Notes for an Intro to Anthropology class at UCLA describing my work as a UX researcher with an Anthropology education.Emphasis on the cross-disciplinary aspects of corporate research, especially in Silicon Valley (San Francisco high tech).

1. UCLA ANTHRO 9
LECTURE
February 12, 2013
Professor Mariko Tamanoi

2. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
Today we’ll talk about…
• Ecosystems of non-academic research – business and
other organizations.
• Resources, niches - survival
• Cultures and sub-cultures: produced, criticized and
morphed by various “tribes” in many places and over time
• How cultural practices and values are transmitted and
challenged
• As it happens – we’re going to talk about what may be
someday part of your career.

3. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
WHO’S HEARD OF USER
EXPERIENCE RESEARCH?
• Market Research
• Usability
• User Experience (UX)

4. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
Market Research
o Market Research is mostly about opinion, attitudes.
o Question – answer.
o Prep for selling whatever has been developed,
o The end of the process, little/no user influence
o Offers a comparatively superficial view
o methodologies, intent
o Example: Directed inquiries - what the questioner wants to know, on
her terms.
o Often forces “respondents” to think about something the way the
researcher thinks about a topic
• What induced evolutionary complexity of research
methodologies?

5. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
What induced evolutionary complexity of
research methodologies?
• The craving for richer knowledge
• Combined with the availability of maturing academic disciplines
to inform the work
But why?
• Resulting from market pressures

6. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
Usability/Human Computer Interaction
Summative, mid-later Product Development
• Prototype testing
o Specifically for humans and computer development
o Conducted in a lab to control variables
o More about behaviors and perceptions than Mkt. Res.
o Participants are consultants, experts at being human

7. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
User eXperience (UX)
Formative and Summative – all the way thru Product Dev
o Can include usability and market research methodologies
o Research on the “Other’s” terms.
o Our job: extract implications from their meanings.
o Conducted anywhere
o in context, online, and in a lab
o Artifacts
o A much wider array of academic disciplines (aka “majors”)
Draw the Methodologies Formula
Draw the Design Process

8. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
Research Methodologies
Market Research
Q -> A
= User
+ Formative
Usability Experience
(Discovery)
(Summative for Research
Prototypes or
existing
products)

9. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
Design Process
Beginning to end of Product Development -->
Product Manager
Summative
UX Researcher
Formative
Customer Research
UX Developer
(Front End)
NOT TO SCALE!!

10. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
Notes on the Design Process
• Formative Research is done at the outset; Summative is done
when there is a product and business model direction.
• Formative is where anthropology adds most value
• The Product Manager is a peer to the Researcher, Designer,
and Developer
• Customer Research pertains to the experience of those who
buy the product/service (not necessarily the actual
user/beneficiary) – sales, support, legal. Not part of the product
development process, but appropriates some UX
methodologies (usually badly, but it’s nice that they try)
• Designers are usually expected to know research
methodologies and sometimes conduct research.
• Designers are sometimes expected to code prototypes for the
developers, or pair with them in the beta process

11. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
An Echo from the MBA People
“Ask fewer questions about what people will do
instead set up small field tests and controlled studies that
observe what they actually do.
In most instances, they will be lot cheaper than traditional
market research approaches, and yet the insights they
reveal could provide a real competitive advantage…”
Steve Martin, Harvard Business Review blog 1/30/13

12. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
A STANDARD GOOGLE
UX JOB DESCRIPTION
A good description of the role and its ecosystem

13. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
Overview
• The job of our User Experience professionals is to make
sure that our products are useful, usable and desirable to
millions of users worldwide.
• Our Interaction Designers, Visual
Designers, Prototypers and Researchers work with
Product Managers and Engineers to improve our
products and develop new ones.
• …team members are encouraged to identify new
opportunities for user experience improvements.

14. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
The UX Team
• Researchers
• Designers
• Information Architects
• Content Writers
• Business Analysts
• Developers
Each of these roles has a number of sub-specialties.
We are committed to informing and aligning our work with
stated corporate strategies.

15. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
Qualifications
• An advanced degree preferred in computer
science, human computer interaction, cognitive
science, experimental
psychology, anthropology, information science or related
field.
• At least 3 years of work experience in an applied
research setting.
• Experience integrating user research into product
designs and design practices

16. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
More Qualifications
• Excellent interpersonal, communication, negotiation, and
collaborate skills (culture!)
• Strong understanding of strengths and shortcomings of
different research methods, including when and how to
apply them during each product phase.
• Excellent working knowledge of statistics and the
principles of experiment design.

17. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
WHY ANTHROPOLOGY?
Anthropology is authentic discovery, a strong an ownership of
exploration.
People-intensive. Not manipulative.
Theoretical grounding. Critical thinking and arguing evidence.
The search for unexpected meaning, not just the answers.

18. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
Criticism
• Henry Ford & Steve Jobs ‘people don’t know what they
want’ is mostly true. Researchers and designers figure it
out from the data. That’s our task.
• The burning question is: Is it too much to ask a researcher
to also be a producer, and vice versa?
• Is research a specialty that can be adequately adopted by
designers, coders, business folks?

19. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
THE UX RESEARCHER
ROLE
How I do my work

20. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
• Draw up research questions, draw hypotheses, data
processing, data analysis.
• Involve other roles
• Be current on methodologies and how they work best
• Know technical resources and keep skills sharp
• “present” findings in a format that suits the needs of the
stakeholders (called the deliverable)
• Evangelize the findings

21. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
Current work Example - Vegas
• Some research was done by previous researchers
• Upon arrival, changed a series of “focus groups” to 1:1
formative interviews.
• Focus groups are a market research methodology intended to build
consensus in that group
• We didn’t know how these people do their work and what kinds of
organizational requirements and constraints they’re under.
• So –> 1:1.

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Internal to External Cultures
• Fielding research requests and deciding on
methodologies.
• Time is short and material resources are limited.
• Participants (customers) must be handled carefully.
• I can’t wreck a relationship built by the Sales and the Support
tribes. Even though I do not want those tribes participating in the
research process
• Customers must feel free to talk to me about what I want them to
talk about – it’s a different relationship

23. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
Balanced Exploitation
• In an ecological system, the populations find and exploit
niches where they can thrive.
• In a balanced ecology, the exploitation is balanced.
Relationships are symbiotic: negotiated and mutually
beneficial. Political. Among humans - Cultural.
• Every entity we sell to has a version of a culture.
• I work on categorizing those cultures in a way that makes
sense to my team, group, and company

24. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
External to Internal
• I am expected to interpret and recommend actions
intended to produce an effect on the people I study.
Research -> Design -> user experience
• My findings must be reliable: ask the right questions, collect data in
a usable way, make sure everyone on my team and group is on
board, process and analyze the data correctly and quickly, present
the findings in a nutritious way.
• Listen to other interpretations, new questions (“now that we know
this, what about that point right there?”)

25. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
The C-level
• I must be persuasive all the way up to the VP and C-level
executives.
• This means packaging my findings to be easily
consumable and actionable.
• They have to believe that what I am telling them they can
defend later.
• I work hard to justify my existence

26. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
MY ROAD TO BECOMING A
UX RESEARCHER
Obstacles and distractions

27. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
UX did not exist in 1992
• Sell the components of what you want to do. For me, that was
qualitative research skills
• Toyed with Market Research
• Hired Gallup to do the heavy lifting
• Got on the phones to do surveys
• Proposed and ran a focus group arm
• Paper editing at Harvard
• Microsoft: deep interest in research and deep pockets to pay
for it
• Did a lot of work on my own time
• Pushed to leave and get a master’s in Cognitive Psych (prep for usability
engineering)
• Conferences, informational interviews, hanging out at usability
lab studies, networking, having an opinion and stating it.
• Did pro bono work for Habitat for Humanity
• Proposed an application for the skills I was offering
• Trained others to do ethnographic fieldwork

28. Copyright Susan Wilhite 2013
QUESTIONS?
Susan_Wilhite at msn dot com
@Maggid