>> JEFF MARTIN: Okay, we're going to go ahead and get started. I am Jeff Martin. I am the Director of Communications and Public Affairs at the American Anthropological Association. I am an older, white male as can be attested by my graying brown hair. I am wearing black framed glasses, and I am wearing a light blue collared shirt, and I'm reporting to you from the confines of my bedroom, since we're still in the throes of this pandemic, but we're seeing light at the end of the tunnel. Welcome to "User Experience Jobs from the Inside Out." This is the second part -- This is the second of an eight part "Pathways to Careers Webinar Series" brought to you by AAA, and these -- this series will run through April 22nd, covering everything from public sector positions to working in hospital settings or even cultural resource management. You can see the schedule on the slide that's being presented and learn more about the Webinar series by going to our Web site which I posted in the higher up in the chat room. All of these career webinars will be held on Thursdays at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight -- I'm gonna go ahead and say Daylight Time. We turn to daylight this weekend, so 1:00 p.m. on Thursdays Eastern Daylight Time. Back to this number. To make it more accessible to everyone, we're providing closed captioning, and to get closed captioning, what you need to do is move your cursor down to the bottom portion of your screen -- of your Zoom screen, and you will see the icon, closed captioning icon. Click on that, and you will receive closed captioning. If you would like to ask your question verbally or hop on video, please use the raise hand feature. Again, this can be found in the reactions icon that's also at the bottom of your screen. If you have any access needs, please direct them to Nell. She's our accessibilities coordinator, and she is listed as such in the chat feature. Also a reminder to please turn off your video and microphones unless speaking as this will help increase our bandwidth. If you have any questions, again let's use the chat room icon and put the word, "Question". It helps us filter out the conversations from the actual questions. So put "Question" and then ask your question there, and we will take a look at it as soon as we can. We want to make this as interactive as possible. So the panelists have agreed that we'll have a Q&A section at the end. However, to make it more conversational, if you have a question, post it in the chat right away. We'll be monitoring, and we'll actually stop and say, "Oh wait, there's a question. Someone didn't understand what you just said," and we'll clarify. So I'm going to make this, as I said, as interactive as possible. Go ahead and put your questions in the chat there. Ok, without any further ado, I am now going to introduce Elizabeth Briody. >> ELIZABETH BRIODY: Hi, everyone. I'm Elizabeth Briody. I'm a white woman with brown eyeglasses and short hair, and today, I am wearing a blue top. I'm in my alcove, a little space in my home with a window. So I'm really excited that you are all here. We think we have a great set of presenters for you on user experience, and we hope you get a lot out of it. Just to build on what Jeff said, any questions that you have, put them in the chat, and any one of you attending can feel free to try to answer those questions if you have something to say about them. So don't be shy. After this webinar is over, you will receive through your e-mail an evaluation. We hope that you will complete it, and send it back to us so that we can improve on these webinars as time goes by, and then one other note, I'd like to just take a moment to thank the staff of the AAA for all they are doing to put on these webinars. It does take a lot of effort on their parts. So Jeff, Scott, Nell, and Gabby, especially, thank you so much. Next slide. So today our webinar is called "User Experience Jobs from the Inside Out." Next slide, and we have two speakers. Our first speaker will be Rachel Fleming from Aetna, which is a CVS Health Company, and our second speaker will be Lisanne Norman from Gusto Inc. Next slide. Take it away, Rachel. >> RACHEL FLEMING: All right. Thank you so much. So I'm Rachel Fleming. I'm a white woman with blue eyes and blonde hair. Today, I'm wearing a blue top and a gray sweater, and I'm here in my home office with a picture of a landscape and a book shelf with a few books behind me. Next slide. I wanted to say thank you for the AAA for inviting us and for holding this. I think that's a great thing. I am an anthropologist. I have a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado - Boulder that I got in 2016, and I have been working as a user experience researcher for the past three plus years now. Currently, I'm a senior user experience researcher for Aetna Health, which is a health insurance company that's part of CVS Health. My team is currently redesigning an online experience for older folks to shop for and enroll in Medicare plans. So that's exciting. I get to interview Medicare members and test design prototypes to make sure elderly people can find a plan that is best for them. And so I work with lots of different people in that role, primarily designers. We're also working in an agile software environment, which means that we have lots of teams trying to build a software product together, and that can be challenging and exciting all at once. So I can get more into that as we move on. Next slide. I see a question, do any of the designers that I work with have training in anthropology? I do not believe so, but they are research minded, meaning they are very attuned to how people are using software and are very interested in user research techniques. So I have been mentoring them in using various user testing platforms, and a lot of them are able to kind of take it on their own and have ideas of what they want to