Week in the life of a UX Researcher *wfh edition*

i just charged this camera apparently  my air purifier decided now it's time   to clean the house now ah and it's super loud  hey siri turn the air purifier to 40 got it all right guys hi i'm iona welcome to my first  ever vlog video i've been wanting to make   this video for quite some time now i guess the  inspiration came from you guys i have been doing   a free mentorship for almost six months now this  particular topic of what a day-to-day life feels   like or looks like uh being a researcher in a  tech company is the most frequently requested   or asked question but every time i got  that question i struggled a lot about how   to actually answer it one day in our life has  a lot of randomness our day-to-day oftentimes   feels and looks very differently so because of  that because of this randomness that made me   think maybe i should document my work life for  a longer period of time and see if i can observe   some trends so i can give you guys more  information not just you know i went into   some meetings and had some lunch had some more  meetings and done but obviously there will be   confidentiality of the actual work that i'm doing  so i'm blocking a lot of confidential information   and also just as always my opinion and comments  are my own and it does not represent google in   any way this particular week that i chose  to document was full of fun and surprises   especially because one of my previous employers  airbnb ipo'd during that week so it was a lot   of fun it was a lot of thrill i really hope  you enjoy this vlog yeah let's jump right in hey guys happy monday now i finally feel that i'm  awake because of the coffee monday is always tough   it's tough for everyone on monday morning after  the whole weekend usually everyone's brain is   a pile of mush also i found it mostly helpful to  use monday morning as the time for me to plan my   whole week's schedule so what i typically do is  to block off 9 am to 12 pm of my monday calendar   schedule so far it's been working very well for  me i think everyone is kind of respectful for   everybody else's monday morning schedule so i  guess right now it's also a good time to show   you what my calendar looks like for the week but  obviously i can show you my real calendar i made   a fake one i mean like a realistically fake one so  it kind of represents my real duty and the types   of meeting that i'm having over a whole week minus  the confidentiality part so it's a win-win-win   so this is what my calendar currently looks like  they are color coded i really like to color code   my calendar because it gives me a very direct  overview of what my duties are over a whole week   the biggest color blocks here that you see are  these gray blocks these are my heads down time   one of the things that i do on monday morning  is to block off heads down time on my calendar   there are so many meetings happening all the time  and if i don't manually block some time chunks on   my calendar people will just put meetings on  your calendar and it fills up very quickly   these are my team's weekly recurring  meetings the purpose of these meetings   is for a whole cross-functional team  to sit together on a regular basis   to chat about our progress next steps any  challenges or just making sure we're all on   the same page some of these meetings usually have  a very large audience so my main job is to just go   to the meetings and listen in and get updated on  the progress i don't always need to participate in   a lot of the talking just occasionally when the  subject is more designed and research focused   next you will see a lot of the green little 30  minutes meeting chunks and these are my 101s there   are many purposes to these one-on-one meetings  sometimes it's about getting everybody on the   same page sometimes it can be used as a working  session for us to jam on some concepts together   or sometimes it's just a casual conversation to  maintain your relationship with your collaborators   last but not least all these lavender colored  meetings i categorize them as my one-off meetings   to chat about specific research or design projects  these are the meetings that actually facilitate   the progression of my own research projects  and i actively drive and participate in those   i will usually also put a reminder to just remind  myself what i need to prepare and pay attention to   on that day the categorization here is not  rocket science but the calendar planning had   really helped me to understand my priorities  of the week and give me a peace of mind looking for snacks looking for snacks um i'm about to have my afternoon meetings and  today i have two meetings so it's considered a   pretty light day for me the first meeting is  the ux team check-in um the second meeting   that i'm having is actually i need to drive  that meeting because i called that meeting   with another researcher and my cross-functional  partner on a particular quantitative plus   qualitative research synthesis work that we're  doing so we need to really pick out things that   we're not so sure about really hone in on the  insights that we wanted to be very assertive   very firm about so that when we present  it to the team we can have a very cohesive   tone of voice yeah that's what i'm doing so  see you soon hi how's everybody doing today   what so suggest should be similar to  contextualization should be kind of crossover   yeah we weren't yeah we weren't really  waiting just to just make sure that we   captured that cool already next slide and last  week i was working on this research synthesis hello we only have like two weeks before  the holiday break so it just becomes very   challenging doesn't really justify another  round of research so i agree i'm gonna add   some of the comments that we had in the dog  and i will add another recommendation section   thank you for the collaboration   hey so i'm in my car now um i need to head out  for my dentist appointment all right gotta go whoa all right now it's 4 30 p.m i just got  out of my dentist appointment get my teeth done   and sorry i talk very weirdly because i just  had my mouth stretched for the past two hours so   i guess after i drive back home it will probably  be after 5 pm i'll just go ahead and have my   dinner um and after dinner i will probably  work a couple hours more just to get some   stuff done before tomorrow because tomorrow it  looks like i have a very busy day i'll see you tomorrow hey friends today is tuesday i didn't get a  chance to do an intro in the morning because   i got up super early but today our first  meeting is at 8 am so i had to get up