Survey book of the month, February 2011
This month, I’ve been working on my chapter on survey questions and revisiting my libary of books about questions. My favorite, easily, is:
“The Psychology of Survey Response” by Roger Tourangeau, Lance J. Rips and Kenneth Rasinski (2000) Cambridge University Press.
Let me take you through their main framework and some of my recent experiences with the book, and I hope that will explain why I like it so much.
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Advancing Research 2025: A Conference for the Future of Research
Exciting news for the research community! We’ve just unveiled the program for Advancing Research 2025, and it’s set to be a game-changer. This year’s conference takes a bold new approach to addressing the evolving user experience research (UXR) landscape—one that we can’t wait to dive into with you.
A Fresh Perspective on Program Design
Jemma Ahmed, with her extensive background in mixed methodology insight roles, has crafted a program that we couldn’t be more excited about. Instead of the traditional method of soliciting ideas and retrofitting them into a loose structure, this year’s conference features an integrated program shaped around overarching themes and community needs.
Addressing the Researcher’s Dilemma
The research field is at a crossroads. With democratization and automation challenging the lower end of the practice, and the constant pressure to “be more strategic” without clear guidance, researchers are seeking a roadmap for their future. And don’t even get us started on the emphasis on artificial intelligence integration. Advancing Research 2025 aims to provide clear guidance for researchers on how to move into the future of UXR.
A Framework for the Future
The conference is structured around three powerful themes, each occupying a full day of the three-day event:
- Day 1: Reconceiving the Purpose of Research (facilitated by Jemma Ahmed)
- Day 2: Redefining the Research Toolkit (facilitated by Megan Blocker)
- Day 3: Reclaiming our Value as Researchers (facilitated by Eduardo Ortiz)
This framework, developed through community workshops and discussions, thoroughly explores the future of research. Where do you see your future as a researcher five years from now, in 2030? Let’s find out together.
A Packed Program with Impressive Speakers
We have three jam-packed with carefully-curated sessions that cater to the themes of #AR2025. Whether that means attending sessions about AI or introducing new methodologies into your practice, our team has its finger on the pulse of all the most critical and emerging topics in the world of UX research. Plus, our speakers represent some of the most impressive minds in the field, hailing from companies like Google, Meta, Hinge, Dalberg Design, and more!
Why Attend Advancing Research 2025?
- Envision Your Future: Gain insights to future-proof your career in the rapidly evolving research landscape. UX researchers have to understand, speak, and even reframe their work in research terms in order to make an impact. Whether you’re moving into a research role, or looking to be a better partner with research peers, Advancing Research will prepare you for success in research-centric organizations.
- Tailored Experience: Enjoy a conference program created by researchers for researchers, addressing the real challenges faced by UX practitioners. Want a sneak peek of the conversations to come? Check out our community workshop series—a collection of Rosenverse sessions that feature some of this year’s speakers talking about topics we’ll explore in the program at #AR2025.
- Networking Opportunities: Connect with peers and leaders in the field, fostering collaborations and sharing insights. We have a dedicated Slack channel for all conference-goers, buzzing with lively conversation over the course of the three-day conference! Also, every conference ticket comes with the opportunity to sign up for our famed attendee cohorts program—the opportunity to meet up with others in a facilitated environment throughout the conference to mingle and discuss each day’s sessions.
Advancing Research 2025 promises to be more than just a conference—it’s a roadmap for researchers navigating the complexities of their field in the years to come. Don’t miss this opportunity to shape the future of research!
Introducing our Advancing Research community workshop series!
Join the conversation about the most critical topics in research!
Although Advancing Research 2025 won’t take place for another nine months, we’re already hard at work researching and designing the conference program. Like last year, we’re kicking things off with a series of free, public (virtual) conversations on the topics most important to our field. These conversations are centered around themes integral to research, starring researchers just like YOU!