test and I help them with the design. But I don't know if any of them have anthropology backgrounds in particular. Although that's not out of the ordinary. So what is user experience, also referred to as UX research? I want to take a step back and say anthropologists have been involved in the business world for a very long time. They have -- it's been called business anthropology. It's been called corporate ethnography. Elizabeth knows this very well, having worked in this field for a very long time, and I think just recently, in the past few years, it's come to be associated more with software and technology and user experience research, but it's by no means -- you know, UX research does not encompass everything that anthropologists do in industry. So I'll just try to define UX research briefly, and this is kind of the definition that I used in an article I wrote for American Ethnologist last year, and I sort of cobbled together from what -- what I think. Other people might have other views about what it is. So UX research is a process of conducting research with people -- that is key -- usually qualitative but has quantitative aspects. You can definitely look at data, analytics, surveys that are more quantitative. The research answers questions about human behavior and motivations, and it should help a team design a product or experience that actually fits the needs of the people who might use it. There are also other aspects, you know, business needs, other considerations, but we try to put the person who's using the software, engaged in the experience at the center. Kay. Next slide. So why should anthropologists go into UX research? So the first obvious answer is that we are trained in qualitative methods, and so we know how to interview people. We can do participant observation. We can take good notes and we know how to synthesize data. So, first, qualitative methods are very valuable for understanding what people think, and how they behave, and secondly, we're really trained to synthesize that data, which means we collect data from many sources and figure out what the patterns are and focus on meaning. So this is a skill that is difficult for a lot of people. I've seen quite a few people, you know, run user tests or conduct interviews and then not know what to do with the data they get. So it's important that we kind of know how to take this big mess of data and find the meaning. We also understand that the field where we conduct research is not only with people or customers who end up using a product or service, but it's also with internal teams and stakeholders in the organizations where we work, and that's probably more than half of my job, is to understand who the teams are, what the context is for the project that I'm working on, if there's any sort of history between the teams, what kind of data has been collected already, and sometimes I find groups that have incredible resources for the project I'm working on that no one thought about before. Just recently I started talking to the salespeople within my organization who actually walk Medicare enrollies through the process of finding a plan that's best for them. They know how -- what the questions are and how to do this, and they're totally an internal team. So I'm just embarking on a research project with them. Kay. Next slide. So in terms of how I problem solve in this position, I find that I do a lot of problem scoping. So I say problem solving is often problem scoping, and by that I mean defining the problem can be more important than finding a solution, and if you're not starting with the right questions, the answers will not have an effective impact. Meaning if the problem is not -- if they don't know what the problem -- what problem they're solving, it doesn't really matter what kind of research you do because you won't end up getting the results that you need, and so I do a lot of work as I call it a mediator or a translator between groups in software development to figure out what problems we are solving, and what's already been done, how we can build on that, where the gaps might be. I work with designers, developers, project managers, and leadership, various others, and these are all people who have sort of a particular view on the project and what we're doing. So it really helps to have kind of that anthropological sense of, you know, this person's coming from this angle. They see things from this angle. How can we all work together on this project? In building software, I also find a lot of motivation in advocating for the needs of the people who will use that software, and believe it or not, the voice of the people who will be using this can get lost in these large complex software projects, and I think it's really important to have someone who is kind of speaking for them and putting their comments front and center letting people know, you know, they're really confused by some of these things. They don't understand this terminology. They just want to talk to someone if they get confused. You know, they want an easy way to reach out. So that motivates me when I gets frustrated with other things happening. Kay. Next slide. So why do I like this work? Why do I do it? I enjoy being part of a team. So I said teamwork and mentoring are the two reasons why I like this work, and I found academia to be a bit isolating. I got into anthropology because I like people, and I like talking to them, I like working with them, I like collaborating, and when I was writing up my dissertation I found I was kind of by myself, at home or in coffee shops most of the time, and, you know, it really trained my brain to think about research and to think about research and to think about qualitative data in a new way, I think, but I missed people, and my current work involves collaborating on difficult problems that are interesting with colleagues from lots of different