Good research goes beyond the user
Conference Talk at the Thoughtworks Conference YConf 2023
About the talk
Being part of the UX communities globally I learned from others sharing their work and therefore wanted to do the same.
The YConf Europe 2023 honored me with the opening slot of their conference, talking about user centered design, product centricity and many more aspects from the Experience Design and product perspectives.
Talking about Research
In this particular talk I shared my experience, together with my client, about how I changed the project's approach towards research, our key learnings and the client's perspective about learning.
Throughout the course of one year I introduced user research and testing to the project, created structures for user collaborations, guides for interviews and testing and upscaled user validation.
The project changed to reflect the opinion from one user and some SMEs (Subject matter experts) to a product validated with 35+ active users across 10 countries. Teams changed their approach from doing what the user wants to strategically incorporating insights gained across user research and testing.
This talk reflects key learnings, what worked and what to consider based un such learnings.
Working right with Research
When working with research it is not about doing it, it is about doing the right thing with what you learned through it.
I worked with many teams (not just this project) that believed they were user centric when they do what the user tells them they need.
Yet what really brings true value lies beyond what has been said or done but what is means. In addition to what makes sense for the product and services at that point in time.
When collaborating with Research we can truly build the right thing.