Stay tuned as we announce the lineup for each event, and register in advance to attend these free sessions!
| July 24, 4-5pm EDT | Watch recording | Theme 1: Democratization Working with it, not against |
| August 7, 11am-12pm EDT | Watch recording | Theme 2: Collaboration Learning from market research, data science, customer experience, and more |
| August 21, 4-5pm EDT | Watch recording | Theme 3: Communication Innovative techniques for making your voice heard |
| September 4, 11am-12pm EDT | Watch recording | Theme 4: Methods Expanding the UXR toolkit beyond interviews |
| September 18, 4-5pm EDT | Watch recording | Theme 5: Artificial Intelligence Passionate defenses, reasoned critiques, and practical application |
| October 2, 11am-12pm EDT | Watch recording | Theme 6: Junctures for UXR Possible futures and the critical decisions to move us forward |
| October 16, 4-5pm EDT | Register | Theme 7: Open Call Propose ideas that don’t match our other workshops’ themes |
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!
UX in all the Odd Places
I had a bit of a crisis last fall. My pal Andrew Mayfield asked me to keynote UX New Zealand. Of course I was dying to go to New Zealand. But they wanted me to give a new talk, and the very thought makes me sweat. What new things might I have to say about UX? Do I even do UX anymore?
After all, these days I spend my time putting out books and putting on conferences. Web sites and apps? Not so much. I’m not even sure I know the difference between a breakpoint and a touchpoint. So who am I to talk to UX practitioners about UX? 25+ years in the field, yet here I was, suffering from an acute case of imposter syndrome.
Many false starts, meltdowns, and 4am Keynote sessions later, I finally had a breakthrough. It’s not that I don’t do UX anymore. It’s that UX applies to way more than apps and web sites. In fact, I’ve spent the better part of the last decade doing extensive UX work on traditional products, like books, and physical experiences, like conferences. So that’s exactly what I covered in my UXNZ keynote. Books and conferences are experiential, so yep: the work still counts as UX.
D’uh. I guess it’s one of those oh-so-obvious observations that aren’t so obvious when they pertain to you.
But it is a liberating feeling. And it’s renewed my excitement about UX, because:where doesn’t UX apply?
Conferences offer almost unlimited opportunities to UX the hell out of stuff. With our last virtual conference—Product Management + User Experience—we found that basing our program on user research was immensely valuable, helping us select both speakers and topics. And many of you agreed; there was a strong correlation between your participation in program planning and your desire to actually attend the event.
So we’re doing it again with our next virtual conference—Design Research for Everyone, which is slated for some time this fall. Here’s our question: What do people who aren’t UX practitioners need to learn about design research?
Please help us do our user research by letting us know who should speak and on which topics—and sharing this with others who might be interested.
What odd contexts are you finding ripe for UX? Please comment below; I’d love to hear your stories of UX in non-traditional places.
Survey book of the month, July 2011
OK, I know it’s August. But July got away from me, and with my new month’s resolution of writing more book and blogging more, I simply had to tell you about other things that happened earlier in July before getting to my July book. That was the hard bit to write.
The choice of book was easy:
Designing Effective Web Surveys by Mick Couper, PhD.
Survey book of the month, April 2011
All of us need to look out at our competitors, right? So I’ve been buying a selection of the various books on surveys that are aimed at the general market. Rather to my surprise, I’m making one of them my book of the month for April. It is:
Online Surveys for Dummies by Vivek Bhaskaran and Jennifer LeClaire (Wiley).
UX Zeitgeist now in alpha
You may have noticed that our site looks a little different. That’s because we’ve added a link to our new service, UX Zeitgeist, to our site-wide navigation system (you’ll see it in the upper right-hand corner).
What on earth is UX Zeitgeist? (Go here for a definition of “zeitgeist”.)
We’re not entirely sure ourselves just yet. But we think it’ll be good.
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Survey book of the month, October 2011
Which is better: an open question or a closed one? Should you include a “don’t know” option in your closed questions? Is there a “right” order for asking questions?
If topics like these concern you, then you’ll want to read my choice for this month:
Questions and Answers in Attitude Surveys: Experiments on Question Form, Wording, and Context by Howard Schuman and Stanley Presser. (1996, reprinted in 1981)
Design in Product 2023 Full Program Announced
We’re excited announce the full program and workshops lineup for Design in Product 2023! On November 29-December 1, these experts will take the stage to tackle real questions and discussions surrounding the design and product fields.
What is Design in Product 2023 about?