disciplinary, occupational, racial, economic backgrounds, and we are able to bring in conversations into the company about how to talk to people who we might not find through usual recruiting methods. How to bring in more socioeconomically diverse and racially diverse populations to work with. These are really how to make our -- and also how to make our product more accessible in a real way. We have a whole accessibility team, and we're working closely with them. So I think it's an opportunity to kind of have a voice for things that we talk about a lot in this field, about diversity and inclusion, and there -- it's hard to do, but it's worth doing. So my current work involves designing a clearer way for seniors to find out from Medicare, help them find the best plan in a conversational step-by-step process that they trust, and a lot of that is kind of like understanding where they might have breaches in trust or why they might not trust an insurance company to sell them the plan, a plan that works for them. I think this was news to some of the people in the company that we were getting feedback that they didn't trust our recommendation, and so there's a way of kind of building trust with people to say, okay, this is why this one is going to work best for you and ultimately cost you the least amount of money in the long run, and, you know, we're going to take care of you. So it's a complex thing, it's hard, but ultimately they need that care, and they need that hand holding. I do like designing an experience that will work for everyone who might use it. This includes people with differing abilities and differing access to or comfort with technology. You can imagine a lot of the older people I work with aren't as comfortable with technology as some others are, and so I think in the last year they've become much more comfortable because of telehealth. They use their phones a lot. They're FaceTiming with their grand kids. You know, they understand kind of mobile interactions, and we should be designing experiences that are kind of in keeping with those expectations that they have, and I also enjoy mentoring people and helping people build careers. I feel very strongly that you have a right to a career that sustains you, both intellectually and financially, and I think academia is in a position right now where it's not necessarily set up to do that. So this kind of career can actually be a plan A. Not something that you do because something else didn't work out, but something you choose to do, and in fact, I did, and I enjoy it, and I think this is a better fit for me than other careers might have been. So I feel quite lucky that way. I'm also very grateful to many of the people who have mentored me along the way, who have kind of taken the time to talk to me about their experiences in the field, including Lisanne. I talked to her when I was kind of just getting started, and I think that's important to kind of see that there are other people who have done this path before and that it's worked out, and it's possible. So with that I will pass it over to Lisanne. >> LISANNE NORMAN: Thank you, Rachel. Next slide, please. So I'm Lisanne Norman, a black woman with brown tortoise shell slightly cat shaped glasses, and long dark brown hair worn in a style known as locs. Today, I'm wearing a white top. I'm in my office space at home with a whiteboard full of sticky notes behind me, and I want to say I'm really grateful for the opportunity that the AAA, like, allowed for Rachel and I to come here today and talk to you all, you know, about opportunities and industries outside of academia. I have a slightly different story than Rachel, but I love the fact that I wish I had known beforehand that this industry even existed, right? Before I graduated with my Ph.D. Next slide, please. I'll give you all a little background. I graduated with a Ph.D. in African and African-American studies and social anthropology from Harvard in 2015. Currently right now I'm a user experience research and head of research at Gusto Inc. Gusto Inc. is a human resources information system for small and medium businesses, and when I say that I mean size companies that have employees like one to ten employees -- that's really the place where we -- that's our sweet spot. My team, and I think as Rachel's mentioned, right? We service the voice of the customer, right? Like the user and our job is to help product teams, and usually these are comprised of designers, engineers, and product managers, you know, help them to understand and empathize what the users need, you know? What do they really need to be able to, you know, use our platform successfully and have a seamless experience and be able to help them grow their business as they're doing it? So I'll tell you all a little how I came to user experience. I graduated and thought that, you know -- from Harvard 2015 -- and I thought I would end up sort of teaching for a bit at UT-Austin. I got here to Austin, Texas, where I'm based, and sort of found out that wasn't a possibility and then a friend of mine, another anthropologist, actually a friend that Rachel and I have in common mentioned to me, she's like -- you know, tech companies, you know, they actually value having an anthropologist, like, being a part of team because you know how to talk to people, you know how to sort of synthesize data, you know, you know how to synthesize data, you know? You have -- you approach things with this, you know, an empathetic gaze, and I sort of was like, "Ok, I'll go sort of looking around, and I was really fortunate that I found a great research company here in Austin, and they were like, "Yes! You have these skills. Please come and help us with this project," and I began this journey, and I was really happy to be invited and really sort of stoked that AAA was holding these webinars because I think that there needs to be more conversation around the fact