Realizing the power of user research within an organization requires dedication and knowledge. The common pushback from the stakeholder to get buy-in for your user research often comes from their misunderstanding of the ROI of the research practice. I’m here to share what I’ve learned and the steps I take to turn the tables, making stakeholders the advocates for research at Postmedia.
(Last change, July 2: Removed as beyond most teams' scope Eyetracking Study, Clickstream Analysis, Usability Benchmarking; Added Live-Data Prototypes, Demand Validation Test, Wizard of Oz Tests)
For our teams tasked with building products and features for The New York Times, we face a common challenge with many: how do we figure out what’s worth spending our time on?
The answer seems straightforward: test your ideas with real customers, leveraging the expertise of your product, UX, and engineering talent. Figure out the smallest test that you can come up with to test a specific hypothesis, gather data and insights, and keep iterating on it until you know whether the problem is real and your solution will prove valuable, usable, and feasible.
As part of our efforts to adopt such a data-driven, experimental approach to product development, we recently kicked off a product discovery pilot program. Small, cross-functional teams were paired with coaches and facilitators over a six week period to demonstrate how product discovery and Lean Startup techniques could work for real-world customer opportunities at The New York Times.
One of the first things that we learned about the process from our participants was that they wanted a "toolkit" - something to help them figure out what they should be doing, asking or making to get as quickly as possible towards the validated learning, prototypes and user tests that would have the most impact.
To help the facilitate the learning process for our dual-track Agile teams, the Product Architecture team here at The Times (Christine Yom, Jim Lamiell, Josh Turk, Priya Ollapally, and Al Ming) built a "Product Discovery Activity Guide" that rolled up activities, exercises, and testing techniques from all our favorite thought leaders.
This included brainstorming exercises from Gamestorming and Innovation Games, testing techniques from traditional user research, and rapid test-and-learn tactics from Google Ventures, Eric Ries (The Lean Startup), Jeff Gothelf (Lean UX), Steve Blank (Customer Development) and our spirit guide, Marty Cagan (Inspired), among others.
Our goal was to make it a tool not just for learning how to get started, but to be a living document for teams to share knowledge about the process itself. What techniques worked and didn't work? What tactics did they learn elsewhere that might be worth sharing with the rest of the company?
We hope you find it useful, and whether you’d like to share with us what you’re doing with it, or you have suggestions (big or small) to improve it for future product generations, please let us know! (nyt.tech.productarchitecture@nytimes.com)
Al Ming
July 2015
With the Stimmt Workshop Toolkit you receive knowledge for excellent Workshops, inspired from 1500 given workshops and 15 years consultancy experience. Improve you technics, methods and time management.
The presentation explains what is design thinking, what ways an entrepreneur could use design thinking to solve problems or validate their ideas. The presentation also includes a brief overview of attributes of design thinking, methods and the six stages of design thinking process.
ChatGPT and Market Research: the first 100 days!Ray Poynter
The middle-of March sees ChatGPT reach 100 days since its public launch.
Join us as presenter, Ray Poynter, assesses:
- What have we learned so far?
- What has been the impact on research and insight so far?
- What is likely to be the impact in the rest of this year?
- Where might things be going next?
We also share research with 268 market research and insight professionals, where they are talking about what they have done with ChatGPT, how well it worked for them, and what they are going to do next.
Here is a link to the NewMR report that shares the findings from our recent study in to ChatGPT: https://newmr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NewMR-ChatGPT-and-Market-Research-March-2023.pdf
Access the recording from this presentation (originally presented live) via YouTube; https://youtu.be/Y9NSDtLdBHA
(Last change, July 2: Removed as beyond most teams' scope Eyetracking Study, Clickstream Analysis, Usability Benchmarking; Added Live-Data Prototypes, Demand Validation Test, Wizard of Oz Tests)
For our teams tasked with building products and features for The New York Times, we face a common challenge with many: how do we figure out what’s worth spending our time on?
The answer seems straightforward: test your ideas with real customers, leveraging the expertise of your product, UX, and engineering talent. Figure out the smallest test that you can come up with to test a specific hypothesis, gather data and insights, and keep iterating on it until you know whether the problem is real and your solution will prove valuable, usable, and feasible.
As part of our efforts to adopt such a data-driven, experimental approach to product development, we recently kicked off a product discovery pilot program. Small, cross-functional teams were paired with coaches and facilitators over a six week period to demonstrate how product discovery and Lean Startup techniques could work for real-world customer opportunities at The New York Times.
One of the first things that we learned about the process from our participants was that they wanted a "toolkit" - something to help them figure out what they should be doing, asking or making to get as quickly as possible towards the validated learning, prototypes and user tests that would have the most impact.
To help the facilitate the learning process for our dual-track Agile teams, the Product Architecture team here at The Times (Christine Yom, Jim Lamiell, Josh Turk, Priya Ollapally, and Al Ming) built a "Product Discovery Activity Guide" that rolled up activities, exercises, and testing techniques from all our favorite thought leaders.
