Related Posts
More Posts
Community Builder
Bowl Leader
How long does your wash day take? Mine is 1.5hrs
Bowl Leader
Visual Storyteller
Conversation Starter
Additional Posts in Designers
Gusto I’m a product designer hoping to switch industries from the public sector to private. I am struggling because I’m starting to see a lot of pushback on the fact that I don’t have industry specific work. So I’m really curious how much working in a specific industry effects your career path.
I’m looking at some fintech jobs but ultimately want to work in hrtech? Like gusto, lattice, etc. would that potentially prevent that switch?
Anyone need access to Canva Pro lifetime??
I have always talked about collaborating with researchers or just made up my research. I try to look for jobs with researchers so I don’t have to do my own so this has never been a problem. Some jobs are very research heavy so that wouldn’t fly at places like that.
Subject Expert
In my experience, user research and usability testing findings have been crucial to the success of the products I have worked on, so I do talk about it a lot!
Staff II UX Designer. I won't disagree with you. I know I've created tests subject to bias several times and have felt pressure to do so from management. But I'm not a user researcher and a lot of design teams don't get access to that expertise. Leads to a lot of misuse but it's also all they can really do realistically with their experience.
I still advocate for the 5 man usability test though. That 5 man test should not be treated as an AB test, but could and should be treated as a usability test to find and fix flaws. It should not be used to set or confirm overall ideas, though you can fish for them if you want in a survey after. Monitor for error rates, observe common mistakes, and maybe compare completion times to another mock (that has its own unique testers). Alongside a few (unbiased) qualitative questions, these tests come out pretty useful.
(If I'm wildly off base please be kind and correct me gently 😅)
Just wondering about the context, can you tell me where you were working that makes you feel like User Research isn't valuable?
The only experience I had is that when PM chose not to conduct/listen to user research and end up making something no one uses, so there's that.
Ok, so you've told me your company setup - but can you tell me the kind of products and users you worked on?
User research can save $100ks (sometimes millions) if done correctly. You need appropriate KPIs and success metrics, so you have something to measure against. We’ve been doing it on a low-budget because it’s new to the org (aka we don’t have dedicated UXR staff) but even the crap research we do ourselves has given us invaluable insight around our UI, our flows, etc. We’ve increased completion rates, decreased cart abandonment, gained % increase in market shares via personalization, etc.
I’m curious, what kind of testing are you doing that you feel hasn’t added value to your design?
I think proper user testing is very valuable, I’m saying most designers / companies don’t actually do it properly and then exaggerate the benefits of it.
Sad to see this perspective shared. User research executed well should help define what core use cases a product supports. For example, Product identifies the need to deliver a feature that communicates clinical progress for a health patient or fitness progress for an athletes. During a discovery phase you should be researching competitive/ comparative products that meet a similar need to identify best practices AND speaking directly to your user base to see what’s important to them and where the pain points are you can deliver a better experience around. Those findings should absolutely drive the feature definition in tandem with the business goals.
I fear you might be a bit confused about the role of research. It helps shape hypothesis and experience principles for why / what you design. Once a mvp is shipped or an A/B test is run “statistical significance” comes into play and is defined by a data set that proves positive or negative impact on the outcome you are trying to create.
Evaluative user research can come into play to understand the qualitative impact a release has had but is not quantitative.
Lastly, if research has not played a significant role in defining a feature set that’s a big concern since you are basically saying we heard stuff from people (probably through poorly crafted studies) and then design and product just decided what we liked in no relation to what our users actually want / need.
Your 10 years of experience may be at companies that don’t have strong discovery/research muscles.
Sorry to hear that’s your reality. In my experience senior management cares a lot about research that informs strategic decision making. The user or product research function often helps to define what a product is not just if it’s usable through early foundational studies.
In my experience presidents, founders, vps, value it if you have the right leader clearly demonstrating it’s impact on why and how you build product.
I always make it look like it’s important (which I believe), but it doesn’t mean other people involved in the projects really cared about it. In my experience, if the client/leadership doesn’t believe in research and testing, they just won’t dedicate the resources. Sometimes I did my own research to help my own process.
Which in turn makes you a better designer.
I’ve worked at agencies only and they both focused heavily on UXR. At my last company it was a core competency. Their Visual design chops weren’t the best but they still did good work. But the UXR was top notch. They even had a mini course teaching it to UX generalist like me. We did tons of CIs, Affinity diagraming, wall walks to go through feature prioritizing with the client and then could prioritize features for years down the road. Often we try to back this into the SOW from the get go but it isn’t always.
This company now has much better design chops but our client, the gov, doesn’t like research much but we recently are baking tons more into our sprints. Such that this company now ends up hiring UXR to integrate them into the team. Recently just got done with some user testing and the feedback was great. We are getting tons of value out of it in terms of what features we need to rethink and tackle next. Since it’s highly technical and a lot gets lots I’m the speak; so it’s good to have direction and feedback on what we are making - almost all the time.
I almost feel anxious when there isn’t any UXR invoked. I find it always has helped. Never the other way around.
I was honest about my experience but I am a junior designer. Initially, it was observation only as an intern. Now as a junior, I am conducting user interviews and user testing. I feel like I don’t do as well but that’s my anxiety.
Got it OP. Sorry! And digital product designer, feel free to DM me. I don’t wanna take over OPs thread.
I don’t like but I’m not above liberal embellishment 😂
Hi. Expert here. Statistical significance is not uncommon in UX research at all. I rarely make a recommendation based solely on quant without it - must have both practical and statistical significance at p<.05. I work at enterprise level nowadays, for context. If there is practical significance and p<.1 with compelling qual, that’s workable, too. I train and guide the 200+ designers that conduct more basic research on their own to maintain the same standard where statistically significant results make sense.
What would you recommend in cases where your resources limit # of users for studies, or live AB testing has not been established?
Coach
Usually embellish lol