AR2021-When Thought Worlds Collide (Lin Nie, Peloton)

—> If we were sitting next to each other on airplane, and you asked me to explain talk, I’d say the talk is about being misunderstood, and navigating an identity crisis transitioning out of academia

 

 

—> Successful career switcher from academia to UX of AI, but switch wasn’t easy
—> In the beginning, I’d hear feedback on my work, and felt deeply defeated
—> I felt angry at being put into black and white modes and reduced to the label/stereotype of being an academic
—> It took me a while to put on research hat, and ask follow-up comment
  • What did they observe in me that made them think work was too academic?

 

—>My feeling of a “research-practice gap” is not unique to me, as it’s seen in many pockets of the UX industry.
  • Stakeholders complain user research is not practical, while researchers claim their ideas are ignored by product development
—> Don Norman first person to coin the word of “research-practice” gap, and my efforts lie in trying to bridge this gap

 

 

—> I had a realization in 2020 though.
—> For anyone who cares about fact-based communication, 2020 was a hard year
  • Bad divided feeling I got being citizen in the world at this time was similar to her transition from academia to industry
—> Mistakes by academics were also mimicked by junior UXrs
  • I realized how I worked was integrated with all aspects of her identity

 

—> So given this, what are thought worlds?

 

 

—> To begin with many things are called research, product research, user research, empirical research etc.
  • Your user research default is often different from what others think is research
—> Each thought-world has different thinking styles, word-games, and perspectives
  • There is a gap between foundational research and design practice
    • And the gap goes from top and bottom
—> Design is not incentivized to learn from applied research, and applied research is not connected with foundational work
  • All fields connected, however, in the problem that is being tackled

 

 

—> Example of thought worlds
  • Product Manager with voice assistant asking about what personality should have, i.e. a seeming basic question (yes/no)
  • Academic wanted to know what is “ a personality”
—> Similar conflicts exist determining notification settings, and managing motion sickness in virtual reality
  • In both cases, the product manager is focused on solving an immediate problem, while the academic wants to consider the macro implications of that problem (i.e. what are the limits of attention? What is cognition?)

 

 

—>  So how bad is the thought-world problem? A recently published paper in a top HCI journal, analyzed researcher interactions on Twitter, and found design practicioners and researchers, don’t really interact with each other. As a result:
  • Researchers don’t influence practicioners
  • Few translators go between the worlds, at least on Twitter

 

—> These thought-world gaps need to be closed for better products and world
  • Multi-disciplinary work is the norm
  • We need translators to meet the new norm and UXRs with diverse backgrounds are important to facilitate understanding between thought-worlds

 

 

—> There are differences and similarities between research/practice
—> I’ll end the talk with general collaboration principles and examples

 

 

—> How is it different?
  • List of well known differences
—> Industry perpsective—Add value
—> Academic —Advance knowledge
—> Thsese fundamental differences leads very different success criteria
  • Design is fast and accessible, while academia is slow and not easy to act on

 

 

—> Differences include: Where research question comes from or is generated?
  • In practice you are always doing something for a goal.
  • In science, there is a lot of thinking for the sake of thinking
—>. In outcomes:
  • In the research practice, real outcomes to users are the main goal
  • Science, being self-critical and taking time to get to conclusion
    • As an aside, psychology is about making probabilistic statement about world, and making implicit assumptions explicit, rather than claims of absolute truth
—> Being certain is considered good in industry practice, while science involves self-critical work, and making sure hypothesis can generalize

 

 

—> So how are research and practice similar?
—> My own transition form psychology to UX make sense, but some are surprised.

—> The process of doing science in terms of publishing a study in psychology is similar to UXR in product life-cycles
  • Let’s use a final publication as snapshot

 

 

—> Anatomy of typical publication, counter-clockwise
  • Abstract: Snapshot of paper
  • Intro: Bring readers up to speed about topic at large, and how research will help address topic
  • Method: How data collected
  • Results: What we got
  • Discussions: The “So what” of the finding, and the limitations of our discussion
—> This format is similar to how a UXR report is structured.

