Talk abstract

Starting a user research practice in an organization can be daunting, exciting, and eye-opening experience. In this talk, Snigdha will present a 30-60-90 day (and beyond) plan for researchers looking to achieve impact through a new or existing research practice. Snigdha will cover ways to do work that matters, score quick wins, and balance long-term strategy with tactical work. She will provide key takeaways through real life examples, including how to generate excitement and partner with teams new to research, scale research despite resource challenges, and impact product strategy, design, and success measures.

The first thirty days will focus on listening and engaging with potential partners and leadership, to avoid early pitfalls. Sixty days will include scoring quick wins, by creating partnerships with “on the fence” colleagues by exploring their comfort zones and taking them along for the ride. Ninety days will cover establishing repeatable processes to scale, including creating and growing a research panel, and crafting and communicating a vision. Finally and most importantly, as being a change-maker is hard work, and the talk will conclude with a discussion on preventing burnout.

Speaker Bio

Snigdha is a researcher with over 10 years of experience in UX and cognitive neuroscience research. She founded the User Research practice at Bitly in NYC. Her impact as a UX Research team of one is rooted in listening with empathy, being adaptable, and forming effective partnerships with cross-functional teams that are new to research. At Bitly, she gathered insights from over 200 users within the first year to shape strategy for a new product area, inform the design of core workflows shipped, and impact key results. In her former role as the first UX Researcher at FactSet, she created frameworks and processes used by the team, and played a key role in scaling research to three departments and over ten products. Snigdha arrives at UX with a deep understanding of human behavior and cognition fostered by her Ph.D. training.

Talk abstract

Whether we like to admit it or not, our customers are more diverse than we think they are, and you don’t need a lot of users to have a diverse customer base either. To make matters more complicated, if you are working at a high-growth company, the demographic, behavioural, and cultural makeup of your customers are changing faster than anyone on your team can keep track of.

So when it comes to starting a new foundational research project, where do you start? How do you make sure that you focus on a group of people that are both representative of your broader customer base and meaningful to the business’ goals?

In this talk, Leticia and Lucas will cover a framework they’ve developed that leverages behavioural data you already have on your customers to develop meaningful customer segments to target for foundational research, so you can deliver on key business outcomes.

Speaker Bio (Leticia)

Leticia Ratkiewicz is a mixed-methods UX Researcher at Nubank, based in São Paulo, Brazil. She has 5 years experience on the UX field, transitioning from design through full-time research. She’s earned her Master’s from Pontíficia Universidade Católica de São Paulo.

Speaker Bio (Lucas)

Lucas Terra is a product designer at Nubank. His background covers a breadth of contexts (industries, large and small size companies, consulting and internal) and disciplines (industrial, digital and service design).

Currently Lucas is leading the design team for Nubank’s credit card and engaged in nurturing a strong design culture during a hyper-growth scenario on a 70+ team of visual, product designers and UX researchers.

Talk abstract

Have you ever felt like you’re stuck in a solo researcher hamster wheel, cranking out lots of work but going nowhere? You’re not alone: the UXR team of one role is plagued with inherent dysfunctions that only become obvious over time.

In this practical talk, Roy will lay out the five obstacles that prevent solo researchers from having a more significant impact on their organizations. You'll learn about how to approach research as a strategic function, the importance of business metrics, the critical role of consistent communication, how isolation affects solo researchers, and why task omissions are just as important as priorities.

At the end of this session, you'll walk away with ideas that you can implement to become a better UXR team of one.

Speaker Bio

Roy has been involved in user research and service design for the past eight years. He currently runs the Research Operations practice at Zapier. Prior to this role, he led the UX research practice at Buffer.

When not working or hanging out with his wife and three young boys, he can be found obsessing over Arsenal, his favourite football (soccer) team.

Roy hails from Kenya and currently resides just outside of Toronto.

