has to adapt their methods and questions based on who is in front of them, how much they have already learnt and what new areas could be probed on.

   Saswati makes some great observations about analysis paralysis.

   More data is not equal to better data.

   … the ambitious were burnt out and the less ambitious, lowered the quality of their output or just gave up. None of these are outcomes you would want in your organisation on a regular basis.

   Actual outcomes.

   So what we really got was not a new pool of researchers but an access to some skill sets which we would normally not have got if we went via the typical prioritization route for their time and skills.

   Goals for strategic researchers.

   As a UX Research Lead, I would like 80% of my team’s time to go towards discovering the right opportunities. This will require UX Researchers to enhance certain skills — do more literature reviews, get better at identifying and tracking trends over time, improve one’s story-telling and quantitative market sizing skills to be able to own the full narrative around an opportunity.

7. Scaling UX Research: how to train an army of (non)researchers

   @egomezspain’s argument for training non-researchers and tips for doing so.

8. My work life as a Global UX Researcher at Uber

   @egomezspain describes his life as a global UX researcher.

9. Democratization is our Job

   @beh_zod describes the importance of democratising research.

   What is democratization?

   …the reality is that democratization is about being a good navigator and a good passenger.

   How does it work?

   You want to be able to partner with other disciplines, set expectations, and educate, enable, and empower them to be rigorous in their curiosity.

   What is the value?

   …any work we can do to help others with systems, processes, tools, and programs will make their work more impactful and give them a deeper understanding of why our expertise is valuable.

10. Content in the product design process — articulating our role

    @Minette_78 walks us through the content design process.