 Thanks Okay, I think being the last speaker and also one of the co-organizers for this event I don't think I can proceed before I can have the honor to welcome the entire organizing team for UXC 2018 The smiles on your faces and the feedback that we have received really brings so much joy and it humbles us To a point where you will not know and you have all made this event a huge success. So in no particular order Let's cheer for Angeline Marcus Jay Ruchi Abhinav Atima Joana Nizzo and how you good Dorothea Some of the volunteers are not with us today Catherine Christie Wenchi Wibha Nicole Jasmine Let's keep the cheer up guys Chelsea Anu Ashish Joana Somya our emcees Ha and Priscilla Kuldeep and finally me It has taken us eight months of meeting and hard work to bring this event to you So I think all our volunteers and organizing committee deserves a huge round of applause and whistles And I would also like to thank our sponsors SP group Lazada Firemark and our in-kind sponsors sketch Rosenfield and Azure Thank you everyone. Thank you Okay, where's UL is he here in the room I counted his weed counter it stands at eight Let's see if he can break that record in his next talk Yes, it's very hard to follow up a presentation like that. So fucked up shit and weed I will not use any of those words Be a kid-friendly presentation Okay That's my mom just kidding But she is indeed a melodramatic Indian lady That's my dad a Really doting Indian father? So from a very young age, this was me. I can do the step by So from a very young age I knew that Negotiation and balancing different perspectives is going to be a trade that I will cherish when I grow old and it did happen I Was constantly thinking huh what what is this person saying and what are you saying? And I was always bringing perspectives when people were not talking So it's like just get in a room and talk and that is predominantly my childhood So I'm a UX unicorn. I basically got into this field after a huge dilemma of quitting academic my background is in computer sciences and information systems, so it's pretty hardcore and after Finishing my program. I was thinking hmm academic I mean, I have to stay true to that persona. It's just something that grows on you It's very hard to let go but I also wanted to solve like really challenging problems And academic has a very different approach to solving problems and I thought the way I am and the way I'm wired I would like to take up the challenge so I joined a startup MoneySmart if you don't know already And I think it has been a good good good experience so far So let's see the topic of my presentation is how to kickstart a research culture in an organization that has none Can I have a quick show of hands people who are interested in UX research? Whoa, and how many of you are presently into UX research so you either hold a position of UX researcher I was not expecting that okay, and we've also had quite a bit of talks this year on UX research Which is really encouraging because I think a huge part In in making design successful is effective research, right? So I'm really happy that there's such participation from UX researchers this year as well So 90-day program and this is from a like my life. So first 30 days Don't do anything easy, right? So 30 days out of 90 days gone one-third of your job is already just kidding. You have to do something Be patient, you know start by asking questions You can ask questions from senior management. You can ask questions from your team members You can even get feedback from people that you think are seemingly unrelated to your job Could be the commercial guys could be the sales department could be marketing I thought that the sales and marketing sales and commercial team was the most warm and like all of them So fuzzy when I came in and they welcome me with open arms and that was a huge plus point for me because it was a validation of a strong culture, right? So, yeah, be patient start by collecting questions and figure out what you want to do You cannot do everything so figure out what you're good at find your niche and start building a strategy On that note building a strategy is step two find UX tenants you actually believe in right? I hear a lot of noise on users first. I care about my users damn you use or no But a lot of people say users first, but what they mean is users eventually and that's a sad story, right? There's a lot of head nodding, but when it comes to actually taking strong decisions For our users many of us shy away because it is the harder road it will take time and it takes effort So what are some of the UX tenants that you can consider you can either? Just simply agree that I am user centric until I feel that this is going to bring any Value proposition to my users. I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to participate I mean you can't really say that but you can tell it yourself that I believe in being user centric Or you can say I have no biases. I will just focus on what the research Says either existing research research that has already been done There's a great set of material that you can find and I think that's a benefit that I got being into academic that I really became Research focus I would devour papers. I would devour articles Go on conference websites where they actually have all the presentations loaded and just listen to them for like six hours straight I just attended a conference without paying a dollar But what it does is that it further validates that I just want to be research