How to get a UX mentor on ADPList.org and make the most of it
Finding someone to learn from can be a hard problem for UX professionals. There are Youtube videos and online classes, of course, but what if the question is specific to your project or role?
ADPList.org makes this easy.
It’s a platform where anyone can book a session — for free — with UX Rookies or Directors of UX, CEOs or Professors, Researchers or Designers.
Like any other social endeavor though, it needs some work to get the most out of it. Don’t skimp on the work! Here’s how:
Prepare well
Treat a session on ADPList like any other interview. A session lasts 30 minutes, which is just enough to set context and then ask 1–2 specific questions — prepare these beforehand. Don’t expect to do a free wheeling chat. Save that for when you do a second chat with the same mentor.
And don’t worry about the session being short — most mentors are happy to do more sessions. In fact, one mentor writes that repeat sessions are what make the mentoring worth it for him.
Ask specific questions
Most mentors expect specific problems. This makes sense as the mentors will try and draw on their experience to answer the question, but cannot possible know everything.
What are good questions? Good questions follow the same rules as a good case study. Define a central context ( I’m fresh out of college looking for a job), State the facts ( Can’t get through the interview stage in the recruitment process), and then state the question ( How do I get better at job interviews ).
Remember, the context must be about you. Most mentors are happy to talk about your context, but do not want to reveal too much about their own work.
This also means that mentors may not appreciate overly generic or theoretical questions. But there is a workaround to ask broad questions — look for professors and teachers! (yes they’re on there too).
Read mentor bios carefully
Read the mentor’s bio carefully to understand if they can help you.
Look for keywords in the bio — do they specifically mention topics that interest you?
Look at where they work — does it match your context? (consumer research can be different from enterprise, for instance).
Look at years of experience. Newer folks will be better positioned to talk about entering the field as a newcomer, while more experienced folks would have a better overview of processes or strategy.
A real life example (with names changed)
Chia is a mid career researcher hoping to join a product based company’s research team. She wants to learn more about product research, and what would make for a good company to join.
Chia goes on ADPList, and searches for “UX Researchers”. She filters for Leads and Managers, since she wants to get a view from the hiring side.
She looks up a couple of profiles and checks their bios for keywords like “product research”. Finding a suitable profile in her timezone , she books a session.
Here’s how the session went. Chia first gave her context, and then asked questions. Notice how Chia didn’t just ask rapid fire questions; instead she took notes, went back to the points mentioned in the conversation, and then she drilled down those points to make sure the answer was specific to her needs.
C: What qualities should I look for as a researcher in a company before I join it?
E: How do research projects happen — are they proactive or reactive?
What is leadership culture like — how much autonomy will you get?
How do researchers divide them into teams — am I reacting to multiple businesses or one?
How do new features get pushed out?
How open is the leadership?
Are people easy to talk to ?
C: I’m looking to transition to a product based org. Can you talk about what the role of a researcher will be in the development of new products?
E: Making new products is where things are very ambiguous. What are the stakeholders trying to accomplish? Help them to define a vision.
Ask what is their strategy? Then you can align research strategy to that.
C: Please talk about Methods in this stage of product development.
E: You have to learn to see at this stage of the product cycle how you have to contribute. The methods are secondary. Online there are a lot of research methods. But this stage is a more strategic part of research.
Let’s say we have a food delivery market expansion. You can go in two directions. Is the problem clear… if it’s clear then you know what to do — it is easy to scope research. But if it vague then you need to understand .. what they are trying to do. Use a variety of research methods to get there. You can do stakeholder interviews, do workshops…(she’s talking about the business problem being unclear, and that it is the researcher’s role to clarify the problem).
But if I think.. you are at an early stage startup, and they have an MVP, then your strategy will be different. Define measures.. then you can scope research. Let’s say I have an online bookstore. For the next 6 months, they want more users to come to their product. they also want to increase frequency. So thats a success criteria.
C: What if the team just has an idea and nothing else?
E: They need to have some kind of idea of potential users. You need to talk to your stakeholders to understand who is the product for. In a larger org they are bound to have market research.
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Try out these tips and see if ADPList is of help to you!
Stay Curious.
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References:
ADPlist from a mentor’s perspective (it’s not really a negative article, but talks about a senior mentor’s expectations):
