Episode highlights

00:00:34 Hannah’s journey into UX research 

00:04:23 Defining freedom in UX research 

00:07:08 Hannah’s freedom in research 

00:11:36 Breaking the rules in UX research 

00:21:03 Dealing with boredom in research 

00:22:54 Automating and gamifying recruitment  

00:24:36 Adopting to constraints and stakeholder management 

00:28:57 Weekly sprints and reflective practices

00:31:43 Integrating research into daily activities

00:33:50 Shortening research sessions and analysis 

00:31:43 Changes in public sector research 

00:37:44 Being bold and practical in research

00:40:08 Final thoughts

About our guest

Hannah is a UX researcher with over a decade of experience helping product teams make smarter, faster decisions. She has a thing for working on public sector services, the grittier the better, and nothing is grittier than healthcare (especially women’s health).

She worked her way up the chain to be head of research, but she just couldn’t keep away from the hustle of a product team. Instead, she’s focused on how to scale down UX research methods so even the leanest teams can get some insight.

Her mantra? Good research comes in small packages.

Podcast transcript

[00:00:00] Tina Ličková: Welcome to UXR Geeks, where we geek out with researchers from all around the world and topics they’re passionate about. I’m your host, Tina, a researcher and a product manager, and this podcast is brought to you by UXtweak, the UX research platform for recruiting, conducting, analyzing, and sharing insights all in one place.

This is UXR Geeks, and you are listening to an episode that I did with Hannah. Hannah is a user researcher, freelancer, and a completely amazing person that I really love the conversation with. We were talking about freedom in research, what it means when you do things your own way, how can it influence your work and how to actually have sun while doing your job.

So I won’t give up too much in this intro. I hope you will enjoy the conversation as added. 

Tune in.

Hello Hannah. Hello. I would gladly jump into a topic because I just love that we are doing it together, but I’m always inviting our guests to introduce themselves and maybe to tell us what is exciting about your life right now. 

[00:01:26] Hannah Knowles: I’m Hannah. I’m a user researcher, or I’ve been a researcher for. 11 years. I think it’s really interesting when people ask, how did you get into research?

Or how did you end up here? I’m like, forced through academia. That’s how I got here, because I wasn’t very good at design, as I found out very quickly during my degree. Really wanted to be lots of things. When I was younger, I wanted to be an architect, a garden designer. I had all these great ideas of what I was gonna be.

And I started doing product design, like physical product design, and I started doing furniture design. And this sticks in my head so vividly, which is why I think this is such a great topic. But I went into this review one day with the work and he was like, you’re just not very creative. And I was like, oh, great.

And I’d really took that into my career. I’m not this creative person. And they’re like, actually, instead of design something, weave noise you are really great at is research. And I at the time had no idea research was even a job. I was like, oh, that’s a thing you can do. Who knew? So I went on to do an ma.

I studied slightly later in life because school wasn’t my thing, so I didn’t get the grades that I needed to get into uni. So I had to do a couple of extra years and study slightly later than everyone else. And I eventually entered the workforce at 23, and I felt really lucky when I became a researcher.

I worked predominantly in public sector departments. I’d done a talk as part of the university after writing a paper, and I got offered two jobs. And they’re like, do you wHannah be a user researcher? And I was like, yes, sounds great. And then I was like, oh, what is that? Is it a bit awkward? I should probably find out what that is.

And I’ve jumped into the deep end of what being a researcher is. I learn very fast on my feet. I had no formal training as a researcher. I didn’t come from one of these traditional backgrounds either for research, which is usually psychology. I know a lot of psychologists that have moved into the field, and I felt really alienated.

I started off as a junior with no experience. One of the most exciting things I get to do now is be a freelancer. I love being a freelancer. Now, it’s taken us 11 years to get here. But along the way, I’ve learned all these different skill sets that I needed to come here and work on exciting projects and not just projects I have to work on.

’cause let’s be real, the market can feel sometimes like I have to do work that I maybe don’t want to, but I’m feeling like I’m at a really good point where I can pick projects that mean a lot to me. And feel like I can give back to the community. And I think that’s one of the most important things. One of the reasons why people would argue public sector is possibly the most boring, least tech savvy place to work in.

