Let's meet up virtually: UX Research Meetup & Event Guide February 2023

Thinking of taking the leap to go freelance? Come along to this event to help you with where to start. I'll share an honest overview of everything I've learnt, simplify things that seem complicated and answer any questions you have.

We'll cover:

• Deciding if freelance is right for you - eg. your own goals and motivations for doing it, day to day life as a freelancer, pros and cons, risks, things to get comfortable with

• User research projects - eg. finding work, day rates, IR35, types of project setup: recruitment agencies, design agencies and direct clients, doing the research itself, things to look out for

• Running a business - eg. types of company, setting up the company, business bank account, finding an accountant, insurance, tools and software, getting started

Q&A - At the end, I'll open up to answer any questions you have

Modern product teams are simultaneously balancing speed to delivery of new features and the need to test hypotheses, uncover unmet needs, and gain new insights about their users. So many user research questions, so little time!

Given these competing pressures, how do you determine which studies to prioritize? How should a product team go about determining how to invest their own limited time as well as their customers’ time? When is it worth investing in time-consuming primary research, and when is it ok to “ship it and measure it”? Join a discussion on how to identify your highest-priority research projects.

Anil Kumar Krishnashetty, Senior Product Marketing Manager, and Liam O'Connor, Lead UX Researcher, present on Rapid changing Traveller behaviours pushing UX research to be better.

UXDX has a mission of helping companies shift from building software through projects to empowering autonomous product teams. This is our mission because product teams are more innovative and efficient when working in high change environments. But changing isn't that easy.

That's why we host speakers who are sharing how they are changing their ways of working to enable quicker and more customer centric product delivery.

Over a billion people worldwide (and around 25% of the populations of the USA and Europe) live with some kind of disability—a reality no organization can afford to ignore.

That means all of us must design research that includes people who are poorly served, or completely excluded, from the products, services, and spaces we study and create. These strategies for inclusion should be developed in partnership with people who have lived experience of a wide range of access needs.

In this talk, researchers and community panelists from Open Inclusion share key strategies they are using to build their inclusive practice and a case study showing these approaches in action. The session will be highly interactive, promoting dialogue by, with, and for people variously impacted by exclusionary practices and engaged in inclusive research.

We are back and ready to start the Spring season 2023 of our meetups. We are happy to introduce our first speaker — Nick Finck. Nick will talk about building culture and processes in business. Businesses often struggle to build effective organizations that foster the growth and maturity of design & research.

At scale, the challenges faced by design & research leaders are often tenfold. This presentation addresses those challenges and shares real-world examples of how to grow UX maturity at scale.

Nick Finck is a design & research leader with over two decades of experience in the industry. He strives to improve people’s lives by crafting well-designed experiences that matter. Nick currently consults & advises businesses on design and research through Craft & Rigor in Seattle. Before this, he was in design & research leadership roles at Amazon Web Services, Facebook, Ubermind, Deloitte Digital, projekt202, and his own agency Blue Flavor.

This course is suitable for those with limited experience in user research, who are looking to develop their skills and experience further. Supported by practical exercises to help you apply the theory, by the end of the course you’ll be able to:

• Understand the end-to-end user research process, including: planning, recruiting participants, selecting appropriate methodologies and user research practices, and analysing and communicating findings

• Understand the importance of user research in user centred design and in designing and delivering public services

• Understand the benefits of user research to the wider organisation

• Understand how user researchers work within a multidisciplinary team, and how they work with the team throughout a project cycle

Looking for consumer insight to help drive decisions, but not sure where to start? In this webinar, you’ll learn how to organize, conduct and analyze qualitative research.

Sara Schor will talk about the different types of qualitative research (focus groups, ethnographies, online), how to do it on the cheap, smart ways to ask questions, and how to think about and assess what you’ve learned.

Sara Schor is a brand strategist and market researcher at Schor Insights & Research who has been conducting qualitative research for over 20 years. She’ll teach you tips and tricks to effectively conduct research that will help you gain actionable insights.

Assessing the health of a forest by examining a single tree would obviously be misguided –yet for many complex tasks that involve using a patchwork of apps and web sites to complete a goal, we tend to do just that: evaluate the experience based on sentiment for individual applications (via NPS, UMUX, etc.).

In this talk, we will describe a User Experience Index (UXI) we have developed to assess and track task “friction” end-to-end, across applications in a large-scale IT workplace. The UXI is derived by comparing existing task complexity to an “ideal” user experience for that task, recognizing that some tasks are inherently simpler and others more complex.

This approach forms a basis for UX prioritization, serves as a metric to demonstrate ROI for UX activities and assists with cross-team cooperation, ensuring a “big picture” view of how each app or site fits into the user journey.

​Join us for an AMA with ReOps leader Kaela Tuttle-Royer as she shares lessons she's learned from her time at Dropbox and Spotify.