—> Found over years, the hard way, that ideas don’t proliferate by themselves
  • Matter of chance, strategy, marketing
—> The common perception that science is pure and doesn’t require persuasion, but:
  • Science in practice shows otherwise, such as the story of Copernicus, where people were unconvinced, and research was seen as contradicting the spirit of the time
  • WEB Dubois, when asked to conduct research on black rural life, spoke with 20,000 residents and compiled a thorough report based off his research data
    • While his work contained innovative design elements and key insights, the government just ignored the report and threw it in the trash

—> Stories are dramatic, but common with UXR.
  • So how do truth-tellers get work to the world?

 

 

—> Tips come from published research and past experience
  • List of references included in the slide and in Slack discussion?

—> All principles discussed are in service of tackling barriers between user research and people you are trying to inspire, and deal with two main issues:
  • Lack of attention
  • Lack of trust

 

—> Assuming research is solid and contains worthy insight, focus on designing the messaging, and assume stakeholders lack attention span, and think of how to post finding in a way that it’s read

 

 

—> Entrepreneurs preferred research reports that
  • Are not too long
  • Minimize jargon
  • Highlight credentials
  • Use visualizaitons
  • Adapt presentation to audience level of environment

 

—> Second tip: Translate scholarly content to be more actionable and to the point

 

—> Interviews with designers in diverse set of fields, it was important to translate research from scholarly background to make the insights actionalbe
—> If researcher, writing like an academic, find supportive partners in immediate team. Ask non-researcher for feedback and ask them to look over writing practice, and seeing whether they like it

 

—> Give audience what they need to know and visualize a user quote to go with number

 

—> Example of Cornell Tech study at HCI conference that examined what makes Airbnb hosts look more trust-worthy,
  • Reviewed 1200 profiles over 12 cities to determine what topics will show more trust and influence user decision to buy
  • Relevant to industry and design, but hard for stakeholders  to find/understand
—> So the same authors rewrote whole paper on Medium to make it accessible

—> How can we redesign tools and processes for how we bring research resources to design, as designers don’t need to figure out key words to search for
—> How to make sure expert knowledge-base can meet designers where they are

—> Example of virtual assistant tool on Slack, where the tool just gives articles relevant to the designer’s ask

—> On collaboration:
  • In social context of information, need to care about people doing the sharing

 

—> Teammates are people first, as UXRs can be too deep in their expertise and knowledge to recall that
—> The field of team science studies teams and what makes them great.
  • Ask teams from different thought worlds to ask about roles, goals, and passions outside of work?

 

—> Team science accepts conflict with  people in different thought-worlds will occur
  • The goal though is to steer conflict into ‘debate’ zone, focused on low emotional intensity, and clear direct communication.

 

 

—> Finally, be aware of how people disagree with themselves and with other team members
  • Strong teams communicate their misinterpretation clearly to others
—> The worst-situation is name-calling zone (like ad-hominem attacks
—> Best-situation is focused on pointing out parts where you disagree with a point-of-view, and explaining the evidence behind it

 

—> Lin struggled to come up with an ending for a talk.
  • But the heart of topic about research practice is about making different worlds/identities understand  each other
  • This can be crazy, but it’s worth giving it a shot

—> Remember, we all have identities that are in conflict with each other, both outside and inside of work.
—> Speaking personally, Lin has had a strained relationship to father, especially over the past two years, as he has struggled to understand Lin’s work
—> Due to this, she hashed  to take time pause and think about how to say things to her father , so that she can remain close with her father and keep the relationship
  • She has found that focusing on proving someone wrong, really means you are not seeing people in front of you.
—> Lin concludes her talk with two quotes:
  • From poet Claudia Rankine: “It’s our job to see the person in front of us, and if that means having an uncomfortable conversation, have that conversation, please.”
  • From Carl Jung: “Know all the theories, master all the techniques, but as you touch a human soul, be just another human soul.”

 

—> Thank you! All questions will be answered in the chat.