And they’re like, oh, you work in tech. And then I’m like, again. They’re like, when? And I’m like, oh, the public sector. And they. Alright, you do you But what most people think of Apple or Facebook and I’m like, no, not me. I’ll wait for the Jack’s office. ’cause that’s where the real innovations are. But I love being able to work on projects like that and I really feel, for me that it gives us this different sense of freedom, which I think is a really interesting thing that I’ve learned.

Learned to carve out my own little space and world within this. 

[00:04:59] Tina Ličková: So I do. 

[00:05:00] Hannah Knowles: I love that. 

[00:05:02] Tina Ličková: And you already little bit notched into our, the topic, which is the freedom in research. I am contemplating about this topic for my own because I’m also changing to product management, but I still wHannah do research and of course I will.

And when I was listening to a different podcast that you were in, I think it was the one that you did with Nikki Anderson, I was like, okay, this is the person I can talk about freedom in research because you are a person. Breaking the rules, but strong topologically. And I love that you are saying two things.

One is that somebody told you that you are not creative. I think I heard it as well when I was working in marketing. It’s just like you have to find your crowd and you’ll feel where you could be creative and when ideas come to you. And the second thing is, and this is what I wHannah emphasize, because I know a lot of people from a lot of countries listening to us.

Don’t have the typical backgrounds of like psychology or even human computer interaction or something coming to my first question. And we start with the boring part, like with definitions. Everybody loves that. So what is your definition of freedom as a professional and as a researcher? 

[00:06:16] Hannah Knowles: I found this question really interesting and I first Googled what is freedom like in the dictionary, and I read and it said it was an absence of constraint, and I was like the opposite of product design then, because that is literally what we’re working, just constraint after constraint.

Freedom to me in research is about me having a voice and me having confidence to be able to stay. No, I want to do it this way and here’s why I think we’re gonna do something this way. And having that ability to stand up and question the norms that have been created. Now, I know there are certain companies who we class as the godfathers of UX and they’ve created all these lovely foundations in principles for us to use.

Now I’m like, yeah, but like it was just two blocks back in the ease who made it up? Like why can’t we do that too? And I think that’s a really interesting thing about freedom is we’ve got these kind of structures all scaffolding put around us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t question that scaffolding and we can’t change it to manipulate it, to make it fit the world of today.

So freedom to me is this ability to be creative in my industry. I’ll say, somebody, if you are gonna hire me for four hours a week and I’m gonna be bored, then I’m not gonna stay. And that’s just the reality of the situation. I don’t think anybody should be bored at work. I don’t think anybody should feel that they can’t have fun within their industry.

And that’s what I always want to do is bring that playfulness back. So freedom I guess, to me is being playful. I feel we’re a bit bored as researchers, maybe too scientific in some ways. We’ve become too prescriptive, maybe too reliant on frameworks and methods. Instead of questioning why they were introduced in the first place and how we can release that to be something else.

And if we’re not doing it on our own frameworks, then who will even we to do it? Like I just find that such an interesting idea in itself that the definition is all about this kind of absence of constraint, but our industry is built on constraint and we’re being told what we should and shouldn’t do.

Rather than having the ability to explore that. And I think it was interesting that you said you come from not traditional background. I didn’t. And because I didn’t really understand the frameworks in the nicest of ways, I was like, yeah, I’ll figure that out. Like it’s fine. We’ll figure out as we go along.

And I think that was what kind of give us that sense of freedom to be like, Hey, I am just gonna be playful with it and I’ll figure out what that method is later. Or I’ll figure out the science behind it if I want to. ’cause realistically the product team don’t care. Neither do I. Like, as long as we’re getting the data that we need, why shouldn’t we just play with who we are and what we do?

I just find that. So interesting is a concept for me. So freedom of playfulness. That’s what I would say. 

[00:09:26] Tina Ličková: I would add to it that it’s the permission to question staff. I would say it’s the autonomy, having your own field and being able to play around in this field and make it also joyful for yourself, which is also a very important part.

I also strongly connect freedom. To, if not responsibility, then accountability. 

[00:09:52] Hannah Knowles: Yeah. 

