Now published: Research That Scales by Kate Towsey!

From Passion to Execution: A Story of Evolving Research Maturity at LinkedIn

One of the hardest parts of building a knowledge management system is getting leadership buy-in and getting your team to use it properly. Join Kevin and Sarah to learn about their journey from passion-fueled side project to research-only management to fully funded knowledge/project/insights management initiatives (including an on-staff research librarian!). In this talk you will hear real-world examples of how they struggled to show how this was one of the most important things to be doing. They will share examples of how one team is leveraging the work to scale their research capabilities and provide rapid evaluation for the entire company. You will also hear about the accelerated growth and value that has come from connecting their system with the greater design org and even product management. Through all of this they will share actionable takeaways on how to show value early, what not to do, and how to use a system to amplify your teams’ work across the organization and help your Ops team scale.

Design, Consequences & Everyday Life

This session examines design interactions beyond screens — supermarkets, train stations and kiosks alike — to examine the ways we’ve grafted the digital world into everyday life without bringing along the users of these tools and technologies. We’ll explore the ways that friction causes bottlenecks in the delivery of government services and how designers can use research and collaboration to uncover these pitfalls before they’re too hard to fix.

Bubbles of Belief: Dave Gray Talks Liminal Thinking & Current Events

Technology is unintentionally conspiring against you: making sure you only see more of what you like and agree with. How do we as a people expand our point of view when arguments are no longer productive? Dave Gray’s returns to talk with Lou Rosenfeld about how his latest book, Liminal Thinking, applies to Brexit and the recent U.S. election.

The Power of Care: From Human-Centered Research to Humanity-Centered Leadership

What is the role of care in user research? Why is care a user researcher’s greatest superpower—not only in how we do our work but how we lead? In her talk at Advancing Research 2021, Etienne Fang, Principal Researcher at Amazon Search, will discuss the importance of inclusive leadership and share lessons on leading through care, helping researchers leverage their research strengths for leadership as individual contributors, team leads, and people managers alike.

Mobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World

You may be familiar with desktop screen readers like JAWS, and desktop voice control like Dragon Naturally speaking. You might know about WCAG, and popular automated testing tools for your websites. But what about mobile apps? How do accessibility techniques apply on the touch screen? As the entire world moves mobile first, your accessibility strategy needs to adapt. In this talk, we’ll introduce you to some of the changes that managing mobile-first accessibility correctly requires. We’ll cover some of the most popular assistive technologies on mobile, give you tips for automated and manual testing of your mobile apps, warn you of some of the pitfalls to watch for, and help you bring your mobile accessibility strategy to the next level.

Mobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World

You may be familiar with desktop screen readers like JAWS, and desktop voice control like Dragon Naturally speaking. You might know about WCAG, and popular automated testing tools for your websites. But what about mobile apps? How do accessibility techniques apply on the touch screen? As the entire world moves mobile first, your accessibility strategy needs to adapt. In this talk, we’ll introduce you to some of the changes that managing mobile-first accessibility correctly requires. We’ll cover some of the most popular assistive technologies on mobile, give you tips for automated and manual testing of your mobile apps, warn you of some of the pitfalls to watch for, and help you bring your mobile accessibility strategy to the next level.

Mobile Accessibility and You

You may be familiar with desktop screen readers like JAWS, and desktop voice control like Dragon Naturally speaking. You might know about WCAG, and popular automated testing tools for your websites. But what about mobile apps? How do accessibility techniques apply on the touch screen? As the entire world moves mobile first, your accessibility strategy needs to adapt. In this talk, we’ll introduce you to some of the changes that doing mobile-first accessibility correctly requires. We’ll cover some of the most popular assistive technologies on mobile, give you tips for automated and manual testing of your mobile apps, warn you of some of the pitfalls to watch for, and help you bring your mobile accessibility strategy to the next level.

Mobile Accessibility: Why Moving Accessibility Beyond the Desktop is Critical in a Mobile-first World

You may be familiar with desktop screen readers like JAWS, and desktop voice control like Dragon Naturally speaking. You might know about WCAG, and popular automated testing tools for your websites. But what about mobile apps? How do accessibility techniques apply on the touch screen? As the entire world moves mobile first, your accessibility strategy needs to adapt. In this talk, we’ll introduce you to some of the changes that managing mobile-first accessibility correctly requires. We’ll cover some of the most popular assistive technologies on mobile, give you tips for automated and manual testing of your mobile apps, warn you of some of the pitfalls to watch for, and help you bring your mobile accessibility strategy to the next level.

“Let’s Talk About Data and Crisis”: Public Digital Service Delivery = Open Data + Human Centered Design (Videoconference)

The public relies on government services during critical and meaningful events throughout their lives—from birth, travel, education, and healthcare to retirement and death. The global COVID-19 pandemic inevitably impacted these critical functions of our lives, and underscored the need for increased government technology and communications.

Digital platforms have proved to be key and effective agents in delivering critical and urgent information or services in the event of a public crisis, as opposed to physical infrastructure (imagine Dr. Fauci posting a paper bulletin to convey the latest national statistics for COVID-related data!). On the other hand, both private and public entities rallied around open data initiatives to inform critical policy decisions, share information, and work together to develop critical digital infrastructure that provided testing sites, kits, and results (e.g., call centers vs websites; office visits vs telemedicine).

To fully scale solutions such as these, we must first consider how we:

  1. Use data to inform our technology in solving problems;
  2. Provide assistance in a timely and approachable manner for end users; and
  3. How we use data to invest in critical features and to quickly deliver information.

Recruiting for User Research: a Chat with Nate Bolt

Nate Bolt knows more about recruiting for user research than the average human. He created the first moderated remote testing software, founded Ethnio, and authored the book Remote Research. In this podcast, Nate sits down with Lou to share ideas for how to get started, and what to look for in an ideal research participant.