This included brainstorming exercises from Gamestorming and Innovation Games, testing techniques from traditional user research, and rapid test-and-learn tactics from Google Ventures, Eric Ries (The Lean Startup), Jeff Gothelf (Lean UX), Steve Blank (Customer Development) and our spirit guide, Marty Cagan (Inspired), among others.
Our goal was to make it a tool not just for learning how to get started, but to be a living document for teams to share knowledge about the process itself. What techniques worked and didn't work? What tactics did they learn elsewhere that might be worth sharing with the rest of the company?
We hope you find it useful, and whether you’d like to share with us what you’re doing with it, or you have suggestions (big or small) to improve it for future product generations, please let us know! (nyt.tech.productarchitecture@nytimes.com)
Al Ming
July 2015
With the Stimmt Workshop Toolkit you receive knowledge for excellent Workshops, inspired from 1500 given workshops and 15 years consultancy experience. Improve you technics, methods and time management.
The presentation explains what is design thinking, what ways an entrepreneur could use design thinking to solve problems or validate their ideas. The presentation also includes a brief overview of attributes of design thinking, methods and the six stages of design thinking process.
ChatGPT and Market Research: the first 100 days!Ray Poynter
The middle-of March sees ChatGPT reach 100 days since its public launch.
Join us as presenter, Ray Poynter, assesses:
- What have we learned so far?
- What has been the impact on research and insight so far?
- What is likely to be the impact in the rest of this year?
- Where might things be going next?
We also share research with 268 market research and insight professionals, where they are talking about what they have done with ChatGPT, how well it worked for them, and what they are going to do next.
Here is a link to the NewMR report that shares the findings from our recent study in to ChatGPT: https://newmr.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2023/03/NewMR-ChatGPT-and-Market-Research-March-2023.pdf
Access the recording from this presentation (originally presented live) via YouTube; https://youtu.be/Y9NSDtLdBHA
Understanding the dynamics of the user’s experience is the first step in creating solutions that provide value. The use of systematic, visual representations exposes previously unseen opportunities for growth. Called “alignment diagrams,” this category of diagram gives businesses strategic clarity based on the user experience.
Alignment diagrams have two parts: one capturing human behaviour and the other reflecting relevant aspects of the organisation. The overlap of these parts reveals the interaction between the two. By visually aligning experiences, providers are better able to highlight the points where value is created.
This workshop will show you how to turn customer insight into actionable intelligence. Together, we’ll discuss the principles of value alignment and review many diagram examples. Through hands-on exercises, you’ll be able to apply some of the principles in practice. At the end of the session you should have the confidence to embark on a diagraming effort and be able to evangelise them.
10 Metrics Every SaaS PM Should Use by fmr Facebook Product LeaderProduct School
Main Takeaways:
-Understand what data is essential for your success
-How to work towards your metrics
-Key differences between necessary and unnecessary metrics
Lead Nurturing: The Blueprint for Building Successful CampaignsG3 Communications
This webinar will present case study examples and guidance around how marketers can successfully build successful lead nurturing campaigns, with specific insights into:
The Right Content Offers for Nurturing Programs
Customizing Email Offers/Landing Pages for Nurture Campaigns
Developing the right cadence and sequence to increase relevancy and response
Kennzahlen im Produktmanagement und Produktlebenszyklus - Ulrike Laubner, Cor...Corimbus GmbH
Die Innovationen sind mit einem grossen Event eingeführt; die Produkterweiterung mit einer zündenden Marketingkampagne neuen und bestehenden Kunden schmackhaft gemacht.
Woher wissen Produktmanager, ob die Produkte jetzt ihre Ziele erreichen?
In jeder Phase des Produktlebenszyklus gibt es geeignete Kennzahlen, um den Erfolg zu messen. Anhand dieser Zahlen lassen sich gezielte Massnahmen ableiten.
Introduction to UX provides an overview of user experience design including what it encompasses and how the process works, the goal and principles of UX design, how to measure and improve UX, and the role of a UX agency. Presented by Ari Weissman, lead experience architect at EffectiveUI.
User research: Uncovering compelling insights through interviewsSteve Portigal
Interviewing users is undeniably one of the most valuable and commonly used user research tools. Yet sometimes we forget that it’s a skill we need to learn, because it’s based on skills we think we have (talking or even listening) and it’s not taught or reflected on.
In this workshop, we’ll consider how to frame the problem, when to use research in the design process, and the tactics for setting up a successful study. We will focus in detail on the interview itself, reviewing detailed techniques for listening and asking questions, then conclude with an engaging exercise to bring these best practices to life.
This workshop will show you how to:
Integrate mixed methods of research into solving a problem.
Develop increased empathy, a critical facet to meaningful interviews.
Derive useful results from interviews once you get participants to open up.
