Ethnio’s Post

Here's your chance to ask Cha Cha Club member Casey Gollan gnarly questions about building research platforms and systems and the importance of having a strategy.

Looking to scale your research impact? Join us on November 7 for an AMA with Casey Gollan, Manager of Product & Research Ops at IBM. 👏 We'll be diving into how to build strategic research systems for scaling impact along with hearing Casey's insights from his 15+ years of experience building organizations and transforming operations. 👉 Register now at the link below & join us for an exciting discussion covering topics like: 💡 Integrating research into product development ⚙️ Automating research processes and metrics tracking 🎯 Strategic approaches to tooling and systems 📚 Best practices for knowledge management in research 📈 Measuring and scaling research impact 🙋Your questions! Can't wait to see you there! #ama #webinar #researchops #reops #researchoperations #operations #ops #research #uxresearch #uxr #ux #researcher #userresearch

Job-seekers using AI to blast out thousands of applications are missing the point and potentially damaging the hiring landscape for everyone. This scattershot approach not only dilutes the quality of job applications but also clogs up the system, making it harder for genuinely interested candidates to stand out. It's a classic case of quantity over quality, where the ease of letting an AI do the legwork can lead to missed opportunities for personal connection and authentic candidate-market fit in a role. We need to rethink this strategy and focus on building a process that elicits meaningful applications that truly align opportunities with job-seekers' skills and passions, not just hit 'send' a thousand times and hope for the best. This post ironically written by RootAI.

UX researchers are not paid to talk to people. They're paid to understand user needs. Despite the hate he gets, Hugo Alves, Co-Founder of Synthetic Users, is building a product to help with this. Many founders claim to have thick skin. In Hugo's case, this is constantly on display. People have called him stupid, a wanker, and everything in between. Why? - because he is creating human-like AI participants for user research… In this week's edition of Hiring Humans, we discuss: - The role of UX researchers: they are paid for the outcome, understanding user needs, not for how they get there (talking to humans is an option, but not a requirement). - Real and synthetic humans share the same flaw: a desire to please. He's built his product from the ground up to avoid this flaw. - What he believes flags a great candidate: side projects. Whether it's tinkering with a new technology or simply trying to solve a problem in their personal life. Curiosity is key. Full post in comments. ______________________________ 🤝 If you'd like AI tips for hiring or how to run your startup, I send a weekly 30-second ( + longer form post) newsletter with lessons learned from conversations with founders and early-stage teams. 📩 Subscribe in the comments.

👀🫶🏻 While it’s also important to research design decisions for our Product & UX/UI teams, UXRs can be beneficial in other areas of organizations. Let’s look at teams UXRs can partner with or be with full time👇 -data analytics -service design -business strategy & development -risk management -marketing -sales -PR -customer service -HR -oranizational management -corporate leadership -recruitment -events -engineering -finance -innovation (think AI implementation) -consulting ——— Thanks Julian Della Mattia for sparking this conversation! Where can your company benefit from getting help with user research & what your people experience in that area of your organization? #UXR #UX #Research #Business #Innovation #Strategist #Consulting #UserResearch

Lately I've seen so much being said about strategic research and that researchers should be focusing on that. Honestly, I really wished researchers were brought in to tackle strategic topics right away, but reality is rather different. Most researchers, especially those in small and mid-sized companies, are closer to influencing decisions such as "how should this menu look like?" or "should we launch this feature or not?" because of the context in which they operate. You can eventually get to those strategic topics but you need to build your way up. What worked for me was to empower others in collecting and making sense of data so they can be more autonomous in making those decisions, while ensuring they were based on good quality data. You want stakeholders to base their decisions on research as much as possible, but you need to move away from those convos to eventually move up the ladder. The more research becomes a present element in an organisation, the more it will be overall valued and understood and the more chances you'll have at tackling those infamous "big strategic pieces". #uxr #uxresearch #research

Being the first researcher at a company is a very specific type of challenge. If you come from a larger or more established team, get ready: this is a completely different ball game. You have to be comfortable with uncertainty, tolerant with a bit of chaos. You'll need to be extra patient and focused: many things will come your way and you will have to dance with them elegantly. Most likely, things won't be in place. You will need to set up tools, frameworks, do foundational work and certainly spread the word about how can research help the org. You need, of course, to be good at research itself but most importantly: be good at building a research practice from the ground up. In this context, Research Ops knowledge will go a loooong way. Are you the first researcher at a company? Share you experience in the comments! #uxr #uxresearch #firstuxr #reops