[00:09:53] Tina Ličková: I’m curious about your opinion on how. Do you think you have to know the rules before you break them? Because listening to you and like how did you adjust the frameworks and the methods? I was also the same because I was in some projects and I was like, I don’t have the time to go through it theoretically.

I have to deliver. So I was like, okay, Google, tell me. It was Google at the time, not ai. I was trying to suck everything in what I could or watch videos or whatever. And then I was just like, okay, we adjusted to this because I need this for my stakeholders. It was this kind of insecure feeling of absolutely, am I breaking the rules too much?

Am I methodologically not sane? So what do you think about how much can you break rules when you are junior or a meteor? 

[00:10:39] Hannah Knowles: Break them all. No, I’m kidding. I do have a little bit of that philosophy, but there’s some things that I think are there for a reason. Usability testing’s a really good example of this.

’cause this is, we should test with five users because it gives us 85% of, and you’re like, yeah, great, cool, that’s amazing. But my product team wanted answers yesterday and we’ll have three people. So does that mean we just don’t do it? Does that mean we don’t make a decision? Does that mean it’s wrong? It was funny.

This was on a podcast that you had before. If somebody replied, it depends. And you said we’ll have a bit of an insider joke as researchers about it depends, but like for me it was all about can I convince someone to make a decision? It never for me matters how many people you test something with or how many of these rules are in place if you can’t convince somebody with your data.

And that’s the biggest thing. As a researcher, how much can I convince somebody on the other side to make a decision? Doesn’t matter if I’ve got three people or 3000 people, my story’s not convincing enough. That person isn’t going to buy from me. I like to think researchers are like non sleazy salesmen at the best of time, but would just have a little bit behind us to give us, say we’ve got an inkling that’s something’s going on here.

And I’m always super honest if I don’t know what the reason is behind that, something’s not quite working and we’ve had these three to five or 50 users and they’re telling us we’ve got an issue here and let’s figure out what that looks like. But in terms of figuring out from the beginning, usability testing was the first thing I had to do.

And I was like, I dunno what this is. Guess like you Google, please tell me. And I would read loads of things and I found that just super overwhelming. And I was like, look, what would you do if you were in a workshop or designing a product? You would literally throw a caution to the wind and you would go and you would experiment and you would give one thing a go, and if it didn’t work, you would try something else and you would keep going until you found a method that worked for you.

And that was what I was into. And don’t get us wrong, I’m also a massive nerd. I love reading white papers. That’s just something I love to do and I do it in my spare time. But I love going to read theory, but not in the traditional way. Like I love reading other people’s studies and I found I would learn a lot more to reading somebody’s study than reading this kind of framework piece.

Do you need a basic understanding of what that thing is? Yeah, probably. Can you get away with just jumping in at the deep end? Absolutely. If you are. The fourth person who is more hands-on learning, if you just need to figure things out and you have a lovely organization who will help support that. Great.

Do I think I could probably get away with what I did then? Now? No. I think I’d be fired instantly on the spot, but when I first joined research in especially the public sector, it was new like 11 year ago in the uk. Research was non-existent in product teams, so they didn’t really know what the after either, so it was kinda like the blind lead and the blind, and I was like, you’ll be fine.

And then I was like, please be fine. I start to learn some of the weird terms that we use as researchers to prove bias or to prove why people think in certain ways. I do have a bit of a basic understanding in human psychology now. Would I say I’m an expert in it? No. Do I also want to be an expert in it? No.

Like it doesn’t interest me in any way, shape, or form what interests me. This is how somebody reacts to something, and I think that’s why I really like product design because you have this ability to change somebody’s action of something super tiny and are focused on those things rather than thinking about.

Oh, should I be doing that? Oh, actually, is that enough people? The other thing, when I was first hired as a researcher, probably shouldn’t admit to this ’cause they’re probably gonna listen to this and they’re like, can you do a survey? And I was like, absolutely never written a survey in my life. And then I was like, oh, this is possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my whole entire life, is figure out how to write a question.

Then people would come to me and be like, oh, is that statistically viable? And I’m like. Is it what? But I did appreciate why some of these guardrails were in place, but also on the flip side, show out to all my lovely departments out there who I work with, but. They aren’t interested in that. And I think in research comes across as being a little bit preachy.

