Decoding Research

Decoding Research is a space to share the experiences of User Researchers in the form of illustrated stories. A project in collaboration with Victoria Vivas.

Read our latest posts on Medium.

Jan 25 - 2021

Overcoming fears when conducting user research with a ‘challenging’ audience

As user researchers we spend a lot of time speaking to people to learn about their behaviours, motivations, needs, and even step into the context of their lives. During these conversations, we are silent most of the time, patiently asking questions while participants do the talking.

At first sight this sounds simple; we all have done small talk with a stranger to kick start a conversation. The hard part of interviewing is getting the information you need in the available time frame...

Day-to-day actions to position user research as a strategic partner

Many companies struggle to reconcile business objectives with customer needs. It seems only natural for user research to play a role in easing this struggle by bridging the gap between user understanding and product strategy. However, user research is often reduced to late-stage evaluative studies. This position frustrates researchers seeking to drive larger impact, and limits an organisation’s approach towards customer centricity.

Here are three day-to-day actions user researchers can take to become a strategic partner...

From awareness to adoption: creating a space to empower others to conduct user research.

Atthe company I worked for, the user research team was just starting to grow and interest in user feedback was increasing. I believe you can say a lot about how people understand user research based on their requests. I noticed that many stakeholders had a superficial understanding of user research...