Jay Hasbrouck on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz

Anthro to UX with Matt Artz

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הוסף לפני four שנים

תוכן מסופק על ידי Matt Artz | Anthro to UX and Matt Artz. כל תוכן הפודקאסטים כולל פרקים, גרפיקה ותיאורי פודקאסטים מועלים ומסופקים ישירות על ידי Matt Artz | Anthro to UX and Matt Artz או שותף פלטפורמת הפודקאסט שלהם. אם אתה מאמין שמישהו משתמש ביצירה שלך המוגנת בזכויות יוצרים ללא רשותך, אתה יכול לעקוב אחר התהליך המתואר כאן https://he.player.fm/legal.

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Encore: Will Poulter, Dave Beran, and The Bear 52:22

לפני 15 ימים52:22

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לייק

אהבתי

52:22

Season 3 of the smash hit FX/Hulu show “The Bear” roared to life just days ago, but Will Poulter (the actor who plays fan-favorite Luca) and 2014 F&W Best New Chef Dave Beran had been prepping for weeks. Poulter — like his co-star Jeremy Allen White — staged with Beran at his Santa Monica restaurant Pasjoli to learn how to accurately portray a professional chef onscreen. The lessons went so well, Beran says he’d hire Poulter as a cook — even despite a messy mishap with a pastry bag. The two dished all about getting kitchen culture right on and offscreen, what it takes to be at the top of your craft, and the pure magic of a great restaurant service. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices…

לפני 4 שנים 53:17

MP3•בית הפרקים

In this episode of the Anthro to UX podcast, Jay Hasbrouck speaks with Matt Artz about his UX journey, visual anthropology, and how ethnographic thinking can contribute to strategy and new product development. Jay earned a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of Southern California, works as a Pathfinder for Facebook, and is the author of Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset. About Jay Hasbrouck Jay Hasbrouck has over 15 years of experience working as an anthropologist in industry settings, including both in-house roles and consulting. He currently works as a Pathfinder on the New Product Experimentation team at Facebook. Previously Jay was a partner at Ethnoworks, the founder of Filament Insights & Innovation, a senior human factors specialist at IDEO, and a research scientist at Intel. Jay is also the author of Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset. About Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset argues that ‘ethnographic thinking’―the thought processes and patterns ethnographers develop through their practice―offers companies and organizations the cultural insights they need to develop fully-informed strategies. Using real-world examples, Hasbrouck demonstrates how shifting the value of ethnography from simply identifying consumer needs to driving a more holistic understanding of a company or organization can help it benefit from a deeper understanding of the dynamic and interactive cultural contexts of its offerings. In doing so, he argues that such an approach can also enhance the strategic value of their work by helping them increase appreciation for openness and exploration, hone interpretive skills, and cultivate holistic thinking, in order to broaden perspectives, challenge assumptions, and cross-pollinate ideas between differing viewpoints. Recommended Links

50 פרקים

#Society #Business #Anthropology #User Experience #User Research #Business Anthropology #Design Anthropology #Applied Anthropological #Matt Artz #Anthro To UX #Careers #Podcasting Education #Matt Artz The Anthro To UX #UX Research #UX Design

Jay Hasbrouck on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz

Anthro to UX with Matt Artz

published לפני 4 שנים

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50 פרקים

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Jesse Dart on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz 31:45

לפני 30 weeks31:45

31:45

In this Anthro to UX podcas t episode, Jesse Dart speaks with Matt Artz about his journey into UX research. Jesse shares his path from anthropology to UX research, highlighting his unique experience studying food and organizational anthropology in tech companies. He discusses his transition from academia to UX research through an agency in Rome, and his current role as a senior UX researcher at Hyatt Hotels, where he applies ethnographic methods to understand the complex hospitality industry. About Jesse Dart Jesse Dart is a film photographer, writer, and Italian/American citizen based in the western United States, he frequently travels to Europe. His writing, influenced by his background in cultural anthropology, focuses on adventure, travel, society, and culture. Jesse has contributed to various publications including Monocle, The Guardian, and Vice. As a social anthropologist, Jesse is a senior researcher for Hyatt Hotels, applying his expertise to understand cultural nuances in hospitality. He holds a PhD in anthropology from The University of Sydney and an M.A. in gastronomy from the University of Gastronomic Sciences. Jesse publishes a newsletter of short stories and photos called “Art of the Escape” and his first book “Feeding the Hustle” was released in 2021. He was awarded an Artist Opportunity Grant from the Arizona Commission on the Arts in 2024 and has appeared on the Anthropologist on the Street podcast. Key Takeaways Hotels are complex environments requiring an anthropologist’s eye to understand the nuances of guest experiences and organizational dynamics UX research in hospitality must consider multiple stakeholders, from guests to staff members who interact with digital products Ethnographic methods and fieldwork can validate and provide context to quantitative data in corporate settings Photography and writing skills from anthropological training can complement and enhance UX research capabilities Key Moments 1:00 Introduction to anthropology through international travel and exchange programs 2:46 Education in applied anthropology in Australia 11:17 Introduction to UX through Fifth Beat agency in Rome 14:39 Transition to Hyatt Hotels as senior UX researcher 19:28 Discussion of fieldwork and ethnographic methods in corporate research 26:06 Integration of photography and writing with UX research career Recommended Links Jesse Dart’s LinkedIn Jesse Dart’s Instagram Jesse Dart’s Substack Feeding the Hustle…

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Sonja Hodgson on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz 29:37

לפני 40 weeks29:37

29:37

In this Anthro to UX podcas t episode, Sonja Hodgson speaks with Matt Artz about her journey into UX research. Sonja shares her path from anthropology to UX research, highlighting the transferable skills from her anthropological background. She discusses her experiences in various roles, including medical interpretation, program evaluation, market research, and her current position as a UX researcher at LexisNexis. Sonja emphasizes the value of anthropological methods in UX research and the importance of continuous learning in the field. About Sonja Hodgson Sonja Hodgson is a UX Researcher II at LexisNexis Legal, where she applies her expertise in applied anthropology to drive user-centric solutions in the legal technology sector. With a Master’s degree in Applied Anthropology from California State University, Long Beach, and a Bachelor’s in Anthropology from the University of South Carolina, Sonja brings a unique perspective to her work in UX research. Her career spans various roles, including medical interpretation, program evaluation, and market research, before transitioning into UX research. Key Takeaways Anthropologists already possess many of the essential skills needed for UX research, with UX terminology often being a new “language” to learn. Continuous skill development, including learning statistics and data analysis tools, is crucial for career growth in UX research. The integration of AI tools in UX research can significantly enhance efficiency and data analysis capabilities. Networking and affordable online courses can be valuable resources for those looking to break into UX research, especially during challenging job markets. Key Moments 1:54 Journey from anthropology to UX research 5:57 Transition from market research to UX research at LexisNexis 13:48 Applying anthropological skills in UX research 19:47 Integrating AI tools in UX research processes 22:52 Developing additional skills for UX research, including statistics 26:36 Advice for breaking into UX research in a tough job market…

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Fatimah Richmond on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz 39:23

לפני 48 weeks39:23

39:23

In this Anthro to UX podcast episode, Fatimah Richmond speaks with Matt Artz about her UX journey. Fatimah shares her journey from computer science to anthropology and how she found her passion for human-computer interaction. She discusses the evolution of UX research and the importance of research maturity within organizations. Fatimah highlights the need for researchers to take ownership of their practice, understand power dynamics, and communicate the impact of their work effectively. Opinions expressed are solely Fatimah Richmond’s own, and do not express the views or opinions of her current or former employers.” About Fatimah Richmond Fatimah Richmond is a UX Research Strategist with over 15 years of experience across AI, healthcare, enterprise software, productivity tools, talent solutions, and defense IT. She currently works at Google DeepMind, focusing on strategic research programs for AI User Experience (AIUX). Fatimah has held roles such as research manager, research program manager, and research assistant, executing qualitative research projects targeting large markets and specialized user groups. She completed her graduate studies in Applied Anthropology, Human Factors, and Design at San Jose State University and holds a bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems from Tuskegee University. Her mission is to empower user research, enable ethical and inclusive products, and document her findings. Key Takeaways Fatimah emphasizes the importance of research maturity and understanding the impact of low-maturity organizations on the research process. Researchers should embrace strategic operations and programs to tell the story of their function within the organization. Creativity plays a key role in research innovation, and hobbies like poetry can enhance researchers’ creative thinking. Taking a critical reflexive lens to study power dynamics and organizational culture can lead to a deeper understanding of research practices. Key Moments 1:22 Integrating Anthropology and Computer Science in Human-Computer Interaction 4:38 Anthropology of Work and the Digital Divide in Silicon Valley 7:07 Evolution of UX Roles and Usability Engineering 9:58 Adapting UX Research Across Different Organizational Environments 16:00 The Evolution and Diversification of UX Practitioners 18:00 Evolving Research Operations and Strategic Integration in Business 24:07 Understanding Research Maturity in Organizations 25:28 The Debate on Storytelling Skills in User Research 26:32 Enhancing Research Operations Through Strategic Metrics and Self-Analysis 34:55 Exploring Research Maturity and Creativity in Emerging Technologies Recommended Links Fatimah Richmond’s Personal Website Fatimah Richmond on LinkedIn Fatimah Richmond’s Instagram Fatimah Richmond’s Poetry Book Advancing Research – “What UXR Maturity looks like and how we get there?” Advancing Research – “Strategic Research Programs: The Future of Research Operations” EPIC2024 Salon Research Operations Community Fatimah Richmond’s Reading Resources…

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Tariq Rahman on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz 37:05

לפני 1 year37:05

37:05

In this Anthro to UX podcast episode, Tariq Rahman speaks with Matt Artz about his UX journey. He discusses his fieldwork in Pakistan's real estate market and how it allowed him to explore the intersection of anthropology and UX research. He also highlights his UX internships at Zameen.com and Nike and discusses how his strategy consulting internship at ReD Associates has also helped position him for a career in UX research. About Tariq Rahman Tariq Rahman is currently finishing his PhD in Cultural Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, where he studied the role of social media and proptech in Pakistan’s emerging $1 trillion real estate market. He recently completed a UX Research internship at Nike and a Strategy Consulting internship at ReD Associates. His expertise lies in using ethnography to better understand the relationship between technology and culture, and leveraging these insights to inform product innovations and strategy. Key Moments 00:03:00 - Fieldwork in Pakistan on real estate market 00:06:00 - First internship at Zameen.com, a property portal 00:12:05 - Opportunity to work with companies in emerging markets during field work 00:13:48 - Making the case for UX research and its impact in Pakistan 00:15:00 - Lack of practical advice from department, self-learning UX research 00:18:00 - Introduction to UX during Nike internship, bottom-up experimental approach 00:22:23 - Importance of learning and seeking help during internships 00:23:00 - Internship at Red Associates 00:23:35 - Field work on generative AI use cases 00:24:27 - Collaborative research process and analysis at Red Associates 00:25:15 - Team dynamics in a project team 00:26:00 - Differences in ownership and decision-making in UX and strategy consulting 00:26:51 - Learning to speak to business interests in strategy consulting 00:27:44 - Applying strategy consulting skills to make UX research impactful 00:29:44 - Starting early with UX research and internships Recommended Links Tariq Rahman on LinkedIn Landscapes of rizq: Mediating worldly and otherworldly in Lahore's speculative real estate market…