Like I never hear a dev explain inside and out why they’ve coded in a very specific way. And I’m like, why do we feel the need to do that is researchers. I’ll always explain to somebody if they’re interested on why we’ve picked a certain method or why are studies the same way All they care about is.

How can I fix my problem? And that’s where I always start with. I will always explain it to somebody, but I just think we’ve become, yeah, a little bit preachy in our world and I don’t enjoy that. I’m here to help somebody figure an answer out. So the frameworks and foundations to me, are the least important, and I think that’s where I had this more experimental style of, you are a junior today and you’re interested in it.

Great. I love methods too, like I am a nerd, but that doesn’t mean that you need to understand it to the nth degree to give it a go. That’s also why now we probably see three or four methods being used consistently because we just don’t really know enough about these other methods to be able to just be like, just give it a go.

I fail all the time. I’m quite happy to fail. Doesn’t matter. We’ll find something out and there’ll always be something useful in that study. Even if you haven’t quite done it. And I remember actually, this is another lecture, he was always like, lots of people, 99% of people don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing.

So if you point it out and you are like, oh, maybe quite didn’t have enough people for that study. Why the stakeholder doesn’t know they’re not gonna go Google it, they don’t have time. Just tell them it was enough. It’d totally be fine to do that. And I just find it really interesting. That, especially depending on where you work or what your product is or the industry you work in, these foundations are based on very specific things.

And if we don’t start to question that, or if we don’t start to move away from that, we’ll just hem ourselves in. We’ll be a right back after 

[00:17:25] Tina Ličková: A short break with a commercial message from a Spencers. Hey UXR Geeks. You know, this podcast is brought to you by UXtweak. I’ve tried several UX research tools before, and most item make recruitment a nightmare.

Or overcomplicate the analysis next week is the first one that actually does both. Well, I can recruit participants from over 130 countries with solid quality checks and detailed profiling, and it supports both moderated and unmoderated studies and analyzing results doesn’t feel overwhelming. It just makes my research smoother.

So if you’re curious, go to UXtweak.com website and start for free. No credit card and no strings attached.

[00:18:21] Tina Ličková: I am thinking about knowing the methods and I’m thinking back to the time where I started UX trying to be a designer. Then I found out. There were way more talented people than I am. She was like, oh, I’m not doing, I’m not the best or one of the best. So give us a job though. Yeah. I remember people who were senior to me like two years and three years doing research more because it was prehistoric time when the research wasn’t really a thing and they were like, you can’t combine explorative interviews with a usability study.

Turns again, because you have the time that you are given and in order to persuade somebody for research practice, you sometimes really try to do as much as possible in one interviews. Sometimes even it makes sense because the explorative part could be a great building report with the person. You are talking about boredom, and this is something that I referred to as, okay, this is where I as a researcher got a little bit bored because of this typical.

Routine of, oh, okay. There is a request. You have to figure out what is the real briefing or the research questions, and then you go repeat people and then you do stuff. Mostly interviews because that’s what the clients usually, and then you, because that’s what they understand. Yeah. And as a freelancer, you sometimes, if you are not really working with one client very intensely, you sometimes really have just this thing of, okay, this touch point, and you can’t do more.

Internally, it’s maybe better, but it also can get complicated. What would you say, how you personally fight in 

[00:19:54] Hannah Knowles: quote unquote, the boredom of research? I appreciate, there’s probably some things I’m never gonna change, and I actually found that really freeing mentally just to be like, you know what you do, you, there’s certain bits I can’t change, but the thing that I thought was really interesting there, what you said is the bit I can control is the study itself.

So I can control how much or little I wHannah pull into that. Once I present the data in stakeholders. Appreciate that we’ve got the answer that they need. Again, they don’t really care about those ins and outs, but one of the things all and quickly was how to speed up some of the bits. I don’t like doing.

I do not like recruitment. I have done my own recruitment for many years. It’s not my favorite thing in the world to do, but I’ll find ways to automate that or I’ll make it into a game. I split my day out basically, and I time my day. Otherwise I get bored very easily and I fidget. So what I do is I say, I bet you can’t get five people in an hour.

