Exploding the Notebook: How to Unlock the Power of Linked Notes (2nd of 3 seminars) (Videoconference)

People have used paper notebooks as thinking tools for over a thousand years. As a result, many popular digital note-taking tools have adapted familiar metaphors and structures from paper notebooks. But digital notes can do much more than paper. This seminar by Duly Noted author Jorge Arango shows you how to unlock your cognitive potential using connected note-taking apps.

Watch Part 1

Watch Part 3

Prayag Narula on AI’s Role in Qualitative Research

Prayag Narula is the founder and CEO of Marvin, a tool for qualitative researchers. Prayag will also be a speaker at the Advancing Research Conference where he’ll share the stage with Rida Qadri, a research scientist at Google.

Humans have been doing quantitative research for thousands of years – well, for as long as math has been around. Qualitative research, on the other hand, is fairly new to human history, emerging only in the 20th Century. And qualitative research has taken a backseat to what Prayag calls “the tyranny of math,” the prevailing attitude that if research is not math-based, it’s not valid. But that doesn’t diminish the importance of qualitative data. Decisions at all levels are made based on qualitative data every day.

Here are some characteristics of qualitative research:
• Qualitative research is scientific and has been used in the social sciences for scientific discovery for six decades.
• Qualitative data is highly variable and semi-structured, so creating software for it has enormous challenges.
• Taking notes and asking questions are inherent parts of qualitative research, and tools that can search and synthesize such data can dramatically enhance productivity and outcomes.

It’s time for qualitative research to be given its due. Enter Marvin.

Software not only gives validity and legitimacy to qualitative research, it makes it more useful. Marvin uses AI to add context to the conversation and to help with analysis. The tool is free for individuals and teams of two researchers.

Prayag is excited about the use of open AI and ChatGBT. He’s not worried about these tools replacing researchers, but they do give researchers another data point, that is, what AI can glean from the data. AI can help us find patterns that we didn’t see before or might give an interpretation of the data or ask a question that hadn’t been previously considered. With tools like Marvin, it’s an exciting time to be in research.

What you’ll learn from this episode
• How software brings legitimacy to processes and data
• About Marvin, a tool that “automates the tedious parts of qualitative research”
• How AI can augment research
• What to expect from Prayag’s upcoming talk with Rida Qadri at Advancing Research – “HCI 2.0: Humanity Deserves the Attention that UX Research has to Offer” – which will include implementing technologies in a socially responsible way

Quick Reference Guide
[00:00] Introduction of Prayag
[01:07] Upcoming talk at Advancing Research March 27-29, 2023
[01:29] Prayag gives a history of his entrepreneurial experience
[05:15] Prayag explains why he felt driven to provide a centralized place for data
[08:53] Does having software to support qualitative research contribute to its perceived legitimacy?
[11:00] On the nature of qualitative research being highly variable and semi-structured and what that means when it comes to writing software
[16:12] Break: Rosenfeld Media Communities
[18:16] Prayag describes the Marvin tool, available for free for individual researchers and teams of two
[0:19:52] The role of AI in research software
[0:25:04] On AI’s ability to synthesize data across various sectors of an organization
[0:29:08] More details Prayag’s upcoming talk with Rida Qadri at Advancing Research in March
[0:32:33] Prayag’s gift to the audience

State of DesignOps 2021: Where Careers in Design Lead Today

Angelos Arnis is a strategic designer focusing on delivering experiences with humane principles. For the past 10 years, he has been working with product/service companies and startups, both in early and high growth stages.

Angelos is currently changing the ways of working at Posti Group, Finland’s postal service. He is a co-founder at Joint Frontiers, and a co-host of ‘Human, the designer’. Additionally, he is a community organizer at IxDA Helsinki, as well as an alumnus organizer of Joint Futures, DSCONF, & Junction Hackathon. In his free time, he enjoys making music, and playing computer games.