focused, right? Or you can say I believe in numbers numbers is where I shine Numbers, okay, I'm going to collect the data Existing data or new data that's up to you whatever you can get hands on but data is what is going to drive me Or you can be designed led you can say that I don't care what the research says I don't care if it's going to bring Value proposition. I'll just design it and I'll test it Okay, so find a tenant or a set of tenants that you believe in and then actually work on them And one point for that is that never think that research works in silos You will just be that person that gets used and abused on small projects and small asks and then nobody cares, right? And it was like I just wanted data for that question. Go away shoot So if you don't want that to happen to you make sure that you're always advocating for the bigger picture Be the CQ o of your company. Anybody knows what CQ is CQ o is See, that's a C-suite level position that I just created and all of you can be CQ o's Perfect, can you say that? chief question officer Chief question officer just ask why But please don't be annoying because after a while it can get really annoying like hi. Why why does why not? Like find your groove find your find your rhythm and then just ask why are you doing this? What is it going to do? What's the bigger picture? How is this going to help me one year down the line? I'm not going to you know, get the momentum going until I understand the bigger picture These are some of the ways you can justify to that stakeholder why I should be putting this effort in so be the CQ o and You can also validate your UX tenants along the way right things that you believe in and things that are actually worth believing in So let's take a case study because this is a kind of a crash course a Sample problem someone comes to me and says we don't know enough about our users Right, that's a big problem and often people will state it that way because they really don't know what aspect of knowing my user Am I interested in they'll just come and say like we don't know enough about our users But that's where your CQ o kicks in. It's like why do you want to know your users? What is it about your users that you want to know just this be a mad like detective ask the ask the wise, right? It can just not be why is it can be how is it can be which it can be what just just ask them? What's the bigger picture? What's the bigger question? So one of our products at MoneySmart is home loans we help people get home loans faster more seamless painlessly, right? So some of the questions which came from that meta question of we don't know enough about our users when probed further They led to questions like who are our first time versus repeat Homeowners right people buying home for the first time people buying home for the second time So already the distinction has happened because the user behavior may not be the same the things that their value may not be the same One needs more information the other one needs more Actionable steps, right? So that distinction can happen if you start probing the question. What do they value? Right, is it just discount? Is it just the best price if it's just the best price? It's easy Right, but your job as a researcher is to figure out apart from price apart from that obvious factor What is driving them? What's there? What's their pain point? What's the actual need that we have to serve here apart from promos discounts and price? Sorry, you well is you're here. I feel like I had like lots of references for him I'm gonna throw it at him, but I think he's just left When do they think think when do they begin thinking about buying a home? So where does the actual journey start remember the meta question didn't answer or point you in any of these directions So these are all individual projects that you can work on and then you go back to your tenants See what you believe in and then apply those tenants here Where do you where do they typically look for a home online offline? So how I know Catherine just had a wonderful discussion on the property sector and agents are huge in Singapore, right? And we always take the path of Least energy so it's easy to call agents and like hey, I'm looking for a house in this particular area Can you help me rather than looking for all the information digitally? If they haven't found a home yet, how can we help them understand eligibility? Right. What are their concerns? All they want to know is can I even afford a home? Is it even Rational for me to think of getting a home am I being stupid? Sometimes they just need a yes or a no Okay So probing helps you get to that particular direction that you can then pursue So what you will then have is an overarching strategy. So my overarching strategy is turned business considerations Into customer and customer insights into a user centric strategy and design execution So I've highlighted the main ball points business insights user centric strategy and design and they follow in that order because I firmly believe That if I am empathetic to my users, I also need to be empathetic to my business I will not survive longer in this profession if I'm not empathetic to my business So I keep that as one of my tenants, right and I don't mince around with that. I'm honest and true about it So two steps so far does anyone remember what the two steps were actually even I forgot. Let's recap No, I'm just kidding step one be patient ask questions step two find the tennis that you believe in Step three