at   7. i was so tired when i woke up so i couldn't  really get my [ __ ] together and do my makeup   today so as you can see today is also a  super busy meeting day for me so i have   meetings all the way from 8 am to 5 30 pm which is  quite intense i debated for quite a while whether   i should still film today whether you guys  would be interested in learning and hearing   and watching any of this content but then  i thought you know this is a video for me   to showcase how my day to day actually feels  like i also think it's a very good opportunity   to show you the different types of meetings a  ux researcher might get involved and yeah now   i will give you a quick overview of the qualities  a ux researcher should have and also what types of   meetings you can expect to be involved in if you  wanted to become a ux researcher in a tech company   so if you don't know about this already being  a good researcher usually means four things   first you have a very high craft and rigor  in your research second you are a very good   communicator and collaborator third you know how  to amplify the impact of your work and fourth   you establish leadership you can help  shape or even drive your team strategy   based on your research so i know a lot of people  think that ux researchers job is mainly to just   talk to designers or pms get their questions spin  up some research projects and get some answers and   present those answers back to the team and repeat  but our job is actually so much more than that   take today as an example so i have a meeting today  which is to sit together with a big group of core   cross-functional stakeholders on a very big  product launch and i need to present some data   that we synthesized from all of the related past  research to justify it and help the team make a   decision on whether we should launch this feature  or not today i also have a check-in meeting with   a researcher and a product manager who are from a  different organization so why do we work together   allow me to give you another example take a look  at google search and google ads and google chrome   these are three different product teams and  we have different agendas but as you can see   these three products are often interconnected you  see ads on google search page you also use chrome   to visit google search so have a regular check-in  with different teams and different organizations   helped us connecting the dots of each other's  rope map breaking the silos of individual teams   and pulling our resources together so the impact  of our work is bigger as a result the features   we designed can all live harmoniously together  these meetings are usually not directly related   to any specific research project that i'm working  on but they are equally critical and usrs usually   play a very critical role in advocating users  voice analyze and help the team understand what   current users perception and behaviors mean to us  and in what way it will affect our product success   hey guys now it's 5 30 6 p.m  and i finally finished my last   meeting i'm super hungry now and i'm going to  call it a day but tomorrow i think i will have   a lighter meeting schedule so i will have more  heads down time to actually focus and do research   and also have more time to talk to you guys yeah  i'm gonna go have dinner now and see you tomorrow hey guys heavy wednesday yesterday was a very  tough day so coming into today i was actually   just very aggressively blocking off my calendar  a lot of times you feel so submerged in all of   these meetings all of these conversations and  if you don't do so like blocking off time on   your calendar you literally have no time to  decompress to reset your priorities based   on the conversations that you just had and of  course to just actually do research also i was   just attending a class from 10 a.m to 11 a.m so at  google there are so many great learning resources   and some of them are work-related some of them  are purely just for helping you be a better person   like how to grow to be a people manager how to be  a mentor how to do public speaking how to meditate   but a lot of the time since we're just like so  into our day-to-day work sometimes i booked a   class something came up you know so i was like eh  you know i'll just postpone the class it's always   there i can always attend another one right i  don't like that i don't like that about myself   so one of my new year resolutions in 2021 is that  every month i wanted to block off maybe three to   five hours i can commit to that for just learning  time we'll see how that goes so fingers crossed the last thing you may want to find is a ladle  or large spoon to put the wax directly into the   boiling pot of water because you will not  get a candle if you put wax into the water so we are not just a company but a community   and so now it makes sense that we take  hey dark i miss brian first name basis nasdaq our logo will be on nasdaq on  times square today that's pretty cool hey friends welcome to day four of the week in  the life of a ux researcher today is thursday   december 10 2020. it's a very very big day because  my previous employer airbnb is going public today   i am so happy but at the same time feeling very  bittersweet i'm very happy at google now but   airbnb will always hold a very special place  in my heart i was laid off in 2020 by airbnb   due to cover 19 pandemic so the whole travel  industry obviously took a hit so airbnb laid   off 25 of the workforce it was definitely one  of the toughest moment that i had to go through   in my life for sure i think the hardest part  was i was still very in love with the company   i had so much respect for the team that i worked  with i made a lot of long-lasting friendship with   my friends at airbnb it felt like a breakup  in a way you know what i mean you're still so   passionately in love but then you realize you  just can't be together because it's just not   the right fit definitely got me confused for a  little bit but after i've soaked in the fact that   it is a layoff it's not my fault i felt more of a  sense of grief if anything but enough about that   experience today is a day worth celebrating airbnb  kind of opened up the live stream of the ipo event   the bell ceremony to all airbnb alumni so i was  watching in a bed definitely felt really emotional   felt tears in my eyes but anyhow work-wise uh  today in the morning we actually have a cue   for all hands and all hands meeting in the text  setting means that to gather every one of the org   together organize some activities so that we can  share all of our progresses the accomplishments   that we made and