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Rachel Puvvada on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz 27:09

לפני 2 years27:09

27:09

In this Anthro to UX podcast episode, Rachel Puvvada speaks with Matt Artz about her UX journey. She first unknowingly discovered anthropology in high school through an ethnography project exploring cultural identity. This sparked her interest in studying people and cultures, leading her to earn a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of Georgia. To position her for a career after college, Rachel took on ethnographic projects, created an online portfolio, and landed a UX research internship at SiriusXM. Now, as a UX researcher at Independence Pet Group, Rachel leverages her anthropology background while emphasizing continuous learning and curiosity. Passionate about helping others, she shares her less common path from an undergrad to UX to inspire other anthropology graduates. About Rachel Puvvada Rachel Puvvada recently earned her Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Georgia. She is now a UX Researcher at Figo Pet Insurance, leading as the sole member of the user experience research team. Before this, she interned as a Product and UX Researcher at SiriusXM, where she tested product designs, synthesized data, and shared insights with cross-functional teams. As a recent graduate in a new UX role, Rachel is committed to providing guidance and mentorship to individuals entering the field with similar educational backgrounds. Key Moments 00:00:59 Rachel's interest in anthropology and cultural identity 00:04:20 Rachel's experience in the anthropology program at the University of Georgia 00:07:00 Discovering UX research and deciding on a career path 00:09:30 Considering the need for an advanced degree in UX 00:11:00 Rachel's journey of breaking into the field without a master's or PhD 00:12:00 Building a portfolio with ethnographic projects and real-world experience 00:12:56 Importance of real-world experience and managing stakeholders 00:13:00 Applying to entry-level UX research jobs 00:12:56 Real-world experience and job search struggles 00:14:43 Difficulty breaking into the field with a bachelor's degree 00:15:24 Landing an internship at Sirius XM 00:16:00 Learning usability tests and specific UX research methodologies 00:16:58 Challenges of being a team of one and relying on mentors 00:18:11 Continuing to learn and explore new methodologies 00:19:00 Finding resources through online readings and mentor relationships 00:20:14 Encouragement for job seekers to persevere and stay curious 00:22:37 Joining user research meetups and groups for networking 00:24:39 Translating anthropological language into UX research language Recommended Links Rachel Puvvada's Website Rachel Puvvada on LinkedIn…

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Sydney Yeager on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz 29:36

לפני 2 years29:36

29:36

In this Anthro to UX podcast episode, Sydney Yeager speaks with Matt Artz about her UX journey. She discusses how she discovered anthropology in college and fell in love with its holistic perspective. Sydney also talks about her involvement with the Digital Anthropology Networking Group (DANG) and the importance of establishing the credibility of anthropologists studying digital spaces. She highlights the value of storytelling in anthropology and how it translates to UX research. Sydney also shares her experience working in product management and UX research roles and discusses her current role at Walmart, where she focuses on providing tech solutions for employees and improving the employee experience. About Sydney Yeager Sydney Yeager is a digital anthropologist with a career spanning academia and the private sector. Currently serving as a Senior Design Researcher at Walmart Global Tech, she previously held positions at AcreTrader and Boston Scientific. In academia, Yeager was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Rollins College and remains an active figure in anthropological circles as the co-founder and chair of the Digital Anthropology Interest Group (DANG). Her work consistently aims to integrate anthropological methodologies into technology and product development. Key Moments 00:01:00 - Sydney's background and how she discovered anthropology. 00:03:00 - Sydney's undergraduate research on health and healing traditions. 00:04:00 - Sydney's interest in digital anthropology and involvement with DANG. 00:06:00 - DANG's mission to establish the credibility of digital anthropology. 00:08:00 - Sydney's interest in UX research and applied anthropology. 00:10:00 - Sydney's early work in UX research and interaction with academics. 00:13:00 - Experience in product management and UX research. 00:18:00 - Role on the Associate Digital Experience team at Walmart. 00:19:00 - Support for tech in the new Walmart campus. 00:22:29 - Observations on building products for customers vs. employees 00:24:00 - Need to translate employee experience into business goals 00:25:00 - Importance of considering end users and customers separately 00:26:03 - Ways to get involved in the digital anthropology group Recommended Links Sydney Yeager's website Sydney Yeager on LinkedIn DANG's Website DANG Slack Group…

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Julia Wignall on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz 26:37

לפני 2 years26:37

26:37

In this Anthro to UX podcast episode, Julia Wignall speaks with Matt Artz about her UX journey. She discusses the value of anthropology in the healthcare field and how she uses design research and service design to improve patient experiences. Julia emphasizes the importance of executive sponsorship and navigating the complexity of healthcare problems. She also highlights the need for qualitative methods, journey mapping, and service blueprinting in service design. Julia provides insights into the intersection of anthropology, design, and healthcare. About Julia Wignall Julia Wignall is an accomplished anthropologist currently serving as the Manager of Experience Insights & Design at Seattle Children's, where she brings the principles of social science to guide business decisions. With over a decade of experience in the field, she leads workforce, patient, and family experience insights, employing mixed methods research and service design for strategic innovation. Julia's expertise lies in ethical research practices, ethnography, and qualitative analysis, making her an invaluable asset in driving equity-focused design projects and generating actionable insights that impact product and program strategies throughout the organization. Key Moments 00:01:25 - Julia's interest in anthropology and migration experiences 00:03:42 - Julia's work at Seattle Children's Hospital 00:04:48 - Transitioning to design research and learning on the job 00:07:06 - The value of executive sponsorship in facilitating change 00:09:24 - Navigating limitations and communicating research findings 00:10:57 - The role of business anthropology in understanding organizational culture 00:12:16 - Perspectives on anthropology and design in the medical field 00:13:42 - Facilitating change and adoption in a collaborative healthcare environment 00:15:29 - Using service design to navigate complexity and solve problems 00:18:00 - Incorporating technology into service design in healthcare 00:21:00 - Recommended skills for those interested in service design in healthcare 00:24:59 - Upcoming events and opportunities for networking in the field 00:25:59 - How to get in touch with Julia Recommended Links Julia Wignall on LinkedIn…

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Jason Garrison on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz 30:17

לפני 2 years30:17

30:17

In this Anthro to UX podcast episode, Jason Garrison speaks with Matt Artz about his UX journey. The conversation covers Jason's journey from being an educator to becoming a cultural anthropologist and eventually transitioning to UX research. Throughout the episode, Jason emphasizes the importance of empathy, networking, and relationship-building in UX research. Additionally, he provides guidance on pursuing a PhD in anthropology and delves into the role of research operations in UX, discussing strategic thinking and emotional intelligence. Jason also highlights the benefits of embedded ethnography for understanding research team function and growth and offers advice for breaking into research operations. About Jason Garrison Jason Garrison is a seasoned UX Researcher, currently leading projects at AnswerLab, where he utilizes his mastery in mixed-methods to deliver valuable ethnographies and help clients understand their target audiences better. With over five years in the field, his journey has encompassed roles at UX Cabin, Comcast, Rock Central, and Google, each contributing to his unique skill set. His tenure has been marked by significant achievements such as initiating the first user research program for the Rocket Mortgage Mobile app at Rock Central and enhancing internal developer tools at Google. Jason's ability to empathize with users and translate insights into actionable results, combined with his dedication to inclusivity, makes him a valuable asset in the UX industry. Key Moments 00:00:00 Introduction to the Anthro to UX podcast 00:00:38 Introduction to Jason Garrison 00:01:28 Jason's early interest in anthropology 00:02:25 Jason's practicum in Malaysia and exposure to applied anthropology 00:04:10 Jason's interest in the practical application of anthropology 00:05:57 Jason's discovery of UX during the pandemic 00:07:08 Jason's transition to UX research 00:09:30 The importance of storytelling in UX research 00:11:20 The role of empathy in UX research 00:06:28 Jason's decision not to pursue a PhD in anthropology 00:08:14 Discussion on the value of a PhD for UX research 00:10:00 Jason's view on the practical application of anthropology in UX 00:11:37 Addressing the criticism of anthropology being watered down in UX 00:12:47 Importance of anthropology in understanding business and value proposition 00:13:51 Research operations contributes to good anthropology 00:15:38 Research operations enables researchers to be great storytellers 00:16:58 Research operations facilitates great tools for ongoing research 00:18:28 Importance of intake process and repository in research 00:18:56 Research operations socializes what the UX research team does and inspires towards what could be done in the future 00:19:17 Additional skills for research operations: learning how to speak the language of business, understanding KPIs, and being able to anticipate and intuit what's valuable for a product team 00:23:13 Embedded ethnography is a great way to provide outside feedback on how a research team can grow and where it needs more resources 00:24:33 Encouragement for those interested in research operations to talk to people in strategy and product partners to understand the relationship between research and design 00:26:15 Jason Garrison's contact information Recommended Links Jason Garrison's Personal Website Jason Garrison on LinkedIn…

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Sarah Elizabeth Yoho on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz 27:35

לפני 2 years27:35

27:35

In this Anthro to UX podcast episode, Sarah Elizabeth Yoho speaks with Matt Artz about her UX journey. The conversation covers Sarah's journey from law to medical anthropology, her transition into UX research during the pandemic, and the importance of translating anthropological experiences into the job application process. Sarah also discusses the concept of impact in research, the role of operations in policy implementation, and the significance of strategy in linking company goals to research and data points. Additionally, she highlights the potential for UX research in financial services. About Sarah Elizabeth Yoho Sarah Elizabeth Yoho is a Senior UX Researcher with a focus on strategy, policy and operations, and a specialization in ethnographic research. She has successfully planned, facilitated, and delivered diverse projects with a variety of clients in various sectors, including banks, NGOs, nonprofits, peak bodies, consultancies, and lobbyists. Her professional skillset features an international profile, including work at the Australian Medical Council (Policy Strategy & Compliance), the European Commission (Policy Research) & Macquarie University (Program Development). At AnswerLab, Sarah Elizabeth works in the Financial Services Team where she leverages her policy strategy background and ethnographic expertise to lead strategic UX Research projects, facilitate workshops, and foster client relationships. She holds a Masters in Medical Anthropology & Public Health (MCHaM) from the Australian National University and a Marie Skłodowska Curie PhD in Medical & Environmental Anthropology from the University of Leeds. Recommended Links Sarah Elizabeth Yoho's website Sarah Elizabeth Yoho on Linkedin Ask a Manager Business Anthropology by Ann Jordan The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins The So Money Podcast with Farnoosh Torabi I Will Teach You to be Rich…

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Joseph Galanek on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz 27:18