that there are other options, right? Like, based on the skill set, there's so many different industries that we could sort of apply our knowledge, our skills. So this is -- you know, this was a great opportunity, and I love that we're doing this. Next slide, please. So, one of the things that I really think about a lot, like, in this position as a user experience research is like, you know, empathy is such a strong part of it, right, and also the ethics. I think that, you know, as Rachel sort of mentioned as well, a lot of these companies weren't really thinking about who they were designing for. Like, they weren't thinking about the human element of it, right? So, you know, they weren't prioritizing these values, that I think that we learn a lot, right, as anthropologists, right, like, in our training. You know, I bring to the table also too my lived experiences and perspectives as a Black woman, you know, in the U.S. because a lot of the times you sort of, what I found in my experiences as on these product teams I'm usually the only person of color, sometimes I've been the only woman, right? There's a lack of diverse perspectives at the table and who's even designing these experiencees so we end up with products like -- I'll give an example -- like Google's self-driving car, they came to the realization after a lot of testing that the car was more likely to actually hit people with darker skin tone because they just hadn't tested. They hadn't tested on the diversity of, you know, skin tones and different types of people that the self driving car could, you know, interact with and again that goes back to who's at the table? Who's a part of this process? And for me the other thing I really bring to the table is, you know, I really try to engender then environment of collaboration, right? Because a lot of these departments in these companies you'll find where this product or marketing or business development, they're not talking to each other, right? And as anthropologists, one of the things that we come in, we kind of feel things out a little bit and get a sense of like, what's the culture here, right? Like, what are the -- what are the language they're using? What's the sort of behavior? And we bring that, I think, outside perspective automatically that helps us to say, "Hey, you know what, actually, that person in marketing is really saying the same thing you're saying over here in product so why don't we talk about this and maybe we can collaborate and actually, you know, design, again, design a user-friendly, user-focused product?" Next slide, please. You know, sort of the key, you know, capabilities, right, you know, again, that we learn from anthro, right? Analyzing and conveying user motivation and behavior to designers. Like we become translators in a sense that helps like designers and engineers to understand, you know, what is user motivation? What is it they're really trying to do to help them, you know, to build a better digital products because a lot of times, you know, they sort of think about it from their perspective and what we do is, like, "No, no, we're going to shift you out of that, and we're going to have you think about it from the user perspective. The other thing that occurs and that I've been really sort of advocate of is sort of getting these designers and engineers to think about the choices they're making, you know, as they design these products. Like is it ethical? Are you thinking about who could be harmed by this product that you're designing? Are you thinking about the most vulnerable population that may end up using this product and sort of pushing them to start from there, start the conversation from there. Like, let's invite these communities into this and find out what they think and get their feedback and their opinions, you know, and a lot of it, like we're taught, right, to observe, to listen attentively, right? To then be able to communicate effectively and take these findings that we gather as we do the research that we do, and we talk to these users to communicate that, right, to products teams, to marketing and executives in a way that they'll understand it, right? And one of the things that I use a lot when I'm doing the research that I do are video clips. I make it very real for them because they have to watch a user try to use the product, or they have to like hear the feedback, and sometimes it's -- the feedback isn't great but it's -- that's the whole point, right? You're understanding that where the pain points are and that really sort of brings it home for them. That's one of the things that I really love about the work that I do because I've seen the moments the light bulb goes on, and they're like, "Oh, wow, ok, we need to shift course," because now we actually realize we're not serving the user. Next slide. You know, like, the contribution that I think that, you know, we bring is about improvement. You know, again, I have really been an advocate, and I'm glad that recently there have been so many conversations in, you know, in tech, period, about how do we mitigate bias? How do we really, actually think about, you know, the fact that we are -- we're creating for a diverse world? How do we make inclusive products? Right? So one of the things I do is I lead teams through workshops and with exercises that force them to think about, oh, I actually do have this bias, you know? Oh, I might actually bring that in when designing this product. How do I get rid of that? How do I shift that now that I'm aware? You know, we're also trying to build experiences that are not disruptive, right? We're -- I think -- there's always this intention that the product that we're creating or the process, it's going to enhance people's lives and what we need to do is to make sure that that's true just because we think that in our head, like, "Oh, this is a great new thing," doesn't mean that it couldn't