And I’m like, wicked, let’s do this. And I’ll put my headphones on and I’m making it into a bit of a game. Life admin is a researcher, there’s another boredom, but my brains now, we’re not into that consent forms. Nah, we’re good. And they said, yes, come on, that’s enough. They replied, would I understand why I do it?

And I do legally. Do consent forms. But again, I try to see some of those processes if I can automate them, and I do automate a lot of those, even for public sector departments that are working who have super limited tools. I find ways to not do those bits, even though I have to. So all those things for me that surround research.

That I would class as the boring bits. I find ways to gamify them, to not make them boring for me. I understand and appreciate some of these rules that are in place. Usually from an ethics perspective, I joke a lot, but there are some things out there like GDPR, so I make sure I am compliant and everything that we do is.

Anything I can get off my plate. I will. It’s funny that you said you were gonna become a product owner manager. Another really good example is, is I’ve alluded to work with public sector. They really love working in very particular frameworks because we have to, it’s public sector money. I appreciate our comp break that because they’re not gonna change the whole of government.

’cause one little Jordy last doesn’t wHannah do it. So I’m like, I’ve accepted that. But I’ve also found ways to make that work for me. And instead of working two weekly sprints, which is traditionally how people work, I work in weekly sprints. Now other researchers find that chaos. They’re like, why? And I’m like, but why wouldn’t you?

Like, why do you wHannah just ask one big question over eight weeks? I personally find that pretty boring. What I would rather do is break that big question down into eight little questions and answer those so I can work with the product team in that way. And yes, do I create sometimes a bit more of a challenge for myself?

Yes, I do. I will admit to that. I make my own life difficult sometimes, but I need that too. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to keep pace, and I would probably get really bored as a researcher. So I’ve found a way. To take these things and be like, okay, how can I manipulate it so they get something every two weeks?

If that’s what they want, that’s great, but how can I manipulate it to be me and so I can work? Well? That’s one of the things that would advocate to any junior researcher is find your style and own it. If somebody questions you like, that’s cool, but they’re not right, and that’s okay too. I think there’s become this massive debate about right and wrong, especially with some of these things.

I think finding that for me was really important and I think I lost that a little bit and now I’ve come full swing and I’m like, this is what I’m into and this is what I’m gonna do. Product teams I work with now know what they’re getting into because I’m very open about that. I’ll tell them the things.

That maybe I’m not as strong at in what I need support in, but the bits that I’m gonna excel at, I’m like, you leave me to do this. You do this bit and we’ll be friends. If not, you’ll have a very grumpy researcher and that’s not what you want. 

[00:24:16] Tina Ličková: I love that because finding really in the small things of how to do your work where you spend eight hours a day, you should be able and do it for yourself to take the freedom.

And work on the stuff that you want to work on, that you feel like, okay, I can be nerdy about this, or I can be detailed about this. On the other side, there are a lot of people, especially if you’re a junior, if you’re a woman, if you’re a marginalized groups, it’s hard say, oh, this is me and I will do it on my way.

Because there are those constraints that you were mentioning. Yeah. And one of the constraint is, and sometimes we forget about it in our community, and is that. Falling in love in methods doesn’t really make sense because we are a business and we should deliver. And one of the things we should deliver in is the fast paced environment.

We should be fast. So I would repeat, you are, you are breaking big questions into smaller ones. What are the other practices that you do to actually. Go with the flow and with the 

[00:25:23] Hannah Knowles: fast based tempo, weekly sprints. So like I mentioned, I work in weekly sprints, which I find really helps keep pace with the product team.

So when I say I work in weekly sprints, Google came up with this by the way, but they call it Google Design Sprints, but I’ve changed some of the days around ’cause they don’t quite work for research and in their sprint you basically recruit each week. That’s not feasible as a researcher to recruit each week.

I recruit on much bigger cycles. I recruit on a monthly basis because again, I’ll wHannah deal with that life admin, but I know every Thursday is my testing day. So every Thursday is dedicated to to be the firsthand research, or if I’m not doing what I would call an active sprint. So an active sprint is where I’m physically collecting data.

So I’m going out and I’m getting research of people, or I’m doing that primary kind of conducting. They are called active sprints. I have these other sprints, which I guess are more reflective sprints On those days, that’s when I’m gonna do workshops with people. I’m gonna get other people involved and be able to help us on those days.

