Experience the Future of Research at Advancing Research 2024
01/23/2024Don’t miss the chance to join researchers from around the world at Advancing Research 2024! Advancing Research brings together the best minds in UX research, and this year those minds will be together at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City—the first time this conference has been in-person since its inception four years ago!
What topics will Advancing Research 2024 cover?
Our research-driven program, carefully crafted by experts, includes two days of sessions led by pioneers in the field centered around what’s top-of-mind for UX researchers in 2024. And this year, the Rosenfeld community got to participate in part of its planning!
Back in August, we held a series of six public, free workshops covering many of the most important topics facing UX researchers today—partnering with AI, emerging methods advancing UX research, creating actionable insight in the face of politics and silos, making UX research leadership more effective, learning from other research practices, and what UX research “maturity” looks like. These six topics were discussed and debated by UX research experts and that laid the foundation for the program our curation team has since created! In fact, you may recognize a few familiar faces in our speaker lineup! Interested in getting a sneak preview of some of our speakers and their talks? You can watch the recordings of these community workshops here.
Who will be speaking at the Advancing Research 2024 conference?
Meet our featured speakers—Neil Barrie, Steve Portigal, Victor Udoewa, and Tricia Wang. These four will be opening and closing out each day of the conference with conversations about product and culture, inclusion in UX, advancing the field of UX research, and collaborating with AI.
Tricia Wang
Tricia Wang, a social scientist, consultant, and thought leader, is on a relentless quest to ensure technology serves humanity, fostering social impact at the intersection of data and humanity. Renowned for helping companies unearth pivotal customer behavior insights to unlock growth, Tricia co-founded Sudden Compass and has advised industry giants like Google, Spotify, and P&G. As an acclaimed speaker, Tricia’s enlightening keynotes and her TED Talk delve into AI, data, and their societal, economic, and personal impacts. Currently penning a book on how humans can be more human in the age of AI, Tricia is documenting an emerging skillset amongst those who work well with AI.
See Tricia at her talk, Redefining Research: Welcome to A New Paradigm with AI.
Victor Udoewa
Having started his career in the design and development of computational tools for scientific applications, Victor shifted his focus to the social impact space and Information and Communications Technologies for Development, both community and international development. He is a practitioner and advocate of participatory design, a meta-methodology he’s used in service and system design for governments, multilateral institutions, nonprofits, for-profits, and communities, to facilitate skill-building and improved employment opportunities for community members. Bitten by the “civic-innovation bug” he is now focused on creating or improving government products and services for citizens, immigrants, and refugees.
Victor has a particular love for design, learning, and design education. He advocates bringing practices such as positive deviance, pluriversal methods, and systems practice into civic design. He helps leads an equity-centered meetup group and Justice by Design as part of his work to decolonize design. Outside of work you can find Victor teaching salsa, singing with his a cappella group, volunteering as a health trauma and crisis counselor, or (mostly) hanging out with his family.
Come watch Victor at his session, Beyond Methods and Diversity: The Roots of Inclusion.
Steve Portigal
Steve Portigal is an experienced user researcher who helps organizations to build more mature user research practices. Based outside of San Francisco, he is principal of Portigal Consulting, and the author of two books: Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries and Interviewing Users.
He’s also the host of the Dollars to Donuts podcast, where he interviews people who lead user research in their organizations. Steve is an accomplished presenter who speaks about culture, innovation, and design at companies and conferences across the globe.
Meet Steve at his session, Looking Back…to Look Ahead.
Neil Barrie
Neil Barrie is an industry thought leader with papers and pieces published in Fast Company, Guardian and Forbes.
Led brand strategy development for the likes of Airbnb, Netflix, Pinterest, Disney, Depop and N26.
(Ad)venturing background at Zag, the ventures arm of BBH partnering with finance, media and entertainment disruptors.
Commercially Creative: during both his years as CSO of Chiat Day LA the agency achieved the joint highest global Effie ranking, sits on the IPA’s Executive Leadership Group and mentor at Techstars Berlin.
Failed Rock Star: graced the stages of London, Paris and Leicester.
See Neil at his talk, Widening the Aperture: The Case for Taking a Broader Lens to the Dialogue between Products and Culture.
We don’t just have these amazing featured speakers opening and closing out each day of the conference—we have even more fantastic speakers sharing their talks all day March 25 and 26.