cause disruption. So figuring out as best as we can, how do we make this a seamless experience? Working with cross-functional teams, you know, I think is one of the things that I do love the most about it, is hearing those different perspectives and then sort of reminding everyone like, "Hey, you know what? Like, our common goal is serving our customers. Is this new feature or this new, you know, great new, like, add-on, is this going to enhance their lives? Is it going to serve the customer, or do we just think that it looks good?" Your like, you know, the reality is it's got to be functional. And the thing -- again, I've been, you know, sort of pushing these teams to think about who's at the table? Do we have folks who come from different backgrounds, who have experience in other industries even, right? Who look differently, think differently and also too like, you know, like, really pushing that, I think Rachel mentioned, accessibility, right? Like, are we thinking about it? Do we have anyone on the team, you know, that has accessibility challenges that's going to actually give us a different perspective? And again -- so, this is, these are the conversations I think they're having in this field, and I think it's great, right? Like we're pushing things forward, but of course there is a lot of work to do. Next slide, please. [PAUSE] So if you're thinking about UX, and I think that, you know, it is -- it's a great field, I think, as both Rachel and I have sort of found this kind of calling where, we're, you know, still talking to users, like sort of getting their perspectives, helping companies to sort of understand and to shift their perspective and to understand, like, this is how users think about it and interact with this product, right? This is the language they actually use. And I think as anthropologists we have those research skills. Play them up, right? Like, that's sort of -- that's a big thing. Like, that's what I did. As I was sort of coming into this field, I was sort of like, "You know what, I know how to talk to people, I know how to analyze data. You know, I take my time and sort of get a feel of the lay of the land, which I think is something that's so important in this position. My advice would be, for those of you who, you know, if you're not in a position to -- a lot of people go to boot camp, right, where they take courses that sort of help them in this, but if you don't have access to that, because it does cost, then one of the things I really suggest is, you know, like, partnering with a local nonprofit, right, and sort of seeing, like, do they -- are they -- do they have questions that -- research questions that they're trying to understand about the community that they're serving, and you can help them with that and then sort of be able to show, like, "Hey, you know, I've, you know, I did this research, and it helped this community have this impact that improved the experience in this way. The other thing is that a lot of large number of companies, or even not, like, my startup, like Gusto, they offer internships, right? So that's another opportunity to be able to get, like, real hands-on experience, because in a lot of these internships, you can work on projects that actually, like, will end up in the product, and you can say that you worked on that feature. The other thing I advise is definitely create a LinkedIn profile. Like, that is really the sort of tool that people are using to network, companies are looking to find people and reach out to people. Look into the -- you know, look to your alma mater, like, and look for people who do this, who are user experience researchers, and reach out. I literally try my best to make time to speak to everyone who reaches out to me, like, even if it's 30 minutes to give you sort of some insight and some assistance. We love that. Like reach out to us. You know, think about a company you might like. Find if they have user experience. Reach out to that person. You just, you never know. I've met so many people and found mentors through doing something like that. The other thing I recommend is joining a UX professional society, like there's talks and webinars. Noam Segal, he does UX Quests, where he has conversations with folks in different aspects of UX. There's an organization, UXPA - User Experience Professional Association, and they post a lot of resources and links, and then there's also User Experience LinkedIn Group. Join there, again, and reach out to people. This is -- it's really -- you're going to tend to find people who are going to be willing to talk to you because they like to talk to people and help them. So that is my advice, and I look forward to any questions you guys have. I see a question now: "What's the difference between a product manager and a UX researcher?" So, a product manager, good question, is sort of responsible for the overall product, right? Like they have to -- it's their job to, you know, be like, "Okay, this is this" -- the product they're working on a new feature, track, like, the work that's going on, like, who's going to do it, whereas me as a UX researcher, I might be -- they have to look at the overall entire arch of this product, where I get to focus on the discovery piece of it. Like the initial sort of finding out what are the questions that we need to ask? What are -- what is the goal that we want these users to have? And so I sort of go out and find that information, and then I sort of come back, share those insights with the designer and engineer and then, you know, the next phase of it moves on, and I'm not as involved with that part, whereas the product manager's keeping track of all of that. And there's a lot of questions coming through! I'm not sure -- >> RACHEL: So many good ones. >> LISANNE: Yes. >> RACHAEL: So, I -- I can address the one about the anthro BA versus MA versus Ph.D. I think, briefly, that the Ph.D. can