Talk abstract

Over the past decade, academics in social psychology have been wrestling with a problem - when they tried to reproduce studies that had been published in academic journals, a worrying number weren't seeing the same results. This is not merely an “academic” issue. In business, there is rarely the chance to repeat a study, but there is little reason to believe UX research is immune from this problem. The UX Research industry can learn from what was uncovered in social psychology, and create guardrails to increase our confidence that our work will stand the test of time.

Speaker Bio

Sarah is a Director of Design Research at RBC. She focuses on scaling the impact of the design research, and supporting design researchers embedded in cross functional teams across RBC Digital. A lifelong reader and collector of facts, she loves the opportunity to find parallels between disparate industries and situations.

Talk abstract

Teams are often sure of their ability to determine the right thing to build, but often only look for feedback on how to build the thing right. Researchers need to help teams reframe their thinking around figuring out what the right thing is by getting buy-in for research at early stages of product development.

As it stands today, it can be difficult for UX researchers to secure buy-in from stakeholders to do a traditional concept test - a method well suited for early-stage research. Regardless of if a researcher has secured interest from some team members, they may still be unable to get stakeholders to care about the outcomes.

Enter concept testing with blueprint fidelity. Blueprint fidelity elegantly solves for common pushback: it has the fidelity of a paper prototype with the polish of a finished product, it focuses teams on solving problems, and gets the team to understand which concepts have the most promise early on, before they get attached to an idea that has little potential.

Speaker Bio (Kira)

Kira Cassels is a qualitative UX Researcher at Indeed.com, focusing on improving the job seeker experience. She is passionate about guiding and empowering teams to be inquisitive about their users, connect to their needs, and to develop solutions that work. Kira received her M.S. in Human Centered Design and Engineering from the University of Washington.

Speaker Bio (Kathryn)

Kathryn Brookshier is a UX Researcher at Indeed in Seattle, WA who incorporates quantitative and qualitative methods to drive product decisions that positively impact users. She is a Medium author, mentor in the Seattle chapter of Hexagon UX, and a board member of Puget Sound SIGCHI. Kathryn received her B.S. in Interaction Design from Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering and M.S. in Human-Centered Design and Engineering from the University of Washington.

Talk abstract

It is critical for researchers to recreate organic moments of interactions during user research sessions. The Peloton Product team strives to replicate an authentic workout experience during user research sessions to capture insightful and meaningful feedback. Simply showing a stationary user a clickable prototype on a desktop cannot fully envelope the user into a genuine workout experience. Researchers will miss out on insights caused by the altered state of exercise: feelings of euphoria from endorphins, sweat hitting the tablet screen from an elevated respiratory system, cognitive load of movement coupled with mentally focusing on a screen.

This talk will uncover some of the unique testing variables the team encounters when exercise is a requirement to a test plan. How do we handle self-conscious participants? What do we do when participants are too out of breath to voice their attitudinal feedback? Many of the challenges have transferable implications that researchers outside of fitness can take back to their research teams. Finally, we will provide case studies of recently released products and the thought process that went into our test plans.

Speaker Bio (Andrea)

Andrea (pronounced Ann-dree-uh) was the first User Researcher hired at Peloton in November, 2018. Since then the User Research team has expanded to a team of six talented and tenacious Researchers. The team supports the innovation, iteration and optimization of Peloton Products (software and hardware!) by understanding how users interact with the Bike, Tread, mobile apps, TV apps and new Products through qualitative and quantitative research methods. Andrea is passionate about creative and experimental research techniques that extend outside of traditional usability testing.

Prior to Peloton, Andrea worked in healthcare research where she planned, executed and presented research studies that optimized pharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostics clients’ strategies. She holds a Master of Science in Marketing Research and Insights from Temple University, a Certificate in User Experience Design from New York University (NYU) and a Bachelor of Science in Health Policy & Administration from Penn State University.

