My UX Researcher Process

The most important thing I can tell you is that I am a really lovely guy to work with.*

I’m pretty good at what I do. I have a thorough process that takes each team on a journey from defining the problem to informing the decision-makers using traceable evidence from the users.

I want everyone along for the experience - the product owner, the senior stakeholders, the subject matter experts, the wider teams in sales, customer service, the warehouse managers, the designers. I want them all to own the problem, contribute to the hypotheses, understand the process, be patient and really benefit from the outcomes.

I want them to help me find the best participants. Not the usual suspects, but voices within the business and beyond for whom this is a new experience and need cajoling in to attending. These people take some finding and pinning down.

I want as many as can spare the time to attend the interviews live and experience the highs and lows of a moderated conversation that can go sideways every now and again. Once the participant has settled in, they start to share their lived experiences. The may share an opinion or two, that’s just fine, but we’re looking for what they do and how they do it.

Funny how everyone disappears when you’ve got 20 hours of recordings and a blank virtual white board. But get a few interviews extracted (time and colour coded verbatims), synthesised and add a few thoughts and share the board (view only) with the wider team and I’ll start to see people ‘drop in’ whilst it’s still work-in-progress. As the board grows, it takes on a life of its own.

I love a messy mid-way talk-through. Insights emerge and chapters of stories start to form. Nobody wants to wait for me to produce the final report, they want to be part of discovery. I welcome that.

And as for the debrief? I should sell tickets. With everyone accepting the Teams invite, with so much engagement, so much trust in me, I like to deliver a jolly good show. Something for them to remember.

I have a colleague who works at some distance to my artisan craft of qualitative research who reported back to senior management after a 2 hour debrief;

“Brilliant Research followed by fascinating questions and answers. Worth the workshop on its own. Great work.”

 Research is never boring.

 The image below is a wide screenshot of an international research project from a couple of years back. It’s deliberately difficult to read due to confidentiality but demonstrates scope. I’ll talk you through it when we meet.

*Evidence available on request