Design in Product is a conference dedicated to the intersections of—you guessed it—Design and Product. Whether you’re moving into a product role, or looking to be a better partner with product peers, Design in Product will prepare you for success in product-centric organizations.
This year’s conference is centered around three themes.
- Aligning and partnering—Nailing the basics of alignment and partnership are table stakes for getting past the friction that often plagues the PM/UX relationship.
- Setting and defending priorities—Product managers and UX practitioners need to work together to set priorities, develop roadmaps.
- Influencing and politcking—Product managers seem to have mastered the trick of influencing without authority. Can UX practitioners learn to do the same?
Who are the keynote speakers for Design in Product 2023?
Ellen Chisa is a Partner at boldstart ventures investing in enterprise infrastructure, SaaS, and developer tooling companies. Before joining the boldstart team in January 2021, she was the CEO & co-founder of Dark (https://darklang.com) a programming language coupled to its editor and infrastructure.
Her opening keynote, The Values of Design, has the aim of answering questions such as “How can I create more business impact, while still feeling like a designer?”
John Cutler focuses on the messy overlaps and patterns of product—The Beautiful Mess (the title of his newsletter). John currently supports product teams at Toast as Senior Director, Product Enablement. Before Toast, he interacted with diverse product teams and product leaders worldwide as a product evangelist and coach at Amplitude.
John will close out this year’s conference with his keynote, The Alignment Trap, where he will explore what alignment really means in the context of complex unpredictable work.
Who else is speaking at Design in Product 2023?
Asia Hoe is a Senior Product Designer and a multidisciplinary product design leader who brings her obsession with detail and systems thinking to product development and design systems for organizations tackling today’s biggest issues in health, education, and society.
Her session, Partnering with Product: A Journey from Junior to Senior Design, will dive into our product designers and product managers can play to their strengths and find a way to meet at the focus of the products: the users.
IHan Cheng, Design Manager at Compass Digital, is an experience orchestrator who thrives in ambiguities and currently works as a Design Manager at Compass Digital. IHan blends optimism with practicality, excelling in bridging ambitious visions with viable executions.
You will be able to see her at #DiP2023 co-presenting the session, Design and Product: from Frenemy to Harmony with Iain McMaster.
Iain McMaster is the Director of Product at Compass Digital as well as an experienced Product Leader in the Food Technology industry. With a solid background in product development and a passion for innovative solutions, Iain brings a unique blend of expertise, collaboration and humor to every endeavor.
Iain will be co-presenting the session, Design and Product: from Frenemy to Harmony with IHan Cheng.
Laureen Kattan is a Principal Product Manager at Coforma with a decade of experience in product management across the financial and government services sector.
Laureen will be co-presenting alongside Julie Kim in the session, Centering Patients and Clinicians in a Complex Government Ecosystem, where she will discuss how to navigate challenges and foster success in support of the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) and its goal to relieve over-burdened clinicians and improve patient care.
Julie Kim is a civic-minded product designer, writer and maker. She leverages her past experiences in architecture and urban planning to bring unique perspective to her current digital design practice. Currently, Julie works at Coforma as Senior Product Designer.
Julie will speak alongside Laureen Kattan at the session, Centering Patients and Clinicians in a Complex Government Ecosystem—a talk about strategies for prioritization within a complex ecosystem of business owners, and centering patients and clinicians through a strong UX/Product partnership.
Dr. Chloe Sharp has over a decade of experience in research and has been a co-founder of a research and grant-writing consultancy working with multiple startups, scale-ups and SMEs across different stages of the product development lifecycle. She currently works as a Product Research Consultant and Coach at Sharp Insight.
Her talk, Using Evidence and Collaboration for Setting and Defending Priorities, will explain how UX Research and Product Teams can collaborate to identify innovation opportunities and develop products and services customer and users need.
Alfred Kahn is a strategic, outcome-focused design leader skilled in helping companies achieve business goals while navigating data-rich, complex problem spaces. He works at 84thomas as a Design & Strategy Consultant.
Alfred will be presenting the talk, A Seat at the Table: Making Your Team a Strategic Partner, will explore the ways Design can transition from being seen as a tactical resource to being seen as a strategic partner.