Communication Strategy - Workshop to Obtain Stakeholder InputJohn Mauremootoo
Generic version of a PowerPoint presentation used in a workshop to obtain stakeholder inputs into a project communication strategy. This presentation can be used as a template when formulating a project or programme communication strategy and work plan.
Which are the essential digital marketing insights and automation tools to grow your business? This deck shows you the best tools across our RACE framework.
ProductCamp Boston is the world's largest and most exciting crowd-sourced one-day event for product people. It's organized by and for product managers, product marketers and entrepreneurs, so attendees get the most out of the day.
Attendees learn about and discuss topics in product management and product marketing, product discovery, product development & design, go-to-market, product strategy and lifecycle management, and product management 101, startups, and career development.
www.ProductCampBoston.org
This is an outline of the 2-day workshop on Design Thinking facilitated by Vinay Dabholkar. To know more about the dates and venue of the upcoming workshop, please visit: http://www.catalign.in/p/design-thinking.html
Slides Dan Mason recently used in his discussion w/ mentees of The Product Mentor.
Synopsis: In this talk, Vikas will share his thoughts on what is Product Strategy and how Product Managers can develop it, He will also share some concepts in Strategy and how Product Managers can apply them to make their products more successful.
The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People.
Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community.
http://TheProductMentor.com
Three Ways Fast Human Insight is Revolutionizing Marketing UserTesting
The time pressure on marketers is relentless. You need to be sure your projects resonate with customers, but often you don't have time for conventional market research studies. Many marketers are using fast user studies to validate their ideas in a few hours. The studies eliminate guesswork, and they give persuasive videos of customer reactions to help educate the company.
In this free webinar, Michael Mace, UserTesting's VP of Product Marketing, will describe how fast human insight is revolutionizing agile marketing. Find out how marketing teams are using human insight to perfect their customer experience in real time.
You'll learn how marketing teams:
Get customer reactions to messages and content in just hours
Quickly explore customer lifestyles and attitudes
Understand and perfect the customer journey
Including sample videos and real-world usage examples, this webinar will teach you everything you need to start applying fast human insight to your daily marketing decisions.
Understanding the dynamics of the user’s experience is the first step in creating solutions that provide value. The use of systematic, visual representations exposes previously unseen opportunities for growth. Called “alignment diagrams,” this category of diagram gives businesses strategic clarity based on the user experience.
Alignment diagrams have two parts: one capturing human behaviour and the other reflecting relevant aspects of the organisation. The overlap of these parts reveals the interaction between the two. By visually aligning experiences, providers are better able to highlight the points where value is created.
This workshop will show you how to turn customer insight into actionable intelligence. Together, we’ll discuss the principles of value alignment and review many diagram examples. Through hands-on exercises, you’ll be able to apply some of the principles in practice. At the end of the session you should have the confidence to embark on a diagraming effort and be able to evangelise them.
10 Metrics Every SaaS PM Should Use by fmr Facebook Product LeaderProduct School
Main Takeaways:
-Understand what data is essential for your success
-How to work towards your metrics
-Key differences between necessary and unnecessary metrics
Lead Nurturing: The Blueprint for Building Successful CampaignsG3 Communications
This webinar will present case study examples and guidance around how marketers can successfully build successful lead nurturing campaigns, with specific insights into:
The Right Content Offers for Nurturing Programs
Customizing Email Offers/Landing Pages for Nurture Campaigns
Developing the right cadence and sequence to increase relevancy and response
Kennzahlen im Produktmanagement und Produktlebenszyklus - Ulrike Laubner, Cor...Corimbus GmbH
Die Innovationen sind mit einem grossen Event eingeführt; die Produkterweiterung mit einer zündenden Marketingkampagne neuen und bestehenden Kunden schmackhaft gemacht.
Woher wissen Produktmanager, ob die Produkte jetzt ihre Ziele erreichen?
In jeder Phase des Produktlebenszyklus gibt es geeignete Kennzahlen, um den Erfolg zu messen. Anhand dieser Zahlen lassen sich gezielte Massnahmen ableiten.
Introduction to UX provides an overview of user experience design including what it encompasses and how the process works, the goal and principles of UX design, how to measure and improve UX, and the role of a UX agency. Presented by Ari Weissman, lead experience architect at EffectiveUI.
User research: Uncovering compelling insights through interviewsSteve Portigal
Interviewing users is undeniably one of the most valuable and commonly used user research tools. Yet sometimes we forget that it’s a skill we need to learn, because it’s based on skills we think we have (talking or even listening) and it’s not taught or reflected on.
In this workshop, we’ll consider how to frame the problem, when to use research in the design process, and the tactics for setting up a successful study. We will focus in detail on the interview itself, reviewing detailed techniques for listening and asking questions, then conclude with an engaging exercise to bring these best practices to life.
This workshop will show you how to:
Integrate mixed methods of research into solving a problem.
Develop increased empathy, a critical facet to meaningful interviews.
Derive useful results from interviews once you get participants to open up.
