Liftoff! Practical Design Leadership to Elevate Your Team, Your Organization, and You

Top designers are often thrust into leadership roles, and it’s easy to forget that these two roles do not require the same skillset. In this episode, design managers and Liftoff! co-authors Chris Avore and Russ Unger discuss the mistakes and lessons they—and MANY others—have made in their new book, four years in the works. Liftoff! is a guide for new leaders looking for guidance about managing design teams effectively, and established managers who want to level up their expertise.

The Dangers of Empathy: Toward More Responsible Design Research

Empathy is widely held as an important research mindset among designers. Many design research processes begin with the word. While empathy is broadly necessary to design practice, it is not without its problems. Most designers and researchers do not also know the dangers of empathy. Consider that:

• We confuse and conflate empathy, sympathy, and compassion. The differences are critically important.
• Empathic resonance in the brain is extremely biased. We find it hard to empathize with people unlike ourselves.
• Having too much empathy may also be problematic and can be weaponized by bad actors.
• We feel empathy only for humans and animals‚ not for objects, spaces, places, or our planet.

This talk will explore the edges of empathy and show how and why two additional emotive capacities should be cultivated: curiosity and care. A short case study for a project involving four NASA space scientists will demonstrate that when these two capacities are added to empathy, they can lead to more generative research and richer insights.

Research as Knowledge Curation with Robin Beers

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Why do so many organizations struggle to learn and evolve? Robin Beers, an organizational psychologist and founder of Ubuntu Culture Company, argues that businesses have been stuck in a transactional mindset—hoarding knowledge rather than embracing it as a dynamic, social process. In this conversation, she explains why researchers must shift from simply delivering insights to becoming knowledge curators, helping organizations not just understand their customers, but also reflect on their own strategies and structures.

Robin explores how organizations often present themselves based on internal hierarchies—rather than how customers actually engage with them—and how researchers can help bridge this gap. She also discusses the critical need for sense-making, the skills researchers should develop to navigate complex systems, and why UX research must expand beyond just improving digital products.

As a speaker at Advancing Research 2025, Robin will offer practical strategies for researchers to drive real change within their organizations.

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• How a transactional mindset and rigid knowledge management systems prevent companies from evolving and making smarter decisions
• Why researchers must move beyond producing reports and instead act as catalysts for organizational learning and reflection
• Why many companies structure their communication and services based on internal silos rather than customer needs—and how researchers can help fix this disconnect
• Why the most critical challenges in delivering great experiences aren’t just about interfaces or technology, but about strategy, culture, and alignment within the organization
• The key competencies researchers need, including critical thinking, sense-making, and the ability to navigate complex organizational systems
• Practical advice on positioning yourself as a strategic consultant, influencing decision-making, and ensuring research findings lead to meaningful action

Quick Reference Guide:
0:00 – Meet Robin
2:35 – Researchers are knowledge curators, and knowledge is social.
6:01 – The problem of organizations being transactional with knowledge
9:35 – Research should prompt reflection, and what it looks like when it doesn’t
14:55 – Designing with AI 2025 – June 10 & 11
17:13 – What it means to be a curator of a multi-siloed environment and how researchers need to adapt
26:35 – On research repositories
31:36 – Robin’s gift for listeners

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.

Research Democratization: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The pros and cons of democratizing user research are heavily debated. Often this is seen as a black and white scenario where we are solely in favour or against it. But what about all the shades of grey we can explore? Depending on the situation there are both benefits and dangers that lie in democratizing our research practice.

Kathleen will share her experience with research democratization. Based on this she will show a framework that will help you assess when it is an appropriate tool to further research maturity and when it might derail you.

Under My (Research) Umbrella: The Benefits and Challenges of Building a Unified Insights Function

When research is siloed it can lead to duplicative research of variable quality. In this talk, Andy explores the benefits (and challenges) of having a unified research & insights function, based on his experiences leading teams at Airtable, Instagram, and Dropbox. Further, Andy presents practical strategies to align diverse insight-generating functions, offering guidance even in situations where forming a unified team may not be possible. Through a detailed examination of real-world scenarios and Andy’s professional journey, attendees will gain valuable lessons and recommendations aimed at fostering a cohesive and effective research ecosystem.

What is Research Strategy?

As a Research Strategist, Chris is frequently asked “What is Research Strategy?” Let’s start a conversation that defines this practice and develops its approaches. Research Strategy brings processes and frameworks to bear to ensure that an organization’s research activities are deliberate, effective, and aligned with business objectives. Notably, it is not just the purview of research leadership! All of us are already engaged in this work, but we haven’t been talking about it as such. Chris will present his work in this area and invite others to join him in evolving this emerging practice.

User Science: Product Analytics & User Research with Marieke McCloskey

Want to help make better product decisions? You’ve got to combine qualitative human insights from user research with data analytics and experimentation. Questions about how many users do something goes to analytics, questions about which design might work better goes to user research. But what if you partnered with those other teams to answer the questions together? In her session at Advancing Research 2021, Marieke McCloskey, UX Research Lead at Humu, will share how, as a qualitative UX researcher, she’s partnered with analysts to identify high-growth opportunities and gain a deeper understanding of users.

In this episode of the Rosenfeld Review, Marieke offers a glimpse into her presentation, and what led her to the insights she will share at the conference.

• Marieke recommends: No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy

The Humanity of Technology: Furthering the Greater Good with Jamika Burge

Though trained as a computer scientist, Jamika Burge admits she does not have the heart of a programmer; rather, she’s interested in surfacing and connecting with the humanity of the technology we create. Jamika has taken that approach in her past work, including a stint at DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), where she studied the impact of games on learning. Jamika now leads AI Design Insights at CapitalOne, and is also one of the Advancing Research 2021 Conference curators. Here she shares the story of her career path, and the work she is doing with blackcomputeHER.org (pronounced ‘black computer’), an organization she co-founded that is dedicated to supporting computation and design workforce development for black women and girls.

Jamika Recommends:
Gendershades.org, a project by Joy Buolamwini, Lead Author and Timnit Gebru, PhD, Co-Author

How UX researchers can partner with (and not be replaced by) AI [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series](Videoconference)

Four of your research colleagues discussed and defended their respective positions (below) on the impact of AI on user research. Participants engaged in a discussion and Q&A, facilitated by Dr. Jamika D. Burge.

“AI has the potential to be the researcher’s best friend, by doing all the heavy lifting associated with analysis – but it also has the potential to cause unimaginable damage”.

– Nick Fine

“Researchers absolutely must learn to create AI prompts. Not only will prompt engineering become an essential, required research skill, but it will also offer a much-needed opportunity to rethink our role as facilitators of change.”

– Alexandra Jayeun Lee

Soon, AI will be able to utilize the participant’s feedback as a prompt to create RITE design variations on the fly, offering the researcher multiple flow options organically and in real time, which will radically transform our research practice.”

– Greg Nudelman

“UX Researchers can reinvent themselves as “delightful ethicists” who oversee ethics on critical issues when generative AI supplies abundant solutions without providing the why.”

– Bo Wang