Shan Shen leads the product design experience in the e-commerce space, currently as a Principal UX Designer at Custom Ink. Her role is to empower customers to create unique custom products that foster deep engagement with their communities and promote their cause. She creates products and fosters a collaborative space where great ideas can thrive and make a difference.
At #DiP2023, Shan will highlight instances where UX terms consistently hinder collective problem-solving between UX and product teams at her session, Translating UX Terms into Business Contexts.
If you’re interested in viewing the full conference program, click here!
Will there be workshops at Design in Product 2023?
The short answer is YES! Following the conference on November 29, we will be offering two virtual workshops across two days. These workshops combine the cutting edge expertise of some of the world’s leading product and UX experts with the same high quality that people love about Rosenfeld Media’s books and conferences. Here are a few of the reasons why those at #DiP2023 are worth attending…
Great topics such as metrics and design for SaaS
Catt Small will be leading Saas Design Strategy Intensive: Stop Being a Paintbrush, Start Being a Visioner. In this workshop, you’ll learn and practice techniques to become a more strategic SaaS designer. Catt Small, an industry leading Staff Product Designer, will draw on her experience at Etsy, Soundcloud, and Asana to help you identify and navigate the political roadblocks that keep many designers stuck in the ideological playpen at SaaS companies. You’ll form alliances with designers from across the industry in the fight for better product decisions and higher-quality user experiences.
Who is this workshop for
- Senior Designers who want to make a substantial and meaningful impact on products and their subscribers
- Staff and Principal Designers who want to truly be heard, not just seen by peer functions
- Lead Designers who are frustrated by being left out of important decisions that affect their work
Adam Thomas will be leading Survival Metrics. In this workshop, you will learn to implement faster cycles of decision-making, interpret data collectively to increase confidence and build trust, clarify company values enough to model them in your team’s work, convince teams to change direction when necessary, learn how to turn strategy into something usable, and leverage data-informed decision-making.
Survival Metrics is a framework that helps teams find clarity in their strategy, use metrics to create a culture of data-informed decision-making, and build trust in the product organization so change doesn’t feel as risky. Survival Metrics clarifies the way forward, transforming the specter of change from a bogeyman into a boon.
This workshop will outline how product teams can leverage the three pillars of survival — being fast, data-informed, and politically safe — to plan for change to avoid ambiguity and get all stakeholders excited to move forward.
Pre-requisites
- A basic understanding of the creation of product (product engineers, product designers, product managers)
Who is this workshop for
- Product managers, product designers, product engineers who are struggling to adjust and operationalize strategy in the market
We have wise instructors—Catt Small and Adam Thomas
Catt Small is a product design leader, game maker, and developer who has 13+ years of experience working with companies of all sizes including Asana, Etsy, and SoundCloud. She is currently designing a more enlightened way of working at Dropbox. In her spare time, Catt makes awkward video games, writes, and draws artwork of all kinds. You can view her work on her website.
What can we learn by following our curiosity, embracing the unknown, and creating amidst chaos?
This is the question that propels Adam Thomas’s career as a technologist, product expert, and all-around thinker and creator. His answer so far? We can learn that our potential is limitless and we have an amazing array of options for living, working, and playing better.
Seizing every opportunity to dive deep into these topics and more, Adam regularly holds his signature workshop on product strategy, management, and leadership, publishes his newsletter on all things tech- and product-related, and is frequently booked as a speaker on podcasts, conferences, and other forums dedicated to bright ideas and big possibilities.
A humane schedule
We know there’s only so long you can remain engaged in a workshop. That’s why we spread it out across two days. Our virtual workshops will take place over two 4-hour sessions on November 30-December 1. From 9:30am to 1:30pm PT, our workshop instructors will be connecting with you virtually to host their lectures, activities, and more! Four hours across two days for one workshop of your choice.
Interested in attending? Register today!
Future Practice Interview: Ginny Redish
As part of our Future Practice webinar series, we’re interviewing presenters to give you a preview of what they’ll cover. Next up is Ginny Redish on content as conversation. Ginny’s long list of accomplishments include co-authoring (with JoAnn Hackos) the classic User and Task Analysis for Interface Design, her soon-to-be-considered-classic Letting Go of the Words, and serving as a mentor to many in the field.