In this talk, Angelos discusses the State of DesignOps 2021 Global Report, and will be sharing this information during this year’s DesignOps Summit 2021 on September 29 – October 1. Angleos began his journey to better understand how one can position their career in design, which then led to exploring more questions that can present a wider range of answers on the subject.

The quantitative data collected for the report was done in the form of surveys, and Angelos has provided us with valuable insights around the state of design operations. Additionally, he will present relevant qualitative research during this year’s summit program. Some highly-anticipated questions Angelos answers in this podcast include:

1) What DesignOps career opportunities are available to professionals in the field?
2) What ladder-climbing opportunities currently exist in design?
3) How would you describe the positioning of typical design practices?
4) What surprises you most about the commonalities you’ve identified?

[Demo] Complexity in disguise: Crafting experiences for generative AI features

AI tools like ChatGPT have exploded in popularity with good reason: they allow users to draft, summarize, and edit content with unprecedented speed. While these generic tools can generate any type of content or perform any type of content task, the user needs to craft an effective prompt to get high-quality output, and often needs to exchange multiple messages with additional guidance and requirements in order to improve results.

When you’re building an AI-powered text generation feature, such as a product description or email writer, you typically can’t expect users to craft their own prompts. And unless you’re building a chat interface, you’re unlikely to offer the ability to iteratively improve the output. Instead, your feature needs a robust prompt skeleton that combines with user input to produce high-quality output in a single response.

For the designer, this means building an interface that helps users provide the exact information that creates a successful prompt. This process is more complex than simple form design or a mad-lib prompt completion tool. The user input, often including free form text fields, might be required to fill in prompt variables, but it also could change the prompt structure itself, or even override base instructions.

The effectiveness of the user input significantly influences the quality of the output, underscoring the need for designers to be deeply familiar with the backend prompt architecture so they can design the frontend.

Drawing on recent text generation projects, I’ll demonstrate how the interface design can respond to and evolve with the prompt architecture. I’ll talk about how to determine which prompt components to make invisible to the user, which to provide as predefined options, and which should be authored by the user in free-form text fields.

Takeaways

1. How prompt structure can impact user interface design and conversely, how design can impact prompt structure
2. Techniques to provide effective user guidance within AI generation contexts to ensure consistently high-quality output
3. Real-world examples and learnings from recent generative AI projects in an e-commerce software product

Democratization: Working with it, not against it [Advancing Research Community Workshop Series]

Perhaps no word is more likely to get researchers agitated than “democratization.” The debate about democratization is vigorous, though verging on pointless: it’s here and unlikely to be dialed back. And other research functions are talking to customers, running surveys, and conducting A/B testing.

In this community workshop, we take a step back and take a broader look at the field of insight. With viewpoints honed in data analytics, market research, and user research, our panelists discuss how democratization has been made to work effectively in their fields for quite some time, and what we can do to imagine a future beyond the debate.

Attend all of our Advancing Research community workshops

Each free virtual workshop is made up of panelists who will share short provocations on engaging ideas to discuss as a group, as well as a leader in our field to moderate. If you’re looking for discussions that challenge the status quo and can truly advance research, look no further than our workshop series. (P.S. We’ll be drawing most of our Advancing Research 2025 conference speakers from those who present at upcoming workshops—so tune in for a sneak peek of what’s to come from #AR2025!)

Moving from Execution to Strategy as a Designer

Designers often find themselves under pressure to create beautiful outputs rather than impact and outcomes. In this talk, Catt Small, Director of Product Design at All Turtles, will share techniques she applied in moving herself from execution to a more strategic role over 12 years of in-house work at companies spanning various industries. You’ll learn to become a more strategic thinker and show the value of design at every part of the product development process. Before you know it, you’ll be your PM’s best work friend!

Stick around to join the conversation and ask Catt your questions during our post-session Q+A, moderated by Christian Crumlish.

