Point of Views

I have been in the field of UX research in the technology world for over 5 years now. I started to form some points of view (POVs) on UX research, product development, product innovation, team collaboration, and organizational design, topics that I am passionate about. I wanted to document them here to help me reflect and hope some will spark your thoughts 🙂

Good Process = Good Product?

December 26, 2023

Does a team with good processes lead to a good product? The answer is, probably no.

I once worked in a product team where I thought we had the most collaborative team spirit – We enjoyed working with each other; we tried to include each other in key decision-making processes; and we challenged each other and iterated on our processes to make us a better team. We thought we were on the right track to make a truly user-centric product that also carries big business potential. After a joyful 1.5 years together, the product got killed. I wonder, does a good process always lead to a good or successful product?

But good products, in my experience, all have good processes behind them.

As I looked back at some of the successful products that I had been part of, good processes are the backbone that makes the products work well and keeps the teams happy.

Here are 4 ingredients I discovered that contribute to a good process, which you can do:

1 “Team captain” mindset.

A team captain gets the team aligned on shared goals – it can be the product KPIs or a set of success metrics. A team captain also fosters a strong collaborative culture and a sense of appreciation For example, include your engineers, designers, content writer, PM, and even sales team in your research discussions; and recognize and celebrate winning moments of your team.

This team captain can be anyone – product manager, researcher, designer, engineer, you name it. If you want your team to succeed, practice being a team captain.

2 Democratizing decision-making.

Don’t wait till the last “big reveal” to finally include your cross-functional teams. Try to keep them in the loop starting from the beginning of your processes and at a minimum, keep them informed about your key decision-making. For researchers, this means don’t wait till the final read-out to include your engineering, design, and PM. Include them in scoping discussions and even invite them to attend some of your research sessions.

3 Curious about cross-functional partners’ pain points and needs.

Stay curious about each other’s process. It’s like doing a mini-research on your cross-functional teams – try to understand how they work and make their decisions. For example, I got to know that my engineers were worried about the pains that they would need to go through to fix it if we didn’t get the naming of our features to match the needs of our end users. This helped me empathize with my cross-functional partners and in the end, helped me plan for my research.

4 Reflect, iterate, and open to discussions.

Successful products have been through iterative cycles and this applies to our own practices. Iteration could happen in the middle of a research project when you get the team together to debrief and realize the need to change some of the questions you have been asking. This could also happen at the end of the project when you reflect on lessons learned – things that you would have done differently, and things that you should continue to do.

And remember to not be defensive. You might be the subject matter expert, but you may have also left out some key considerations. For example, one thing I found always helpful is to discuss sampling strategy with my stakeholders – Are these the right segments we want to target? These questions foster healthy discussions and sometimes, debates. This process helps me do a better job in research planning and get early buy-ins from my stakeholders.

How to sell research

January 14, 2024

When I just finished my grad program where students from various backgrounds working together on human-centric innovation, I assumed research was well-understood in the industry as well. I was wrong.

In my first project at my full-time, my manager and I spent almost six months trying to “sell” the research process and the value of our function to the product managers. Even today, we still sometimes hear product managers ask us – “I already knew this. What have we learned from this study that’s new?”.

So, how to sell research? I have three tips to share:

1 Craft a story about you as a researcher

Create a good storyline that tells about who you are as a researcher including what methods you are good at, how you approach research projects, and how you work with stakeholders. Think about how you want your stakeholders to know about you – a dot connector, a data head, an insight visualizer, or a business strategist.

You can also think about research processes you want your stakeholders to understand or follow. For example, I tell my stakeholders upfront that I believe research is a team sport and I wish them to actively attend research sessions by contributing to note-taking and post-session debriefs.

2 User as a key data point

A lot of stakeholders especially product managers want to make informed decisions. They are hungry for “data” – market data and user data. As researchers, we have the competitive advantage to let our stakeholders know how our presence and the way we work will help them gather more user data. Researchers are good at contextualizing the user data we capture and telling the user stories that help stakeholders make user-informed decisions.

3 Show > Tell

I bet we have all heard that it’s better to show than tell. “Showing” the research process to your stakeholders can help you sell the value of research. I found it helpful to bring stakeholders onto the end-to-end research journey – from research scoping to execution, and to the final insight reveal. In remote settings, I have invited my stakeholders to the project kick-off where I walked them through how I landed on the research questions and the chosen methods based on the initial discussions with them. When in person, I have invited my stakeholders to join the on-site contextual inquiries.

I found most stakeholders appreciate the chance to be part of the research and contribute to the insights that will actually help them make decisions. Inviting stakeholders early on to the research, also helps us reduce the risks to find the “surprising” audience when we reveal the insights.

The Past, Now, and Future when first entering a new research area

Feb 3, 2024

It could be nerve-wracking when researchers just entered a new research area. I still remember the messiness inside my brain when I picked up the first project on my own as an intern at Logitech – I knew a good amount of research methods at that time, but I was not sure what questions I should be asking and where to start.