Communication Strategy - Workshop to Obtain Stakeholder InputJohn Mauremootoo
Generic version of a PowerPoint presentation used in a workshop to obtain stakeholder inputs into a project communication strategy. This presentation can be used as a template when formulating a project or programme communication strategy and work plan.
Which are the essential digital marketing insights and automation tools to grow your business? This deck shows you the best tools across our RACE framework.
ProductCamp Boston is the world's largest and most exciting crowd-sourced one-day event for product people. It's organized by and for product managers, product marketers and entrepreneurs, so attendees get the most out of the day.
Attendees learn about and discuss topics in product management and product marketing, product discovery, product development & design, go-to-market, product strategy and lifecycle management, and product management 101, startups, and career development.
www.ProductCampBoston.org
This is an outline of the 2-day workshop on Design Thinking facilitated by Vinay Dabholkar. To know more about the dates and venue of the upcoming workshop, please visit: http://www.catalign.in/p/design-thinking.html
Slides Dan Mason recently used in his discussion w/ mentees of The Product Mentor.
Synopsis: In this talk, Vikas will share his thoughts on what is Product Strategy and how Product Managers can develop it, He will also share some concepts in Strategy and how Product Managers can apply them to make their products more successful.
The Product Mentor is a program designed to pair Product Mentors and Mentees from around the World, across all industries, from start-up to enterprise, guided by the fundamental goals…Better Decisions. Better Products. Better Product People.
Throughout the program, each mentor leads a conversation in an area of their expertise that is live streamed and available to both mentee and the broader product community.
http://TheProductMentor.com
Three Ways Fast Human Insight is Revolutionizing Marketing UserTesting
The time pressure on marketers is relentless. You need to be sure your projects resonate with customers, but often you don't have time for conventional market research studies. Many marketers are using fast user studies to validate their ideas in a few hours. The studies eliminate guesswork, and they give persuasive videos of customer reactions to help educate the company.
In this free webinar, Michael Mace, UserTesting's VP of Product Marketing, will describe how fast human insight is revolutionizing agile marketing. Find out how marketing teams are using human insight to perfect their customer experience in real time.
You'll learn how marketing teams:
Get customer reactions to messages and content in just hours
Quickly explore customer lifestyles and attitudes
Understand and perfect the customer journey
Including sample videos and real-world usage examples, this webinar will teach you everything you need to start applying fast human insight to your daily marketing decisions.
How to Succeed as a PM by fmr Native Instrument Dir of ProductProduct School
Main takeaways:
- Continuous discovery is the only way to do product
- Recruiting users will be hard, build relationships, or contact strangers in context
- Product development can be a struggle, agree on a recipe as a team, stick to it, and iterate
A 10 minute talk I gave at the Service Lab London meetup in November 2022.
As User Experience professionals we are skilled in design thinking when it comes to products and services, but what if we applied these skills to co-design our work life? What would it look like to navigate difficult conversations in the workplace, progression conversations, and line management all with a co-design mindset? We already have the skills and tools that we need to design better experiences for end users but have we thought about if and how we can design better experiences for ourselves in our work life?
In this talk I will share my views and experience on how taking this approach has had an impact on my career so far and some practical steps I’ve taken.
Title: How Do You Know if Your Project Is Any Good?
Presented at All Things Open 2022
Presented by Avi Press & Emily Omier
Abstract: Are you, like many maintainers, struggling to get good data about who is actually using your project, how they are using it and why they downloaded it in the first place? Do you know how many users the project has, and whether those users even like it? Do you know what other technologies they use, what kinds of applications or workloads they use your project for or even what exactly they like (or dislike) about your project? In this talk, Avi Press will discuss ways to get quantitative data to get insights into who is using your project and what they are doing with it, and Emily Omier will talk about how to gather qualitative data on your project’s value and triggers that inspired adoption. Together, they’ll talk about how to use these two types of data to make better decisions about your outreach efforts, project roadmap and ultimate goals for the project.
UXSA - Preparing for the Interview - 3-12-20Cherri Pitts
UX Researcher Cherri Pitts offers lots of information about prepping for user interviews followed by an engaging and active question and answer section.
GHC slides for dare to disrupt the numbersAliza Carpio
These are slides to support the talk with Sonia May-Patlan and Aliza Carpio at Grace Hopper 2021. The title is "Dare to Disrupt the Numbers: Design Open Source for Inclusivity". These slides are specific to the design thinking portion of the talk
How to Succeed as a PM by Native Instruments fmr Dir of ProductProduct School
Main takeaways:
- Continuous discovery is the only way to do product
- Recruiting users will be hard, build relationships, or contact strangers in context
- Product development can be a struggle, agree on a recipe as a team, stick to it, and iterate
What is the Relation Between PM and UX Roles by Cohealo UX PMProduct School
Main takeaways:
-Understand the missing design skills Product Management should have, or understand how to leverage if they don't own them themselves
-How a deep understanding of user data can be used to drive strategic direction and product features, as well as lower-level product details
-How the UX position can be used to drive strategic insight (even when it's not your job)
User Experience Research: Deriving Insights for Customer DevelopmentNoreen Whysel
Workshop on deriving insights for Customer Development with user experience research techniques. Presented to Project 2.8 cohort of entrepreneur women hosted by the Columbia Venture Community.
