{"id":184562,"date":"2015-12-07T18:39:15","date_gmt":"2015-12-07T18:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.rm.gfolkdev.net\/?p=184562"},"modified":"2022-10-11T14:21:09","modified_gmt":"2022-10-11T14:21:09","slug":"user-research-for-developing-a-conference-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rosenfeldmedia.com\/user-research-for-developing-a-conference-program\/","title":{"rendered":"User Research for Developing a Conference Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re working hard to prove that even tiny companies\u2014like Rosenfeld Media\u2014have no excuses when it comes to doing user research (we wrote about it <\/span><\/i>here<\/span><\/i><\/a>). We\u2019re at it here, doing the research to develop the program for our next virtual conference. <\/span><\/i>Laura Klein,<\/i><\/b> author of <\/span><\/i>UX for Lean Startups<\/span><\/a> and the forthcoming <\/span><\/i>Build Better Products<\/span><\/a>,<\/span> helped us with the research and analysis (she\u2019ll be speaking at the event too). Here\u2019s her description of what we did and what we learned.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Product managers and UX designers understand the need for user research when building a product. Good product managers and UX designers actually DO user research when building a product. <\/span><\/p>\n

Rosenfeld Media cares deeply about good product management and UX design, so when they started talking about doing an <\/span>online conference<\/a><\/strong> on February 3, 2016<\/strong>\u2014about the intersection of product management and UX design\u2014they decided to reach out to potential attendees first in order to understand what people want to know. They also recruited some top people working in product management and UX as speakers: <\/span>Christina Wodtke, Jeff Gothelf, Jeff Patton, Marty Cagan, <\/b>and <\/span>Tomer Sharon <\/b>(and me too!). We all worked together to gain insights into questions people have about product management, UX, and how we can all work better together. <\/span><\/p>\n

We all worked together to gain insights into questions people have about product management, UX, and how we can all work better together. (Tweet this<\/a>)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at what we did and what we learned. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Qualitative<\/span><\/h2>\n

First, we had to understand who the users (conference attendees) were hopefully going to be. Too many conferences choose \u201canybody who will buy a ticket\u201d as their target customers, but frankly that\u2019s what leads to unfocused, boring conferences where very few people learn anything of actual value to them. <\/span><\/p>\n

If you try to build a product that works for everybody from students to CEOs, you\u2019ll likely end up not providing much value to at least some of your users, and the same thing is true for conferences. That wasn\u2019t something we were cool with. \u00a0We knew we wanted to create a conference that was useful and actionable for people who are currently building things or managing people who build things\u2014working product managers, UX designers, researchers, and their bosses. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Armed with a couple of quick, provisional personas, we set out to get some qualitative feedback. A few of us spent some time talking to PMs and UXers we knew who fit the personas, and then we started analyzing the most common questions and problems they had about working together and building products. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Quantitative <\/span><\/h2>\n

Patterns started to emerge pretty quickly; we used them to put together a short survey with questions that were representative of what we\u2019d been hearing. We wanted to know whether the respondents spent more time doing UX design, product management, or something else. We wanted to know their job titles. And we wanted to know which questions or topics they found most interesting. <\/span><\/p>\n

We asked them to choose from a set of questions that ranged from \u201cHow should Product Managers and UX Designers coordinate and manage discovery work?\u201d to \u201cWhat does a great Product Manager do?\u201d to \u201cHow should UX Designers work with engineering?\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

We heard from over 150 of you. Most were UX designers, but we also got a good collection of product managers and a few people who listed themselves as \u201cother.\u201d Somebody listed himself as a \u201ctroublemaker.\u201d We know who you are, Steve, and we\u2019re watching you. <\/span><\/p>\n

The Results<\/span><\/h2>\n

About two thirds of the respondents said that their jobs mostly involved UX,\u00a0but job titles included everything from user researcher to product designer to innovation catalyst to CEO. We\u2019re taking that as a good sign that people from all parts of organizations are starting to care about user experience design! <\/span><\/p>\n

\"PM\/UX\/Other<\/span><\/p>\n

The top three questions people had, by quite a large margin, were:<\/span><\/p>\n