also the leadership can give us  pass downs on what are the future strategies you   know looking forward into 2021 in the afternoon i  have some stakeholders meeting and also some 101s   and i'll do some frequent check-ins with  the camera as well so i'll see you soon   hey y'all now it's 3 17 p.m and i just finished  3-1-1 so today's thursday which also means that   it's my mentoring day every wednesday and thursday  i'm partnering with this organization called ux   coffee hours i am a volunteered ux research mentor  on this platform if you're interested in booking   a mentoring session with me you can find all  the info you need in the description box below   another thing that i need to do today is for this  organization that have been part of and also been   volunteering for called epic so epic stands for  ethnographic practices in industry conference   or community it is a conference and a community  that aims to connect ethnographers around the   world and this year me and a couple other friends  we are trying to co-organize the china branch of   this community so i've also been leading and  driving the social media and communication   strategy for this initiative and one of the  programs that's under the social media strategy   is a monthly podcast program where we invite  ethnographers in academia or in the industry   from china or have practiced ethnography research  in china to chat about their experiences so   tonight is also the night of recording so  i need to interview a ethnographer from   china alright so that's all i wanted to share  with you guys at the moment i'll see you soon so stupid so i'm about to uh interview this guy 5 55 pm in  pacific time california and in china it's 10 a.m   so i think he just woke up yeah we'll call each  other on wechat and i will record the audio on an   ipad well this is because i still haven't gotten  myself a proper microphone i've been thinking   about getting a good microphone for all of my  youtube videos if you have a good recommendation   feel free to leave in the comment section below  we're making a moot board small bird blue part   we're not really making a move board we're  just hanging one up professional enough for you more bird is that i'm so excited i'm finally done  with the day and as you can see uh my husband just   put up this pin board for me and i'm going to  make it into a mood board i've accumulated a   lot of art prints some of them are done by me  some of them are done by my favorite artists   i've been meaning to put them up on a  mood board like this so i will do that   so tomorrow is friday and friday is a no  meeting day in my organization for the rest   of the year so again a lot of heads down  time for actual research alright so that's   it for today i'm going to put these arts  onto the board so i will see you tomorrow hey y'all happy friday right now it's 11 51 a.m i  just spent my whole morning drafting my research   plan for next round of testing responding to  emails messages today is also the last day of this   weekly vlog i still can't believe that i filmed  myself working in this room for five days straight   really hope that i have given you some valid  and useful information to help you really get   a feel of what our week to week feels like i'll  do some regular check-in with the camera as   well today so i'll see you soon and also guys  this move board has officially became part of   my filming background now i'm so happy and so  satisfied with the outcome and i feel like this   whole space feels much closer to my aspiration  of my dream home office now and this is also   the kind of style that i'm going with my art as  well i love using colors as a medium to deliver   a sense of calmness and comfort yeah  this is really my dream mood board oh my gosh hey there so that was a very emotional hour  spent it just feels really really great to see   everyone's face we joked about you know when the  pandemic is all over and when we are allowed to   go back to offices and we'll definitely go back to  this particular office we called portland that we   used to have like research weekly meetings we'll  definitely go back to that office and just cry   together other than that my day is almost over  what i do at the end of the week on a friday   afternoon is to write down my weekly snippets  so it's basically just a running dock like a   laundry list of things i've done in the week any  research debt anything that i still haven't had   the full picture so i can't really respond to or  can't really make a decision it's very helpful   in a lot of ways first of all it helps with my  monday planning secondly i found it really helpful   when it comes to the performance review season you  have this like snapshots of what you've been doing   on this dog i also put screenshots of people's  compliments somebody message me and say hey   you did a good job feedback your teammates have  been giving you sometimes there are suggestions   or constructive feedback so you know that  oh this is the area that i need to work on   having this running dog is very helpful in so many  ways so i highly recommend you do the same as well   that's it for this vlog hopefully by now you're  still not bored and you still want to see my face   i guess one thing that i learned or unlearned  from all of this crazy shenanigans of 2020 is   that i don't have to be productive 100 at all  time it's okay to be unproductive for a little   while or for a long while that's totally fine  i think my education and my cultural background   kind of always gives me this illusion that  i have to be productive i have to be doing   something meaningful or learn about things  like at all times if i'm not doing these things   i'm probably wasting my life that's not  the case you are allowed to take some time   off to have a break to not worry about  finding a job to not worry about being   at your 200 to be a rock star at work or  school take a break and rest you deserve it and   hope you all have a very cheerful holiday  break i'll see you in my next video you

Channel: aonatalks

Views: 39,922

Keywords: HCI, uxd, ux research tips, ux researchers, interaction design, job interview tips, ux design, ux design job interview, UX interview, product designer, ux design tips, interview tips, user experience research, ux design job, UX research, user experience designers, user research, ux interviews, interaction designer, uxr, tech companies, silicon valley, user experience design, user experience, ux research job, women in tech, ux designers, product design, tech interview tips

Id: PWBCEzqR0OE

Length: 23min 59sec (1439 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 21 2020