Centralised UX research team structures are dead. According to a report by 'UserInterviews', 77% were embedded teams inside product and design teams. A centralized research team is invaluable for conducting strategic research, offering a clear view of the problems being addressed. A central team skilled in quantitative, and qualitative research reduces bias and provides well-rounded insights. Strategic research supports long-term decision-making, helping companies set goals and priorities effectively. But sometimes, involving a central team stretches the project timelines, and un-willing insights gatekeepers. I have talked to 100s of product managers and designers this year, and one thing is very clear. The need for product teams to be self-sufficient with research or have a research Ops team to support their tactical operations. Embedded research teams work magic, but a product leader, need to invest in a research function i.e.  — planning the budget, having performance metrics, and having a roadmap for research and showing that the insights really made a difference. So, are the product leaders aligned on such a heavy investment? Not all, esp. for a mid-market company where p0 is always shipping things faster. This is where Outcome as a service AI companies that can work with the teams on delivering tactical research would be a way to move ahead. #ai #uxr #userresearch #research #innovation

🧪 People of Research Newsletter: Your weekly research in tech round-up! We’re providing you with our handpicked must-read articles across UX Research, Behavioural Science and AI from Brian Utesch, Deniz Can Demir, Rahel Kiss and Tim Wilson. Our podcast pick is from Analytics Power Hour with Tim Wilson (our first double feature, congrats) Michael Helbling, and Moe Kiss with Matt Gershoff. 𝗔𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘂𝘀 👋 We’re People of Research - a global community uniting researchers across the tech industry. Join +500 researchers in tech across 53 countries to connect, collab and grow: https://lnkd.in/dy_5vKGM 👇🏼 Quick overview of this week’s newsletter content + read or listen to our newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/dMH39Re7 📰 Article Picks • The power of extreme user feedback” by Brian Utesch of Cisco • “Decentralizing UX with ML & GenAI” by Deniz Can Demir of Accenture • “Behavioural Segmentation: Targeting Individuals Based on Their Margin for Change”* by Rahel Kiss of The Behaviouralist • “Analytics Is Painful (So They Say)” by Tim Wilson of facts & feelings 👋 People of Research Interview Meet 🇧🇷 Jade Goes, UX Researcher at Conexa Saúde 👂🏼 Podcast Pick This week’s podcast recommendation is Just Enough Data, Just in Time: In episode #253 of Analytics Power Hour, Matt Gershoff from Conductrics INC discusses the pitfalls of collecting too much data. He advocates for gathering only what’s necessary to drive insights, avoiding data overload. 💼 Job Picks We’ve curated a list across the UK, Europe, North & Latin America, and Asia with the latest research roles in tech, including positions in DG Cities, DeepL, GitLab and many more. #ResearchCommunity #UXResearch #BehavioralScience #AI #DataScience #PeopleOfResearch #DesignThinking #ResearchOps #UserExperience #Innovation #DesignResearch #ProfessionalDevelopment #Newsletter

ResearchOps is about making user research more efficient and scalable. We enjoy this framework shared by Emma Boulton and published in the ResearchOps Community. It explores how organizations can begin to operationalize user research. The project collected data from a 300+ respondent survey and 33 workshops, which resulted in a framework designed to address challenges in operationalizing research. Check out the post: https://lnkd.in/eduipCc We're curious—are centralized research groups the way to go for great design and products? How is your organization structured? This framework still offers valuable insights either way. The group introduces the "Eight Pillars of User Research," which outline areas of concern for user researchers: 1. Environment – A critical factor for operationalizing research, frequently cited as challenging. 2. Scope – Focuses on the research processes, methods, and work involved. 3. Recruitment and Admin – A significant time-consuming aspect that often initiates Research Ops efforts. 4. Data and Knowledge Management – Deals with managing research data, ensuring knowledge is retained and not repeated unnecessarily. 5. People – Involves researchers and other professionals doing research, emphasizing career paths and community development. 6. Organizational Context – Considers the organization's maturity level and how it affects research. 7. Governance – Focuses on legal, ethical, and safe research practices. 8. Tools and Infrastructure – Discusses the software and hardware required to support research. The framework provides a foundation for scaling research within organizations, improving efficiency, and supporting researchers. It encourages understanding an organization’s research maturity and identifying areas where Research Ops can be integrated to optimize processes. Helio fits into this framework by providing tools that streamline the collection of UX metrics and user feedback, helping teams gather insights quickly and efficiently. It can support finding participants and facilitating surveys and tests. Using Helio, teams can reduce operational bottlenecks, allowing researchers to focus more on analysis and decision-making, leading to better design and product outcomes with product designers. We'd love your thoughts! #uxresearch #productdiscovery #marketresearch #productdesign