What’s with UX Research layoffs?
Resistance to research is causing a lack of value for the role of UX researcher and in turn, users are the ones missing out.
Layoffs disproportionately affect women and minorities, because they target roles that are more often held by them.
I wish I was shocked. I really do.
As a woman working in user experience research, a tech role that is predominately held by women, I wasn’t surprised when I was laid off along with over half of my research team. If you had been in meetings explaining the value of research to a group of colleagues time after time, I don’t think you would be either. Beyond the implications of being a historically female role, the challenges that researchers have faced for years show a clear trend toward tech companies viewing research as a luxury rather than a necessity.
Research Resistance & Resilience
When you sign up to be a user researcher you are choosing to be an advocate, for yourself and for the users you study. If people don’t listen to you they don’t listen to the insights you have to share either.
It can be a challenge to make stakeholders realize the value of starting a project off on the right foot with research. Once I had suspected that a new navigation would be confusing to experienced users, but I was told there wasn’t time for testing it. Sure enough, after the launch our customer success team was overrun with complaints, leading to hours spent training customers to use the navigation. All of that time and negative feedback could have been easily avoided with research.
Another area of resistance to research I often see is concerned with data. In interviews when users would stress that they couldn’t complete simple tasks in a product, it sometimes wasn’t enough of an insight. It had to have data attached to be strong. The lack of trust in UXR doesn’t only lower a researcher’s motivation, it also stops teams from creating better products for their users.
It might sound simple to track down these data stats. In reality, it means leaning on overworked data scientists who have other priorities, learning a complex data tool to retrieve the info ourselves (if we have access), or the lengthy process of survey creation, distribution, and analysis.
And all of that leads to an extended timeline, which is just another reason for leadership to avoid research altogether.
3 ways to craft a resilient UXR practice
- Visibility
- Visual Communication
- Common language
Visibility
Be a showoff. And I don’t just mean finished work. You need to slack your first thoughts about product issues, your test plans, your scripts, and whatever else you do, make sure others can see it. Then ask for specific ways you want colleagues to interact with what you share.
Visual Communication
This one might be scary to some researchers but there are so many tools to help you. When you make a post it can be as simple as looking for an image that connects with the context of what you’re sharing. I love using figma community to search for templates and icons I can easily edit to create long-lasting posters, and presentations or to jazz up a workshop.
Common language
You want to be respected as a research genius? Then you have to stop talking like Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory. People you work with usually aren’t familiar with the nitty gritty of research methods or analysis. A big part of being impactful is asking yourself, ‘What does my team need to be able to use these insights?’ and often that starts with making everything as easy to understand as possible. The Hemingway tool is a good way to check for jargon and reading level.
Owning Research
I wish researchers didn’t have to strategize ways to show their value. However, I’m afraid that without consistent effort toward research resilience in large organizations, they will continue to downsize UX research when budgets are cut.
The hardest part of experiencing UXR pushback is actually enjoying the work. I love conducting research, sharing insights, and facilitating workshops.
Witnessing these issues over time made me think there must be a better way to be a researcher. There has to be a way to be impactful while enjoying diverse sets of projects and problems. That’s why I focused on owning research resilience, but even then I experienced a mass layoff.
And if layoffs are just part of the game I’d rather take a chance on myself.
That’s why I’m going agency side, to my own agency. I want to take on clients that are excited to have UX research onboard, and I want to apply my research to a broader set of problems. From branding to product conception, I want to inject humanity into design. Mostly I’m looking forward to owning a resilience research practice, without feeling like it could all disappear.
Want to work together? Reach out.
I’m Jacqualyn Heth and I’m at Daydrift.design