After practicing research for a while, I have summarized a framework to help you gather the necessary information to make a sound research strategy. I recommend thinking about the past, now, and future of the product area that you are investigating. Additionally, I suggest taking a systematic approach to investigate the business landscape, product, and end-user experience as you navigate from the past to the future.

*note that this framework is not designed to help you pick the right research methodologies.

A visualization of this framework with actionable steps

The past considers the history of the product/services that you are tasked with:

Why this product was developed initially?
What problems or user pain points was it intended to solve?

The now considers the current status of the product regarding usage and its position in the market:

Who are the main users?
How’s the usage?
What’s the competitive landscape?

The future looks at the vision of the product:

What’s the vision of this product?
What does success look like? What are the success metrics?

Please feel free to download and reuse this framework 🙂

Stay calm, manage up

Feb 11, 2024

I was once in a high-impact project with another researcher. My manager and our skip manager were overseeing this project. We worked very well together but two months in, when it was 2 weeks before the final delivery date, our managers attended our practice readout and were shocked by how little progress appeared to be on our slides. We knew we would be ready but we were too busy to get on the slide. Hundreds of feedback, follow-up meetings, and night calls started to pour in. At one point, when it was three days before the final delivery date, my research partner started crying in one of our regular meetings due to high pressure. I told myself to stay calm during the final weeks of the project, but I have to admit that it was not easy.

As I reflect on this experience. I summarized some tips:

1. Be the driver:

I believe you have heard that you should own your own growth. This applies to any projects you do and your communication with your manager. Be proactive and remember to:

Initiate prioritization: As you drive your project scope and progress, be ready to ask for clarity and prioritize the feedback. I believe a reasonable manager wouldn’t want you to work around the clock.

Set boundaries: Being the driver of the project also means setting clear boundaries with your collaborators and managers. Don’t drain yourself with a night meeting if you are not a night owl.

2 Detachment and attachment:

Another piece of advice is detaching emotions from work. It sounds easy but it’s hard! I find my attachment to work is due to the opportunities to grow and learn from the projects I am doing. For me, I care the most about the soft skills I learned from work, the growth of my research crafts, and the topics of my research. These focuses help stay calm in “fire drill” projects.

As a starting point, find yourself a piece of paper and a pen and start writing down what truly motivates you to come to work.

3 Finally, remember to take breaks!

At the end of the day, I suggest everyone remember to take regular breaks. Athletes take breaks to recover their muscles and mental to make sure they will perform at their highest level. This applies to your work too!

Your company won’t fall apart because of your leave. My company’s stock price actually went up several times during my PTOs 😉

Thoughts in Progress

Nov 15

I struggled a bit recently when I worked with a dictating stakeholder/high-level executive who commanded us to research something that we didn’t feel could be answered accurately through research. I calmly stated the truth, but the stakeholder showed no interest in listening to our rationale. My take on this – when it’s hard to change someone’s mind, don’t just say no as it will burn the bridge and the collaborative momentum. It’s better to weather the storm, assume the best intentions, and take the order but politely state the truth when reporting. Also, in the long run, work with the managers/trusted research leaders to “educate” the high-level executive.

Nov 1

Some thoughts in progress for researching for early stage products that are looking to enter a new market:

When you just get started
- Start with what we are familiar with – personas, users, and usage context.
- Think about the customer maturity – are they ready for our innovation? come up with a maturity journey to guide product roadmap.
- Make the most out of PAC – a safe and connected selective customers/aspiring customers.
When you get the first 30 – 50 customers
- Build a customer-centric decision-making culture – limited data still counts! I started podcast to focus on customer stories. Bringing cross-functional teams for contextual inquiries onsite also help!
- Start looking into segments and nuance differnces among industries.
- Continue to map out the evolving personas, use cases, trends in the industry.
When you have 50+ customers, and hoping to get renewal, and getting to 100+
- Usability and UX is the key to maintain the customers. interoperability is critical here.
- Making sure every launch counted – more about feature quality than quantity.
- Connect the dots to solve that bigger problem!

Nov 1

I have led a large cross-org initiative this year, with my main stakeholders being director-level ICs and managers. Some tips for running a successful meeting: 1) set the expectations, be explicit about outcomes that you are looking for; 2) make sure the key decision-makers speak up; 3) close with action items – it could be directional & doesn’t need to be perfect; 4) follow up with an email summarizing 3 -5 key takeaways and be explicit about the next steps – Zoom’s AI companion can help you here.

July 26

Block your time intentionally to focus on deep thinking and thorough reflection of your current work. Trust me, you will find something that you have missed.

When managing up, be candid when you notice errors/mistakes. Say you have noticed it, say you are working on it, say what to expect next.

May 10

Coming up with a POV for discussion is critical for managing up and making an impact across different functions.

Just like AI models, the future version of yourself will be much better than the current version of yourself.

