UX Research
An insight-driven approach

Research is fundamental in my design process. During the years I have worked with amazing researchers and I've learned so much about the power of research. Insights allow me to know my users, understand their struggles, size problems, spot opportunities, backup assumptions, prioritise, etc... Be an active part of the research process is also important for me. Maybe as a note taker in a user interview, analysing data from a survey or doing some competitor analysis, research is always my starting point.

I've done several trainings on ux research, specially focusing on discovery. I'm not a researcher though but due to the lack of resources or time I've applied different research techniques myself. From benchmarking to user testing, research is core for a good UX process. This actually made me appreciate more the role that researchers play in product design.

Ideation workshop / Research report

Workshops

Workshops are my favourite way to bring people together around user problems. Discovery workshops, brainstorming, ideation, experiment design... These sessions have proven to help align teams towards common goals, generate great ideas and open discussion about pros and cons on this or that solution. I love the energy that comes from collaborative sessions with product owners, stakeholders, designers, data, and engineers. Each participant always brings to the table a different point of view that adds up to great team outcomes.

The starting point on my Workshops are research findings and user problem spaces. These insights help me to share the context that everyone need towards defining action plans to either think about new features for our services, how to optmise flows, iterate on existing features, etc... But most importantly, these sessions put the voice of our users at the center of the discussion. I’ve facilitated and participated in sessions where we turn research into real concepts, prioritize user needs, and define the foundation for design exploration. Also, having structured workshops makes the process more inclusive and inspiring and I believe that are really the core for a healthy team collaboration.

Ideation workshop / Research report

Validation and testing

After the workshops validation becomes key. I will usually synthesise all the outcomes of a workshop and organise a follow up session to agree in an specific output. The next step is to plan on how to validate our idea: we shift from “What could we do?” to “Does this actually work for users?”. At this stage of the process is important to agree on what we consider a success or a fail in terms on metrics for a particular experiment. Data and engineering roles become critical here and they will provide the feasibility information to estimate what, when, how can we validate the idea.

Depending the selected validation method, the resources, time, etc... we will agree on how to move forward. From more complex experiments like smoke tests in production for example, which involves prototyping and development, to simple validation such as surveys or user interviews. At the end of each design loop for a problem space we will gather so many different learnings that not only will help us to take decisions about our initial problem space but also will enrich our idea bank, knowledge about our users, validation of assumptions, etc... And from a more human-team perspective will enable networking among colleagues and tight their relationships in a creative and fun way.