create a toolkit that works for you I see a lot of new budding UX researchers when they come to me and say, hey, can you mentor me? You know, I really want to get into UX research. What are the techniques that I should learn? I'm really good at surveys or I'm really good at interviews and I'm like Try not to bucket yourself in the beginning before you've tried a couple of other methodologies So don't knock it until you try it so try methodologies that have a design focus or Testing focus or research focus or quality assurance focus try all various techniques and see where you are good at And as someone rightly pointed out during the summit if you don't do a thing for 10,000 hours You're not going to get be an expert in it So you really need to meddle with a technique for a long period of time before you can really feel like you get a hang of it So I've been doing research for close to seven years now But I still learn every day that I can get better at face-to-face interviews. I can get better at designing that survey questionnaire, right? Learning never stops An example of a toolkit for me for example going back to that home loans problem was What again probing and then figuring out what do I want to focus on? It can be the which what how why and then I choose the methodology Accordingly but what I do in principle and it has worked so far for me is that I attack the problem always from multiple direction I never go for one direction. So while the service can tell me what? Desirability testing where we basically just give the users a bunch of option and ask and see and observe sometimes Which option do they go for or it can be a guided usability testing where we help them achieve that task Basically, we're trying to find out what is more desirable to them, right? And the third approach is a customer journey mapping so customer journey mapping is an end-to-end process Which tells you where does the process where does your users journey start and where does it end and what happens in between? So you can see these three techniques really work well together because they attack the problem forms complementary perspectives so To get here took me about Three or four years of trying a lot of methodologies, right and doing them over and over and over again another good Technique in the toolkit could be an empathy map. Does anyone know what an empathy map is? Okay, good. Can anyone explain what an empathy map is to this wonderful audience? I Think an empathy map gets you into what your consumers say think feel and do so that you can start to Walk a day in their shoes I like that part it helps you to walk it in your shoes a technique is a technique But what it actually helps you to do is far greater than the rules that the technique brings So an empathy map essentially gives you a two by two matrix of Arranging your users feedback into think feel say do So for example the user is thinking what a great experience. I love it I can't wait to get back on this website, but what they're feeling is but maybe I can just talk to someone if they have a problem I mean What they're saying is yes. I'm ready to go digital. I'm ready to take all my financial decisions online with minimum human intervention But what they're doing is they're still not buying from those full digital Services and products so there's definitely a mismatch happening, right? So that's why empathy is a really great toolkit So what I would recommend One tip that you want is go 30,000 feet up figure out one or two techniques for looking at problems 30,000 and then figure out what that one technique is that really helps you get into the deep dive of the problem And keep doing that alternately do like a couple of really intense customer interviews collect data synthesize them break them into Chunks slice it dice it according to whatever you're looking for and then come back 30,000 view and then create Use a technique. That's like really gives you that upper picture could be an empathy map could be a customer journey mapping Could be an experience map. There's like tons of techniques out there and keep rotating between these two perspectives You'll be amazed at how much you get Influenced by biases and your own beliefs and values, right? And what you have to essentially train is to leave those biases out of the door when you walk into the door of that interview room Right leave your biases outside. Have fun. I mean, I think sometimes we just take things too seriously Of course then as a researcher But I tend to have a lot of fun at work, right? We have a great culture and money smart and we encourage Us to enjoy we're spending like nine close to nine to ten hours every day How can you be at a place if you don't enjoy it, right? You're gonna get burned out. So have fun along the journey I really like this quote because It kind of sums it up what I've spoken so far a good user experience like a measurable ROI Everyone knows ROI return on investment doesn't typically happen by accident It's a result of careful planning analysis investment and continuous improvement, right? Step four, so we're almost done. I will actually wrap up much sooner because oh you well is in the house Did you know your weed counter is at seven? Like the number of times you said weed during your talk try breaking that counter next time, okay? step four Dala Dala bills y'all. I mean, that's essentially what the business is gonna run on Again be true. What do you believe in? You want to believe in ROI or you want to believe in customer satisfaction