UX Research Roundup — 2018

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2018 was a long year. Thinking back to January 2018 makes my brain feel like I am trying to remember something from five years ago. However long, 2018 brought a lot of interesting learnings and thoughts in user research. As the years go by, user research evolves and grows in ways I never thought possible when I first entered the field. It is a fascinating and exciting area to work in. I’m very much looking forward to 2019 and what that brings, but wanted to roundup my favorite UX Research (and some non-uxr) moments from 2018.

UX Research Roundup 2018 (and some extras)

1. 14 Random Ways to Be Kind at Work because, our colleagues are also our users
2. Analyzing Usability Test Data: A step-by-step guide to getting the most from your usability tests
3. The beginning of Slack for ResearchOps, an incredible community dedicated to understanding and improving Research Operations in companies
4. A simple Prioritization Matrix (very easy to use) to help inform design decisions
5. An interesting take on why Personas Are Garbage (not that I agree completely with this message, but it is an interesting perspective), and the other side: How to Create Lean Personas
6. Moderating Usability Tests with Simultaneous Translation — something I will be using at my new Full-time role!
7. Quantifying Qualitative Research (Video & Text — amazing)
8. Join the Cognitive UXD newsletter, a fascinating combination of UX and Psychology
9. Don’t design for yourself, do research and design for your customers!
10. UX Curator newsletter is my favorite newsletter, no matter the year. It consists of 4 of the top UX stories of the day delivered in a simple and concise email
11. Some arguments on Why UX is Dead…or is it?
12. NPS is a Waste of Time, Use These Metrics Instead — I love when people go against something widely used and then give suggestions on what else to use
13. Facebook Research: Tips from the First Decade
14. How Properly Wasting Time at Work Increase Productivity — I love articles like this! I think we all try to do too much at once, make it a goal for 2019!
15. Design & UX Research Forums were created from the ResearchOps Community. So much invaluable and wonderful information in one place, it is mind-blowing!
16. How to Build a Usability Testing Lab Anytime, Anywhere
17. 50 Interview Questions for B2B SaaS UX Research and also really great general tips. These questions are wonderful for generative research and creating (non-garbage) personas or customer journey maps
18. Cognitive Biases & the Questions You Shouldn’t Be Asking
19. Sharing UX Research Results by Comic
20. How to Read a Mental Model Diagram and literally everything by Indi Young is amazing (she’s my UX research celebrity crush)

Some shameless self-promotion

1. Storytelling for a UX Research Portfolio
2. UX Research Toolkit Roundup
3. My User Research Course!!
4. How Might We Be Wrong
5. An Introverted UX Researcher’s Guide to Solo Networking in Product/Tech
6. Check out my Skillshare course on how to create a user research plan

Looking ahead to 2019

1. UXInsight Conference 2019 (I will be going!)
2. Strive UX Research Conference 2019
3. User Research London Conference 2019 (I will be attending this too!)
4. UX Research Australia 2019

What will happen in 2019 for UX Research? I predict more time and value placed in deeply understanding customers, defined user research processes that work alongside agile environments, specialization in research fields/verticals, scaling user research teams will become easier and, finally, I’m hoping for a comprehensive user research tool that gives us everything we could ever wish for and more.

Happy 2019 everyone!

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