Researchers need to build the muscle of saying and defending "No."

You're effective when you're selective.

Here's how to say effectively say no: 

Why is it important to say "No" to partners and peers? 

@JamesClear's book "Atomic Habits," says it best:

“When you say no, you are only saying no to one option. When you say yes, you are saying no to every other option. 

No is a decision. Yes is a responsibility.”

1. Use your company's priorities as a lens

It's hard to defend a "No" without knowing what's important.  

Ask yourself: 
- What *is* important to the team? 
- What are the main metrics & KPIs that need to be improved? 
- What can you afford to *not* get done for the company? 

2. Communicate your priorities whenever you can

Whether you work remotely or not, communicating your needs is important when you're defending your "No." 

Make sure you also provide context on WHY those priorities are important to both you AND the company. 

3a. Help them understand trade-offs in the research

Ask: "I see you want us to research X. Here's the current set of priorities we're working on that align to the company goals & metrics. What should we STOP doing to include this ask?" 

3b. More on trade-offs

Help partners and peers understand that their quick requests explicitly affect quality. 

"We can run that research in that time frame but our confidence in it will be low. Is that ok? Mind if we get some more time?" 

3c. Even more on trade-offs

Help them understand that if research is a bottleneck, then do without! 

"If we need to get it now, then it's not worth it. If it is important, let's work together to rework timelines." 

Researchers need to work on building the muscle of pushing back on random requests.

It takes time, and it can get uncomfortable. But saying "No" is a key step to having research respected at your company. 

^more on defending your research in our book: 
https://www.appleandbanana.org/bookwaitlist

How researchers can say & defend "No" to partners and peers

Here's a snippet from our upcoming UX research book: 

Chapter 3 - Selecting Participants 

"Random sampling isn't perfect"

Another issue with random sampling is when your sampling frame, which should reflect your population, is very diverse. 

Take a look at the diagram above. 

Imagine if you had limited time (which you probably do) and only one chance to sample from the frame.

If your sampling frame – which should be reflective of your population – isn’t diverse (like on the right), then your sample should roughly capture that limited diversity.

If your sampling frame (and population) has a lot of small, minority groups, then your random sample might never include anyone from these groups. 

This means using a more purposeful, non-random approach (see Chapter 5) to make sure you hear from unique voices.

So HOW do you get ahead of some of these concerns when you randomly sample?

^more on the pitfalls and opportunities with random sampling: 
https://www.appleandbanana.org/bookwaitlist

Chapter 3 - Selecting Participants: Random sampling isn't perfect

It's finally happened: you're going to manage other researchers. 

But managing is much more than 1:1s. 

Here are some non-obvious strategies to make the most of this transition:

1. Hiring earlier than you'd think

Managing can start with hiring. 

But WHEN do you hire someone? When things are on fire...right? 

If you see some internal red flags, you should actively begin hiring discussions. 

Here are some signs to look out for:

- You've begun to turn down requests from partners because you're stretched too thin (or you rush through them as quickly as you can because you can't say no) 

- Your backlog of "questions you'll get to one day" keeps growing with no end in sight

- You spend most of your time working IN the business (tactical, day-to-day operations) vs. ON the business (more strategic thinking about the future of your team) 

- You're forced to become an expert in everything, with no time to specialize in anything

But identifying that you NEED to hire someone is only part of the effort. 

You also need to persuade those that control the budget that this is a good investment. 

Here are some ideas:

1. Lead with speed:
Having another researcher means you can learn more, go deeper, and move faster.

2. Start with freelancers and contractors:
If your org will allow it, bring on some outsourced help. The upfront cost is lower + you can assess them on output vs. a nice resume.

After you've hired someone, now the managing begins!

Well, not quite. 

Even before someone starts, there are high leverage things you should be doing:

1.  Document everything: 
The curse of knowledge is real so document how research works at your org, key partners to consider, etc. 

Pro-Tip:
Consider including video walkthroughs alongside your docs. It can bring workflows to life + new hires can review them 100's of times.

2. Context unlocks tools
Sharing the tools you use is good; HOW they all link together in your workflows is even better. 

Pro-Tip: 
Create a process map showing how and WHEN info moves between tools. 

Ex: "Start in Zoom for interviews; move to Notion for the repo."

3. Be human
Remember when you were the new hire? How did you feel? What did you wish you knew both about the job + your company? 

Turn your empathy inward and consider how the new hire is feeling and get ahead of it. 

Pro-Tip: 
Also, list what is NOT important at your org.

4. The J curve dip

The combo of you + the new hire actually produces less than you did before the hire because you’re now spending time training and onboarding them. 

But given proper onboarding, they eventually generate their own output and you start to see the dividends.

5a.  1:1s
After all of the above, NOW you can approach 1:1s. 

A common cadence is a set time 1x/week for the first 12 weeks and then less frequently as it makes sense.

Pro-Tip: 
Craft & share an agenda ahead of time. Center around the work, the workflows, and how you can help.

5b. More on 1:1s: 
- Over time, they should be putting together the agendas. But that can happen about 4 weeks in, once they get a better handle on the role + the org. 

- Set aside time to connect! Check-in on them beyond the role. Remember empathy for everyone, not just users.

6. The "1st 100 days" email
The day they start, start adding notes to a "Let's look back at your 1st 100 days here" email to be sent later.

Highlight the big projects they've worked on and any impact they've already made. 

Pro-Tip: 
Include fun stuff like # of emojis sent, etc.

7. Activate on needs
When they ask for help, don't just listen; actually, help them. 

^Doing this consistently means you build trust faster. 