לפני 2 years27:18

27:18

In this Anthro to UX podcast episode, Joseph Galanek speaks with Matt Artz about his UX journey. The conversation covers Joe's journey from being inspired by cultural experiences when traveling to pursuing degrees in anthropology and public health. He shares his challenges in finding a job in anthropology departments due to specific research interests and how he discovered opportunities in consulting agencies that value qualitative and quantitative research. The discussion also explores Joe's work leading client engagements as a UX Strategy Manager at Answerlab and his experience mentoring anthropologists transitioning into business. About Joseph Galanek Joseph Galanek is an accomplished user experience researcher and UXR strategist with over 15 years of experience in academia and industry. As the UX Strategy Manager at AnswerLab, he collaborates with ecommerce leaders, designing and implementing customized research that meets partners' objectives and business goals. Joseph's expertise includes qualitative and mixed methods research, scoping, and client engagement. With a strong academic background, including a PhD in Cultural Anthropology and an MPH from Case Western Reserve University, Joseph has held research roles at various organizations such as HireWisdom, EDUCAUSE, and ICF. He has contributed to impactful projects, including CDC health campaigns and national HIV prevention initiatives, and is known for balancing methodological rigor with pragmatic strategies. Key Moments 00:02:00 - Reflections on a Career in Anthropology 00:06:36 - Exploring Career Opportunities in Research Consultancies 00:08:12 - Applying Qualitative Research Skills in an Applied Environment 00:14:17 - Collaborative Efforts and Demonstrating Value in Anthropology Research 00:16:00 - Moving from Academia to Business: Advice for Anthropologists 00:19:41 - Making a Good First Impression on LinkedIn 00:21:19 - Analysis of Research Objectives and Actionable Recommendations for Development Teams 00:22:48 -Exploring Trends in Cost-Effective UX Research Recommended Links Joseph Galanek on LinkedIn Joseph Galanek on Google Scholar…

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Rama Vennelakanti on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz 38:30

לפני 2 years38:30

38:30

In this Anthro to UX podcast episode, Rama Vennelakanti speaks with Matt Artz about her UX journey. The conversation covers Rama's journey from discovering anthropology to her stint in market research and, finally, her landing in the field of UX. It also touches on Rama's willingness to jump in head first and learn something when needed. It is an inspiring example of how one should not be afraid of the unknown and embrace new challenges. Rama's fearlessness has enabled her to explore different areas of research and innovation, leading to her success as a skilled anthropologist and UX strategist. About Rama Vennelakanti As an anthropologist, Rama Vennelakanti has become a skilled researcher and UX strategist, currently working as a Senior UX Researcher & Strategist in UXDX Developer Relations, Network, and Edge Group at Intel Corporation. Her role involves utilizing her extensive experience in driving UX strategy backed by research, which has led to a proven track record of positively impacting businesses and their customers. Previously, Rama was a Senior User Researcher and UX Lead at HP for over nine years. During this time, she honed her ability to work effectively with global multi-disciplinary teams and internal and external stakeholders in innovation environments, enabling her to deliver exceptional results across various industry verticals ranging from IT, Telecom to FMCG. Her passion for technology and commitment to driving actionable insights from research has been consistent theme throughout her career. Recommended Links Rama Vennelakanti on LinkedIn…

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Victoria de Aranzeta on Anthro to UX with Matt Artz 30:36

לפני 2 years30:36

30:36

In this episode of the Anthro to UX podcast , Victoria de Aranzeta speaks with Matt Artz about her UX journey. The conversation covers Victoria's journey from art school to anthropology. She discusses how she combines those skills as a product designer, and how her anthropological study of tools contributes to her work today. About Victoria de Aranzeta Victoria de Aranzeta is a multi-disciplinary UX designer and researcher passionate about creating purpose-driven tools and decolonizing design thinking. She is currently working at NCX as a Senior Product Designer, where she leads the design of the Landowner Platform and operationalizes ethical research practices across the company. Victoria has also worked as a founding product designer and researcher at Spora Health, where she led the design vision and research strategy for creating culture-centered healthcare products for People of Color. She established and led decolonizing design and research practices to build people-centered experiences and created processes, research toolkits, and a design system with accessible components. Prior to Spora Health, Victoria was an interaction designer on crowdsourcing software at Google on the Crowdsource team, where she partnered with other designers, researchers, and engineers to create a more ethics-rooted AI. With vast experience in ethical research, qualitative research, UX writing, design systems, and strategy, Victoria is a creative designer and critical thinker specializing in decolonizing design thinking, visual design, accessible design, and interaction design. Recommended Links Victoria de Aranzeta's website Victoria de Aranzeta on LinkedIn…

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Paige Nuzzolillo on the Anthro to UX Podcast with Matt Artz 39:58

