It's Our Research


Book Description

It’s Our Research: Getting Stakeholder Buy-in for User Experience Research Projects discusses frameworks, strategies, and techniques for working with stakeholders of user experience (UX) research in a way that ensures their buy-in. This book consists of six chapters arranged according to the different stages of research projects. Topics discussed include the different roles of business, engineering, and user-experience stakeholders; identification of research opportunities by developing empathy with stakeholders; and planning UX research with stakeholders. The book also offers ways of teaming up with stakeholders; strategies to improve the communication of research results to stakeholders; and the nine signs that indicate that research is making an impact on stakeholders, teams, and organizations. This book is meant for UX people engaged in usability and UX research. Written from the perspective of an in-house UX researcher, it is also relevant for self-employed practitioners and consultants who work in agencies. It is especially directed at UX teams that face no-time-no-money-for-research situations. Named a 2012 Notable Computer Book for Information Systems by Computing Reviews Features a series of video interviews with UX practitioners and researchers Provides dozens of case studies and visuals from international research practitioners Provides a toolset that will help you justify your work to stakeholders, deal with office politics, and hone your client skills Presents tried and tested techniques for working to reach positive, useful, and fruitful outcomes




Validating Product Ideas


Book Description

Want to know what your users are thinking? If you’re a product manager or developer, this book will help you learn the techniques for finding the answers to your most burning questions about your customers. With step-by-step guidance, Validating Product Ideas shows you how to tackle the research to build the best possible product.




Interviewing Users


Book Description

Interviewing is easy, right? Anyone can do it… but few do it well enough to unlock the benefits and insights that interviewing users and customers can yield. In this new and updated edition of the acclaimed classic Interviewing Users, Steve Portigal quickly and effectively dispels the myth that interviewing is trivial. He shows how research studies and logistics can be used to determine concrete goals for a business and takes the reader on a detailed journey into the specifics of interviewing techniques, best practices, fieldwork, documentation, and how to make sense of uncovered data. Then Steve takes the process even further―showing the methods and details behind asking questions―from the words themselves to the interviewer’s actions and how they influence an interview. There is even a chapter on making sure that information gleaned from the research study is used by the business in such a way to make it impactful and worthwhile. Oh, and for good measure he throws in information about Research Operations. But, hey, that’s just the nuts and bolts of the book. The truly fun part is Steve’s voice and how he portrays this information through amusing anecdotes about his career, fascinating examples from other practitioners, and tips and tricks that only the most experienced UX researchers, like Steve, could come up with. As a nod to the pandemic, he offers ideas for the best way to interview someone remotely, and he also discusses personal bias―how to identify and deal with it so that it doesn’t affect interviews. Everyone will get something from this book. But beyond the requisite information, it’s simply a good read. And if you want another good read with stories galore, pick up Steve’s other book Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries. "Quite simply the best book on when, why, and how you should conduct user interview studies." —Elizabeth F. Churchill, PhD, Senior Director, Google Who Should Read This Book? Anyone and everyone who is interested in finding out what makes their business tick, i.e., who their users are. Anyone and everyone who wants to learn how to interview and listen to people. Anyone and everyone, including CEOs, user researchers, designers, engineers, marketers, product managers, strategists, interviewers, and you. Takeaways User research is key for companies to include in their design and development process. The best way to do user research is through interviewing users and determining their needs. Interviewing can identify what could be designed or what is actually a problem. Teams who meet their users face-to-face will build better products. Field research takes a lot of preparation to be successful―and a solid plan in advance. There are critical techniques and frameworks for mapping human behavior. A good interviewer always puts their participants at ease. If you ask the right questions, you’ll get the right answers. A smart interviewer checks their worldview at the door. To establish a rapport with your interviewee, listen and don’t be judgmental. Research data is a combination of analysis and synthesis. The importance of research analysis must be continually highlighted and emphasized to the powers that be.




It's a Matter of Fact


Book Description

In this new book from Routledge and MiddleWeb, author Angie Miller shows how you can turn your students into informed citizens by teaching them how to research effectively. In today’s information-saturated world research skills have moved beyond fact-finding, into fact-sifting, fact-sorting, and fact-assessing. Miller shows you how to help students check sources, take good notes, make use of information, and synthesize and present information across the subject areas. She also shows how to make research a daily practice, not a one-time essay or project. With examples and online handouts you can use immediately, this practical book is a valuable resource for educators seeking to engage students in their work and encourage them toward higher level thinking.




It’s Our School, It’s Our Time: A Companion Guide to Whole-School Collaborative Decision-Making


Book Description

It’s Our School, It’s Our Time outlines a whole-school approach to teacher–pupil collaboration, illustrating how aspects of social inequality can be addressed by involvement in the school community and active participation in decision-making from an early age. The book presents insights into the psychological processes that are at work when pupils and teachers share decision-making, and how this can harness and increase motivation for teachers and their pupils. Combining both theory and examples of practice, this book provides clarity about the impact of collaborative decision-making and how it can help pupils to take ownership of their classrooms and promote greater cooperation and productivity. This book: draws on 25 stories from Dr Rowe’s own study and experiences as an educational psychologist, and the accounts of other educators and researchers. shows how teachers and school leaders have overcome some common hurdles that those in conventional schools might encounter. provides research-evidence and practical examples from real-life classrooms that will inspire teachers, teaching assistants and school leaders. Written by a highly experienced educational psychologist, this companion guide will help teachers, head teachers, teacher educators and student teachers to transform achievement, behaviour and motivation through greater collaboration with their pupils.