Andrea takes at least three Peloton classes a week; she even has a bike in her studio apartment. In her spare time, Andrea enjoys writing comedy and keeping a pulse on the New York boutique fitness scene.

Speaker Bio (Beth)

Beth is the second User Researcher hired by Peloton in July 2019. See Andrea Sutyak’s bio for more information on all the cool things that Peloton’s growing research team is working on!

Beth is a California native who moved with her Brooklyn-bred husband to New York City in 2017. Beth was exposed to research at any early age by her father (a Professor) and she’s been passionate about it ever since! Apart from a brief stint in event coordination, Beth’s career has focused on human-centered research.

Before joining Peloton, Beth worked in user research at Audible (and still listens to audiobooks daily); prior to that she worked in hardware human factors research at Apple. This unique blend of research experience - encompassing software, hardware, and content research - has been instrumental in growing Peloton’s product research practice. Beth holds an MS in Human Factors/Ergonomics from San Jose State University and a BS in Cognitive Science from UCLA.

When Beth’s not working, you can find her exploring NYC’s growing craft brewery scene, trying new fitness classes (both Peloton and otherwise) or binging the latest true crime docuseries.

Talk abstract

Hardware is hard, and robots are harder. Robotics products have a research rhythm – and constraints – different from digital products you may have worked on. Moreover, if you are a research team of one or two, you’ll end up studying everything from product-market fit to ergonomics to social interaction.

Each consumer-facing robot is a novel product that needs to find its target market. Prototyping and testing require hardware and software innovation going beyond existing digital tools for mobile and web app design. And if your robot is rolling along in public, you’ve got to research the experience with passers-by who never signed up to have a robot in their lives. Learn how to manage robotics UX research – from product concept to industrial design to rich social interaction.

Speaker Bio

Ellen leads UX research at Postmates X, the robotics branch of delivery company Postmates. She's working on Serve, a socially aware sidewalk robot now delivering tasty food in busy cities.

Previously, Ellen led research at Mayfield Robotics (a Bosch startup) for Kuri, an award-winning – and adorable – home robot. She's worked on UX research and design for companies large and small and taught dozens of courses internationally. She can't wait to share new stories about humans, robots, and designing for the unexpected. #TheFutureIsNow #LoveARobot

Talk abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic will not only leave its mark in history, but also on our culture. How will it change the way we practice UX research and design? Our time in self-isolation provided opportunities to reflect on how we were operating, as well as experiment and learn new ways to live and work. In this talk, Maia and Remi delve into what we’ve collectively learned, including best practices for researchers, and made some predictions about the future of UX research. How can we yield the best outcomes? What do we want our work lives to look like? What is best for our organizations?

Speaker Bio (Maia)

Maia Ottenstein is a passionate problem solver and designer for social impact. As the Manager for Design Research and Process Design in the DICE Group at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, Maia leads a team of researchers and designers to create innovative solutions that improve efficiency, safety, and experience for healthcare organizations and their patients. Originally trained in product design, she considers the full life cycle of a project from the perspective of both the end users and the producers. In her free time, Maia can be found wandering outdoors or mixing a crafted beverage.

Speaker Bio (Remi)

Remi Gurak is a researcher and designer passionate about tackling challenging problems through a human centered approach. She believes that crafting innovative, intelligent and accessible solutions can change our world.

Remi works as a Design Researcher in the DICE Group at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital where she spends her days working closely with patients and staff to understand their problems and build intuitive products that improve their day to day lives.

Talk abstract

How do you research an experience you don’t understand well? When the only two variables to an experience are syntax and semantics, how do you modify research methods to maximize user insights?

This talk explores research in the original computer interface, the limited, but powerful, command line interface (CLI), which is still used by millions of developers worldwide. We’ll also explore what researching CLIs can teach us about doing UX research in any other environment.