or there's another matrix that you truly believe in just focus on that I mean, of course keep your job. You need guys. You need to contribute to that ROI So philosophical But you can always be honest that customer satisfaction is what I ultimately care about that's where that's where I am That's where I shine right and then you're you will see that your research Initiatives will start wiggling in that direction or be skewed in that direction But it will give you a true identity as a researcher and I think it's really important because long after UI is dead something that I heard in this conference the UI is dead You are you are who you are will still say right so be true try to be true to yourself So it's either ROI or customer satisfaction or NPS or whatever you want to believe in just focus on that And get it get ready to be humbled a lot of user research I feel comes whacking in my face where I thought this is what the user needed and ultimately what happened was that it was No, we're close to what my user needed I thought they're gonna click a and then click B and then click C and they just look at it for like 10 minutes Like that's it's right there Just click in start your journey because that's what I made the customer journey map for but they don't start the process I don't know what's going on in their brain, right? And user feedback is wonderful because it gives you area for an area of improvement And what users struggle with and what you think they struggle with are vastly different. I'll give you an example credit cards How many of us have credit cards? Okay, how many of okay, how many of you have credit card hands up How many of you have more than two credit cards? How many of you have more than four credit cards? How many of you have more than 10 credit cards? Yes, you ooh Can you just stand up? We want to chair for you. It's like you are my user right there. I Need to do an interview with you Okay, thank you so What users are struggling with is not whether I should go for credit card a or b Actually, what they are struggling with is what I call the competing parameter phenomena So in product what happens is that some products have a direct Direct price parameter that you compare around this is cheaper This is expensive go for the cheaper done decision done But for some products the parameters are competing they're competing against each other So higher cash back or minimum spend or maximum miles or maximum rewards It's like whoa, like what do I compare with what so it's the competing factors phenomena that make some products really complex and So they are struggling actually with that and who is aware that there is a group called miles lion on telegram Which is basically just having these kind of conversations. So there's an exclusive group on telegram where Users like actual Singapore local users are helping each other navigate this competing problem phenomena, right? They're not going digital. They're not going to forums. They're not going to Websites like comparison websites. They are going to social media like telegram and having this closed group conversation And if you don't focus on these things, they are going to switch especially when the cost of switch is one click So essentially it costs them zero dollars to switch. So they will switch step five balance always Okay, you have to balance your ROI with your customer satisfaction try try to balance it out. It's difficult but that's where There is room for growth as as as someone who wants to evolve in their field in their craft You have to learn how to balance these two perspectives Almost there almost there figure out an internal NPS. So everyone knows what an NPS is net promoter score Who will tell me what NPS is quick one liner? And PS and PS and PS. Yes It's in essence how likely the person is to recommend your product, but people use it for customer satisfaction as well Thank you for saying that even though. It's just supposed to Hint towards a recommendation propensity people often substituted for customer satisfaction NPS is not customer satisfaction, right? So figure out what you want to measure So that's on the customer side, but actually this slide was more internal NPS How likely are your teammates to refer a UX research activity within your own team, right? So you can have a quick survey saying I think the UX research initiators are easy to understand and put to action So you just shared with your team members and they're going to say on a scale of one to five You have some measurement of how well are you doing? Are you understanding their problems? Are you giving them the results that are useful for them? You're not creating reports that nobody is going to use right you're giving them the results in a format That's easy to digest for them or based on your experience. How likely are you to recommend UX research initiators to a colleague? So that's an internal NPS a true NPS So yeah, that's one way step seven get people excited. I mean as a research team of one I have kind of implanted in the team ways for them to get pumped up about research So I have just put up like a research wall of fame and started creepily taking Polaroid pictures of people in my in my office and every time they hear that that sound that the Polaroid camera makes it like oh her again But I do take random photos of people and I will put it up and what's gonna happen is I don't stop at that So I actually give them does this work? Okay bad UX yes I give them stamps for every time they do a UX research activity