Hey Reader,
I was super nervous when hit 'send' 2 weeks ago, but the first edition of Research For All was a success! (My measure of success = nobody unsubscribed and/or complained about me...a pretty low bar 😂.) If you missed that one, you can check the archive.
What do you think so far? I'd love to hear any feedback from you about the format, content, etc. Just hit reply!
Here's what's coming at you today...
- ✨ Research Magic: Reaching the point of least astonishment
- 🎒 Tools & Resources: Useful user interviews stuff + a book for founders & freelancers
- 🎟️ Events: 4 free ones, including one today (!)
- 🌭 Hot Links: The story of a UX Researcher making $430k/year, among other things
✨ Reaching the point of least astonishment
Imagine your team has been working on some big changes to an area of your product. Your manager knows you're trying to beef up your research skills, so they've asked you to run usability testing on an early prototype to understand which aspects of the new experience are easy for customers to understand and use, and where the biggest opportunities for improvement lie.
You ask how many sessions to do, but your manager gives you a shrug and says to just make sure you come back with something useful to contribute at the next team meeting.
Okayyyy, that's not super helpful. But whatever, you start contacting customers and running your sessions. Cool. But...when should you stop? How do you decide when your research is "done"?
One cue that has helped me is what my very first UX Research boss called The Point of Least Astonishment. It's the point in the research where you stop thinking 'whoa, neat!' when a participant does something, because it's not novel anymore -- participant 1, 2, and 5 did it too. Your mind starts to wander, and your start correctly guessing what each participant is going to do next ("yup, of course they clicked here instead of there...everyone has been doing that 🙄"). When you start to get bored, it's a cue that it might be time to call it quits and shift to analysis mode.
I hear some of you saying, "but Elizabeth, that's too vague! I need numbers!". I hear you. I'd say that the point of least astonishment tends to happen to me when I'm at around 6-10 testing sessions or 10-15 interviews -- if we're focusing on just one distinct type of customer. If we're covering multiple types (e.g., doctors and patients for a healthcare portal, business owners and accountants for tax software), it might be when I've done 4-6 testing sessions or 8-12 interviews with each.
The Point of Least Astonishment might be a useful heuristic (but certainly not a hard and fast rule) for you to try on your next project and see how it feels. Wanna talk about it? Hit reply.
🎒 Tools & Resources
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Course: User Interview Skills for Designers & PMs
Squeezing in one final plug for my course, which starts on June 3. There'll be live workshops, Q&As, personalized feedback, goodies to download, and a certificate of completion 🎓. It's gonna be a blast! Use the link for 20% off.
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Book: Company of One by Paul Jarvis
This recommendation is for the current or aspiring business owners out there. Paul's rejection of the idea that you must strive to grow your business year after year is refreshing, and helped guide some of the early business decisions I made.
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Tool: UserInterviews.com
This has been my #1 recruiting platform for several years. I get fantastic participants, and they can even handle niche B2B audiences, like the cybersecurity professionals I'm currently interviewing.
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LinkedIn can be kind of a wasteland sometimes but Pavel is always a good follow...
🎟️ Events
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May 21 (Today!):
Enterprise UXR: Strategy
Join remotely for free or attend in-person in Santa Clara for $29. Topics will include margin expansion, churn reduction, and stakeholder mapping.
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May 23:
How to Land a Job in UX in 2024
Spend an hour diving into the key trends shaping the UX hiring landscape, based on insights from UXDI's newly launched State of UX Hiring Report 2024.
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May 29:
AI Product Design Patterns
In this quick 30min session, learn how to apply proven UX design patterns to AI-driven products to enhance user satisfaction and usability.
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May 31:
Dos & Don'ts of User Onboarding
Joe will pack 30min with real examples & quick activities to demonstrate common mistakes that can lead to user dropoff during onboarding.
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On a good day, I make the web more awesome. On a bad day, I just make it suck less.
-- Karen McGrane, via Twitter
🌭 Hot Links
Justin Jackson: How to run a mastermind group
A mastermind is small group of peers who get together for a combination of mentoring, brainstorming, accountability, and support. This article walks through how to find your people & run your group!
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Founder Footprint: How I founded & sold my UX Research SaaS company for $810M.
I started using UserZoom so long ago, CEO Alfonso de la Nuez was my company's account rep 😂. Wow, has he ever been on a wild ride since then!
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Salary Story: UX Researcher, $430k total comp after having my first baby & getting laid off
Lurking around in r/MoneyDiariesACTIVE is one of my guilty pleasures. I really enjoyed reading about this researcher's nonlinear journey.
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The best way to help is to A.S.K.
I recently led the user research for this "choose your own adventure" YouTube experience, a collab between MTV x Active Minds x UNIT9. It takes about 5min to play through, and along the way you'll learn actionable tips for providing better emotional support.
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We are drowning in an endless sea of data, yet we are stuck in an insight desert. Such is the contemporary experience of many researchers
-- Sam Ladner, from Mixed Methods
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Okay, that's all for now -- hope you enjoyed it! Have a great couple of weeks and I'll see you again soon.
-- Elizabeth @ Research For All
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