A year in review — what I learned about UX and work in 2020
By: Adam Engstrom
Tags: Product Design, Design, Research, User Experience, 2020

But this just makes your weaknesses more salient to the interviewer, increasing the chances that they’ll remember them after the interview. A strength-based approach is a better way to go.

Instead of asking about your weaknesses, ask the interviewer what characteristics and skills would make someone successful in this role. If they highlight anything that you have not mentioned or might be a weakness of yours, you can bring it up then.

This way the interview finishes with a demonstration of how closely you measure up to their dream candidate rather than focusing on all the ways you might fall short.

Reflection #2: Getting a Head Start on The New Job

For most of my career, I always assumed that my first day was the first day that I showed up at the office. However, if you really want to make a great impression on your new boss and hit the ground running, your first day is actually at least a week before.

When starting my latest job, as soon as I signed the paperwork, I asked my boss what I research or tasks I could do that would help me get a head start on things. Even if it was something as small as having lunch with my future coworkers or familiarizing myself with the systems, tools, and features that I would be working on.

Reflection #3: The Power of Research Repos and Democratizing UX

Research repositories and democratizing research across team members has been a huge focus of mine this year, and during the pandemic I had the chance to attend one of the best webinars of the whole year: Dscout’s How to Democratize Your User Research Practice (Even Now).

The webinar had some great insights on how to increase the impact of user research, and I highly recommend you watch the recording through the link above! However, I’ll list some of my favorite points below.

#1) Most employees are not attuned to the process and pace at which companies make decisions and there is a mismatch between the speed of research and the speed of decisions at companies.

#2) UXRs should have a more holistic view of ourselves as researchers — not just as someone who talks to users but as someone who helps stakeholders make good decisions. In general, there is generally a lack of good problem definition on projects and a lack of desire to fix that issue, which is a space UXRs need to get more involved in solving.

#3) UXRs need to frame our work in terms of the values that the company is interested in such as money/monetization. The only way we will be able to convince people of the value of our work is to speak their language and link our research findings to values the company cares about.

Reflection #4: The Bollywood Technique

Photo by Rajesh Rajput on Unsplash

One of my favorite books that I have read this year was A Book Apart’s Cross Cultural Design. It’s a great book that’s a quick read, and I strongly recommend it to anyone who’s new to cross-cultural research and design as there are many tips and insights about the impact of culture on UX and design.

However, one of the most insightful concepts for me from the book was on how to elicit feedback from participants who come from cultures where direct critiques are culturally inappropriate. Performing usability tests with users from these cultures can, obviously, be challenging as participants will feel that it is taboo to be to be negative about the designs.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

A way around this cultural taboo is to use the Bollywood Technique. This technique involves reframing the usability test scenario as a larger dramatic Bollywood-style story which stars the participant as the main character and positions the website being tested as a crucial tool the participant needs to complete the main goal(s) of the story.

For example, if testing a travel website, the story could be that the participant has just learned their sister’s fiancé is an evil mastermind, and they have to use the site to quickly book a plane trip to the upcoming wedding to stop it.

This set-up allows the participant to use the cover of the Bollywood narrative to be critical of the site without it being offensive as it is just part of the drama of the story.