be a liability when you're first getting started. People think you're overqualified and whatnot. After a little bit of experience, people are so excited about it. So I think you don't need a Ph.D. to do this by any means. Lots of master's degree people are doing great. MBA, you know, from lots of different fields. And user experience has people from all sorts of different disciplines. But I do think, if you have a Ph.D., you are considered for different kinds of jobs after you have some experience. Question about how I broke in. It was a long haul. It was a little dicey for a while, to be honest. I was living off my partner's earnings. I had student loans. I had two babies and was trying out a new career. It was tough. I ended up just getting frustrated with getting, like, to the final round of interviews and not getting the job, because I didn't have experience, and I did a couple of volunteer projects for startups, who, like, they were female-founded startups. I met them at Boulder Startup Week. I live in Boulder, Colorado, and I did like a month-long project for each of them. So I had something. I had case studies for an online portfolio, I could talk about it, and then I found a job at a local custom software development firm. I've worked in like four different groups or three different companies, I guess, in my career already, and it's pretty common to just -- to jump jobs, but, you know, it takes a little bit to break in. >> LISANNE: Yeah. I agree. I just, yeah, it does take a little bit to break in, but once you're able to, they see the value immediately, and I do think that anthro degree sort of gives you a little bit of a leg up. I think -- I see a next question about presentation -- >> ELIZABETH: Lisanne -- >> LISANNE: Yes? >> ELIZABETH: Let me just jump in for a second -- this is Elizabeth -- and say that we do have a lot of questions. We probably won't be able to answer them verbally during the time allocated for this session. We will get to as many as possible, but all the questions will have written answers by multiple people, and those will be posted on Communities on the AAA website. So just sit back and relax. We will get to your questions eventually. >> Thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you. It's -- I'm Lisanne speaking again. I will -- I'm going to answer this question about the shifting presentation, visualization of your research findings to highlight impact, yes. That is definitely something that I had to do and I will say coming from academia, one of the things I learned was make it short and sweet. When I first did my first presentation, it was full of lots of words, and they were like Lisanne, this is great if you were writing a journal article. However, you're presenting to share stakeholders, executives, product managers. Keep it short and sweet, and rely on visuals, right? Use visuals to tell your story. Use highlights, you know, of, you know, video clips and quotes from your -- directly from your users. Start with a top line so they know off the bat: these were my key findings, up front, because, you know, later you'll -- you sort of explain that, and then you have an addendum at the end, but they may not make it that far, and so you know at least in those first five to six slides, they have the take away. I would say that for me, yeah. >> RACHEL: I love the leveled approach, you know? You have, like, the one slide executive summary for people who want that. You have, like, three slides for more detailed findings, longer slides and appendices, and then links out. >>LISANNE: Yes. >>RACHEL: So it's kind of a choose your own adventure. >> LISANNE: Yes. I see this next question. "Quantitative research skills you think would be strategic to learn to compliment qual training." I learned on the job how to do surveys. I will say that is the one thing if you can have time -- if you can take a survey, like, course, or something like that, I would do that. I think -- for me, my personal experience, as anthropologists we weren't encouraged at all to learn any sort of Qual skills, and the one anthro person I know that did, you know, was -- raved about it, and I wish that I had done it, but I would say that, learn how to do a survey. Understand, you know, sort of, how to put one together, how to ask questions, that would be my advice. >> RACHEL: Yeah. I think survey design and maybe even some statistics just so you know what it is, kind of how to do it. Maybe learn a little bit also, if you think you might go into software, about what is software development? How does it work? What is agile? What are these terms that people use? I do see a question about different industries being interested, and tech dominates right now because that's just where a lot of money is and a lot of kind of movement is but UX researchers and anthropologists are useful in kind of a broader service design idea. So it's not just digital things. It's like a whole experience that someone is having. So hotels, airlines, restaurants, you know, physical spaces. All those things are definitely open to it and there are a lot of consulting practices, often it goes under design consulting and I worked for a design consultancy before this job, and that's sort of -- they're hire -- you know, they're hired to come in by a big company to help with their sort of whole service experience or experience design and that goes beyond tech. >> ELIZABTH: I noticed there was a suggestion -- this is Elizabeth. I noticed there was a suggestion in the chat for a book that people might want to get ahold of. A Book Apart is the name of the book. And there's a URL there. >> LISANNA: Yeah, that's a great suggestion. Definitely. Yes. What else are you seeing: Can you give an example of a workshop you led? So an example of a workshop that I lead is -- so when really -- we sort of started off and had all the stakeholders in the room, right? So the part