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       How confident are you in moderating conversations and discussions with research participants? In my experience, there is nothing worse than a participant speaking to a researcher for an hour that is monotone and deadpan. It only makes for frustrated and fatigued participants. During a session, the user’s shut down emotionally and become unwilling to share details because they just want the interview to be over. Effective moderating is the art of building rapport instantaneously with a user, resulting in a more holistic and robust data-driven story for your stakeholders.

In collaboration with Mina Rohani.       

     User experience research aims to be able to provide information that seeks to provide insight to the user, provide context for usability, and asses potential problems while creating solutions. In short, the aim of user experience research is to gather information. This information can be used to identify facts or patterns, highlight problem areas, and reach conclusions about users and the usability of a product. Research teams then are tasked with deciding which types of research methods, tools, and techniques they are going to utilize to try to obtain their information. Typically, research methods are split into two categories: qualitative and quantitative. In this article, we elaborate on the differences between the two methods, their individual uses, and benefits in user experience research.

Trifecta of UXR super powers needed to excel in Ethnographic Research.  

In this day and age, User Experience Researchers (UXRs) are expected to deliver actionable insights that can meet the demands of teams in agile environments. This means less time spent “in the field” collecting data and more “bite-sized takeaways” that can be quickly disseminated among cross-functional teams. These forces are juxtaposed to traditional ethnographic/exploratory research which can be incredibly valuable when done properly. Considering the financial and human capital investment of conducting in-country or observational research, UXRs and stakeholders have been forced to think critically about how they maximize their ROI (return on investment) on research.