This is a talk I gave at the first Meetup for Digital Product Design.
Here is the talk description:
Research can improve team synergies which create opportunities for better products and a team that is happier with their results. In the first Digital Product Design Meetup Jonathan will share insights for how research can be used to create both a user-centric culture and a catalyst for team bonding. Whether you are looking to introduce an internal research practice for the first time or looking to improve on an existing one learn how these methods can work for you. The second half of the event will be a group exercise to uncover bottlenecks in your own organization implementing user research and how this can be solved.
This is the result of a research study conducted in Pivotal Chicago office to discover the metrics of product success, prioritization on product decisions and the overall key learnings and feedback from the user interviews conducted.
Requirements Engineering for the HumanitiesShawn Day
This workshop explores how requirements engineering can be employed by digital and non-digital humanities scholars (and others) to conceptualise and communicate a research project.
requirementsEngineeringAs the field of digital humanities has evolved, one of the biggest challenges has been getting the marrying technical expertise with humanities scholarly practice to successfully deliver sustainable and sound digital projects. At its core this is a communications exercise. However, to communicate effectively demands an ability to effectively translate, define and find clarity in your own mind.
If You Build It, Will They Come? - How to Increase Learning AdoptionB.J. Schone
Designing and building learning materials is a tough enough job, but what happens when you spend weeks or months on a project and nobody even bothers to use it? This presentation will explore more than a dozen ideas for increasing user adoption of learning materials through a series of strategies and tactics you can begin using immediately.
Increasing user adoption requires an in-depth understanding of your users, including their jobs, behaviors, wants, and needs. Once you understand these elements, you can design your implementation approach and introduce on-going activities to increase adoption.
In this presentation, we will explore the psychology of the user, the intent of the organization, and the actions you can take as a learning professional to drive adoption and improve the performance of your users.
The user group you never knew you had ux camp 2015Hello Group
'The user group you never knew you had' is about designing for the experience of the stakeholders who sponsor either internal or external projects. As designers we immediately think of the end users but without subject matter experts, middle managers and corporate sponsors our job would be much harder. In the talk Mette Riisgaard Andresen and Henriette Hosbond describe tactics to ensure to get these key people on board in the design process. Originally shown at UX Camp Copenhagen 2015.
Product Sense (also called Product Intuition or Product Judgement) is the ability to understand what makes a product great. In other words, product sense is very important skill to all product managers. While the name sounds like you’re either born with it or you’re not, Product Sense is just a skill, and like any skill it can get better with practice. I will share my framework and learnings that has helped in improving my product sense in last two years.
Main takeaways:
- Framework of learning and improving your product sense
- Learn how to do your skill gap analysis and ideas to level up
- How to build it as a muscle and create successful products
How to Build Customer Centric Products by Microsoft Senior PMProduct School
Main takeaways:
- The various methods to build a customer centric product
- Best practices and pitfalls to avoid
- Using qualitative and quantitative data to better your product for the customer
Similar to How to get stakeholder buy in for ux research (20)
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
LF Energy Webinar: Electrical Grid Modelling and Simulation Through PowSyBl -...DanBrown980551
Do you want to learn how to model and simulate an electrical network from scratch in under an hour?
Then welcome to this PowSyBl workshop, hosted by Rte, the French Transmission System Operator (TSO)!
During the webinar, you will discover the PowSyBl ecosystem as well as handle and study an electrical network through an interactive Python notebook.
PowSyBl is an open source project hosted by LF Energy, which offers a comprehensive set of features for electrical grid modelling and simulation. Among other advanced features, PowSyBl provides:
- A fully editable and extendable library for grid component modelling;
- Visualization tools to display your network;
- Grid simulation tools, such as power flows, security analyses (with or without remedial actions) and sensitivity analyses;
The framework is mostly written in Java, with a Python binding so that Python developers can access PowSyBl functionalities as well.
What you will learn during the webinar:
- For beginners: discover PowSyBl's functionalities through a quick general presentation and the notebook, without needing any expert coding skills;
- For advanced developers: master the skills to efficiently apply PowSyBl functionalities to your real-world scenarios.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
Connector Corner: Automate dynamic content and events by pushing a buttonDianaGray10
Here is something new! In our next Connector Corner webinar, we will demonstrate how you can use a single workflow to:
Create a campaign using Mailchimp with merge tags/fields
Send an interactive Slack channel message (using buttons)
Have the message received by managers and peers along with a test email for review
But there’s more:
In a second workflow supporting the same use case, you’ll see:
Your campaign sent to target colleagues for approval
If the “Approve” button is clicked, a Jira/Zendesk ticket is created for the marketing design team
But—if the “Reject” button is pushed, colleagues will be alerted via Slack message
Join us to learn more about this new, human-in-the-loop capability, brought to you by Integration Service connectors.
