The Missing Foundations of UX Research

In this module, we’re going to briefly discuss the thesis behind the course and your foundational skill gaps. We’ll develop a shared understanding of what these foundational skills are, why they matter, and how we will evolve them together.

Then, we’re jumping straight into the researcher’s Second Brain. Why? Because we all need to deal with insane amounts of information and knowledge. But guess what? Knowledge management is typically one of the biggest issues within any team and for any researcher.

We’ll introduce the notion of a “research second brain,” discuss why we need one, learn more about how each of us manages knowledge, and focus on discussing the architecture and design principles for a research-focused second brain.

Once you're prepared with a robust knowledge management system (i.e., the researcher's second brain), it's time to shift our efforts to relationships.

You should aspire for more than just "managing stakeholders." Success in research is about far more than knowledge and skill in research methods - building thriving relationships and partnerships is crucial.

In this module, we'll discover relationship-building techniques that will elevate the impact of your research by improving how you onboard to new teams, build trust, manage change, give and receive feedback, plus loads more.

There are key concepts in research that are constantly mentioned and rehashed - such as humility or empathy. However, it's hard to figure out how to take those fuzzy concepts and turn them into valuable practices that elevate the quality of your research. Well, here goes...

But we're not stopping there because we are as irrational and biased as the people we research. But, we can combat research errors by leveraging liberating structures, also known as "alternative thinking" or "counterfactual thinking."

We'll learn a little about why we must apply such techniques, and mainly we'll review and apply exercises that'll help you combat bias and reach new levels of empathy and helpful humility.

Most UX professionals never learned storytelling in a formal setting. Thus their understanding of storytelling is extremely limited. This is concerning because storytelling is one of the essential skills in our field... And, It's also THE most requested topic for this course.

This module is where the transformation to becoming better storytellers begins. In this module, we begin our narrative crafting journey by learning some of the universal foundations of storytelling.

Storytelling for research is a different beast... In this module, we'll focus on why that is, and how we can craft compelling research narratives.

We'll discuss how you can adapt storytelling best practices to INSIGHT-driven stories so you can maximize the impact of your research communication.

We'll cover research storytelling foundations, interesting perspectives from researchers and research leaders, creative storytelling, and visual, quant storytelling.

We aim for our research to resonate in interviews and our day-to-day work as researchers. We hope to persuade people to TAKE ACTION. But all too often we fail at both.

In this module, we'll deconstruct the portfolio presentation AND 10 elements that'll empower you to persuade and resonate with any cross-functional audience.

We've spent the past couple of weeks discussing the missing foundations of UXR. These are the skills that researchers, research managers, and the "research curious" yearn to be better at but haven't had the resources to learn about!

Now that we've covered these foundations across the research cycle, where does it leave us? What are concrete steps we can take today to evolve as UX professionals? And how does the COURSE need to evolve to support future cohorts?