לפני 2 years39:58

39:58

In this episode of the Anthro to UX podcast , Paige Nuzzolillo speaks with Matt Artz about her UX journey. The conversation covers Paige's early research career in participatory action research, the importance of training and mentorship, and how she uses art-based research (ABR) methods in her work as a Senior UX Researcher at Indeed. About Paige Nuzzolillo Paige Nuzzolillo is an energetic, collaborative, strategic, participatory, and creative qualitative UX Researcher. She currently works at Indeed.com on the SMB team with 50+ other researchers. She is embedded in a product team building tools to help fast-growing employers find the candidates they need regularly. Recommended Links Paige Nuzzolillo's website Paige Nuzzolillo on LinkedIn Paige Nuzzolillo on Medium Episode Transcript Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors. 0:00:00.7 Matt Artz: Welcome to the Anthro to UX podcast. You will learn how to break into UX within anthropology degree through conversations to competing anthropologists working in user experience, you will learn firsthand how others make the transition, what they learned along the way and what they would do differently. We will be discussing what it means to do UX research from a practical perspective, and what you need to do to prepare a resume and portfolio on your host, Matt Artz, a business anthropologist specializing in design anthropology and working at the intersection of product management, user experience and business strategy. Let's get started. How everyone will come back. A matter it. So the entry podcast, I'm here today with Paige Nuzzolillo and Paige is a senior user experience researcher at indeed previously a senior user experience research here, Delta Dental of Washington. So page, would you mind by town everybody, a little bit about your origin story... 0:00:58.2 Paige Nuzzolillo: Yeah, thanks so much, man. Yeah, my last name is a hard one to pronounce, I actually just got married and I'm still not gonna change it, I'm still gonna torture myself, I guess. So yeah, so I've been working in UX research for about five years now. But we've been working in research for a lot longer, and so I will say that my anthro origin story really started probably just with my really strong desire and wanting to travel and my family, not traveling anywhere really ever... My first time on a plane ever, I was in DC, I went to DC from Connecticut, very short plant, and I was 16 years old, so I hadn't traveled really outside of New England for a really long time, so I was always really, really interested in traveling, and I also just generally grew up with really a big hunch knowing that there's not one way of living, and I felt just really open-minded as a kid. I think part of that is also probably having a very strong European influence, my grandparents were immigrants from Italy, and so I grew up around them and just essentially immersed in European culture, they came to the US when they were both around 20. 0:02:20.6 Paige Nuzzolillo: So my grandmother was also one of my primary caregiver, so yeah, definitely really immersed in just living in other cultures, and then on top of that, I also worked a lot with my mom as a kid to learn about history and archeology. I actually went on an auricular dig with her at a historical site, she did a lot of marketing and event coordination for different circles in Connecticut, and so I just grew up in museums as well. I had a birthday party where I took a bunch of my friends to the Noah Webster house, as in the no, Webster Dictionary. And we all put bones on and made cake by the heart and played colonial games, so that was my idea of fun when I was 10 years old, so they were a little different, but overall, I think I just really learned at a young age that... And I was also just really drawn to a young age that there's really not one right way to live, and I think that a lot of people also talk about how anthropology is a mindset. I feel like I hear that a lot when anthropology comes up in conversation with other anthropologists, and I think that... 0:03:30.4 Paige Nuzzolillo: It's absolutely true. I think that I had that mindset as a young kid, and eventually when I found anthropology, all the concepts of cultural overall Tevis and open-mindedness and being non-judgmental, all these things really just fit really nicely, but really just how I lived my life for a very long time. And then also I ended up traveling, so I ended up going to ER of backpacking with my best friend. I hated Spanish when I was in school, I felt really devoid of context for me, it was my worst class, and then when I went backpacking with my best friend... I ended up falling in love with Spanish. We spent a lot of time in Barcelona, Madrid, and basically I decided that I was gonna go back there. And so I ended up teaching English and Spain as well. So I had a really immersive experience living in Spain for nine months, and also six months studying abroad, I was about a year and a half total. And I was contracted by the Spanish government when I was teaching in a Spanish secondary school. And I was living with Spanish roommates that didn't speak any English, and same when I was studying abroad, living with a family that didn't speak in the English, so definitely put myself in situations throughout my life that really encouraged me to learn about other cultures, both in school, when I ended up learning more about anthropology and actually switching my major from English, Anthropology, and then also just these other experiences that I had was studying abroad and then after school also teaching. 0:04:54.3 Paige Nuzzolillo: So yeah, so I think that overall, that's why I talk about travel, just because I think that's what really instigated me to actually go ahead and actually study anthropology in the first place, and... Yeah, so then from there, I ended up... I ended up actually sitting in a career and research panel at the University of Connecticut, and that was right when I had switched my major from English to anthro, and I ended up meeting researchers that worked at a community-based research institute in Connecticut, and I ended up working there for four years as an intern, and then I also worked there as my first full-time physician and a school as well, and I was involved in community-based participatory action research in multiple different topics from substance abuse prevention, STI and HIV prevention, and also substance abuse prevention as well, so it was involved in a lot of really amazing work with researchers that were also a PS, an anthropology that were also professors as well, so I had a lot of really great exposure to research as well when I was in Applied Anthropology, when I was actually in school as an undergrad too. 0:06:09.5 Matt Artz: Then you said that you graduated and you didn't... You worked in research for a while before getting to us, so... What did that journey look like? 0:06:18.6 Paige Nuzzolillo: Yeah, so that's when I would say so working at ICR at the Institute for community research, I first was an intern there, so I was involved in an NIH-funded study that was around female condom acceptability and accessibility for those at high risk of HIV STIS and Hartford Connecticut. And so I worked on that study for a long period of time, I was involved in qualitative data analysis, coding interviews, transcribing interviews as an intern, and then also actually conducting interviews myself in Spanish and English, which was really awesome. As an undergrad, it was amazing opportunity to have that ability to do that kind of work, and then also I was collecting data in inter-surveys as well, where male and female condoms were sold, so I really got a sense of what data collection was like as an intern, and also just what it would be like to actually go into the field and work on some of these more sensitive topics as well, and then... So I worked on that project for a period of time, and then I ended up getting my first full-time position, and that was when I actually worked on two participatory action research projects, where I was involved in teaching youth how to actually conduct research themselves on topics that were of importance to them in their communities as all... 0:07:49.2 Paige Nuzzolillo: Partier action research is all about change in a community and basically using research as a tool for community organizing, and so I was involved in actually teaching youth that were part of these programs all about qualitative and quantitative data collection, and brought them through trainings on how to conduct an interview, how to do a simple survey and also ecological modeling and things like this, and then we actually would take all this data that they gathered on various topics in our case, that was food justice and substance abuse prevention related issues, took all this data and then package it in a way that we could then present it to the community, and this is where I started to also get a taste for more arts-based research methodologies as well. So one of the things that we did for Substance Abuse Research, that project that we did specifically, we took the data and then worked with the teen researchers to actually storyboard that data into a story, and then actually filmed them... The team researchers starring in the video that was informed by the research that they had actually done, presenting their stories that they had gathered through doing this research with their peers, and then presented those short psas essentially presented those to a large community in gathering. 0:09:16.5 Paige Nuzzolillo: So we had a prevention-related town home meeting, and that was where we showcase these videos and had a panel discussion with experts in the community related to substance abuse prevention, and really we're able to show that the data informed these stories, and also through that, through that exercise actually trained these teenagers in how to actually conduct their own research as well, so just incredible opportunities in learning about data collection directly from Applied anthropologists myself, and then also being able to provide the tools of research for community members as well to really help promote change positive change in their communities too, so that's a really incredible exposure to... Yeah, to really using research as a tool for change early on, and that I would say is the foundation of how I conduct research as a user researcher as well, and I have a really strong background in design thinking, methodologies and ideation techniques and things like this, so always encouraging my team to actually take the research that I have done, but actually do something with it, really make sure that it's going to be something that's going to be integrated into the product and figuring out how we can do that together as a team. 0:10:39.0 Paige Nuzzolillo: So really big foundational, I would say methodology, theory of how I conduct my research and now how I work. 0:10:49.2 Matt Artz: So I definitely wanna come back to some of how you bring some of these participatory sort of concepts into us, but... Let's get there first. So how did you discover us? And tell us a little bit about how you ended up at indeed. 0:11:05.7 Paige Nuzzolillo: Yeah, so this was really... I think it was a very winding path for me, so I eventually left ICR, the Institute for community research. I had started kind of dabbling in social media and marketing and also event coordination, and I ended up getting a job at Yelp, and so that kind of started my journey in Tech, I worked part-time at Yelp and then also worked in an event coordination for a bit, try that out, really didn't wanna do event coordination anymore, I liked the experience at Yelp, but I needed it to be more full-time, so I ended up then transitioning into marketing communications, and that really started to be more digital-focused as time went on for me, I worked at the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation in York at the headquarters, and so it was always kind of involved in health or always was drawn back to health and mission-oriented companies as well in organizations. And so I worked at Judo for a little while, and then eventually I said, Well, maybe I wanna do web development. So then I did a General Assembly program, learned front on web development. I had all these various positions, communications, marketing, I even dabbled a little bit in UX design, I also did project management later on, front-end web development, however, it sounds like their scatter, but all of these roles actually had really brought me to exactly where I needed to be... 0:12:37.3 Paige Nuzzolillo: And all these skills, maybe minus the really specific things about CSS and HTML, I really don't need to know that now, but I'd say that all of these various positions that I've had have really helped me in UX research and being a UX researcher, especially project management, marketing communications and also being able to communicate with developers, being able to communicate with our designers, being able to have also actually even been a junior product manager before I even working in product management too. So eventually I ended up, I was working in product training for a little bit for a graphic design-focused company, and I ended up actually getting laid off from that role, and I decided that I needed to make a change and really I wanted to transition into UX I had really gotten a great exposure in that position to what us... What even was in the first place, and so I decided to do a mentorship program through hexagon UX in Seattle, and through that program, I had a mentor for three months... We met bi-weekly, I think. She was absolutely amazing. She looked at my resume. At one point, I told her, I said, I don't know if I want to do design or research, I really am not sure. 0:13:58.4 Paige Nuzzolillo: And she looked at my resume and she said, You've done research for a long time, like why not do research, it seems like it really matches well with your background, and so then I ended up getting some pro bono projects, and I ended up getting some clients, I built a portfolio, I did some research, and then I ended up getting my first full-time position, it was a contract role to start at Del ideal of Washington, they were looking for a lead, essentially lead researcher. There was no other researcher at the company at that time, so they were really looking for someone to build the research practice there, and there were other experts in product and design thinking that were there, but there was no dedicated researcher, so I really came in as a contractor at first, but then I ended up moving into full-time in that role, and I ended up... Yeah, being there for quite a while, did a lot to build their research capacity and teach the company about research, but super happy to be at indeed. Indeed has been an absolutely incredible company to work for, not only as a mission-driven in terms of our mission is to help people get jobs, but also the work that I do is just extremely fascinating, and the team that I work for is also incredibly supportive and also just extremely ambitious, intelligent, very diverse in terms of skill sets and backgrounds in terms of researchers, so that's been amazing to learn from other researchers who... 0:15:29.8 Paige Nuzzolillo: I came from that experience at Delta Dental, Washington, which was great and very different than what I'm experiencing now, but the key difference really being that I was the Solo researcher at Belden to Washington, so really a team of one as opposed to... And indeed, where I work with about, I think, 100 researchers now across our various organizations, so we have job-seeker, small, medium-sized businesses, and then Enterprise, and then we also do have a social impact team, and there's actually a few others that... I'm sorry, I'm not totally remembering right now, I think it's internal platforms is one, so apologies. But I work on small, medium-sized businesses, and so I do research specifically with employers, and that doesn't mean know that I'm only able to do research with employers, I'm translating a lot of data as well with various other teams, with job seeker and with enterprise as well. So yeah, so it's been great, it's just a really, really complex ecosystem to be working in, and I feel like I'm just constantly invigorated by the work that I do. 0:16:37.4 Matt Artz: So you said a few things in there that I wanna just have some quick follow-ups on one was that you... You did some pro bono work. When was I used a mentor and one that is that you took a contract role, but how do you think those paths were for you? And do you recommend them? You know, I know you can't universally recommend them to everybody, but now, what did you guys maybe learn from those three experiences? 0:17:01.7 Paige Nuzzolillo: Oh, yeah, definitely. So I will say, first of all, first of all, I know that being able to take pro bono work is a pre-lunch in the first place, so to first start out by saying that I was actually taking unemployment benefits, and I ended up being able to do some projects on the side and help people out and really also increase my own skills, so that really worked well for me. Financially, I was in a position where it just made sense... Contract role as well. I think the contract positions can be really, really incredible for someone just starting out, and also for someone that is just in need of a more flexible working environment or situation as well, like new parents, for example, the contract role can really help give that flexibility of not having to work over time necessarily, is working like a strict 40-hour work week or less potentially, and then also, you know, if you don't like the job of, you can leave, we can always leave our rules, I guess, but I think that it's a little bit more open in terms of when your contract's done, if there's no work after the contracts done, then you can move on to another position. 0:18:19.3 Paige Nuzzolillo: So I think the contract rules are also just really great if you are the type of person that likes to have different projects on a regular basis and likes to be exposed to different types of companies or things like this... So for me, that was amazing. At that period of time in my life at this point, I really appreciate the stability of having a full-time role as a senior UX researcher, but I think that contract rules, especially when you're starting out, can really just give you the exposure that you would not get really easily otherwise, and pro bono work, I think is great too, but it's really not a long-term solution, it's really just something in my mind to be able to get your foot in the door and get something in your portfolio and get some experience, a contract role can pay you. And I think that, yeah, it's just great for really starting out because I do think it can be more challenging when you're starting to get that full-time salary position, so if you're trying to transition into UX research from another previous role, and then mentor... So I absolutely am such an advocate of mentorship, I'm an advocate of mentorship across every single level of your career. 