From Academia to UX with Katie Hansen

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What happens when an academic researcher trades a university lab for the fast-paced world of tech? Katie Hansen, Senior UX Research Manager at Thumbtack, shares her journey from studying unconscious bias at Princeton to leading research at companies like Etsy, Instagram, and Facebook. She breaks down the challenges of transitioning from academia—where studies take years—to industry, where research needs to drive business decisions quickly.

Katie dives into the power of survey experiments, explaining how they can uncover deep psychological insights and help teams prioritize what to A/B test. She also discusses the value of meta-analysis and literature reviews, showing how researchers can tap into existing knowledge to save time and uncover patterns.

With two talks lined up at Advancing Research 2025, Katie will explore experimental research techniques and the impact of meta-analysis in UX. She also shares her favorite research tools, the importance of repositories, and why Hidden Brain is a must-listen for anyone fascinated by human behavior.

If you’re looking to level up your research game and future-proof your career, don’t miss this conversation!

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• What to expect when transitioning from academic research to the business sector
• How to Use Survey Experiments for Deep Insights
• The power of existing research – both internal and external
• Katie’s favorite tools for UX researchers
• A strategy for future-proofing your research career

Quick Reference Guide:
0:00 – Katie’s journey into research
3:53 – The challenges of transitioning from an academic to a business setting, and how research is conducted in an academic setting versus a large business
8:25 – Designing with AI 2025 – June 10 & 11
9:44 – About Advancing Research 2025
11:03 – An overview of Experimental Research TEchniques for Deep Psychology-Driven Insights
13:02 – Research and experiments in business
16:46 – AB testing and Qualtrics
17:39 – An overview of Finding the Unknown in the Known: Harnessing Meta-Analysis and Literature Review
20:01 – What is meta-analysis, anyway?
22:47 – Katie’s gift for listeners

Standardizing Design at Scale with Candace Myers

When it comes to design operations, it can be challenging to find the best method to provide the creative team with the tools they need that will eliminate some of their more mundane tasks to allow them more time to focus on their ideas and innovative work. Lou talks with Candace Myers, design operations leader with Netflix StudiosXD, about how she integrates technology and practices to optimize her efficiency in the creative and design fields. Candace will be speaking at the DesignOps Summit 2022 virtual conference, September 8-9.

Candace recommends: I am obsessed with the Pivot Podcast with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. It has EVERYTHING that ops professionals needs to consider- human intent & emotion, business conditions, what good and poor leadership looks like, and brand strategy. It’s a must listen for anyone in tech, but especially generalists.

What would Emmy Noether Do? Math, Models and Mulling in UX Research

If you look across all disciplines, the one person whose achievements got to the heart of a behavior in nature was the 20th century mathematician Emmy Noether. While geniuses in physics received accolades for figuring out conservation laws in physics, she went an extra step, and this was a step most people didn’t even know was there. She figured out where conservation laws came from.
In this presentation, we are going to look at where Emmy would fit in high tech today.

Today, our world is filled with a plethora of templates, one day courses, agile and lean approaches, blogs on how to get “quick wins” and many other forms of content directly or indirectly trying to satisfy our appetite for speed in high tech. This is reflected in a desire to get to key takeaways or insights as quickly as possible.

Many times, these “lean” approaches can be incredibly useful, but not always. Sometimes in the rush to answer or iterate, something fundamental is missed. Insights that could have been discovered with just a little more up front thought and formalism of the problem space.

Asking one more “why” question.

And asking it like the kick*ss 20th century mathematician Emmy Noether.

Do you want to work on climate? (Climate UX Discussion Series)

The first in a series of discussions centered around Climate UX. On November 15, Rosenfeld hosted a conversation between four UX professionals who have focused their careers around climate tech work. Whether you’re looking to pivot your career towards climate tech or adapt your current role to be climate focused, this panel offered valuable perspectives on what it means to work on climate.

Panelists: Matt Jones, Olga Khroustaleva, Michael Leggett, Karol Munoz; Moderator, Lou Rosenfeld