What does the conference schedule look like?
We’re so glad you asked. You can browse our full program in detail here, and view our schedule at a glance below.
Will there be in-person workshops at Advancing Research 2024?
We’re thrilled to be offering in-person workshops on March 27! Join us for a day full of hands-on learning from experts in the UX research space. Archana J. Shah and Subhasree Chatterjee, Nick Fine, and Steve Portigal will be leading workshops covering topics such as Artificial Intelligence, holistic insights through quantitative research methods, and techniques for user interviews.
Join Archana Shah and Subhasree Chatterjee for their workshop at Advancing Research 2024: Quantitative Methods for Qualitative UX Researchers
Many UX researchers often rely on familiar qualitative methods such as interviews and usability testing, overlooking the potential benefits of combining these with quantitative methods through triangulation. Depending solely on one set of tools can result in blind spots, limiting researchers’ ability to provide comprehensive insights. This workshop aims to address these challenges by offering insights into:
- When and how to apply quant methods for generative and evaluative research.
- How to supplement qual with quant and triangulate different data sources and methodologies to build a holistic story.
- The power of collaboration between researchers and data scientists, and how it can help drive a more data-driven culture across the organization.
Archana J. Shah is a Principal UX Researcher at LexisNexis Legal & Professional in Raleigh, NC, bringing over 15 years of experience in the tech industry. With a commitment to research advocacy, she excels in triangulating insights from various data sources, contributing to impactful changes and informing product development.
Subhasree Chatterjee is a Data Analytics Manager at LexisNexis Legal & Professional in Raleigh, NC, USA. She has more than 10 years of experience working in Data Analytics field generating actionable, interpretative, and implementable insights for different business problems. In her current role, she is leading a team of Product Analysts integrated with multiple product teams to drive data driven decisions across North America. She is a big proponent of combining qualitative and quantitative data to guide decisions in every stage of product development.
Learn from Nick Fine at Advancing Research 2024 with his workshop, Using AI to Support User Research
AI is changing the world, and UX is currently in a period of flux where everything is changing within the context of an unsure AI future. Researchers have many questions that this workshop will answer:
- How can you use AI to increase your value to your organization?
- How can you defend against being replaced by AI?
- What are the pitfalls and dangers of using AI to support User Research?
- How can you use AI safely to take some of the heavy lifting without major risk?
Dr. Nick Fine is an award-winning user experience researcher and designer with over twenty years of experience. He is the creator and founder of UX Psychology, advocating for behavioural design, and is also a science advocate and educator. Learn from Nick at #AR2024, both at his talk and his workshop.
Don’t miss Steve Portigal’s workshop at Advancing Research 2024, Interviewing Users: Uncovering Compelling Insights
Interviewing is undeniably one of the most valuable and commonly used user research tools. Yet it’s often not used well, because:
- It’s based on skills we think we have (talking and even listening)
- It’s not taught or reflected on, and
- People tend to “wing it” rather than develop their skills.
Results may be inaccurate or reveal nothing new, suggesting the wrong design or business responses, or they may miss the crucial nuance that points to innovative breakthrough opportunities.
In this highly interactive workshop, you will learn crucial techniques for successful user research, and have the opportunity to practice and reflect in a supportive environment.
Steve Portigal is an experienced user researcher who helps organizations to build more mature user research practices. Based outside of San Francisco, he is principal of Portigal Consulting, and the author of two books: Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries and Interviewing Users.
Our workshops are designed with you in mind. They combine the cutting edge expertise of some of the world’s leading UX experts with the same high quality that people love about Rosenfeld Media’s UX books and conferences. And at Advancing Research 2024, we’re excited to have an excellent selection of workshops to choose from. Complement your conference ticket with a workshop. In fact, we have bundle tickets!
Did you know that when you bundle a conference and a workshop, you save $100? Maximize your learning this year by registering for both, and leave #AR2024 feeling invigorated and inspired.
We hope you join us at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City this March 25-27, 2024 for the first ever in-person Advancing Research conference and workshops! Start your year with the groundbreaking conference made by researchers for researchers.
Don’t wait to register—early bird pricing is ending soon! Get your tickets now through February 6 to save up to $300!
See you soon!
— The Advancing Research team