0:19:39.9 Paige Nuzzolillo: I was just mentored in fact by a lead UX researcher, and indeed, I believe she mentored me for like three months or something like that, or two months for pretty much the whole summer. That was amazing. I also have mentored other folks and indeed as well, and that's also been an incredible opportunity, I just wrapped up a nine months with someone who's a mid-level researcher, and I also have been mentored not only through that Huston UX mentorship program, which really gave me that impetus of even doing UX in first place, but I've also been mentored actually when I was at Del didnt Al Washington, because I was a solo researcher there, I actually used an educational stipend through the company, which is an incredible opportunity. I always have utilized as much as I can, the educational simonds that have been provided to me, and I'm incredibly grateful for that opportunity at my various companies, I don't think I would be where I am today if I really hadn't been given that opportunity of having those educational stipends. But so when I was undulating ton, I was a solo researcher, and I really just... I saw it, there was a gap in some of my support in terms of... 0:20:57.0 Paige Nuzzolillo: I was pretty new to UX research. I was in a senior role to start out, and I had the experience of working in many different companies prior to that, but was a Senior in UX research, I would say it was a lot more... Like mid-level junior. So for me, I really needed some support as a researcher, and so I actually worked with Nikki Anderson, who's based in Jersey now. She used to be based in Germany. But Nickerson is absolutely incredible. She helped me for nine months, and I use my educational stipend, and I met with Nikki, I think bi-weekly then too, and I actually got permission to be able to share with Nikki some of the work that I was doing. And so she was able to give me some really tangible feedback, and that just made me just an incredibly better researcher, and I still have a relationship with Nikki, and I'm just so so grateful for all the opportunities of mentorship, both that I've provided for others and also that I've been provided with two. So I am a huge advocate of mentorship really at every single level of your career. 0:22:09.6 Matt Artz: So now back to indeed, how do you bring in the the street of your participatory action research into the work you do there? 0:22:17.6 Paige Nuzzolillo: Yeah, so I like that it's really... It's almost like going back to what I was saying in the beginning, that Anthropology is like a mindset, obviously it's a lot more than a mindset, but I think that similarly, when I think about conducting UX research, part of my work is really... It's a mindset that I'm always thinking about how to really tangibly create change. So it's not enough for me to just do the research. Especially if it's a more generative research that might be a little bit harder to translate directly into product changes, I think that that's where there really becomes a lot of opportunity for creativity and for that participatory aspect of the work, where you can really work with your stakeholders to figure out how to take that research and all that data, all that work that's gone into collecting that data, how to really take all those insights and actually translate them into real product changes or improvements or something entirely new, maybe a completely new feature or tool or whatever it might be, that did not exist before, prior to the research, really helping to uncover those insights as to what would be helpful for people... 0:23:35.1 Paige Nuzzolillo: And so I have been trained through the Nielsen Norman Group. Again, super grateful for all of my companies to give me educational stipends... It's made this possible. I'm actually two, two classes away from getting my Masters certificate through NG, so I've taken a lot of courses with them, and my favorite ones are the Design Thinking ones, and so I've just had a lot of very tangible ways to translate insights into actual ideas or actionable, things that actually enhance the product, so I would say I try to run an ideation session actually, especially if it's a generative research study, if it's more of a evaluated study, which actually I don't really do a ton of a value of research anymore at this point, we have a rapid research team at indeed, which is incredible. And they support a lot of that work. They're actually also contractors, so they're all new in UX research and transitioning into it, so great opportunity for them for starting out, so just to go back to what I was saying before about contract roles and really how amazing that is to start out... So when I'm doing a generative study, I will always follow up with some sort of ideation session, normally I'll produce as part of my read out and part of my recommendations, some form of How might we statements to really get the team to start thinking about what are some of the opportunities here and how can we take these questions, these targeted yet also meant to be not limiting questions in our thinking and really get the team to think creatively about What can we do here as a result of these learnings? And so I run... 0:25:30.1 Paige Nuzzolillo: What I've done mostly because I am working fully remotely now, what it mostly is, is a pretty standard post-op type activity, really just with how might we statements and using Mira, which has been great. I absolutely love Miro, but basically using Mira to have the team, and that means product, UX, design, engineering and potentially other stakeholders as well outside of that core team, really have them just think of various potential solution ideas that really help address those... How might we questions? Those, how might we statements... And so that's what I've done mainly. I have done some more involved ideation, brainstorming, cross-team across various GMs, so across job seeker, enterprise and SMB at indeed as well, so there has been a little bit more complex type of ideation exercises that I have done, but typically with my team, I just really try to make sure that it's a concrete part, that's also an expected part of my process, so we road math every quarter, and when I plan study, I always make sure that my team is aware that we're going to have... Especially like I said, if it's a generative study, but we'll have an ideation session of some kind, exactly what it will look like is... 0:26:53.1 Paige Nuzzolillo: Gets determined a little bit later. After the research is done. But really make sure that they know that, Yeah, this is part of what we do. This is just part of our process. So it's worked really well for me. I normally scope out a week, so I don't go by a ton of time, that can mean that as I'm wrapping up my redo and developing my presentation, I'm also working on in getting my ID and session materials ready, but it tends to be enough time for me especially that I've used kind of a similar template, so it's been easier and easier as time goes on, 'cause I'll kind of just reuse that previous template and just tweak things as needed, so it's really become part of just my regular process, and I would advise researchers that are not doing this and that are involved in more generative work to definitely think about how can you actually make this and expect it and regular part of your process as well. 0:27:47.1 Matt Artz: So you're speaking a lot of that design thinking, obviously you're an advocate, you've also talked about other skills you have, you have some design experience, product management, so obviously all of those can contribute, but if somebody was looking to upscale in a particular thing, is there anything that you think has helped you the most? Yeah. 0:28:09.7 Paige Nuzzolillo: So I would say that the courses that I took, so I started... Depends on where you are in your career. If you're just starting out, I think that both mentorship, like a really structured mentorship, like I did with Nick Anderson on a bi-weekly basis, where I can really get structured feedback directly from my mentor, I think that that's a really incredible opportunity for someone that's just starting out, I also do think that a lot of the Nelson Norman Group courses that are part of either the US certificate, which is five courses, or the master certificate, which is 15, many of them are also, I would say more beginner to intermediate. Some of them are also geared towards managers, but I haven't really taken any of those as an individual contributor, but I think that... I think those are really two of, I would say some of the best way is to up-skill, find someone that you admire, that you're really interested in the work that they do, it can be someone that maybe isn't a formal mentor and you could approach them and ask them. I personally recommend trying to find someone though that actually does have a structured mentorship program, 'cause I do think it can be a little bit harder to kind of get regular feedback that you might need if you're just starting out. 0:29:36.3 Paige Nuzzolillo: I think if you're a little bit further on in your career, then I think having a more less structured mentorship is totally doable and then Nelson Norman Group courses. Yeah, I just think they're amazing. I think you can also choose specifically the ones that are in the areas that you feel like you need to up-skill in, so there's a really wide variety of courses that they have, some or more stats-focused, some are more design thinking. Some are more UX design even. Some of them are specific methods, like ethnographic methods and diary studies, also usability testing, so there's a lot also that are specific to methodologies that can be super helpful too, and then there's also some that are more, I would say, potentially more senior in terms of influencing stakeholders, I took one, I can't remember exactly the name of it, but something similar to that where it's actually about influence, I was actually... I think it was called Designing influence. So yeah, so I think that there's just a wide variety of courses you can take, and I also think, you know... Like I said, I think taking a contract, I think is just a huge way to get your foot in the door or break into the industry on, and also just get some project experience if you don't have any yet, and even if you do have some... 0:30:56.2 Paige Nuzzolillo: It's still just such a great way to build your portfolio and to get paid while doing it, and to also build your connections too, so you're constantly getting people from each contract that you go to, you're building your network, people are starting to know your work, and I think that's just an excellent career move in general, so... Yeah, so I would say those are probably the biggest things. I do think that having a portfolio in the first place is critical, so figuring out how can you get a portfolio if you don't have one yet, what are some of the stuff you can take to really create one? And I do think that having a contract role and also pro bono work or two ways to do that. 0:31:35.2 Matt Artz: So in a portfolio is something that's debated a bit, how do you think researchers should approach a portfolio? 0:31:42.3 Paige Nuzzolillo: Yeah, I think this is so difficult. Actually, I'm glad you asked. I actually know if I necessarily have an answer to this, I struggle with this. I'm involved in interviewing it indeed, and it's just really hard, you... By nature, research might not be as flashy and visually appealing as a UX design portfolio, so I think that's something that we can potentially struggle with as researchers also, there's probably a lot of sensitive data that we cannot share, so under NDA, there's just certain things we can't talk about... That also makes it really challenging to actually really flush out the story. I think what I've stuck with is mainly sharing my process and trying to share as much as I can, as in death as I can about my process, so how do I approach a question that's been posed by my team, how do I take that question during a kick-off call that I've had with my product team, with my design team, and how do I take that question and translate that into a research question that's answerable as well by research. So do that work, so show how you're doing that potentially, if that's part of your process, and then what are the tools you're using, what are specifically different artifacts that you produce throughout the entire process, do you have a road map that you do... 0:33:17.7 Paige Nuzzolillo: Do you plan a roadmap quarterly with your team that can also showcase some project management skills as well, and scoping projects in general. Do you have a kick-off document that you use, where you have the list of stakeholders, where you have the research questions, where you have notes from the kick-off, things like this, and obviously you can't share all that stuff, but can you show in The Soliton of it... So really just showcase how you would approach a research question, and then also, I think whatever images you are able to share or also visuals you can create on your own, which really demonstrate your process, I think is also a really great way to handle this. I do think that, you know, when you're interviewing, interviewers really are not going to be spending likely a lot of time looking at your portfolio, they're going to be scanning it and trying to get the most important information quickly at a glance, because they're looking at many of them... So I really think that trying to make things as visual as possible and as succinct as possible while also conveying the most important information that's critical, it's critical also just in presenting data as well and presenting insights. 0:34:36.6 Paige Nuzzolillo: So I think actually, I think it actually is a lot harder than including tons of detail... It's something I still am working on. I tend to be very, very stuck in details, and I do think it's a lot harder to look at the big picture, have all those details and to really see the big picture, and I think it's a critical... Absolutely critical skill for UX researchers, and not only when you're interviewing and developing our portfolio, but also as you're actually in the job too. 0:35:08.0 Matt Artz: Great in... So one last thing you're on, Indeed, I know you're involved in helping to spread the good work of all the researchers at indeed, and so would you tell us a little bit about the committee you're on and what you're trying to do to publicize some of that work? 0:35:25.1 Paige Nuzzolillo: Yeah, yeah, so I am on the editorial board for the indeed design blog, and the and design blog showcases work the researchers, designers, content folks, anyone in UX basically showcases the work that they've done at indeed can take the form of case studies can take the form of interviews with various people at indeed, lots of different kinds of articles and overall, if you're interested in working at indeed, are interested just in the work that we do and learning more about it, or as interested in general about what does it really mean to be a UX researcher and what does that work look like? And what are the kinds of things maybe that I'd be doing also, there are a lot of career articles as well, you can also... I just talked a lot about my career story, but there's a lot of other kinds of articles about that as well from other perspectives, but I think that overall, the design book just does a really great job of presenting the work that we do, and also potentially you know how people got to where they are. And so yeah, so I am writing an article that will be coming out soon, hopefully in January, but it's actually on design thinking and it's on exactly what I've talked about today a little bit, which is that foundational concept that really guides my work just around using research to create change and how can we do that? How can we create impact and how can we also utilize the tools of design thinking to really create change, to really instigate that change and really make sure that our team is really integrating the research that we've done in the product. 0:37:13.6 Paige Nuzzolillo: And not just letting it sit on a shelf, and so the article that I'm reading is going to have some tangible resources as well and templates that people can use to run both synchronous and asynchronous ideation sessions, specifically with their team to really have... You have your team really dive deeply into the insights and come up with solutions that are really graded in those insights, but yeah, so the design plug, lots of articles, and there's way more coming out as well as a dimension minus, but there's tons more that are in the works right now. So definitely have a full pipeline coming up for all these articles, so yeah, just stay tuned, but also they will be a lot more as well from a UX research perspective too. 0:37:56.7 Matt Artz: And if anybody wanted to get in touch with you... 0:38:00.1 Paige Nuzzolillo: Yeah, so you can contact me on LinkedIn, just Paige Nuzzolillo on LinkedIn, actually Paige Elaine Nuzzolillo, middle name Elaine. And also, my portfolios PaigeNuzzolillo.com. Also one more thing that I should mention too is that I did write an article on Medium, and I can try to make sure that it's posted on my LinkedIn so people can access it, but it does include insights from 12 UX researchers anthropologists and discussing how UX research is potentially a viable career option for those that are in the anthropology, and so I did primary research with 12 UX researchers and have a background in that, and that grew out of just really immense interest that was... That I saw when I was at the career expo for the American Anthropological Association in 2019. I had a table at that conference for the career expo, and I just had so many people coming to the table, and I really wanted to provide just a little bit more of a tangible resource for folks, so that article... I think it was written in 2019, I think, or 2020, but still very applicable, so I'll make sure that that's also available on my LinkedIn, so people can access that too. 0:39:23.4 Matt Artz: Page next. For coming on, I really appreciate your time. 0:39:25.5 Paige Nuzzolillo: Yeah, thanks so much, Matt, thanks for having me. 0:39:28.1 Matt Artz: Thank you all for listening to The Anthro to UX podcast. To learn everything, you need to break into UX, AnthroToUX.com. There, you will find all the podcast episodes and career coaching resources. Please like, share and subscribe. See you next time.…