And...
Speakers:
Akshay Agnihotri, Product Manager
Charlie Greenberg, Host
Epistemic Interaction - tuning interfaces to provide information for AI supportAlan Dix
Paper presented at SYNERGY workshop at AVI 2024, Genoa, Italy. 3rd June 2024
https://alandix.com/academic/papers/synergy2024-epistemic/
As machine learning integrates deeper into human-computer interactions, the concept of epistemic interaction emerges, aiming to refine these interactions to enhance system adaptability. This approach encourages minor, intentional adjustments in user behaviour to enrich the data available for system learning. This paper introduces epistemic interaction within the context of human-system communication, illustrating how deliberate interaction design can improve system understanding and adaptation. Through concrete examples, we demonstrate the potential of epistemic interaction to significantly advance human-computer interaction by leveraging intuitive human communication strategies to inform system design and functionality, offering a novel pathway for enriching user-system engagements.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
Slack (or Teams) Automation for Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Soluti...Jeffrey Haguewood
Sidekick Solutions uses Bonterra Impact Management (fka Social Solutions Apricot) and automation solutions to integrate data for business workflows.
We believe integration and automation are essential to user experience and the promise of efficient work through technology. Automation is the critical ingredient to realizing that full vision. We develop integration products and services for Bonterra Case Management software to support the deployment of automations for a variety of use cases.
This video focuses on the notifications, alerts, and approval requests using Slack for Bonterra Impact Management. The solutions covered in this webinar can also be deployed for Microsoft Teams.
Interested in deploying notification automations for Bonterra Impact Management? Contact us at sales@sidekicksolutionsllc.com to discuss next steps.
"Impact of front-end architecture on development cost", Viktor TurskyiFwdays
I have heard many times that architecture is not important for the front-end. Also, many times I have seen how developers implement features on the front-end just following the standard rules for a framework and think that this is enough to successfully launch the project, and then the project fails. How to prevent this and what approach to choose? I have launched dozens of complex projects and during the talk we will analyze which approaches have worked for me and which have not.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
PHP Frameworks: I want to break free (IPC Berlin 2024)Ralf Eggert
In this presentation, we examine the challenges and limitations of relying too heavily on PHP frameworks in web development. We discuss the history of PHP and its frameworks to understand how this dependence has evolved. The focus will be on providing concrete tips and strategies to reduce reliance on these frameworks, based on real-world examples and practical considerations. The goal is to equip developers with the skills and knowledge to create more flexible and future-proof web applications. We'll explore the importance of maintaining autonomy in a rapidly changing tech landscape and how to make informed decisions in PHP development.
This talk is aimed at encouraging a more independent approach to using PHP frameworks, moving towards a more flexible and future-proof approach to PHP development.
5. “I want this feature
by Friday.”
Have You Heard This Phrase Before?
6. What we’ll be talking about today:
○ Who are the stakeholders?
○ Running my first research project
○ How to: Stakeholder interviews
○ Synthesizing and socializing research findings
17. Bad Napkin Math
Unused Features + Rebuilt Features
x Weeks Spent Building
x Number of Developers/Designers/PM’s Involved
x Avg. Weekly Salary
= $ Total Product Waste
@therobhayes
19. To show, rather than
tell.
Seeing is believing.
Running My First Research Project
20. 1. Pick a problem place that’s suited for using evaluative methods
○ Usability testing is key to getting buy-in
1. Plan ahead, manage the timeline and communicate
○ Involve your team members to the research session
1. Make the research results available and visible for your team
○ Heavy-weight storytelling is not for everyone
○ Share direct results in “snack size” format
Running My First Research Project
21. “I could see missing the
link if I’m reading in
weird light.”
“Yellow looks like
spell check.”
Example: Sharing Direct Quotes from Users
22. “The blue stand out
more and it's the color
I'm used to being used
for links.”
“I think blue is the best
color for links, maybe I’m
used to it.”
Example: Sharing Direct Quotes from Users
28. How to: Stakeholder Interviews
Why?
○ Align the end goal
○ Remove communication barriers
○ Future proof your research
29. How?
○ 45 min to 1 hr in-person or remote interviews
○ With transcript available to review
Who?
○ More than 5, ideally 8 - 12 Participants
How to: Stakeholder Interviews
38. Agree that if we improve mobile, we
can reach more of our audience.
“Mobile is really important right now.
Especially since it's overtaking desktop with
the number of users using it.”
11/15
Presentation: Key Learnings
39. ● Improve communication between cross-functional teams
● Make the process less reactive and more forward-thinking
● Treat user research as a practice, not as a project
To Inspire Actions:
Presentation: Action Items
Today I’m going to share with you stories on how I get stakeholders from my organization buy-in to my User Research. Btw, you will hear me use both term UX research and User research. Just for today’s context, I meant the same thing.
