I was recently interviewed by Lewis Kang’ethe Ngugi, a London-based product designer, for his podcast, the 7 Minute Product Master Series. It was a joy to finally connect with Lewis in “real life” (we’ve been connected through socials for years), and an honor to be a guest on his exciting new show.
Listen to my interview. Full transcript included.
Some highlights:
- The things that are easy to measure are not usually the most useful things. Sometimes the things that matter the most are actually way harder to measure.
- One of my biggest UX research mistakes was doing research that didn’t lead to outcomes. My lesson learned: don’t do research in a vacuum. Get the right people in the room.
- Some “common wisdom” that I disagree with is that reducing the number of clicks will make your product easier to use. A better usability measure is number of attempts, success rates, and time on task.
- One of the best pieces of advice I’ve received is about using the 7 second pause of silence. This gives people a chance to process their thoughts and respond.
- What’s working best for me right now is collaboration. We have defined roles (design, engineering, product) but we all work together to draft our road map, identify our research questions, prioritize features, and make decisions, and removing barriers for each other.
- Every UX researcher should learn how to be humble, curious, and listen more than we talk. Challenge our assumptions and interrogate our own biases.
- Something I’ve learned recently is about the value of empathy for ourselves and understanding our tendencies and how we work, what our challenges are, and how we can be better humans.