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In this episode of the Anthro to UX podcast, Amy Santee speaks with Matt Artz about her UX journey. Amy earned a MA in Applied Anthropology from the University of Memphis. After school, she worked in UX for a decade at companies like eBay and is now a UX career coach. About Amy Santee Amy Santee is a loud and proud career coach for current and aspiring user experience and technology professionals. From professional branding and confidence building, to job search strategy and interviewing, she works with clients to create a strategy to achieve career goals through an iterative process of exploring, learning, testing, and refining. Recommended Links Amy's Website Amy on LinkedIn Anthropologizing.com Episode Transcript Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors . Matt Artz: [00:00:00] Today, I'm with Amy Santee, a former UXR or transitioning out of UX, but with lots of UX experience now turning into a UX career coach. And so we're going to have a great conversation about, not only Amy's experience working in UX, but also all of her recommendations of how you might be able to transition into UX. [00:00:20] And you've worked in companies such as eBay. You have run your own business. Now you're really starting up. Sort of second version of your business, if you will. So you have a lot of broad experience. You want to maybe talk a little bit about that, what first brought you to anthropology? [00:00:36] How did you maybe find your way to UX? Give us a little overview. [00:00:39] Amy Santee: [00:00:39] Yeah, absolutely. And thank you so much for having me on your show. I'm really excited to be here. So yeah, again, my name's Amy Santee and I use she, her pronouns. And I live in Portland, Oregon. How I got into anthropology. It has a really long history. [00:00:53]I knew it as early as age 14 or 15 that I wanted to be an anthropologist and that's because of a computer game I played where in the game I met Dennis. Ethnobotanist on the Amazon trail. That was the name of the game actually. And I just got really curious about ethnobotany and then I, found that was a subdiscipline of anthropology and I got broader and broader The first book I picked up at borders. [00:01:17]I don't know if you remember that store, but it was Napoleon Shannon's book about being in the Amazon rainforest with different tribes. And I know that's actually a controversial book now. But I didn't know that back then, I was just kinda like exploring what was anthropology all about. And I did end up going to get my bachelor's in anthropology, as well as my master's and. [00:01:41] Initially I had that kind of basic simplified understanding of anthropology as studying other cultures and like going off and traveling the world. And, as we know, that's not a, that's really only a slice of what doing anthropology could look like. And so throughout my education especially into my master's degree, which I got at the university of Memphis in 2011. [00:02:04]My, my world expanded, or my view of anthropology expanded to encompass basically answering questions and solving problems that relate to human beings in any place on any topic. And yeah. My program at Memphis was an applied anthropology program. And so we took I took a lot of courses on applied anthropology and the realms of let's say education, healthcare urban development Basically the main topics that you might find in an anthropology program? [00:02:34] I did take a consumer research course when I was there as well, which I think planted the seed of possibly working inside of businesses and non products. And I, but my program was still very academic. Even for an applied program. And so there was just this continued growth and expansion of my understanding of what anthropology is over time and throughout my career. [00:02:58] And I really didn't fully know that until I left school, which is counter counterintuitive. If you think about it, like you want to know that. Before you leave. But there was a lot of had to fig figure out a lot of new definitions and shaping and defining my identity as an anthropologist in different ways. [00:03:16] And eventually not even referring to myself as an anthropologist and keeping that as a, a bonus or something in the background to bring up in the context of being a user experience researcher. [00:03:31] Matt Artz: [00:03:31] Great. Thanks for that. And so a few things in there. So I guess first, where did you actually hear really about UX? [00:03:38] So if you didn't learn about business, the way we apply it, anthropology and business to afterschool, like where, what did you do to find out about UX? Who turned you on to that and when exactly did that happen? [00:03:49] Amy Santee: [00:03:49] Yeah. In 2011, that was at the tail end of the 2008 recession which was a really bad time for jobs. [00:03:58] The economy and all of that stuff, but especially for new graduates, that it's already hard for new graduates to get jobs during a recession, there are even fewer opportunities. And I applied to as many jobs as I could find, regardless of where they were, who they were for as long as they were about qualitative research, because that's really my favorite thing that I like to do. [00:04:21] My favorite thing that I have practice, I get to continue practicing it as a coach in a way, which we can talk about later. But I applied to all kinds of organizations and companies, and I really just wanted to get a job as a researcher. And I ended up getting my first job as a consumer researcher at state farm insurance. [00:04:39] It's essentially like market research. And when I joined the team, I. Happened to start working with people who were focusing more on product development and the business side of things. And really that's the difference. Consumer and market research tends not to be focused on products, right? [00:04:57] It's answering questions about people in relation to products and services and brands, but not necessarily taking that information to infuse that into the development of a product and the interface and how people interact with it. So as soon as I got exposure to user experience, human computer interaction, user centered design, all of these terms that are related to this I just realized that sounds super cool. [00:05:21] And that's what I'm going to go ahead and pursue. And, I came out of school with a lot of really good skills when it comes to research research methods, designing studies. But again, there was a lot I had to learn to fill in the gaps of knowledge. Experience to fully transition over to working in the field of product design and product development. [00:05:44] And so that was just a matter of, understanding. This is a totally different context of work from school. Everything about it, the workplace culture process it's all very different. And a lot of I had to do a lot of. Self-learning and learning on the job by working more closely, as much as possible with UX researchers, with designers. [00:06:05]And as I went on in my career, I got more and more experience with that. So again, my definition of anthropology and role as someone practicing anthropology changed along with that. But it did take some time and proactive learning in order to get from a to B. [00:06:23] Matt Artz: [00:06:23] Yeah. Yeah. As we often do here, when talking to other people, who've made the similar journey, we even in our programs, as you already pointed out about your Memphis program, and I, I went to UNT, both applied programs, we're learning things like design anthropology, but not necessarily like you hearing the term UX and figuring out exactly how to make the connection and certainly not learning other things about. [00:06:46] Yeah, agile development are many things that happen within sort of the space that we operate in. So what what skills specifically did you find that you needed to upskill on? And was there any place that you went about learning those, any particular like certificates or, online training of any sort? [00:07:05] Amy Santee: [00:07:05] Yeah. Like I mentioned, anthropologists or people who study any kind of. Humanities or social science have a really good foundation of. Doing research and thinking theoretically and conceptually about our research and about our work. And that's so crucial. I think that gives you some good advantage compared to other folks coming from other areas who don't have that solid foundation for research. [00:07:30] I find that to be very important. What I needed to learn was how to. Do and speak about these methodologies just in a different context, in the context of design. And so there's different terminology for certain things. Anthropologists talk about ethnography and. People say it's all graphy in the design world. [00:07:50]Th that's a whole other question as to how they're defining that versus how it's traditionally defined. We don't have to go into that. But my point is that you can say things like field work or contextual research, and those essentially mean the same things more or less. So speaking in the language of design Usability testing is something I needed to learn how to do, but it builds off of doing qualitative interviews. [00:08:14]So there are things where I just needed to like, figure out how to talk about it and do it in the context of design. And then I, there was so much to learn though about, what even is user experience. What is human centered design? What does the product development process look like from starting? [00:08:31]With a big question about what's going on out in the world of these people who we want to. Build a product for, to conceptualizing and making initial designs and getting feedback on ideas and prototypes, and then putting a product out in the world for people to use. And there's this whole process that research can fit into. [00:08:49] So learning more broadly about that, learning about and understanding the people that I work with, what do designers actually do? There are lots of different types of designers. There are visual designers, there are interaction designers. And again, there's a whole discussion about these roles and job titles and terminologies out there because user experience is an ever evolving field. [00:09:12]So yeah, learning about that kind of thing. Understanding more about the technology side of things. If you're a researcher and you want to do some usability on an app, Say the eBay app. You can get the eBay app on a website, like on your web browser, on your phone or computer, you can get it on iOS, so Apple and you can get it on Android. [00:09:34] And if you don't understand how those platforms work, generally speaking, and the differences between them and say how you navigate on an Android phone or versus how you navigate on iOS software, Safari, whatever it might be. So I had to. Get bad or better at knowing the things that I was actually researching. [00:09:54]So I could ask better questions. So I think the last part of that too, is the business side of things. And a lot of us get into research of any kind, but especially as their experience, because we want things to be better. We want to improve things and make them more valuable for people. Whatever product or service it might be. [00:10:12]And, but we are there because the business has a business need for us to be there. And so the work we do to improve stuff is in service of business, which is another discussion that we could talk about and something I'm very interested in. But yeah, so you have the whole thing is what's the context that you're working in and getting a clear understanding of who you're working with, the purpose of your work, what it can look like. [00:10:36] Getting creative. So again, it was a matter of, reading a ton of books, going to conferences, going to webinars, networking with people just to consume as much information as I could. And you can do that in other ways you can do training programs. There's a lot of different offerings out there where you can learn and even practice this type of work to build your skills and experience. [00:10:59]And then learning on the job. My first role was at state farm. And I worked with researchers, but the model at state farm at the time for the team was a centralized thing. And researchers acted as consultants with different teams, but at eBay, for example, and in other places I've worked. [00:11:17] Researchers and designers and other people are embedded onto a product team. So working directly with a team rather than consulting to them and going away and doing a study and coming back and telling them what you learned. And I prefer the latter model. I think it's way more effective. [00:11:32]But again, like each place I worked at, I experienced indu type of work working with different types of people. Growing in your role and gaining experience, you get to do like more strategic type work eventually. It's just, you follow this path and trying to take advantage of as many opportunities for learning and growing as I could. [00:11:54] Matt Artz: [00:11:54] Yeah. Great feedback. And so you said a few things in there that I found interesting. One is, knowledging the fact that it's a very, it's an ever evolving field and really it's. In terms of maturity, it's relatively, still, it's relatively young industry that has a lot of, maturation to go, especially in certain firms and particularly oftentimes in a lot of smaller firms, there's a lot more. That, still, you see sort of design, oftentimes leading things and research is being tacked on as a, as a second thought, almost in many ways. And given your experience across the various companies you've worked for in the fact that you've owned your own business, do you want to maybe just. [00:12:37] Elaborate on, why you think anthropology is particularly good at or reaffirm maybe why we are particularly well-suited to do everything you just said, learn the context. You have all these sort of rituals practices right. In all of these various places. Maybe just to help everybody realize that UX is a really great place for them. [00:12:55]Any thoughts on [00:12:56] Amy Santee: [00:12:56] that? Yeah. Totally anthropologists have been working in business and design since 50 years ago and it's just grown and grown. And it's always this perennial discussion of we need more anthropologists in this field. It's been happening for so long and yes we could use more of us in there because we do provide a really good, not just set of skills, but perspective. [00:13:20]As you mentioned, as I was talking about earlier, being able to go into a new context and get an understanding of what's going on and who does what, and the, organizational culture and how you fit into the bigger picture, how to work with your team, how to, educate people about user experience. [00:13:37] All of that. I think anthropologists are well-suited at the same time. We have really strong identities for who we are and what we do and how we do it. So there is a tension between being that person coming out of academia and sh and transitioning over. And that was my biggest challenge, I think, was like trying to stick to what I was