with me So they either get a yellow or a green depending on a survey or an interview and when they do five activities with me I will put a crown above their head. So they will be my UX champions We are no So I think getting people excited is also Really helpful in establishing a research culture ultimately this presentation was also about how can you start a culture? So these things can happen. If you're an introvert It's not necessary that you have to do these things But just figure out your own way of evangelizing research, right? I don't think we are at a stage where we can say only people who have personality traits ABC can make it good into UX research or designer and as we saw the panelists yesterday They said you actually don't need any degree to be in UX all you need is an inquisitive mind, right? And openness to learn that's all you need So that's it. I didn't get to recap, but I think the slides will be available so you can have your seven steps So questions you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active. I post regularly so we can connect there Quick word. We saw some wonderful sketching happening at our event. Oh my Q&A. Yes Oh, there are questions. Wow. Okay. Let me just take two quickly Can we too late? Yay. Okay Follow them on one word How to get users to plot customer journey map when they have a it depends journey example account managers day of life Hmm How to get users to plot customer journey map when they have a it depends journey Just map your it depends You need to put that it depends like that it needs to be on your map That's the shortest answer. I can give you when will you use quantitative and when will you use a quantitative research? What do you prefer? I am a big fan of mixed method research and that's Probably because of my training being in academia I think what each approach has its own benefit and I think people who do ethnographic research I really my heart goes out to you because it's really painful and it's a lot of hard work So you should have respect for people who do ethnographic research day in and day out, but I think We have data and data has power, right? And it has intelligence. So we should be using both So what I do is I use a mixed method approach and I try to corroborate both Quantitative and qualitative results with each other to make sure that I'm reaching a single source of truth And I'm not wandering in like data says this and my user says this Is it important for a UX designer to be good at research? Okay This one is a bit tricky designers also have their own research Practices right, but it just looks a bit different because as a UX researcher I'm focused on bringing my customer's voice to the team. That's that's my sole focus Whereas the design can designer can get into user research as well, but they can also Do design specific research, right? So I don't know what actually are the parameters that they definitely Look at but I know from personal experience that designers do their own kind of research, and I think it's mostly related to design philosophies or design trends or I don't know whatever designers do so they have their own research and user research is basically more Customers focus, but to this question. I don't think it's a rule that a designer cannot be a user researcher I think you can be both and you're an asset if you if you can do both How okay corner call what to focus on first I believe that You can go from quant to call much faster than call to quant right quant gives you an immediate Data-backed direction, which you can then verify with your call data So the journey is faster, but you can also do it the other way depends on on the research question How do you measure the caliber or success of a UX researcher? I mean, I think it draws back to the point of which matrix you want to contribute to are you an ROI person? Are you a customer customer satisfaction person? So whatever matrix you want to contribute to if you've shown an improvement in that I think you're successful and another way of measuring successful is also if you change the mindset of senior stakeholders If you start hearing the word research UX UX research wait, let's do research Wait, let's get data. You've already changed the mindset of team It's and it's addictive research is addictive once you know that there's a way to get to a more confident place Where you can make decisions you will always want to do that, right? I Think that's all we have time for I really wanted to showcase the Wonderful and you can find me Send me an email and I will answer I think we can take like one question from the floor maybe from the floor Oh, yeah, true. Yeah, any burning questions from the floor? Okay you guys So when it comes to user research, it tends to be sort of within the UX team mostly who owns it But when you have to share it with other teams Is there any central place that you put it that it's easier to share your? Research or a way for them to access it back when you don't have to guide them through it I mean, that's a good question. How do you communicate and research is as effective as it's communicated So I make sure that communication is happening at all times and as quickly as possible And yes, of course, there's a central place where all so-called decks or reports Whatever has been generated out of the research projects goes and sits and anyone who wants to access it can access it But I feel like and this is again data-bagged If it doesn't really matter for your KPI for that quarter Nobody's opening that