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PODCAST

Awkward Silences

User Interviews

Welcome to Awkward Silences by User Interviews, where we interview the people who interview people. Listen as we geek out on all things UX research, qualitative data, and the craft of understanding people to build better products and businesses. Hosted by Erin May and Carol Guest, VPs of growth/marketing and product at User Interviews. Take this survey and let us know what topics you want to hear next! userinterviews.com/awkwardsurvey

technology

All Episodes

28:38

#71 - Running a Blended Research Team with Dave Chen...

Awkward Silences ·

2021/07/13

Insights can come from a lot of different places. Support tickets, sales calls, market research studies, and of course, dedicated user research are all a part of an organization's insights funnel. But how do you synthesize all that data into useful insights for your business? Dave Chen, Director of Consumer Insights at Flipp, does it by blending his CX, UX, and Market Research teams into one superpowered insights group. Erin and JH chatted with Dave about how he handles all that research,

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31:16

#70 - Radical Listening and Practical Empathy with...

Awkward Silences ·

2021/06/29

Researchers talk a lot about the importance of empathy. But what the heck does ‘empathy’ actually mean? What does empathy really look like in practice? Babz Jewell—an ethnographic sociologist and Principal UX Researcher at Variant—is here to explain. She joined Erin and JH to share her practical approach to empathy and active listening, and how these skills have transformed her UX research practice.Babz talked about…How active listening can help UX researchers improve their entire research

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48:23

#69 - Thinking Styles and "Average" Users with Indi...

Awkward Silences ·

2021/06/18

Indi Young has been researching people (not users), coaching, writing, and teaching about inclusive product strategy for over 25 years. Earlier this week, she joined Erin and JH for a live podcast episode to explain why researchers and designers are doing it all wrong! Okay, not exactly. But she did explain how researching and designing for the majority or “average user” actually end up ignoring, othering, and harming the people our designs are meant to serve. Indi shared how she finds

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30:42

#68 - Actionable Generative Research with Lucy Denton...

Awkward Silences ·

2021/06/01

Shortly after Lucy Denton joined Dovetail as Product Design Lead, she was tasked with running a large-scale opportunity research project—and then making sense of all the insights. And the stakes were high; after all, she was researching user researchers! This week on the podcast, Lucy chatted with Erin and JH about how she knew it was time for a big generative research project, how she got the whole team involved, and what she did with all that research. Lucy talked about…How she and the

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37:23

#67 - Growing a UX Research Startup with Basel...

Awkward Silences ·

2021/05/18

In this special episode, two UXR CEOs geek out about their work, the challenges of building tools for user researchers, and the future of UX research tools.This week we’re mixing things up a bit. Basel Fakhoury, CEO and cofounder of User Interviews, and Benjamin Humphrey, CEO and cofounder of Dovetail, braved transpacific timezone scheduling to chat about starting a company in the UX research space, what their teams are working on now, and what they think the future holds for user research

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40:19

#66 - Agile Research Ops with Joey Encarnacion of Slack

Awkward Silences ·

2021/05/04

How do you measure success in a still-evolving field? Joey Encarnacion has been working in research ops since 2017. He joined Erin and JH on the pod to talk about Slack’s Rolling Research program, what success looks like for his team, and how he builds systems that scale.Joey discussed…Ensuring research ops can scale by building the smallest operable system firstHow he measures the success of his efforts in such a new field Slack’s Rolling Research programHighlights[2:14] Research

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7:57

#65 - The Best of Awkward Silences (So Far)

Awkward Silences ·

2021/04/30

To celebrate our launch on Product Hunt, we're taking some time to reflect on what Awkward Silences is all about. Guests featured in this episode, in order:Jon Macdonald, Founder of the GoodCat Noone, CEO of StarkRoy Opata Olende, Research Operations Manager at ZapierMaria Rosala, User Experience Specialist at Nielsen Norman GroupJoel Klettke, Founder of Case Study BuddyErika Hall, Co-Founder and Director of Strategy at Mule DesignHarrison Wheeler, Senior Manager, Product Design at

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42:50

#64 - Civic Tech with Cyd Harrell

Awkward Silences ·

2021/04/20

Whether you’re paying a parking ticket or getting a divorce, chances are high that you’ll go through some (if not all) of that process online. Chances are also good that the UX of that process will be… not great. Cyd Harrell wants to change that.Cyd—prominent Civic Design Consultant and Service Design Lead at the Judicial Council of California—has been working in civic tech since 2012. She’s passionate about helping governments create digital services that meet people where they are. In

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43:05

#63 - Information Architecture in UX with Page...

Awkward Silences ·

2021/04/06

Information architecture is everywhere. Page Laubheimer, Senior User Experience Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group, joins our hosts to shed some light on the complicated topic of IA and how the way we organize data impacts how we interact with products. He explains how and when to do IA work on a UX project, which research methods you’ll need, and how to launch your IA career.Page talked about…How and when to do IA work on a UX projectWhich research methods you’ll need to use to improve

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35:43

#62 - The State of User Research with Katryna Balboni

Awkward Silences ·

2021/03/23

Our third annual State of User Research survey gathered insights from 525 people who do research around the world. Katryna Balboni, our Content Director, joined the hosts of Awkward Silences to talk about how the 2021 report came together. They discussed the challenges of survey design, the changing landscape of user research, improving stakeholder buy-in for user research, and (nerd alert!) large-scale medieval surveys.In this episode, Katryna talks about…How we (re)designed our survey and

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48:21

#61 - The Role of Research in CX Transformation with...