May 3

We researchers are crafters who collect user stories and stitch them into impactful stories, so the quality of each story is critical to our job. High quality story can live in stakeholders’ minds and become the voice in the background when they are making critical decisions. We should practice the act of collecting and presenting high-quality stories.
Researchers are also orchestrators of user voices – we are responsible for building a user-informed decision-making culture. This requires us to work with customer-facing functions such as sales, marketing, and the outbound team to spread out the stories we are hearing from the field in a consistent manner.

April 5

An essential soft skill to help sustain your work relationship with stakeholders/managers is understanding their work styles through observations. What they tell you can be different from what they do. Try to understand 1) What’s their preferred communication cadence? 2) Are they a night owl/morning bird? 3) What follow-up questions do they tend to ask? Are they more visionary or practical? 4) What motivates them, and what are their priorities?

Mar 18

When running a workshop with a large group of diverse stakeholders (> 10 people), getting to know them early on a personal level, understanding their agenda, and why they are interested in being involved will help with collaboration.

Jan 22

Here are some tricks to improve the efficiency and quality of each meeting: Come prepared with clear goals, things to align on, and potential next steps in mind. If possible, write them down and share them with the attendees. Remember to share the next steps with the group.

Jan 4

To improve collaboration and ensure a successful product launch that delivers both user and business value, I encourage making understand Product Managers’ daily responsibilities and decision-making as part of the education for UX practitioners. Understanding the PMs’ mental models can help UX professionals align with the development process and take meaningful initiatives.

Dec 16

User research, data science, sales, and marketing teams are at the forefront of data collection of customers and users. It brings many benefits when they come together to create user-centric narratives to help the product teams make user-informed decisions.

Aug 9

Being brave and daring to have tough conversations is a sign of maturity.

The mental well-being and the state of zen are essential to help stay calm during the storms.

Aug 9

As the meeting host, I find it most effective to begin the meeting by aligning its goals and wrapping it with a clear summary of the next steps and what to expect next.

“hold your tongue” even when you are 90% sure about an answer to a problem. Instead, empower and co-brainstorm with your more junior team members.

July 20

Being a PM-inspired team member (heard from Lenny’s podcast), no matter which functions you are in, is a stepping stone to a collaborative team and a good product.

July 13

“Constant dripping of water can wear through rocks”. This phrase summarizes the organic way to land your research impact is through constant involvement and engagement with your stakeholders. Bring them along in the end-to-end journey of your research – from initial problem discovery and project scoping to execution, synthesis, and coming up with insights and next steps. Your stakeholders could get busy. There are 3 levels of engagement you can do to keep your stakeholders in the loop.

Lv1: Communicate milestones and key updates through regular emails or messages in the team channels.

Lv2: Host milestone meetings at key moments of your research project – project kick-off and insight delivery are minimal to start with, to get your stakeholders informed about the up-to-date research progress and takeaways.

Lv3: Invite stakeholders to your research sessions and host regular research debriefs to discuss the learnings as a group. Have your stakeholders digest the insights together with you and come up with the actionable next steps.

June 16

Building a user-informed decision-making culture is a key measurement of the UXR impact. It starts with building trusting relationships with your stakeholders.

After an acquisition, the acquired company normally brings over a bunch of persona and workflow knowledge. It’s crucial for UX practitioners to help the acquired and the acquiring to align and potentially consolidate the persona and workflow, which will be the stepping stone to help form a unified product strategy.

May 26

Ladder and job descriptions are just guidance to who you are as a researcher. I find it more satisfying and rewarding when I perform outside of the “scope”. Try defining your responsibilities as a researcher: tie it to your personal value, followed by business OKRs.

Evangelizing the habits of sharing learnings from customer visits/customer calls among your stakeholders can help your XFN teams make more user-informed decisions! I have tried running a customer visit podcast in my product group where I will invite the team members to share their top takeaways and artifacts (e.g., process map, photos, videos) each time they visit the customer.

May 25

Quality over quantity = Quality of your data and research is more important than the quantity of insights/participants/projects.

Try democratizing the process to reach your research insights when stuck with landing actionable insights. When discussing research findings with my stakeholders, I found it more impactful when I moved from takeaways to insights.

Stories make your research stick.

Let’s talk about data! Your user insights are one of the key contributors to data-driven decisions.

Feb 26

Innovation starts from value alignment and orchestration within an organization.

Feb 17

Don’t wait till the research readout to reveal the insights to your stakeholders. Your research impact will be most actionable when it’s delivered within the timeframe when your stakeholders need to make their decisions, so you should also be mindful of your stakeholders’ key milestones, and make sure your research insights are delivered on time. If you don’t have time to prepare a full report, you could include the insights in a simple one-page, quick summary, etc.

Think about the research readout as a marketing tool and a living artifact to help you reach more audiences.

Feb 3

Good research makes your stakeholders naturally come back to you to ask for more.

Good research not only answers the WHYs, but more importantly, WHAT’S NEXT.

Good research leads to changes in mindset, approaches, roadmaps, etc.

Coming up:

The stakeholder hack to maximize your research impact