But working in weekly sprints for me, helps keep my pace up with the team. I think that’s something that I’ve found really beneficial over the years is being able to answer smaller questions. Means I can also keep stakeholders off my back so I can be like, look what I did this week. They’re like, oh, culture is working.

Which is doing something. ’cause I think that’s probably one of the biggest killers with research or done at a strategic level is. They don’t basically see anything, and then you get something at the end and they’re like, how did you get hun? What’s this? I don’t really understand what we’re doing. The other thing I do is I’ve alluded to, I do run workshops.

I love workshops with product teams. I don’t workshops do them in a traditional sense of, oh, let’s get together for a day. I’m like, that’s nice. We don’t have time. Let’s get together for 10 minutes and crack out the activity that’s needed to be done. A really good example of this is I’m a lean UX canvas.

It’s a tool I use week on week with all of my product teams. So each week we’ll start with it. What I do is I do a bit of that legwork, and if I only need five minutes with them, that’s how long the workshop is. If I need an hour and a half with them. That’s how long the workshop is. I’m not one of these people who’s, it said 60 minutes, so we’re gonna sit here for the full 60 minutes.

I just don’t believe in that mentality at all. Let’s crack on. The other good thing about that, of taking these kind of bigger, longer methods and finding ways to shorten them. And this is probably what you heard with Nikki, is I basically ta on to any of the activity that is already in people’s diaries.

If I’ve gotta go withstand every day, hell yeah. I’m asking a research question while we’re there. I’ll want everyone in the room to write an assumption and pop it on the board like. I’m gonna find ways to integrate into their life. They’re not gonna come to me and be like, oh, do you know what I’d really love an hour just to chat through our assumptions.

So I was like, if they’re not gonna come to me, I’m just gonna force me way in through the door and I’m gonna make you do my activities whether you want to or not, because I’m a lovingly forceful human and who can say no when I come knocking for the do say no a lot. To be fair, I think that’s one of the things that I learned like really quickly was.

Just because it does take a long time to do an assumption mapping. Why can’t you just go day by day and stage by stage and by the end of the week you’ve done that full activity. Nobody said we couldn’t break it down and do it in stages, and that’s the way my mind kind of works. A bit like Lego blocks is the best way to describe it.

If I can take a little bit of information each day and at the end have a cute little house. Great. I would rather have that than just a block because we got sidetracked or somebody had to go somewhere and do something else. So I think that for me, helps keep the team informed, not bored. ’cause let’s face it, if I go another workshop where somebody’s secretly scrolling on the phone underneath the test, I swear God, it’s gone in the bin.

But that happens just because of the world we’re now living. Would traditionally do hybrid workshops or workshops on your computer. I can blatantly tell when someone’s not paying attention, so I’m like, I don’t want to deal with that. You are not interested. I’m not interested. Let’s just find ways to shorten it.

I also do that or take that mentality with research sessions. One of the things that I notice, particularly in public sector is everyone would book a usability testing for an hour, and I’m like, yeah, but it test takes five minutes, what we’re gonna chat about for an hour, and I would watch some other, again, really seasoned, beautiful researchers do it.

But then you can tell where it’s getting a bit, everyone’s getting a bit tense and awkward when you’re like, I don’t know how many more ways to ask this same question. So one of the things I always do, my sessions are maximum of 30 minutes. I believe that’s when most people lose their focus naturally anyway.

I don’t think sessions need to be an hour long to get the same sense of data, especially if it is a usability test or if I’m asking smaller questions. I don’t need that same length of time with somebody. I can go in and I guess now off. Years of experience, be able to maybe do some of those things like rapport a little bit quicker.

Or maybe we’ve just learned tips and tricks along the way to get somebody to open up a little bit sooner to us. But also they’re not gonna do it in an hour. If they’re not gonna do it in the first five minutes, they’re probably not going to do it at all, and that’s okay too. So I think it was accepting some of these things for me to be like, okay.

I also don’t want to go through an hour’s worth of data. Like I don’t know many researchers, especially now who would want to sit and watch videos of themselves back for five hours. You get a lot of data from those sessions, and that takes up a lot of our time. We spend most of our time in analysis, especially if you’re not privy to using lots of tools.

