🗞 User Research & Engineering: Better Together
TOGETHER WITH
Hi there! 👋 Thanks for stopping by. USERWEEKLY is your weekly email to understand what is happening in User Research. It's the best way to keep up on trends, methodologies and insights in UX Research. It is written by me, Jan Ahrend. Each week I capture the pulse of our community and answer a simple question: What mattered in User Research this week?
😌 Humans of User Research with Lauren Isaacson
Hey Lauren, tell us a little about yourself.
I’m Lauren Isaacson, a freelance market and UX research consultant based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, by way of Los Angeles, California. I got my start working for digital advertising agencies back in California. When I moved to Canada, I took advantage of the disruption to pivot my career to focus primarily on research because I just loved the work and felt it was a good path for me to follow. In 2016 I was laid off from an in-house research job and started taking on contract jobs wherever possible. It didn’t take long for me to establish myself as a full-time freelancer, operating as Curio Research.
I’ve been advocating for making research accessible to people with disabilities by giving talks around the world on the subject since 2019.
How do you stay up to date on research trends and news?
I’ve been a member of the Qualitative Research Consultants Association (QRCA) since 2017. The culture is so unique. It’s like I have over 800 research friends from around the world. We all support and teach each other about new techniques, trends, and compliance issues. I wouldn’t be the researcher I am today without that community.
I’ve been a QRCA chapter chair and a member of the board of directors. I’ll be the incoming vice president for 2023, which means I will be the QRCA’s president in 2024. I was also one of the recipients of their Qualitative Excellence Award in 2022.
What does your family think of your work?
I’m the weirdo in the family that didn’t go into medicine. They have no idea what to think of me. They’re proud of me because I’m doing well, but they have no idea why or how. I’m okay with being an enigma to them.
How can people find you?
There’s my website, of course - http://www.curioresearch.net
I’m also on most social media platforms: Linkedin, Twitter, Instagram.
Thank you, Lauren!
Spotlight > Articles > Video > Audio
🎉 Highlights.
What’s next versus what’s valuable: perspectives on the value of ethnography in a future-focused world
A framework for ethnography and futures work that expands our understanding of the nature of change. Louise Vang Jensen & Lea Møller Svendsen 09/04
User Research & Engineering: better together during discovery
As big tech continues to push the boundaries of agility and cross-functional collaboration, it is important to consider staggering research and Engineering work by involving your technical counterparts in the Discovery stage more intentionally, and considering tech constraints as an asset to agile product development rather than an exploratory limitation. Julia Tan & Carolina Aldas 09/02
10 valuable UX insights from design and research leaders
Insights, examples, tips and tricks from across UserZoom's first podcast season. Russell Simmons 08/30
Has recruitment and panel management become a bottleneck on your scaling UX research team? In User Interviews’s latest playbook, you’ll learn actionable strategies to break this bottleneck, speed up research cycles, and improve the impact of UXR. Read the Playbook
🛠Methods & Approaches.
How to assess and prioritise product opportunities
Opportunity Scoring and Opportunity Assessment Canvas with the help of UX Research. Bart Krawczyk 09/06
UX Research insights from three Social Science theories
Insights for understanding users in a better way to build user-centric products Inferred from Three Academic Theories. Santhosh Gandhi 09/03
When usability testing has done its job, consider visual testing next
Usability testing has its time and place—but sometimes it can't compare with effective visual testing. Nikki Anderson-Stanier
Subscribe to stay up to date on User Research news and trends.
Research Ops.
Maintaining the privacy and security of research participants’ data
Maintaining participants’ data privacy and security before, during, and after data collection is critical to the user-research process. It protects participants from data breaches and cyber threats. Samhita Tankala 09/04
Spotlight > Articles > Video > Audio
🎥 Video of the Week.
Supergluing insights: How to make your research stick with stakeholders
Adyen's Vice President of User Experience Katarina Bagherian on how she makes research impactful for her stakeholders. In this session, Katarina will walk through four methods, drawn from education theory, that help make research output stick and drive outcomes. YouTube 09/05
Spotlight > Articles > Video > Audio
🔉 Audio of the Week.
Supergluing insights: how to make your research stick with stakeholders
Sociolinguistics studies how language allows people to navigate the social world. That may have a big impact on your research. Spotify Apple 08/31
Happy Researching,
🗞 Jan
User Weekly Newsletter
Join the newsletter to receive the latest updates in your inbox.