It's My Retirement Money--take Good Care of it


Book Description

From the Pension Research Council of the Wharton School




Just Enough Research


Book Description

Start doing good research faster than you can plan your next pitch.




It's Our Challenge


Book Description

In this highly engaging, instructive and even inspirational inquiry, Jonathan Mirvis illuminates the tapestry of Jewish education innovation with the lens of the work and theory of social entrepreneurship. He tells us how and why some Jewish educational innovators succeed and how to recognize the most promising ventures in the field. This work will appeal to anyone engaged in Jewish educational change or social entrepreneurship of any kind, as it contributes to our understanding of both worlds of thought - Jewish education and the applied theory of social innovation. Professor Steven M. Cohen Research Professor of Jewish Social Policy, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Jonathan Mirvis has written a provocative and invaluable tract for our times, and for the uncertain times ahead. Whether Jewish "peoplehood" will have any meaning for the next generation in Israel and the Diaspora, depends largely on whether Jewish education can re-invent itself. Not only for our children and grand-children, but for "adults" and whole communities as well. Jerry Silverman President/CEO, Jewish Federations of North America The good news is that Mirvis believes it can happen. He shows us how to build on the trailblazing initiatives of some of the visionary Jewish educators and funders who've "changed the rules" - and whose stories Mirvis tells with great warmth and insight. And, critically for the author, by adapting his theory of change as it applies to social entrepreneurship marketing, and the online knowledge revolution. This is not just an important book about the need for more "disruptive innovation" in the Jewish world; Mirvis is himself the "disruptive innovator." He's brought together his wide experience in adult Jewish education internationally, his deep immersion in Yiddishkeit, and some novel, even radical thinking about - dare we say it - how to market and sell a social product. Ever the teacher, he's given educators, funders, policy-makers, and community leaders essential homework to complete. Read this book!




Delta CX


Book Description

Delta CX is a refreshing model bringing CX and UX together in task and in name with the key goal of improving the products, services, and experiences (PSE) that we offer our potential and current customers. Rather than following trends or drinking the snake oil, Delta CX presents a time-tested, thorough approach that helps you establish values, vision, strategies, and goals. Great PSE require the right teams and strategies in place to proactively predict and mitigate the risk of delivering wrong or flawed PSE. Adopting Delta CX means we all finally speak the same language, from tasks and deliverables to job titles and required skills to where CX fits into Agile organizations to processes and teams. Calculate the ROI of investing more time and resources into building the right PSE the first time. Save time, money, and sanity. Replace guessing and assumptions with Lean customer research that is planned, conducted, and interpreted by experts. Learn why quality should be our #1 priority, and how to rededicate our organization to our external and internal customers.Target audiences: Managers, workers, practitioners, freelancers, consultants, contractors, execs, stakeholders, and everybody else working in CX, UX, Marketing, Product Management, Engineering, Project Management. Business Analysts (BAs), Data Scientists, Writers, Visual Designers, Information Architects, Interaction Designers, Product Designers, and Researchers.The long and problem-focused version: In an era of faster, faster, faster, our workplaces are sacrificing quality, collaboration, culture, and the customer experience to "just ship it." Business goals don't seem to align with customers' needs. Customers constantly raise their standards and expectations, and they notice when companies are out of touch or get it wrong. Competitors, investors, shareholders, the press, bloggers, social media, and Wall Street also notice. Brands are being surprised when their products, services, and experiences (PSE) are disliked or rejected by customers, or go viral for the wrong reasons. Companies claim they are customer-focused, user-centric, and designing for the needs of real customers. Initiatives to increase the ability to build the right PSE should have meant hiring more CX and UX talent. However, with UX still misunderstood, circumvented, overruled, and excluded at many companies, workplaces that didn't know how to assess CX and UX talent hired anybody who put "UX" on their resume. Poor hiring choices lead to silos and "bad design." Rather than wondering if "UX" workers were unqualified, leadership blamed UX and User-Centered Design (UCD): They must be bloated, outdated, not Lean, not Agile things we don't really need. We started imagining that "everybody can be a designer." Get people sketching in design sprints, and solve our company's biggest challenges. We called for democratization and decentralization of UX and design because perhaps taking some power away from these "high-ego UX people" we hired will fix this. Suddenly, everybody was a design thinker doing design thinking, yet few people can agree on what design thinking is.Everybody became quietly desperate. UX practitioners wanted to evangelize, and invited teammates to UX evangelism presentations, which often backfired. Companies of all sizes and ages, including Fortune 500s, tried methodologies designed for startups. Startups fail roughly 95% of the time. It's so rare that they innovate or build something the public actually wants. Why would we want to emulate a segment with such a high failure rate? We're lost. We need another business transformation, a return to prioritizing the quality of what we ideate, architect, design, test, build, and unleash on the public.(Return to the top for the short and happy version.)




Now It's Our Turn


Book Description

Now It's Our Turn is a woman's handbook for creating gender balance in the home and in the world. Grounded in sociological, psychological, and statistical research, this book offers spiritual and practical solutions that women can put to use in their lives.