report or that deck, right? All they want to is find that one easy digestible format Just tell me and I will go and make that decision because people are just busy, right? So yeah finding an effective communication Methodology is up to you. How does your team want to communicate? Do they want to read reports or do they want to actually get in a room for like 45 minutes every week and then figure out What outcomes that research has led or that research project has led? So that is more like field basis But I think there is huge value in documenting everything that you do because Research doesn't happen in silos, right? It needs to feed. So yeah Keep documenting it so that a new hire or a new joining can really read that go through it and figure out and be On-boarded much faster rather than you walking them through all the projects that has that have happened. Okay Sorry last question. So as as you collect all this History of whatever research you've done does it help to sort of map out where you've come with the research in Terms of that particular product that you're developing. Do you do it annually or it doesn't help to do it? Just to give you a holistic view of like Do we need to do more in certain areas versus not? What are your thoughts? So again, it depends we generally do like small asks for research like contextual inquiry or mid-sized projects would take about two to three weeks Usability testing designing prototypes testing them out with remote users or live users We do a lot of live usability testing and money smart and then the final one is So small mid and then large something that runs across six months like big asks and big projects complete revamps of Projects replatforming of projects. So of course tracking is important. You have to go back and see whether that project Delivered something that was measurable right measuring is important and you will only know whether it worked if you measured it So the short answer is yes We do measure it go back look at the mistakes that we did things that worked out But more importantly we learn that we have to embed our metrics in our research projects Otherwise, we'll never know whether it worked right and those metrics are dependent on the research question that you're answering Okay, any more burning questions Okay, we'll connect later So these are like some wonderful sketches that I saw of Some young designers that are in the room. So I actually want them to come up if you see your your design on on the projector Let's see if we can figure out who they are Catrin you're here So there's a little sketch for you when you were doing your talk Can I have Rinalini up on the stage. Can we give her a round of applause for those wonderful sketches? There's Ilkar and is Mitushi here. I don't is Mitushi here. No Okay, Rinalini, can you tell us? How did you get into design and how does sketching help you in Making more out of let's say a talk Hi everyone first of all, I want to thank Anu to invite me over for this conference Was a really great break from my routine at work. Yeah, just sitting in front of the computer the whole day Yeah, so I got into design. I went to design school at NID So I think that's when I got into design as such But my passion for drawing etc started like when I was probably eight or ten So I started dueling at a very young age and yeah, just my mom spotted this and she sent me to design school Yeah, so that's how it started and I think it really helps me listen. So through the conference, I was making small doodles and When I look back at these I probably if it was just notes, I probably wouldn't look at it I will just throw it away. So these doodles will help me read through the notes. So yeah, that was it Thank you. Is Aditi here Aditi from Ruffle candy No, okay We have another Beautiful sketcher. She's not here. She was here yesterday. If you are here, please Get up. No, I think her name is Pramiti and She did some wonderful sketches, but her approach was quite different. So as you see, I'm a researcher at heart I was collecting data and then seeing patterns like this person really thinks differently because she did individual talks Whereas for me Nalini, it was more like what were the more like broader learnings from from that one and one hour talk So there's one for Prakriti Aditi and she has like I think she did the whole day one So everyone who presented on day one got lucky. We have Gideon Gideon you're here Pretty simplistic We have And for Caitlin, I think she got the bangs, right? So you can actually go to her Instagram handle, which is Pramiti S Just say a quick word of thanks to her or ask her for the sketch if you want Is oh another Gideon. Oh, okay And finally some activity also on LinkedIn. We've had people making notes and then putting them up. Is Wayman cow here? Oh, she's here. Welcome. Okay. Can you introduce yourself? What you do and what's your process of coming up with these sketches? Hi, my name is Wayman. I'm a product designer at pivotal so The process of coming up with this actually you need to I was I had to listen very closely because I Was only trying to write down all the things that were relevant to the topic and sometimes I summarized Some of the points so I wasn't trying to just write down everything that was on the PowerPoint for example So it's a lot of active listening Yeah Active listening, okay And yeah, that's about it. That's a wrap for us. Thank you for being such a wonderful audience for the last three days And enjoy the rest of your evening. Thank you