To give you some background, this is where I work:
Postmedia is a news media company provide millions Canadians with daily news. Most well-known brands we have are National Post, Toronto Sun, Montreal Gazette, just to name a few.
At here in London, we have our biggest community paper London Free Press.
As we all know, Google is your new homepage. You no longer get news updates from news paper anymore. Because you can access news everywhere, on your facebook, twitter, any where.
My company is going through a huge “print-to-digital” transformation. We are transitioning our readers from “newspaper” to digital platforms. And improving our readers’ experience is our mission. And this is where I come in.
This happened to me at my first day at work. I asked “why?” and “where did the user say that they want this feature?” Then I spent more time to talk to my PM. He said because this is what his boss wanted. It’s a revenue driver.
In my first week, I was being pushed to develop a feature that’s not being validated by any user research. Slowly I realized that because there are none user research being done properly at my company.
User research is not something that’s familiar to my stakeholders. So I knew, I need to get stakeholders’ trust before I start building an user research practice.
Today I will walk you through exactly the steps on
How I identified who are the stakeholders?
How I ran my first research project.
And later on how I incorporate that findings to stakeholder interviews and learnt more about my stakeholders.
Then how I synthesizing and socializing research findings with the rest of my teams.
Essentially these are my stories of turnings around the table, growing from zero to one, how I made stakeholders the advocates for research at Postmedia.
First, let’s talk about who are the stakeholders.
A stakeholder in the UX world is a code name for the people that we work with.
These are our clients, whether internal or external to our organization.
These are the ones who need to believe in that UX research practice has value to the team, and that value can be carried on to our users.
Stakeholders are the people we are trying to influence, because we all have a stake in product development. Just like how they have a stake in UX research.
Here is an introduction to different types of stakeholders.
Execs: CEO, VP who can allocate budgets to conduct UX research.
Be a champion for UX research by promoting it company wide
Managers: Directors of Product and Engineering, Team Leads.
They don’t get into the weeds of your daily activities, but they are involved in defining process and building teams.
Very hands on in setting how a team works. So they define the process of where UX research fit in.
Designers & Developers: Responsible for defining and building the product. Because of that, they are the consumers of research
Your research has the most impact on their work. And they are the stakeholders that you work closely with.
They need to be bought in, open to learning from customers. Because they are the people turning the research findings to building the right product.
Marketing/Customer Success/Sales Teams
Can be a channel to access your customers. They can even provide an extra layer of context for research. Marketing do very high level demographic research on who are the users, sales team engage with customers and listen to their complaints.
Also could be major consumers of research, as it can be directly applied to their work
Check-in. Are you still with me?
You’re probably overwhelmed by now: Too many stakeholders, and too little time. We are almost there. I’m going to introduce you the most important stakeholder:
PMs Also product owner, program manager, etc.
They are the:
Key Player. Responsible for the success of a feature from problem to solutions
Hub in the wheel of the organization - product’s voice to other teams. Supposed to be the voice of the customers
Accountable for the product metrics. They are very sensitive to the numbers like KPIs and ROIs. Therefore you need to align the language with what they speak.
(to audience) How many people have trouble explaining what is research ROI to stakeholders? Put your hands up.
It’s really hard to nail down to the teeth of impact of user research. And these measurements are different from one company to another.
What is research ROI? Often invisible at the beginning of the research project. Are these metrics hidden myth? which by the way is not true.
Here is How to calculate the ROI of Research. I’m quoting this from the founder of Foundation.pm- Rob Hayes once outlined as:
How to calculate the ROI of Research:
Unused Features + Rebuilt Features x Weeks Spent Building x Number of Developers/Designers/PM’s Involved x their Avg. Weekly Salary
= $ Total Product Waste (5 Losing Money Emojis)
The ROI of user research is to avoid building the unwanted or unused features. This helps our stakeholders realized that UX research is about knowing what users want and needs, and inspire the team to building it right.
After a couple weeks of settling into my new role as information architect, I was eager to build the trust with my stakeholders. But then I realized, my team members are not familiar with user experience design, let along UX research. So one day I pulled my front-end developer aside, and I asked him straight up: “What do you think my job is? What do I do here every day?”
And he thought that I’m here to make sure all the acceptance criteria and user stories are well-written on the Jira ticket.
Part of it is true. He is half right. That moment it became clear to me that I need to run my first research project and show it to my team.
To show, rather than tell. Let the stakeholders experience the research from their own perspective. Here is how I started:
I pick a problem place that’s suited for using evaluative methods. Usability testing is key to getting buy-in
The reason why I started with usability testing is because It is low budgets, no requirement of investing in the tools (yet). it generates straight forward outcome/ evidence to show.
