Gone learnin’

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash I'm taking a quick break from blogging. I know I said I'd post monthly, but I have a good excuse to skip a couple months: learning. I'm taking an online course called UX Data Analysis from HEC Montréal on edX. It runs about 6 weeks and requires 6-9 hours…

Combining usability metrics into a single score

I'm a former chemical engineer, software tester, programmer, and UX designer who is transitioning into quantitative UX research. I write here monthly. If you're new to Quant UXR, check out my article How to get started with Quantitative UX Research. If you're an expert, leave me a comment to let me know all the mistakes I've…

How Quant UXR works in the real world

Edit: I'm transitioning from WordPress to Medium. To see the latest version of this article, see How Quant UXR works in the real world on Bootcamp When I wrote How to get started with Quantitative UX Research, one of the steps was "Learn about Quant UXR in the real world". I included a couple articles from…

Expert Quant UXR advice from Sauro and Lewis

It was a Monday afternoon. My coworker Jason, a Senior UX Researcher, was talking through a study. Jason had done most of the planning and I had done most of the analysis. There were dozens of people on the Zoom call, most of which were much higher than me on the totem pole, and many…

Stats in spreadsheets

I am reading the book Quantifying the User Experience by James Lewis and Jeff Sauro. Slowly. It is a BEAST. I'm also trying to recreate all the calculations in Google Sheets. I know, I know. There are templates and Excel companions available. I don't want that, though. I want to build the formulas by myself…

My 3 new lenses from Advancing Research Conference 2020

Imagine visiting New York City for the first time and hanging out with hundreds of people who share your interests. Imagine watching real, in-person talks from several leaders of your field. Leaders that you've followed for years and learned from via podcasts, books, and more. Imagine the impact that this would have on the way…

Biases in science

TL;DR: Science has biases, but there are ways to reduce these biases. I've been bingeing lately. No, not on Netflix. Way nerdier than that. On a podcast. About economics. I love Planet Money The Planet Money podcast is interesting and entertaining. They take topics like unions or escheatment and explain them in an accessible and…

Cognitive biases in user research

In the late 1800s, there was a famous horse in Germany. Clever Hans was famous because he could do math. Hans's owner would ask him questions and Hans would tap his hoof the correct number of times. Hans toured Germany, showing off his skills to audiences for over a decade. A horse that can do…

Case study: Tactics of User Experience Research at ADP

This is part two of two, focusing on the tactical details of ADP's UX Research. For high-level strategy, see Case study: Strategy of User Experience Research at ADP I first got into user experience research by reading "Rocket Surgery Made Easy" by Steve Krug. This book was empowering because it was a step-by-step guide. It covered…

Usability testing is fun

Last week, a colleague and I ran an eight-person usability study with a big customer. We started at 6:30, so it was a super-early, super-long day. https://twitter.com/sgryzko/status/1111008963737194496 Iterating on the product AND the process Yes, it was exhausting, but I love this stuff. You take your best guess at a design then you put it…