• Building from scratch, or in the shadow of another former ReOps leader

• ReOps for UXRs, Market Researchers, and Data Scientists — wins, losses, and what it means for the future of ReOps

• Growing an all-star ReOps team with non-ReOps individuals both in B2B and B2C

• Navigating layoffs and the job market in an emergent niche industry

• Your questions!

​And that's just a sprinkling of what you'll learn from Kaela. Don't miss out on the chance to hear Kaela's insights and experience.

Ever wonder what happens to your insights after you share out your research? We'll walk through how to accurately track insights with every project and and the impact it has on the user experience. You’ll learn how to measure the ROI of UX through insight tracking.

This​ ​course​ ​will​ ​introduce​ ​students​ ​to​ ​the​ ​basics​ ​of​ ​user​ ​experience​ ​and​​ ​research.​ We​ ​will​ ​examine​ ​a​ ​wide​ ​range​ ​of​ ​methods​ ​and discuss​ ​how​ ​to​ ​determine​ ​when​ ​to​ ​use​ ​them​ ​and​ ​how​ ​to​ ​develop​ ​appropriate​ ​research questions.​ ​Course​ ​assignments​ ​will​ ​provide​ ​real-world​ ​experience​ ​so​ ​that​ ​students​ ​will​ ​be prepared​ ​to​ ​undertake​ ​their​ ​own​ ​research​ ​projects​ ​after​ ​the​ ​completion​ ​of​ ​the​ ​course.

After this short course, you will be able to:

• Understand and explain to others what user experience research is and what it can contribute to a design effort

• Develop, conduct, analyze, and report findings from a survey

• Develop, conduct, analyze, and report findings from in-depth interviews

• Ensure that research is applicable to product development

UX360 Research Summit 2023 is our new flagship event born out of our 12-year-long experience running the QUAL360 global conference series. UX research is becoming increasingly important as many industries grapple with saturated markets and user churn.

Implementing successful UX strategies have proven to deliver ROI for businesses. UX360 will cater to this trend and offer a unique platform for UX specialists around the world.

UX360 will showcase the latest UX and design research - from planning and conducting, to analysis and the implementation of UX insights. This exciting conference includes presentations from top UX researchers from the world’s largest brands, interactive panel discussions and 1-2-1 meetings. This is a must-attend conference for UX researchers to learn, be inspired and network.

This talk will explain how to convince you & others to want to do UXR with people with disabilities. Sheri Byrne-Haber will share ways to change your approach to UXR to make it work for people with disabilities in a productive manner.

The goal of this talk is to remove the barriers that may be preventing you from doing research with disabled participants and help you understand:

• What is different

• Why it is different

• How to do it confidently

UXRS strives to create a community where people can make meaningful connections with others in the UX field. Come for the presentation, stay for the UX networking. We'll end the night with our usual "happy hour" open forum of questions and answers.

During the event, Paul Lopushinsky, founder of Playficient, will work through a practical example of building an employee journey map by navigating through the map that comes from a cumulation of past client work and best practices.

In this talk, Paul will address key questions:

• "How can we research the employee journey considering employees might be uncomfortable sharing?"

• "How can organizations measure the effectiveness of their employee journey mapping initiative?"

• "What KPIs should you use?"

• "How do we turn the employee journey map into actionable steps?"

We know that articulating our work decisions or presenting the value of our user research to stakeholders can sometimes be a challenge. Spontaneous Talks Frameworks have been around for years. They are often taught at universities and are used to help people think of answers or tell stories fast and smart.

Jen is going to teach you a few Spontaneous Talks Frameworks so you can use them when presenting your work, answering tough questions or simply telling your stories.

Applying these simple frameworks can help a person avoid anxiety by quickly organizing a thought, and moving forward to articulating that thought in a cohesive and eloquent manner.

Many designers like to jump into UI design before understanding actual business and user problems — and then we end up with «UX on crutches».

There's a better way to create useful (and usable) products and services with facts-based design, where you could validate your design ideas with end-users, rather than solely relying on gut feel.

This practical workshop run by a professional designer with 15+ years of experience, remotely via live video (not recordings) with practical exercises and lots of Q&A.

One-to-one mentoring is available additionally to the workshop: we'll review your portfolio, provide career advice, salary insights, and prepare you for that interview.

Are you an aspiring/new UX Researcher? While UX bootcamps provide a solid foundation in UX, there are essential UXR techniques and strategies that are often not emphasized enough in these programs.

In this webinar, Ada will be filling in that gap by focusing on one of the most practical and effective methods for user research, usability testing. She will talk about why usability testing is a great starting point for newbies and how mastering this technique can benefit you in the long run.

With over a decade of comprehensive UX experience, Ada Yuen has deep experience leading and/or collaborating on strategy, design, and execution to drive conversions and ROI for web-based and app experiences. Through partnership with stakeholders at every phase of the UX lifecycle, Ada adds value to conceptual, high-level, and interaction design.