of the business that wanted this research, the designers, and the engineers, and one of the things that we, you know, sort of gotta do together, you go through some, you know, ice breakers to get people comfortable, and then we started sort of with images and just asked people to sort of, like, write your thoughts, like, based on this image that you see here, and we had, like, different images. Like we had by racial group, gender, disability, like everything you can possibly imagine just to sort of start to get immediate, and you had, like, you had to quickly write it down, right? So you're doing, like, kind of like an implicit bias test, but with these visual cues, and then we went through and sort of looked at that, and then we asked them, "Ok, now describe who you think your users are," and had them sort of go through that and then, actually sort of showed them data that they were completely wrong [laughter] about their users and the reasons they thought -- because it was, again, based on what they think. So, again, just these sort of ways to get them to sort of confront, you know, their bias and their level of awareness. It was one of ways in which we do that, and then sort of taking that, then sort of mapping out, "Ok, now that you know these are really your users, how do you think we should go about reaching out to them?" And having them be part of that process and that thought process, and it -- it, we turned out, you know, sort of then designing like a really inclusive, accessible product in a way that we wouldn't have before. So that's, yeah, that's one example. >> RACHEL: Yeah, I think we -- this is Rachel. My team, my research team just watched a video from the latest UXPA Conference called, "We need to talk about race," and there's another one on inclusion that we'll watch next week, and so we've kind of opened the conversation to how can we change our recruiting practices so that we are getting a diverse, truly diverse group of people, and so we've got like, you know, a task force, and we're actually going to do it, which is really great, and it's not just, you know, we're trying to actually hire someone to help us with that. So it's important to have this not just be volunteer stuff, but have someone who's actually paid cause it's their job. So I think -- I think companies are very interested. I think they need to put resources to making it happen. >> LISANNE: Yeah. >> RACHEL: I saw a question about boot camps and post graduate degrees in user experience, and I have -- my two cents on boot camps. They tend to be design-focused, and so if you want to be a designer, they can be quite useful. I found them to be pretty successful for people who already have a strong research background or are coming from a graphic background like architecture. I have found they can be less successful for people without that backgrounds, and they are a lot of money. I think for UX research in particular you can find more targeted classes that teach you kind of the deliverables that you might be expected to produce and some techniques. What you really need is some real world experience. If you can do a postgraduate degree and get that experience, fantastic, but if not experience trumps boot camp, I think. >> LISANNE: Yes, and this is Lisanne. I agree with everything Rachel just said plus one. >> ELIZABETH: This is Elizabeth. Chelsea had a question about would you repeat the name of the conference that you mentioned? >> RACHEL: Sure. UXPA: User Experience Professionals Association. I would also make a plug for the Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference website. It's epicpeople.org. They have great resources on social scientists who are doing this work. >> ELIZABETH: This is Elizabeth again. Angie had an interesting question about what do you do when leadership doesn't accept your recommendations? >> LISANNE: That's a good question. This is Lisanne. For me, one of the things that I will say that I've found less problems with that because what I do again, and I'll emphasize this so much: include clips of users talking about their experience. Because if you present it without that sort of real, they think that it's -- they can sort of in their heads tell themselves it's your opinion, right? That somehow, your bias is coming through in this. However, when they have to see a user having a problem. You know, like, I had, literally I had a video where a user was crying because they were so upset about what the experience that they were having. That this sort of brings it home and sort of removes that problem because they know that it's not you, this is their user, and you remind them, you're like, "Hey, you know, we say we're a user-centric company. Then this is what our users are telling us. We have to listen." >> RACHEL: Yeah, and another -- this is Rachel -- another technique is to bring leadership into the research process with you and actually have them do things. So, like, take notes in an interview or help you kind of affinity map data that you have, and if you can get them to do things like that or design a workshop to help them work with -- work with the data, they get more into it, and they get kind of invested, and if you can't do that, video is wonderful, always, because it makes it real to them. These are actual real people. But yeah, just getting buy-in is important from the beginning. When you give a readout or shareout or whatever, it shouldn't be surprising. >> LISANNE: Yeah. >> ELIZABETH: This is Elizabeth again. Yuson -- hi, Yuson! She has a question. What are some of the deliverables and techniques you recommend to learn to be a successful U.S. researcher job candidate? >> RACHEL: I think there are -- there are a few. I mean there's -- there's qualitative methodology and then more quant. Qualitative usually falls in kind of generative work, which is like figuring out the current experience. So that might be