Team,

Due to ongoing challenges of COVID-19, we’ve decided to make some changes to start this planning cycle on the right foot. Though change is difficult, it will help prevent future inefficiencies from harming our agile processes and strategic innovation strategies.

We are announcing the following changes, effective immediately:

1. Updated KPIs for performance evaluation

Metrics on individual employee productivity must continue to increase exponentially. Regarding the daily routines you engage in while working from home (ex. sleeping, eating, breathing, etc.), it is your responsibility to decide which are optional.

Office chairs will be replaced with toilets so employees have more time to add value to…

As your user research team transitions to remote work, here’s some tools to help you organize your notes, cluster findings and collaborate with your team, wherever they may be.

For more tool recommendations on recruiting participants, logistics, capturing remote or in-person sessions, usability tests, generating reports and more, see: 13 Helpful UX Research Tools

1. Note Taking Spreadsheet (Google Sheets)

2. Free User Research Template (AirTable)

3. Design Workflow Templates (Miro)

4. Recordings → Tagged Video Clips (Dovetail)

5. New Ways to Communicate Insights (Dscout)

6. Generate Meeting Transcriptions (Otter.ai)

7. Usability Testing Notes Template (Notion)

8. Qual Data Analysis (MAXQDA)

9. Collaborative UX research database (Condens.io)

10. Extensible Note-taking (Obsidian)

11. 14 UXR Research Templates (Figma)

12. Participant Debrief Board (Figma)

Below are some takeaways from Sensemaking for Impact, a masterclass led by Jan Chipchase of Studio D Radiodurans that introduces his team’s approach to qual research strategy to generate inspired, prioritized insights, and high quality deliverables.

1. Evolution of understanding: hypothesis →data →information →knowledge →insight →wisdom

• Hypothesis: asking question based on existing frames/assumptions
• Data: collecting observations, quotes, ideas, photos/videos
• Information: giving data structure, synthesis where key points are highlighted
• Knowledge: finding patterns and relationships between parts of info
• Insight: reorganize the data in a way to reveal new perspectives, new way of seeing something
• Wisdom: insights put into a broader external…

Hi, just checking in! = It’s been 30 minutes and I’d like to see some progress

We sort of know each other already… = Can I get a discount?

We are looking for something very specific = I expect spec work

Make it pop = Change this drastically by reading my mind

Let’s make it like [x] = Copy this exactly but do it in a subtle way

I may get passionate about design = I may fight you on your design choices

I dabbled a bit in design = I will definitely fight you on your design choices

Our…

1. Be spontaneously late

It’s fashionable to be late since you’re had other plans, especially when all you have to do is click a button to teleport into the meeting through the magic of technology.

If you’re the one who called the meeting, send periodic IM messages so they know you’re always on your way. This sends along illusionary slivers of hope.

Tip: Vary how late you are each time, this keeps people on their toes.

2. Start with awkward silence + staring

Make a bold statement and first impression by leaving your video on but mic off for at least another 5 minutes. That will confuse everyone in the call…

Hi stranger,

I know you must hate auto-reply messages. Same here.

But not as much as I love being incredibly in-demand. Nothing compares to that gleeful moment of seeing a mountain of incoming emails every single day — it’s like being gently crushed by a digital avalanche.

I realized over time that people who send me emails don’t actually care for polite conversation. Most of the time, they don’t actually care about me at all. They just need things.

What am I, a human vending machine? (Don’t answer that).

And so, I figured I might as well follow the same…

Resilience is a global theme for the last year. Stress and crisis force us to confront the difficult reality of reacting to change and novel transitions.

How does one bounce back from trials and use those experiences to improve the future? How might a leader create positive change and what challenges may hinder it? Here’s some books to help you reframe upcoming changes.

1. The Agenda Mover: When Your Good Idea Is Not Enough (Samuel Bacharach)
   Mindsets for how to bring others along with your ideas by their pace of change and openness that lie at the heart of any innovation.
2. …

Everyone has a bubble.

This is your comfort zone.

It may be a ring of familiar desires, routine, habits and maybe an inner circle of people you feel particularly close to.

Bubbles feel nice.

They protect us from the scary unknown. Yet for all their good qualities, there is one big downside: their outer boundaries are based on fear.

Fear can be a practical signal like: ‘Your stove/house/pants are on fire’, but not all fear is valid. Over-reaction in response to imagined fears can limit you from reaching your full potential.