Speaker Bio

Atikh Bana is a Product Designer at Datadog, where he is responsible for researching developer needs/expectations, relevant developer tools, and designing end to end experiences for highly technical products, which include graphical and command line user interfaces. Prior to Storj Labs, he worked for an IT consultancy in the Midwest, supporting companies like Herman Miller, Steelcase, and Thomson Reuters. He currently lives in New York City and likes cheesecake, a lot.

Talk abstract

With its introduction, Mixed Reality brought along unexplored use cases, new interaction models and unique questions that enveloped the technology. Researching and Designing for MR requires people to leave behind assumptions and workflows well understood by 2D experiences and reintroduce themselves to new user expectations. For the researcher, designer or a manager stepping into the world of MR, this talk will set the stage and provide a bird’s eye view for what it takes to orchestrate an end to end process of researching and designing for new technology.

Using Hololens as a case study, the talk will cover use cases, explore how existing methodologies can be adapted and outline focus areas that are considered when researching futuristic technology. Designing for new experiences requires a synergic partnership between research and design with the parallel workstreams interacting and influencing each other. To ideate and envision for explorative design, the talk exposes the audience to adaptive workflows, contextual influences, prototyping methods and key challenges encountered along the way.

The talk will showcase a concrete baseline for strategic research and design methodologies that can be used to explore this new world of Mixed Reality.

Speaker Bio (Ananthi’s)

As a Senior Designer at Microsoft, Ananthi focuses on bringing curiosity, empathy and play as driving forces to every creative endeavor. She works with clients to bring out the human truth and ensure its continuity through the crafted experience. She has shown design leadership in a variety of fields ranging from Healthcare, Community Engagement, Machine Learning to currently bringing her voice to the world of Mixed Reality.

Speaker Bio (Peter’s)

Peter has been involved in research for almost 20 years. With a background in neuroscience and behavior in fish he transitioned into UX research to have impact on technology people use every day. As a user researcher, Peter is interested in improving the user experience with innovative and cutting edge technologies while working in problem spaces where diverse and creative approaches are critical. Peter’s UX journey began in Xbox taking on difficult questions such as how companies can make online gaming safer for everyone. He helped define and hone the process for conducting rapid iterative usability tests throughout the Windows organization. As the lead researcher for other studios and products he’s championed the use of multimethod research to better understand user needs and motivations. Currently, Peter works in the mixed reality space for HoloLens and mobile devices.

Talk abstract

Human memory is flawed, and as such, relying solely on participant’s memory can jeopardize the reliability of our insights. Much of qualitative research done today is based on asking participants to recall past experiences, though we don’t often think about the limitations to this kind of data collection.

This talk explores how memory biases can impact our research and identifies strategies for overcoming these limitations through mixed methods. We will cover a case study from my research at Spotify to highlight how simultaneously triangulating different methods—including a qualitative diary study along with behavioral data analysis—allowed us to avoid memory biases and gain high-quality insights.

Speaker Bio

Colette Kolenda leads strategic, mixed methods research for Spotify Free. She triangulates quantitative and qualitative methodologies to enable data-driven product and business decisions. Before Spotify, Colette conducted decision-making research in Dan Ariely’s Behavioral Economics Lab at Duke University. She holds a B.S. in Neuroscience from Duke University.

Talk abstract

“You are not your user” has long been the UX researcher’s mantra. But it’s had a problematic side effect, which is that we’ve inadvertently taught our non-researcher colleagues to “other” our users. Too often, companies view users as mysterious beings they have seemingly little in common with. In this talk, Carrie will explain how concepts from classical rhetoric explain the persuasive nature of all products, why we must identify with users to persuade them to use our products, and how we can do this in an ethical manner.

Speaker Bio

Carrie is a UX researcher at Mailchimp with a background in content strategy. She holds an MA in Rhetoric & Composition from Georgia State University, where she explored theories of writing and persuasion and how they inform online communication. At Mailchimp, she combines user research with her love for writing and strategy to help build more persuasive and successful products.