conducting user interviews, perhaps group sessions, stakeholder interviews and creating -- I have often created a journey map for that as the deliverable. Then evaluative techniques, and surveys can also fall into generative, of course, and then evaluative technique can be more testing what might be a design prototype. So something that a designer has put up, like a mockup of the screen, and seeing how that tests with users. Doing a concept assessment, which is a little less technical. Let's see. And creating -- I mean, there -- I've used journey maps a lot. I have never really used an empathy map, but that is a deliverable that's out there. >> LISANNE: That is. Also, a service design map. I've used a lot of that. Also too, sort of, something that takes that journey map from the user experience, the user-centric focus, but then also on the backend, what is -- what's happening in the company and sort of being able to combine that and show that visual to folks particularly when you're in a company that's siloed, where like one set of individuals responsible for one part of the experience really have no clue what happens after that part of the experience ends for the user and even on their side. That's been a great deliverable that's been like an "aha" moment for folks. >> RACHEL: An experience road map is another way of putting it, and you can put these terms kind of into your search engine and find examples. I use personas sometimes, and a persona is kind of like -- or an archetype -- it's kind of like how does your -- the group's, the people that you're interested in, do they fall into meaningful groups of some kind and for my current position, that's like, how engaged in health are they? How -- and -- and how many health issues might they have? Sort of like behavioral characteristics. So that can be useful, and it can help a team to kind of think about, "Okay, this needs to work for people who are super engaged as well as people who would rather not think about it." >> ELIZABETH: This is Elizabeth again. Alejandro had a question for both of you about how the research methods that you normally use have changed during the COVID era. >> LISANNE: That's a great question. So -- this is Lisanne. The answer -- so one of the things that I was doing a lot of, actually, was, what we call contextual -- or like what we all know as participant observation, right? We do do that as well. So that's changed dramatically, right? Like we can't go and observe people in their environment using our product or doing what it is that we're looking to understand. So that's changed a lot. I think even doing usability testing, right? Like, having to now do that remotely. Like, we're doing interviews, you know, using Zoom more and figuring out ways to -- especially when we're doing mobile testing. That's still actually a challenge that we're finding is how to do usability testing for a mobile phone or mobile app, coming up with creative ways to ask users to, you know, help us to execute that. So that's been a big change. >> RACHEL: Yeah, I think -- this is Rachel. I think nothing really can substitute for participant observation, especially in certain settings, like in a hospital or a store, but a lot of researchers have started using diary studies. That can actually be a great way, especially -- everybody has their phones -- they take little video clips of themselves and answer things kind of in the moment, and that can be a great kind of window into what they're thinking at a particular time in a way that feels maybe a little less intrusive. >> LISANNE: Yeah. This is Lisanne, and I'm sorry just one other thing that occurred to me is another thing we started using was microsurveys. So within the experience, we just pop up one question as they've just done something to get quick feedback from as well. >> RACHEL: I see Elizabeth's question -- this is Rachel -- about growing your career in UX and can you become SMUs or contribute? Oh, yes. I think early on in your career, unless you are quite specialized as an anthropologists and go straight into that specialty, like healthcare or something, you may become a UX research generalist for a while, and then eventually -- and then you start to specialize, sometimes. So some people do specialize in certain fields. Artificial Intelligence is a particular area where a lot of anthropologists are finding traction, because, and especially artificial intelligence in ethics -- >> LISANNE: Yeah. >> RACHEL: -- because they're realizing, "Oh, anthropologists kind of understand the larger ramifications of a technology, perhaps they can help guide us." >> ELIZABETH: This is Elizabeth, I'm sorry, folks, but we are going to have to wind down. Let's just finish up with a summary slide here. Next slide. So we have six key takeaway points that we hope will be useful to you as you contemplate whether this kind of career would be useful to you. First, of course, UX jobs build on the skills that you learn in school as an anthropologists. As a key point that Rachel talked about was how important project -- problem scoping is and as important as problemsolving. A third key point that UX work can help expand access to digital resources, specifically in getting seniors to apply for Medicare online. Four, have to be aware of ethics. Five, critical to collaborate. Six, anthropologists really can be useful in helping mitigate bias in design. Next slide. So, you will be receiving an evaluation. Please fill it out. Everything will be posted on Communities and register for our upcoming webinars. Next slide. Our next one is next week. Same time. Same place, virtually, anthropologists working in hospital settings, and we hope you'll enjoy that. Next slide. I think that's it. Thank you so much for your time and attention, and we look forward to seeing you at another AAA career webinar. >> LISANNE: Thank you, everybody. >> RACHEL: Thanks, everyone. Bye.