Pro-Tip: 
If real change is hard, still make a real effort + share context/updates. Sometimes that's enough.

8. Be nice to yourself
Managing isn't easy. Accept that you'll get things wrong. And that's ok!

All great relationships take time to build. View the bumps along the way as learning moments. 

Pro-Tip: 
If you can truly say "I tried my best whenever I could," that's a huge win.

Managing, like all skills, is a muscle that you have to build. 

Hopefully, these tips help you strengthen that skill a bit faster. 

You could also be an amazing manager and gift your team our upcoming book...

More info: 
https://www.appleandbanana.org/bookwaitlist

Managing Researchers, Part 1

Here's a snippet from our upcoming UX research book: 

Chapter 4 - Improving Recruitment 

"Understanding why participants participate"

Ask yourself why the last person who participated in one of your studies showed up. 

Why did they do your interesting dynamic research activities instead of something else? 

Was it really about the money, or was it really about something else?

If you think it’s all about the money, you’re reducing how dynamic and rich and interesting people are. 

The table above highlights common motivations for why folks show up to do research in the first place.

You can use this list as a place to start about why people show up.

Once you know what their motivation is, you can tailor your session, your activities, your energy, and how you build rapport and use that motivation to run better studies instead of being dismissive or ignoring it altogether.

But how do incentives fit into all of this? 

^more on incentives, recruitment, and more in our book: 
https://www.appleandbanana.org/bookwaitlist

Chap 5 - Improving Recruitment: Why participants participate

Here's a snippet from our upcoming UX research book:



Chapter 12 - Qualitative Data Analysis



"Thematic analysis for qual data"

There are several ways to approach qualitative data analysis. 

In most qual experience research, thematic analysis will be your best bet. 

Why?  

It’s possibly the most “intuitive,” approachable, flexible, and inclusive approach out there.

But what is thematic analysis?

Thematic analysis is about recognizing the themes or underlying patterns within your data. 

Some folks confuse content analysis with thematic analysis. 

The content analysis uses frequency to help make sense of data, while thematic analysis finds patterns within qual data.

While you can count how often a theme appears in some data, this approach isn’t always perfect for experience research (see Chapter 12, Part C “Making Themes” for more).

It’ll be harder for your team to view frequency effectively to learn about the qual data with small samples.

But the meaning within and underneath a set of qualitative data can resonate with your team, even if you only had a few participants.

The diagram above outlines the general process when using thematic analysis. 

But HOW do you effectively use this approach? 

^we break down these steps + much more in our book: 
https://www.appleandbanana.org/bookwaitlist

Chap 12 - Qual Research: Thematic analysis

Here's a snippet from our upcoming UX research book:



Chapter 7 - Demystifying Quantitative Research



"3 Ways to Leverage Quant Research"

When people hear of quantitative research, they immediately jump to surveys and A/B tests. 

Those are examples of quantitative research methods. 

A quantitative activity is what you're setting out to do with those research methods.

It's similar to the purpose or reason for the research in the first place. 

Above are 3 of the most common activities you could take. These activities can be used across a range of situations. 

It's up to you to figure out which activity is most relevant for you and your team.

But no matter what you choose, quant research has some clear benefits and limitations you'll want to understand.

But how do you USE the strengths and weaknesses of quant research to your advantage?

^more on this in our upcoming UX research book: 
https://www.appleandbanana.org/bookwaitlist

Chap 7 - Quant Research: 3 ways to leverage it

Here's a snippet from our upcoming UX research book:

Chapter 4 - Sample Sizes

"Larger Samples, Diminishing Returns"

The x-axis is the sample proportion or the number of people in your sample vs. the number of people in your population. 

The y-axis is the accuracy of your results.

You can see that accuracy initially shoots up as your sample size gets larger and larger. 

But it doesn’t stay that way. This means that as your sample size gets larger, your accuracy goes up by smaller and smaller amounts.

The goal is to figure out the sample size that’s accurate enough, without spending more time and resources.

But how do you do that? 

^more on this topic and 50+ other UX research situations in our book.

Join the waitlist!
https://www.appleandbanana.org/bookwaitlist

Chap 4- Sample Sizes: Larger Samples, Diminishing Returns

🔐 How to unlock your hidden #UX partner: the support team 🔐 

Building with your support team is an often overlooked method towards crafting a better #userexperience.

Here's why #uxresearch should build strong relationships with support teams + how to get started...

🧵👇🏽

Let's understand how even well-intentioned decisions can lead to a poor user experience. 

Here are real-life decisions companies have made + how they impacted their support teams: 

(Keep in mind that none of these decisions are inherently good OR bad as context matters!)

[ EX 1 ] 

To make it easier to get started, the product team removed some steps in the sign-up process...  

—>  Many new users were unsure how to actually use the product so they emailed the support team

[ EX 2 ] 

- To grow the customer base, the marketing team targeted people with many different needs than the current users... 

—> The support team had to apologize to those new users as the product wasn't built to do what they wanted

[ EX 3 ] 

- To save money, the finance team put a limit on how long the support team could spend with a user...

—> The support team tried to finish conversations sooner, which led to more negative reviews online

[ EX 4 ] 

- To close more deals, the sales team sold product features that weren't on the roadmap... 

—> Lots of angry customers complained to the support team that the features they paid for weren't ready yet

While YOU might not be able to change some of these situations, it's vital that you foster empathy for all your partners, especially support.

So how can you unlock this hidden UX partner to craft better user experiences AND hit business goals? 

Read on! 👇🏼

https://bit.ly/2Qr4UKK