Talk abstract

Nailing down the right copy for an interface can be a challenge. And nailing down the right amount of copy can be equally tricky. Some people say, “Users don’t read” – but is this true?

This talk will explore the classic cognitive psychology research behind how people read and process text, taking a dive into the reading comprehension literature. You will learn how cognitive psychology research methods translate into testing copy in an applied UX research setting – you might be surprised!

We’ll also take an in-depth look at some practical UXR case studies. The speaker will share how her organization has used different UX research approaches to assess users’ comprehension of copy and to drive design changes. This talk will also provide an overview of qualitative and quantitative UXR methodologies for testing copy. You’ll receive guidance on how to pick the right approach to answer your research questions.

You’ll leave with a practical UXR toolkit to tackle any copy debate in your organization – as well as the cognitive psychology “why” behind these methodologies.

Speaker Bio

Jennifer Siedjak spearheads the UX research efforts at Redbox as a UX Research Team of One. (Redbox is one of the biggest entertainment companies in the US. There are more Redbox kiosks in the US than McDonald's and Starbucks combined!)

Before getting into UX, Jennifer conducted research at Northwestern University in Dr. David Rapp’s Reading Comprehension Lab. Here, she conducted cognitive psychology studies on topics ranging from refutational texts to perspective-taking. She presented her research at regional and national conferences. Later, she worked at Rush University Medical Center, helping with clinical trials for new PTSD treatments – and getting a couple of peer-reviewed journal articles under her belt.

About five years ago, Jennifer made the pivot to UX Research because she wanted to conduct applied research – and UX was the perfect blend of her interests in cognitive psychology and design. For her first UX Research gig, Jennifer consulted for Fortune 500 companies in the tech, pharma, finance, e-commerce, and auto industries. Now at Redbox, she conducts research across multiple products: kiosk, mobile app, website, and apps on Smart TVs and streaming sticks. She uses UX insights to help bridge the gap across the omni-channel experience.

Talk abstract

How might the presumption that we’re equally capable of deploying empathy handicap what’s possible in research and design? Let’s look at the function and limits of empathy in research, design and decision making today and imagine together what the field of research might look like if we consider the impossibility of empathy?

Speaker Bio

Research can save the world. It’s this earnest belief that powers Sekai Farai, an anthropologist and qualitative researcher in her 15 year career in service and product design. Funded to study the NYC startup ecosystem in the early 2000s, Sekai parlayed that experience into working with tech startups in-house and as a consultant, translating user knowledge into actionable product direction. Sekai Farai specializes in ethnographic and experimental methodology to uncover hard-to-know insights from hard-to-reach users for global clients across tech, CPG, manufacturing and social impact. Founder of research studio, humankind re/design, Sekai Farai is on a mission to interview and learn from everyone who wants a world designed with their needs in mind.

Talk abstract

What users tell us is often an invaluable source of information, but there are things that they cannot access and thus report to the researcher. One of these sometimes hidden forces are emotions, which not only shape our behavior and social interactions, but can impact our basic cognitive processes such as memory and perception. If we don’t account for users’ emotions, we might get an inaccurate picture of how they’ll interact with our product or design in the real world.

This talk outlines how emotions influence the user experience and the ways in which we can measure emotions in a UX research setting. The audience will learn about low-budget, scrappy ways of assessing emotions (self-assessment manikin, sentiment analysis) as well as about the more rigorous and costly methods (galvanic skin response, heart rate, facial muscle activity). Lastly, this talk will caution UX researchers against over-interpreting a single measure, regardless of how robust it seems. Brain and bodily signals should always be interpreted together with self-reported and behavioral measures of emotion, in order to understand the full truth about the user experience.

Speaker Bio

Lara Vujovic is a UX Researcher at TripAdvisor on the Experiences team. She has a PhD in Psychology from Tufts University, where she focused on emotion regulation and mindfulness. Her work has been published in peer-reviewed journals and presented at several academic conferences. Previously, Lara worked at Jacobs University Bremen (Germany), where she helped develop a video game for teaching empathy to children and adolescents. In addition to her expertise in emotions and empathy, Lara is passionate about understanding people's behavior in the constantly changing digital space. Having lived in four different countries, she always considers cultural differences in her research.