trained in and how I was trained. [00:13:58] And I had a difficult time really shedding some of that stuff, not getting rid of it, but just talking to you about myself in a different way. And. Again, immersing myself in this new context, but it's possible. And we're really good at that sort of thing. The other thing I was going to say is obviously research methodologies, like I was saying, that's our, our biggest strength I think is anthropology being a research oriented discipline that looks at people and the way I've always defined anthropology is it's the understanding of the human experience. [00:14:30] That's it? Whether it's past, present or future. And you need to understand people if you want to create things that. They want in their lives, that, that are valuable and useful to them. And that's when you start getting into the user experience, product design stuff, and that's where you connect those things together. [00:14:51]So yeah, and I think too, going back to the organizational culture stuff you were talking about the role of research and design and different types of companies. And there are companies out there that are. Design led or they have a high level of design or user experience maturity. I would say Google is one of those companies, and then you take a look at a company like maybe some of the ones that I've worked for before and the user experience and design maturity model that you could map to a company like that was really a little maturity or maybe mid maturity in the sense that. [00:15:28] Design wasn't at the forefront of decision-making design was a thing that was being done and talked about. It was important because it is important, but maybe the difference was that design didn't have a quote seat at the table for key business decisions. And then, yeah, you might have super old fashion kind of companies that they have designers, designing their product, but it's just a check box. [00:15:53] And so there's different levels. And. If an anthropologist or let's say just a person trained in anthropology, rather than an anthropologist, if they go into this company, they're going to have to suss out what is the maturity level of of vulnerability of the company to be open, to asking important questions, learning that they're wrong and making changes. [00:16:15]And so I've, I have found that I, and lots of other people have to play that role of being like, Hey, we're, we need to look at these really important things before we make a decision, or how is this decision going to have an effect? How will it affect us today, tomorrow in five years in 10 years? [00:16:32]What are the potential outcomes of this? Especially when it comes to ethics. So we're good at asking questions like those, but we also get we can get a lot of pushback from people depending on how much power we actually have in an organization to impact that sort of thing. [00:16:51] Matt Artz: [00:16:51] Yeah, certainly influences one of the things I oftentimes am talking about here in New York and with various colleagues. [00:16:58] But before we jump into some things around influence, I'd like to maybe just go back to what you said on identity. And so in your intro, so you just mentioned identity last few minutes. And in your intro, you said that you actually moved away from identifying as an anthropologist and presumably to UX researcher. [00:17:18] So what was, that's something that comes up a lot. A lot of people, want anthropologists in their title. And, we often have to advise people that generally are not going to have anthropologists and your title. And why did you move away from it? Yeah. And what did you maybe learn that help you do that, that others who might want that identity should be thinking about. [00:17:38] Amy Santee: [00:17:38] Yeah. It comes down to a personal choice and you're right. It has to do with, where you work. And do people know what an anthropologist does? And I remember at state farm, a guy I worked with he was like, what does that have to do with insurance? And he drew like in some really boring meeting. [00:17:58] I wish I had it. I was looking around for it. He drew me like a little fake business card that said Amy Santee anthropologists agent, or like a dinosaur next to it. And that. You said eight six, seven five three Oh nine, which if you I'm sure you understand that reference, but that was his like understanding of me and what was I doing there? [00:18:17] And that was a pretty profound moment for me early on. And I've even written about that since then on my blog anthropology, rising.com. And I also co edited a entire journal of practicing anthropology, which is the SFAA. Society for applied anthropology journal all about this question of anthropologists working in business. [00:18:38] And that was, I think one of my the title of my essay in that journal was like, what are you doing here? So it was a question to reflect for myself. Yeah. What am I doing here? And what does this actually look like? So there were situations like that early on that just made me stop and think is this useful? [00:18:55] Is it does it make people feel weird around me? How does it come off? And there's been several times where mentioning anther, I'm an anthropologist or I'm trained in anthropology. It just rubs people the wrong way. Or they feel like she knows, she must know everything about like humans and culture and I don't have anything to contribute. [00:19:14] It can make people feel I don't know Yeah. So I just found it to not be very useful for me doesn't mean that you can't do it. It just means you have to pay attention to who you're communicating with. And if you're with a group of anthropologists, that's different than if you're with a group of engineers or people on your team. [00:19:33]And it comes down to how you communicate that stuff. And if they, if there's some place to mention that where it. Is it feels like a diplomatic communication of your background that isn't going to put people on defense then yeah, I think that's totally fine, but you're right. Intel has a whole big history of hiring anthropologists and they retain that title. [00:19:55]Many of them come straight out of academia, they have PhDs. So there's an even stronger link back to that. And. And through line for that, identity sort of label. So I think it really just depends on where you are. I still don't really talk about it. I talk about anthropology stuff a lot, I'll join anthropologists for panels or whatever, but typically it's just a, someone discovers it and they're like, Oh, that's super cool. [00:20:21] Or I'll bring it up if it's highly relevant. [00:20:25] Matt Artz: [00:20:25] Yeah. So related to that then is unrelated to that com the conversation on maturity. So when you're working in an office organization, sometimes we have the opportunity to not just discuss her background, but maybe also discuss some things about our methods or theories, whatever it may be. [00:20:45] And in your experience, And that's another thing that you need to navigate, and you'd understand the organizational culture or your coworkers, then, the norms, all that stuff you need to take, take sense of all of that and figure out when it's appropriate rent. It's not. And so did did you make any mistakes along the way, or did you learn anything about when you should maybe be a little bit more forceful on why, say this is the right method or this is, the way that I'm analyzing this data and why it's relevant and Hey, any thoughts there? [00:21:13] Amy Santee: [00:21:13] Yeah. So you mean generally speaking as like a user experience practitioner, researcher, person. Yeah. Oh yeah. There's so much to learn with that and it really is about communicating it in a way that doesn't come off as I know everything and you don't know how to do anything. And it can come off in that way. [00:21:30] And so yeah, what I have learned is people don't always understand what qualitative research is. They don't know what it's for. They have a Numbers focused ideology that they make decisions based on. And so how can talking to 10 people about something, give us any useful information. So there's, there is education to be done in that in that area that said, more qualitative research happens over time at companies and people are getting more exposure to it. [00:22:00] So I think for some depends on the team in the company, but some people have access experienced that and they know what it is and they will automatically value it when you go to work with them. And he may still have to educate them on some things. Now something I wish I had thought of before is saying, Hey, qualitative research actually comes from the social sciences, like anthropology, sociology. [00:22:24]There's a big history and foundation of. Of this type of work. So tying it, telling the story of what qualitative research is for and what it does, and tying it back to things that will communicate to someone like, Oh, this isn't just like bullshit that people are making up. Being able to talk about the validity of studies. And validity doesn't just come from your the way you analyze data. Your validity in your study is, comes from the entire way that you set up a project. Are you answering, are you asking the right questions at the right time? Are you recruiting the right people to be participants in your study? [00:23:01] And do they have the right kind of experience and perspective to speak from that adds a later layer of validity? Are you talking to the right. Amount of people that adds a layer of validity. Did you select the right methods? So there is a ton of validity baked into studies that. Are because they're systematically designed. [00:23:20] They're not just a Willy nilly let's interview people and summarize what they said. So there's a method to this whole design. And so I think if we can keep that kind of stuff in mind, it gives us confidence in the work that we do. And when we need someone if we're able to talk to them and explain to them and refer to companies that have huge research teams, 50 qualitative researchers at Google or Airbnb or, whatever the number might be. [00:23:47] That is a sure sign and some street cred for why research can be important in the entire product development process or in business strategy. I had the religious learn that stuff by trial and error over time and see how other people did it and integrate whatever it is that helped me into that that process for not just convincing people to do this type of work, but throughout the process get, keeping them on board, getting buy-in throughout the process engaging them so that they were part of a research project as. [00:24:22] Note takers helping design, like all the questions we were going to ask and making sure that they had. That they had decision-making power throughout the process, instead of me doing whatever I wanted and then telling them information and at the end. So there's all these different things that we can do to help make our work more successful. [00:24:41]And therefore the company more successful. And that's the last thing I want to mention with that is speaking to the business goals that people have in mind, because whether we like it or not business goals are again why we exist in companies. They have business goals in mind and people in different roles are part of the team that makes those goals happen. [00:25:04] And if you think about it, business goals are tied to an individual person's income their bonus at the end of the year. And so if we can, Hey, we have these things we want to do. If we can do all these things with the product this year, we're going to get our bonus. And so how can research help. [00:25:21] Move the team towards achieving goals. So that individual people who are looking out for themselves are happy. But then also the possibility that research can question and derail things that people want to do that get in the way of their. Their money. So like you have to think even bigger about all of the implications of your work. [00:25:44] And again, I think anthropologists have this kind of perspective, but they need to be willing to also go work in companies and feel okay with that. And that is totally an okay thing. Again, we were identifying these like bigger conversations that, we can talk about for hours and hours about, is it okay to go work in companies and my sell out and all that stuff? [00:26:03] The answer is no. But anyway, that kind of wraps up. Hopefully that answered your question. [00:26:08] Matt Artz: [00:26:08] Yeah. Yeah. One thing maybe just to comment on there is when you're talking about the validity of the study, I think it's also worth mentioning, reflectivity and, some various other obviously anthropological concepts and us really making, our influence known. [00:26:22]Which is in many ways, very different than what you're oftentimes coming. Seeing coming out of like the quant portion of the house. Not everywhere of course, but in many places where, the data is assumed to be on an altar, the quantitative right. Assumed to be on an altar. [00:26:37] And so I think it's also worth pointing out that, I think that's actually a value add that we are transparent in that way. [00:26:42] Amy Santee: [00:26:42] Yeah, that's a great point. [00:26:45] Matt Artz: [00:26:45] But you're, what you just brought up about the sort of rub of working for business hasn't come up on the podcast yet. So maybe we'll just deviate a bit and just brief. [00:26:53] I know we could go on for a long time. So it just briefly dip into that, the the point that you mentioned about like PM bonuses and incentives, and really like individual goals is really interesting. I've never spoke about that with another person in the UX space, but it's a great point. [00:27:09] And there, there's obviously competing needs there, and in our work influences all of those. And, I agree with you that it's okay to work in business. I've done it my whole life. And I agree with that. I think one of our reasons for being there is to try and. [00:27:23] Influence the product or service as much as possible to achieve the various goals, but also to influence in a way where, we are trying to also make sure that it's say as ethical as possible, as if it's a product, whatever it can be. And I've often said to people that, even if I improve that by some, whatever percentage, just make up a number that I feel better having been there than if none of us were there. [00:27:51]So imagine a world where we didn't participate, where we just said this is evil. This, I don't want to be part of this. It's what would some of these products look like? Is I think something that's worth pointing out because we even have, at times there's there's moments that we're frustrated and I know you left and started your own business. [00:28:07] And maybe that played a role, but No, even if those moments exist, there is still value to us being there. And, I think a lot of our products would be a lot less human humane if we were not. [00:28:18] Amy Santee: [00:28:18] Yeah. And I want to add to that, like we all live in capitalism. We're not going to get rid of capitalism, but we can try to chip away at