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The Evolution of Research

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Empathy. It’s critical that we use empathy in all of our design and innovation work to provide true value to people in order to make their lives better.

Article by Rich Nadworny
Empathy Porn. And How To Avoid It.
  • Empathy is a critical tool for designers and innovators to create positive change in people’s lives when used productively, not self-indulgently.
  • Many organizations engage in “empathy porn,” in which they use empathy solely for their own self-fulfillment, which leads to gathering useless insights that sit unused on a digital shelf.
  • The ultimate goal of empathy in design and innovation should be to take action to improve people’s experiences and lead to the creation of something new that provides value to others.
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3 min read

A future outlook of how the stakeholder map is going to get more interesting for UX professionals.

Article by Yaron Cohen
UX People Will Soon Have To Collaborate With New Professions
  • The article explores different futures for UX professionals and discusses how they can prepare to collaborate with new professions in a future that is more interdisciplinary.
  • The author highlights three areas of collaboration:
    • Working with analytics experts on data products;
    • Collaborating with lawyers and ethicists on data-sharing mechanisms and privacy protection;
    • Merging physical and digital design with architects.
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10 min read

Every UX research method should generate new insights about the people we study and allow us to refine our understanding of the problems our products are trying to solve. Distinguishing “generative” and “evaluative” studies doesn’t always make sense. 

Article by Lindsey Wallace
Stop Dividing Generative and Evaluative Research 
  • UX research is a strange thing, being divided into “generative” and “evaluative” studies, the former conducted ideally early in product development, the latter further along in the process.
  • The author shares some ways to expand requests for evaluative research into research with generative insights.
  • Here are some tips that might help you conduct your qualitative research session:
    • Begin by asking users “casual” questions to build rapport.
    • Ask them about their favorite and least favorite parts of their job, to walk me through a typical day.
    • Try to orient the concept test around them.
    • Ask stupid questions when people react to a concept.
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8 min read

While methods and processes remain important, what is essential for changing how we design is having a commitment to an objective, a mindset, a motivation that can help us reflect on and critique how we do our work. 3 big critiques of commonly held assumptions that drive the design process and the corresponding mindset shifts that are emerging around these critiques. 

Article by Gabriel Mugar
The Future of Expertise in Design: Reimagining How I Show Up as an Expert in the Design Process
  • While methods and processes remain important, what is essential for changing how we design is having a commitment to an objective, a mindset, and a motivation that can help us reflect on and critique how we do our work.
  • Assumptions for expertise in design:
    1. Design impact is the value exchange with the people we learn from in research.
    2. Co-design gives people agency in the design process
    3. A beginners’ mindset helps us see challenges with fresh eyes
  • The author explores three shifts that make him reimagine how he shows up as an expert and decision maker:
    • Shift #1: Go from transactional to mutually beneficial engagement in research.
    • Shift #2: Move from gathering participant feedback to being participant-guided.
    • Shift #3: Instead of focusing on people, focus on people in systems.
  • Сommunity-led design methods give designers an opportunity to reimagine how their expertise and skills can be more meaningful.
Share:The Future of Expertise in Design: Reimagining How I Show Up as an Expert in the Design Process
10 min read
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If you’re a tech-led company, chances are you’re experiencing growth at an incredible rate these days. Are you hiring in a way that’s going to strategically improve your products and services? Is there a cohesive experience for your customers across touch points? Are you pausing long enough to ensure that all the late nights, pressure, and quick feature releases are actually working? Or is your organization operating as the proverbial chicken with its head cut-off?

Article by Sara Fortier
Growing Pains of the Booming Tech Industry
  • Although there are immense opportunities for tech companies to grow nowadays, many experience four types of challenges.
  • Typical growing pains concern the management of multiple digital products simultaneously, team composition, releases frequency, lack of UX research.
  • The solutions range from creating guiding experience principles to investing more in UX research.
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7 min read

Great products aren’t magically conceived. They’re molded over time by observing and understanding people in order to identify core needs and thoughtfully solve for them.

Article by Meghan Wenzel
Share:Using Data to Build Better Products
5 min read

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