Talk abstract

In this talk, Eran will share the many challenges, some failures and a few successes in advocating for research to be a vital voice around the exec table. The focus of the talk will be around the inevitable need to deal with organizational power structures, legitimacy and partnership building. He will do so by sharing his experiences of being both an applied Anthropologist, and at the same time, also functioning as VP and C-level exec of Product & Growth.

Speaker Bio

Eran is an applied Anthropologist with a passion for building great products. He has almost two decades of conducting qualitative research, and over a decade of experience merging qualitative research and business in various product, marketing and growth leadership roles. He has been fortunate enough to be part of some amazing teams, including Kampyle (Acquired by Medallia), Hola (Acquired by EMK Capital), and Rounds (Acquired by Kik Interactive). In recent years he moved into C-suite roles, first at Kik Interactive, as the Chief Product Officer, and later for Top Hat, as Chief Product Officer and interim Chief Technology Officer. In these roles, he has consistently advocated for making user research a partner in strategic decision making.

Talk abstract

As our discipline matures and UXR teams grow in size, it's important to consider how to best model and structure our teams for long-term success within our organization. Several factors weigh in to this decision, including company culture and collaboration processes, the larger organizational structure, leadership and buy-in, and overall expectations around the UXR discipline.

In this talk, I will dive into each of these areas, weighing the pros and cons of various working models, such as embedded and service models. As a case study, I'll also discuss how the UXR team structure evolved over the years at Lyft -- from a team of one to 30 -- and the organizational decisions we needed to make, alongside examples from other companies.

Speaker Bio

Most recently, Monal was the Head of UX Research at Lyft, where she was the company’s first researcher. She grew the team to 30, including quantitative UX research, design strategy, and research operations.

Monal has been building and leading UX teams for over 8 years, including teams at Intuit and SoundCloud. Prior to that, she worked as a UX Researcher and Product Designer across a range of large companies and startups, dating back to the dot-com era.

Monal has an MS in Cognitive Science from UC San Diego, where she focused on methods of cognitive ethnography, studying people in real-life settings in order to determine how to best design everyday technology. Monal earned her BS from Stanford in Symbolic Systems, a Computer Science focused major complemented by courses in Psychology, Philosophy, and Linguistics. For both of her degrees, her concentration was Human-Computer Interaction.

A former national champion cross country and track & field runner, Monal still enjoys staying active outdoors, as well as wildlife spotting and traveling with her husband. She works and lives in San Francisco.

Talk abstract

While it’s growing, the UX Research discipline is comprised of people with varying levels of experience, operating in a wide range of styles. But one thing we all struggle with is how to balance two demands of us as experts: to move quickly and to produce high quality work. How do we find that balance? In this panel, we’ll discuss:

Speaker Bio (Henrik)

Henrik is CEO at Lookback. He was born and raised in Sweden, where he started his career in academia, but has lived in Canada since 2005. Shortly after finishing his PhD in economics he realized that it’s much more fun helping tech companies with strategy and change management. Ten years and 300 entrepreneurs of consulting work later he was looking for an opportunity to have more long-term impact at a startup with a meaningful mission. In 2015, Lookback came knocking and introduced Henrik to what UX research can do to product building and that was it. Now he spends his days with a wonderful team trying to support the UX revolution and the UX research community. When he is not working, he spends his time in Montréal or in the boreal forest with his wife and two kids.

Speaker Bio (Sara)

Sara Belt is a Director of Product Insights at Spotify. With a background in engineering and human-computer interaction, she leads a team of user researchers and data scientists that powers Spotify’s product development for the artist and music industry community; helping artists grow their audience, express their creativity, and thrive. Prior to Spotify, Sara held research positions at Microsoft, HERE Technologies, and Nokia, exploring topics ranging from the future of productivity to how people navigate the world with maps.