I wrote an one page research plan and shared it ahead of time to get feedback. Took in what PMs want to know and turn into research assumptions
That you can manage your PMs expectations of your first usability testing. This will help you to make sure the research are reflecting tangible business goals.
Make the research results available and visible for your team
Heavy-weight storytelling is not for everyone. Share direct results in “snack size” format.The entire goal of usability testing is to come back with specific,actionable recommendations.
Overall goal: Pick the key insights that will create the most impact for your product team.
Here are some examples
We want to know how do mobile users continue read from one news story to another. I didn’t have any budget to begin with. So I used Google hangout combined with Youtube live. It’s recording also live streaming so that my UX designer can observe what happens on users end.
And users were saying “I could see missing the link if I’m reading in weird light.” “Yellow looks like spell check.”
We quickly realized that the colour of hyperlink matters. So we did another round of testing. This time, we changed our design from yellow to blue.
With proposed new style, we get some positive feedback. Users are saying that blue stand out and they are more used to it.
I downloaded video recordings and cut to the highlight reel using iMovie to show my stakeholders. And my PMs are like: oh is that how people think? I never would have thought about it.
We work on desktop everyday, it’s easy to think how mobile users. So I show them and they are very interested and wanted to know more.
I gained credibility, and later on I suggested other, different methodologies for different projects.
User Moments! I posted this on slack channel
Moments later, two of my stakeholders commented on the project.
On Slack, it’s where conversations happen. It provides the greatest exposure time for the team
Now I made my first move. The feedbacks from usability study were great! But something important is still missing.
I’m still not solving the problem with “does user want this feature?”
Usability studies are a great introduction to user research practice. They are often used when the product is at the end of the ideation phase. Therefore the insights at this level do not solve the problems. And I want to make sure that the stakeholders are looking to solve the right problem to begin with.
And an important insight came into the light. With the blessing from my users, my stakeholders were inspired to learn more about how mobile users consume news. Redesigning the mobile experience is a massive project that will be touch by many hands.
So I suggested that we start with knowing who we are working with.
As a famous detective once said: do your research!
Align the end goal
Are all SH are on the same page regards to the outcome of this project?
Is the current process efficient?
Do they have the same expectation after the project is finished?
Remove communication barriers
To gain a better understanding of, “How you do what you do?”
Identify ways that can make building products better/easier
Future proof your research
Set up SH management
Generate action items and prompt discussions
How?
45 min to 1 hr in-person or remote interviews
With transcript available for stakeholders to review
Who?
More than 5, ideally 8 - 12 Participants
Objective of this question is to future proof your research.
Most of the stakeholder don’t know their users. They always want, or could know more of their users.
Objective of this question is to align the goal/ outcome of the project.
This is tangible and the most effective numbers, especially for PMs to look at.
A question that’s designed to lead more stakeholders show up to your presentation. (joking)
Communication between teams are tricky. Now you have the chance to ask the questions that other stakeholders want to know.
Remove communication barrier. Expect the unexpected. It gives you more insights on the what’s not working on the processes.
In order to really reap the benefits of stakeholder interviews, you’ll need to document your interviews and socialize what you’ve learned.
This can happen a number of ways. Some researchers, for example, use what they learn during stakeholder interviews to hold a kickoff meeting around a more well-defined problem.
Other researchers use what they learn to run workshops or to inform their existing research or product design.
The goal is to avoid reports at all time. I tried and failed hard.
Presentation
Share your
Research methods, Key learnings, common themes
Action Items
(Optional) Tangible takeaways
11 out of 15 Agree that if we improve mobile, we can reach more of our audience.
“Mobile is really important right now. Especially since it's overtaking desktop with the number of users using it.”
Why it’s important to present the research findings. If you share the results, it will lead to:
Improve communication between teams
Make the process less reactive and more forward-thinking
Treat user research as a practice, not as a project
At Postmedia, I used a tangible takeaways. With the design aid from my partner Julie, we printed out the paper that’s familiar to our stakeholders.
Stakeholders
Role, position, and name
Needs: Functional goals and emotional goals
Functional goals are tangible KPIs that the stakeholders need to keep track with.
Emotional goals are their personal goals within the organization, may or may not be different from their functional goals.
Position
Level of experience
Attitude towards Research
Assets
Level of influence: How does this stakeholder aid / influence others?"
Resources available: What type of resource can this stakeholder provide with?
Desired involvement: How much does this stakeholder want to be involved with UX research?
Assumptions
List out assumptions or hypothesis you have about your stakeholders
These questions should form the basis
How many people here have heard of or used Airtable before?
On Airtable. This will be a living document, so make sure to update it continuously
Most of this will live in your head
Updating the sheet is more of a reminder to actually consider these points about your stakeholders
Next time your PM comes to you and say: I want this feature by Friday.
YOU WILL KNOW WHAT TO DO!
Thank you, you guys has been an amazing audience. Thank you for your time here today.
And thank you Ladies that UX. Just a year ago...