Awkward Silences ·

2021/03/09

Is your company truly customer-centric? Are your systems actually helping you create better experiences for your customers?Last week, Kim Salazar, Senior User Experience Specialist at Nielsen Norman Group, joined us for a live podcast episode to share valuable insights from her own work with teams trying to create truly customer-centric companies through CX transformation. She highlighted the importance of drawing from multiple sources of data and communicating the business benefits of CX

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47:01

#60 - Discovery Research and Interview Skills with...

Awkward Silences ·

2021/02/18

Are your research discoveries really discoveries? Or are you collecting validation for your own assumptions?That’s just one of the big questions Maria Rosala, Director of Research at Nielsen Norman Group, tackled in our second-ever live “podinar.” Maria shared her expertise on conducting thoughtful discovery research and user interviews.Listen to (or watch!) the episode to learn:Why the discovery process is a non-negotiable part doing quality user research Maria’s favorite discovery

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28:12

#59 - Ethical Hacking, Information Security, and UX...

Awkward Silences ·

2021/02/01

Building great products is hard. Building great, secure, products is even harder. This week on Awkward Silences, we talked to Ted Harrington about the intersection between security and UX. He outlined what exactly ethical hackers do, how he challenges stakeholder assumptions about security work, and what teams can do to ensure their systems are secure.Ted talked about…What UX and security work have in commonHow teams can ensure their work is more secureSome of the common issues and myths he

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27:41

#58 - The Lone UXR: Being a UX Research Team of One...

Awkward Silences ·

2021/01/19

Being a research team of one isn’t easy. When you’re the only researcher at a company, you have to do every type of research, recruiting, planning, and analysis by yourself—all without the resources of a large team. But for Imani “Izzy” Nichols, being a UX research team of one is an exciting challenge. She’s been a team of one twice now and has learned a lot from her experience. In this episode of Awkward Silences, Izzy talked about how being a team of one allowed her to focus on

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35:11

#57 - Research Amid Sudden Change: Working on Google...

Awkward Silences ·

2021/01/05

In March 2020, Google Classroom’s user base grew from 30 million to hundreds of millions almost overnight.As schools closed, teachers needed new ways to conduct lessons and manage their work. This meant that Amanda Rosenburg, a Staff UX Researcher & Team Lead working on Google Classroom, had a lot of work to do. Research requests were suddenly piling up, and her team needed to execute quickly to help the product team adapt to new and unexpected challenges.Amanda talked about…How she

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35:44

#56 - 2020, UXR Year In Review

Awkward Silences ·

2020/12/22

The year is wrapping up and it’s finally time to say bye forever to 2020 👋. The hosts of Awkward Silences, Erin May and JH Forster, took this opportunity to reflect on some of the things that happened in research this year, what changes they think are here to stay, and what they see on the horizon in 2021. They also revisited some of the best conversations we’ve had on the podcast so far, like chatting with Vivianne Castillo about self-care, Cat Noone about accessibility, and Randy Duke

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39:27

#55 - So You Want to Be In Research Ops? How Roy...

Awkward Silences ·

2020/12/08

There is a growing need for research operations.As more companies embrace the importance of user research and scale their UXR efforts, a dedicated ops function is quickly becoming a necessity.Research ops—which involves things like participant recruitment, research processes, and programs to help non-researchers do better research—can be a career path for many different kinds of people. Roy has worked with ops pros who come from traditional business operations, marketing, UX, and of course,

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26:48

#54 - End-to-End Experience Teams with Danielle Smith...

Awkward Silences ·

2020/11/24

Understanding your product from start to finish is easier said than done. The same goes for integrating research into every stage of a project. Danielle Smith found that she would often work on foundational projects for a product team, then move right along to the next thing, losing sight of the end-to-end experience. When she was tasked with building the research team at Express Scripts, she knew she wanted to have a better view of the big picture. So she brought data scientists,

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41:23

#53 - Everything in Context: Anthropology and User...

Awkward Silences ·

2020/11/10

User research and anthropology have more in common that you may realize. Both involve studying the way people interact with their surroundings and make critical decisions, though anthropologists focus on the cultures and societies that shape behavior. This week on Awkward Silences, Erin and JH chatted with Vanessa Whatley—a Senior UX Researcher at Google—about what researchers can learn from anthropology.Vanessa talked about…How anthropology can teach user researchers to look more closely

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31:31

#52 - The Missing Ingredient: How Storytelling Makes...

Awkward Silences ·

2020/10/28

People are 22% more likely to remember something when it’s presented as a story, rather than a cut and dry fact. So if you’re struggling to get stakeholders to care about and utilize your research, storytelling can be the key to getting research to stick. This week on the podcast, Erin and JH chatted with Harrison Wheeler, UX Design Manager at LinkedIn and host of Technically Speaking, about the power of storytelling. Harrison talked about how getting everyone on board with storytelling can

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