Speaker Bio (Matt)

Matt Gallivan is a Sr. Research Manager at Airbnb, where he leads Experience Research for the home rentals business. Matt has been doing research or leading research teams at agency, media, and technology companies for nearly twenty years. He was the keynote speaker at the inaugural UX Research Conference in 2018 and emceed the Leadership Track at the conference in 2019. Matt used to tweet a lot about research, but Twitter makes him sad, so he doesn’t do that so much anymore. He lives in San Francisco with his wife and two young kids.

Speaker Bio (Monal)

Most recently, Monal was the Head of UX Research at Lyft, where she was the company’s first researcher. She grew the team to 30, including quantitative UX research, design strategy, and research operations.

Monal has been building and leading UX teams for over 8 years, including teams at Intuit and SoundCloud. Prior to that, she worked as a UX Researcher and Product Designer across a range of large companies and startups, dating back to the dot-com era.

Monal has an MS in Cognitive Science from UC San Diego, where she focused on methods of cognitive ethnography, studying people in real-life settings in order to determine how to best design everyday technology. Monal earned her BS from Stanford in Symbolic Systems, a Computer Science focused major complemented by courses in Psychology, Philosophy, and Linguistics. For both of her degrees, her concentration was Human-Computer Interaction.

A former national champion cross country and track & field runner, Monal still enjoys staying active outdoors, as well as wildlife spotting and travel with her husband. She works and lives in San Francisco.

Talk abstract

How can we, as UX Research leaders, help identify the greatest opportunities, embed in strategic business processes, and scale the impact of our insights? Empower your UX Research team by increasing influence through synthesis.

Learn about the Insight Sprint methodology Etienne developed for cross-area knowledge-sharing and synthesis that quickly aligns teams under a shared set of opportunities identified cross-functionally to drive clarity for organizations.

Speaker Bio

Etienne is a human-centered researcher and strategist passionate about people and the power of their stories to create new value. She has led UX Research teams at Uber, founded consumer strategy practices at Method Products and VF Corporation, and led Innovation Design at The Clorox Company. Etienne has guided strategic initiatives for brand, product, environmental and digital experiences for The Coca-Cola Company, Walmart, P&G, The Gap Inc., Toyota, Levi Strauss & Co., McDonald’s, Pfizer, and IBM.

Etienne is the founder of “Redefining Having It All" a non-profit organization that celebrates the beautiful diversity of women’s ambition globally through storytelling in support of female empowerment through education.

Talk abstract

Image. Branding. Content Marketing. What do any of these have to do with UX Research? When it comes to delivering high-impact, influential research findings, everything!Whether you are at the whiteboard or in the boardroom, marketing matters! In this talk, Patti Carlson will share how her UX Research team took a creative approach to internal marketing of UX Research insights and started to exert more influence over design, product strategy, and even organizational strategy. She'll walk you through how to create your own marketing plan and identify your:

• - Marketing goals
• - Audience
• - Strategies & tactics
• - Marketing channels

By the end of the talk, you'll know exactly how to Always Be Closing!

Speaker Bio

Patti Carlson is the Director of UX Research at Mailchimp, a leading marketing platform for small businesses. With an extensive background in UX Research and Psychology, she guides ateam of researchers and research leaders in using mixed methods to understand customer needs and help guide product teams toward effective solutions. She thrives on incorporating unconventional techniques to inspire and motivate her team, whether that’s borrowing lessons from improv to develop storytelling skills, or incorporating marketing and sales strategies to “sell” research insights, Patti is constantly seeking to reinvent the practice of UX Research. When she’s not nerding out over Research, you can catch her hiking with her family or running through her Atlanta neighborhood with her two spoiled rescue dogs, Bowie and Roscoe.