All Episodes
#93 - Digital Ethnography and Real-World Context in UXR with Megan McLean of Spotify
Context acts as the bridge between an abstract idea (’a comfortable user experience’) and a tangible design (‘cushioned, breathable running shoes’). Although gaining c...
#92 - What Librarians Can Teach UXRs about Insights Repositories with Nada Alnakeeb of DoorDash and Joanna Perez of Netflix
Public libraries have been using insights repositories for decades—and it’s time user research teams catch up. This week, we’re joined by Nada Alnakeeb, Head of Design...
#91 - Design Psychology with Thomas Watkins of 3Leaf
What is design psychology? Thomas Watkins of 3Leaf compares it to ergonomics—both fields aim to make products feel as comfortable as possible for their users. Where er...
#90 - The State of User Research 2022 with Roberta Dombrowski
The State of User Research 2022 Report unpacks the data from our international survey of UX researchers and people who do research as part of their jobs. This week, we...
#89 - UX Agencies: Setting Clients Up for Success with Karen VanHouten
Doing user research in an agency setting comes with its own set of challenges—from context switching to stubborn clients to less-than-optimal tool stacks.Karen VanHout...
#88 - Research Operations for Democratization at Scale with Garrett Tsukada
The democratization of research continues to grow—and with it, the complexities of research operations. This week, we chatted with Garrett Tsukada, Head of Customer Co...
#87 - User Interviews 201: Leveling Up Your Interviews with Therese Fessenden of NN/g
You’ve mastered the basics, but now it’s time to take your interviews to the next level. This week, we chatted with Therese Fessenden, Senior User Experience Specialis...
#86 - Research is Everyone’s Job: The Democratization of Research with Jonathan Widawski, CEO of Maze
Should everyone do research? It’s a tricky question. Yes, research is a craft that takes years to master. But on the other hand, if we want research to happen all the ...
#85 - So Meta: Doing User Research at UXR Company with Roberta Dombrowski of User Interviews
It’s our most meta episode yet. Today, we chatted with Roberta Dombrowski, VP of User Research at User Interviews, about doing user research about user researchers at ...
#84 - B2B Recruiting with Matthew Morrison of Braze
Recruiting participants for user research is hard. Recruiting participants from a pool of your own customers? Somehow even harder. There’s client relationships, privac...
#83 - Being Black in UX Research with Dr. Lisanne Norman of Gusto
What’s it like to be black in UX right now? Are companies sticking by their plans for diversity and inclusion? How do researchers ensure their work is as inclusive as ...
#82 - Games User Research — with Steve Bromley
Creating a video game requires more than just development time and coding—to make sure the experience is enjoyable, you have to test it. In this episode, User Research...
#81 - Establishing Sustainable Research Practices with Gregg Bernstein of Condé Nast
How do you build a long lasting research practice? Aim for a healthy one. Gregg Bernstein you how. This week on the podcast, Gregg talked to us about how to contribute...
#80 - UX Research and Arab Cultures – with Norah Abokhodair of Microsoft
Doing research with users from different cultures is (very, very) important. It can also be complicated. In this episode, we are joined by Norah Abokhodair, Senior Pro...
#79 - Participatory Research – with Alexis McNutt Unis of Better
What is participatory research? And how do you include it in your UXR practice? Alexis McNutt Unis, Lead UX Researcher, Homeowner Experience at Better is here to expla...
#78 - Accessible UXR: Recruiting and Researching Participants with Disabilities – with Samuel Proulx of Fable
We learned so much in this week’s episode of Awkward Silences. Samuel Proulx, Accessibility Evangelist at Fable, joined us to talk to us about accessibility and why it...
#77 - Breaking Into User Research – with Eniola Abioye
Eniola Abioye—user research career coach—joined us for a special live episode of Awkward Silences. She answered audience questions and shared some of her best tips for...
#76 - UXRs Need to Care About the Business, Too – with Zack Naylor of Aurelius
This week we’re joined by Zack Naylor, CEO and co-founder of UX research tool Aurelius. We spoke about what researchers need to know about their company, why tying res...
#75 - Debunking UX Research Myths with Zach Schendel of DoorDash
As a seasoned researcher who has led teams at Unilever, Netflix, and DoorDash, Zach Schendel has come up against every type of skeptical stakeholder you can imagine.H...
#74 - Building a Product Vision with Rajesh Nerlikar of Prodify
Rajesh Nerlikar works with companies to help them build great products. As the CEO of Prodify, he and his team advise startups on how to build impactful, vision-led pr...
#73 - Getting Stakeholder Buy-In at a Large Organization with Meg Pullis Roebling of BNY Mellon
Meg Pullis Roebling, Head of CX Research, Data & Analytics Solutions at BNY Mellon, talks us through her approach to building relationships with stakeholders, finding ...
#72 - How to Ask Great UX Research Questions with Amy Chess of Amazon
Your research question is where it all begins. It’s what drives your research forward, informs when you’re ready to wrap up your project, and it’s what gets everyone i...
#71 - Running a Blended Research Team with Dave Chen of Flipp
Insights can come from a lot of different places. Support tickets, sales calls, market research studies, and of course, dedicated user research are all a part of an or...
#70 - Radical Listening and Practical Empathy with Babz J.R. Hall
Researchers talk a lot about the importance of empathy. But what the heck does ‘empathy’ actually mean? What does empathy really look like in practice? Babz Jewell—an ...
#69 - Thinking Styles and "Average" Users with Indi Young
Indi Young has been researching people (not users), coaching, writing, and teaching about inclusive product strategy for over 25 years. Earlier this week, she joined E...
#68 - Actionable Generative Research with Lucy Denton of Dovetail
Shortly after Lucy Denton joined Dovetail as Product Design Lead, she was tasked with running a large-scale opportunity research project—and then making sense of all t...
#67 - Growing a UX Research Startup with Basel Fakhoury of User Interviews and Benjamin Humphrey of Dovetail
In this special episode, two UXR CEOs geek out about their work, the challenges of building tools for user researchers, and the future of UX research tools.This week w...
#66 - Agile Research Ops with Joey Encarnacion of Slack
How do you measure success in a still-evolving field? Joey Encarnacion has been working in research ops since 2017. He joined Erin and JH on the pod to talk about Slac...