Again, I come from a world. Which is super constrained. They’ve got really personal data. People are talking to us about really sensitive topics and actually, is it ethical or is it moral to put it in? Probably not. So I was like, if I can’t find a physical tool to help me do that, they’re all great tools on the market, by the way, if you can do that, look at them.

But I couldn’t, so I was like, I’ve gotta find a way to shorten that because by the time I’d finished that analysis. Got the report out, the devs were already onto something else and I was like, we’ve gotta find a way to, to get that time down because if there is any juniors out there listening, devs rule the product world.

And unfortunately you just have to accept that. Like devs always get priority for some reason. I dunno why I love all my depths and I do, but what they say tends to go and product teams are really built around their cycle. So I was like, how can I build a cycle around their working framework? What dev language can I use to and apply that to research because we seem to like that.

So I do things called research spikes, which are time box research events where I’m like, I’m gonna set that for two days and I’m gonna look into a really particular topic and I’m gonna mimic their language, because people seem to like that. And I found that to be really helpful when I was coming into these more fast-paced teams.

You would think government’s pretty slow. That’s wrong. Government is probably one of the fastest, hardest places I’ve ever had to work, not just because we deal. With really huge and life changing services for most people. But because we have so much red tape, all legislation does change quite a lot and what we’re allowed to do and what we should be doing is constantly evolving.

They’re just some of the things that I’ve found to deal with, not really world of tech 

[00:33:36] Tina Ličková: and love that you are being so practical. But if I go back to the high level to close it up also, it’s, and please add on it from what I heard. What people could have from this episode is be playful. Yeah. Do you adjust to the fast pace?

Not just only adjust to the fast pace, but adjust your methods on onto your stakeholders and their language. I love by the way that you were saying, learn the deaf language, not the business language. It’s a niche detail, but I love it. Is there anything else that we didn’t mention? I think 

[00:34:11] Hannah Knowles: just be bold, like I would love to just see researchers being more bold in what they’re doing.

I love. That we’re quite a small community. I work with the same kind of researchers. I see them in different places. But one of the thing I’ve noticed is people have mellowed to all be in this same style, and I would just love us to see being a little bit more bold with what we’re doing, like what we used to be.

I dunno whether that’s maybe because of where the industry’s currently at. Is it just because we do cross pollinate more? So actually we’re starting to see some of these same ideas just mellow out a little bit and we’re coming into this kind of stage. But I would love to see, especially juniors out there, bring some of these fresh ideas in for more senior members of the community to embrace these ways of working.

Because I think that is one of the biggest things that changes the way we work, is being bold. And I love something that you said actually was. I am very practical in case you haven’t noticed like the most practical human in the world, and I think that is the key to research right now is being practical rather than being preachy.

Be practical with your research team and what you can do so you can research with one person a week, research with one person a week. That’s okay too. ’cause in six weeks time you’ve run a full study. Yes, it’s took six weeks, but I’d rather have something than nothing to go off. And I think that for me is a really good message to leave it on.

[00:35:40] Tina Ličková: We have so many discussion on how to deliver inside that impact and how to speak the business language. But when you really narrow it down to something, it’s be 

[00:35:51] Hannah Knowles: practical. Yes. Just crack on. I’m like, just get done. That’s all they care about in the nicest ways. Don’t get wrong. I love strategic research. I came from a place that would advocate, like if you’d asked us this same question five years ago, you probably would’ve got a really different answer.

Exactly. And I think that’s one of the things where maybe I’ve started to change a little bit and I’ve seen some of those qualities not be as needed or as wanted by the business. And I think as important as the business is, yeah, go make your Debs your best friend, because if they are shouting. About what’s needed and what needs done.

You are so more likely to get the business back in and support from them to be able to do it. So yeah, be practical. 

[00:36:34] Tina Ličková: Thank you Hannah. Energetic conversation. I love it.

[00:36:37] Hannah Knowles: Thanks for having us.

[00:36:43] Tina Ličková: Thank you for listening to UXR Geeks. If you enjoyed this episode, please follow our podcast and share it with your friends and colleagues. Your support is really what keeps us going. 

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