it if that's what you care about. [00:28:26] And I say that because anthropology is it's a leftist. Discipline, it's a critical discipline. And that's how I think most anthropologists see things and that's great, but we can, we, and this is what was helpful for me was to shift my perspective and go, okay. I can't like turn around this entire company. [00:28:47] I can't like. Change these big issues going on, but I can focus on the area that I'm working in. Let me just try to help my team think differently. Let me try to, again, chip away at stuff that I disagree with morally or whatever it might be. But you're right. I did leave E-bay and had the same frustration at a lot of places and it, it was. [00:29:08] Too frustrating for me ultimately, and I want to thrive in my job and be able to have impact. And so that is a huge reason for why I left. But yeah I think reframing how we think about things we want to have impact on. The company and the product and whatever it is we're working on in the moment. [00:29:26] And as we work there, but sometimes that doesn't happen until a year or two later. I see stuff come out on the eBay app where I'm like, I worked on that. My research had something to do with that. And it's okay, cool. And, or again, like how can we impact the people that we're working with? How can we make them feel safer to speak up about stuff, and the other thing too, is we don't, it's okay to work in a company and make money and have a good lifestyle and not to feel guilty about that sort of thing. Not to feel guilty that we're not working in directly with a disadvantaged community and trying to improve their lives. [00:30:01] It's okay. If you're not doing that. Plus if you work in a business, if you work in a very wealthy industry like tech you will make good money that you could put into use for those purposes. So there are all kinds of different ways to think about it and hopefully feel good about the work you're doing. [00:30:21]And then, yeah you will probably have a threshold at which you will decide if you want to stay in a company or leave it and go do something else. [00:30:30] Matt Artz: [00:30:30] And the last thing I would add there about the pay, as you said, the pay is good. And for anybody who's thinking of going to your ex that's something that's always worth. [00:30:40] Mentioning because many students today have student debt. And so even if it is just a stop on your way to doing something else like you're doing now, which we'll get into. But even if it's just a stop along the way to to pay down some of your debt, it's, it can be a great means to an end, working somewhere else. [00:30:58] And so maybe to use that as a transitioning point, what did. And, you don't have to give specifics or specific companies, but like specific examples that specific companies, but what made you want to maybe switch and what are you trying to do differently? Or I should say, when you started your business, what did you really want to do differently? [00:31:20] Like what did you want to get out of that experience that made you make the leap? [00:31:25] Amy Santee: [00:31:25] Yeah. Yeah. Just to recap, I have worked at two major corporations. I worked at a startup sort of thing that was housed inside of a not-for-profit, but also healthcare, health insurance kind of thing. I have worked, I worked with a design consulting firm, so I was an employee there. [00:31:47] And then my other jobs at different points have been as a freelancer or as a business owner. And I differentiate freelancers like somewhat a team will hire you to come on and do a project real quick. Or maybe you work through a design consulting firm that has their own client. Self-employed person has, for me, it's having direct clients, myself. [00:32:09] My clients are these companies, rather than like working through an agency or a more traditional kind of contract thing. So I've done that. And at different times between jobs before I got to eBay, I've loved it. I was been successful at it. But I did decide to go back to self-employment because the most important thing for me is my life and my wellbeing and living a lifestyle that I That I enjoy that. [00:32:36]I, I'm not feeling constantly stressed out with I Twitch. So I, I have learned to really understand what I value and impact I value impact highly, and again, different people have different thresholds for what. Kind of impact they want to have and how much is good enough or whatever. But for me, it's extremely strong. [00:32:58] It's one of my main drivers, just in everything that I do in my life. And I decided if I can be self-employed a, I get to pick my clients. I get to choose whoever I work with. I decided I don't want to work with people who don't value my work. So when I have worked in companies before I spent so much time and energy working on stuff that didn't go anywhere that people didn't seem to care about, even if they asked for it and, not having the impact that I wanted to. [00:33:28] And I just, I couldn't do that anymore, but working with my clients if I had a potential client that clearly did not. Understand or value the type of work that I do. I just simply wouldn't work with them because I'm frankly tired of trying to convince people and waste my life doing that. So obviously I feel very strongly about that. [00:33:50] So I had that in my control. I had the type of clients and type of work and products and stuff within my control. And I love collaborating with people with my clients, with teams. Bringing them along for the ride for, with research engaging them, having fun. And so I was able to practice research and practice being a consultant in the exact way that I wanted to. [00:34:14]So that was really the big change for me. And it, it does make a huge difference for me. And then even further into my shift into career coaching now. I ha I can have even more impact because I'm working one-on-one with a person to help them figure out big career questions, make progress in their career. [00:34:33]And it's guaranteed that I will have impact on that person. So then they can go off and do some of their own stuff and, achieve their goals and have the kind of impact that they want to. So I, I feel like I've achieved, I've transcended to the. The deepest level of impact that it can possibly have, which is feels really wonderful. [00:34:54] Matt Artz: [00:34:54] Yeah. That's great. Granulations and so let's dive into that. So tell us a little bit, give us the overview, the elevator pitch of your career [00:35:02] Amy Santee: [00:35:02] coaching. Yeah. My, I, I switched to career coaching almost a year ago, coincidentally, in March of 2020, when the pandemic. Hit the United States. And I have been phasing out my consulting, so I am finishing up my last project right now which is a super cool project with the city of Portland working on our local elections process. [00:35:24]And so that's been really amazing. But yeah I'm my goal is to not do consulting anymore, to do just coaching for people specifically in the field that I've worked in. So I've worked in this field of user experience, product development. For about 10 years. And I know the field really well. [00:35:43] I love the people who work in the field and not just knowing a lot about being a researcher and what that entails, but having gone through the job job search process. So many times, interviewing have a lot of experience with that working with and understanding what other people do. [00:35:59] So what do you user experience designers do? What does their work entail? Helping them go through the interview process too. And there's lots of different roles in business product and technology that I became familiar with. So that's why I've chosen this particular niche to focus on. [00:36:15]And I work with people. There's a couple of different areas that I work in. It's all based though, in understanding your values, understanding your strengths, what you really love to do and doing a lot of that self exploration to set a foundation for making good decisions making decisions with less risks. [00:36:33]Building confidence in making decisions, confidence in your work and the interview process. So there's like a foundation to it. That's part of that process. Some people I work with are S are trying to ask and the answer, big questions about what do I even want to do in this field? What is going to provide me with meaning in my role? [00:36:55]How do I craft a professional identity? That matches with my values. So there's some big questions around that big questions around, like, how do I build more confidence in everything that I do? And talking about ways for building that through taking action, right? And taking action and practicing something is the only way that you're going to build confidence in doing it, whether it's presenting a portfolio in an interview or Interviewing in and of itself, having these conversations with people or doing new things at work. [00:37:27]So that's a theme that comes up a lot with people and then within all of that stuff, and it depends on the person I'm working with. It's very customized to this person. It's very specific things of getting your professional assets in shape. So in my mind, like the F the four pillars, the four most important things for your professional assets. [00:37:48] In design and in tech are your resume, your cover letter, your LinkedIn and your portfolio. And if you have a website, that's cool too. But. Helping people identify and understand what is my professional story? What differentiates me from others? What is my professional brand? How, like reflecting back on your path, your educational professional path to look through the, to look for the through line or the threads through the entire story. [00:38:16] Because that not only helps you get clear in your own mind for telling people your story and being, and feeling confident in doing that, but then infusing that information into your professional assets. If you're looking to make some kind of transition. So I liken it to doing exploratory or foundational research on yourself. [00:38:36] And so I see these conversations I have as. Parallel to doing interviews for user experience research projects. And, but this time I am helping guide people to come to their own insights and then be there to, coach them and give them domain expertise and experience from UX when it's relevant. [00:38:56]And then the other side of that is to do the evaluative research of let's. Let's get your assets in order and then test those, put them into the world and see what kind of results we get. Are you getting more interviews, testing your hypothesis essentially. So I treat it like I treated the same way as a research project or a user centered design process where you're iterating on this over time in order to achieve what it is you're working with. [00:39:25] Matt Artz: [00:39:25] It makes a lot of sense. Now, in, in the way you described that, although it almost sounds did people that you're working with, maybe you're already at the point of applying and they S they need to get those assets in place, but are there, are you working with anybody who's maybe a student and they also have the time to plan to have those assets. [00:39:44] You a properly aligned with their end goal. [00:39:47] Amy Santee: [00:39:47] Yeah. I work with people at all phases of their career at all points of the process of, whether they're still getting trained or getting their education too. Are they trying to get their foot in the door to a highly competitive field, how to do that? [00:40:01]Or maybe they're, a senior designer and they want to move to a lead designer role or a VP role, whatever. So I do get a nice variety of people, but. Yeah. Because each person is different. I have to take a step back just as a researcher would and go, okay. Before we move forward with this, there's some questions we need to answer about, like, how competent are you at this type of work? [00:40:24] What are any gaps that you have in understanding? It's not just about knowing research methodologies and being able to conduct qualitative research. It's how does that fit into product design? Knowing the language, knowing the culture and the way organizations and teams work. So the more of that, going back to that self-education and on the job learning that I did a long time ago, it's the same thing. [00:40:48] Like you, you are going to be most successful if you're prepared with a more holistic understanding of this world. And yeah, it was some people it's identifying if there's anything that they need to learn. Or I meet people who have gone to bootcamps and bootcamps are a controversial topic right now because they don't always do what they say they're gonna do or produce the results they say they're going to do, or help people in. [00:41:16] Meaningful ways. And so people will go to bootcamps to learn about stuff only to realize that they can't get a job. And it's because they were misled into into an understanding of user experience and design that is incorrect. That is not as deep as it needs to be, not as holistic as it needs to be. [00:41:35] And so I, I'll talk with people like that who need to identify like what else they need to do. So yeah it's really anyone at any phase of their career at any point in the process, it's, very different for each person. So a big part of that is. Is deciding like at what, where am I at? [00:41:52] And is, am I in the right place to move forward? Or are there some things I need to do before I begin my job search? For example? [00:42:00] Matt Artz: [00:42:00] Yeah. Great. And just one to build on the bootcamp thing. I've said on the podcast already, but I'll say it again, that a lot of bootcamps are really focused on design and not so much research. [00:42:09] And a lot of anthropologists are obviously interested in research. So for a lot of reasons, bootcamps often aren't the best bet. For an anthropologist. [00:42:17] Amy Santee: [00:42:17] Yeah. And that, that might not be clear to people. I, I meet people who want to be a researcher, but they think they need to take a design bootcamp and no, you don't need to do design. [00:42:27] You just need to understand what it's all about and the tenants of the field and what user experience is all about. But you don't need to do design unless you want to be a designer. And that's something I want to say too, is. There are so many types of roles in user experience. You can be a researcher, a designer, you can be a content strategists were coming up with content for products which, fits into creating a good user experience. [00:42:52]A UX writer, like there are lots of different roles in this world that could potentially work for people who come out of anthropology. Let's say they're like really skilled at writing for mass audiences, which. I don't know, maybe we're trained more for academic writing, but, I, I wager there are people out there who are good at, writing for bigger audiences. [00:43:14] So I encourage people to explore like what are these different roles that I might fit into? And which one is most appealing to me if I know that I want to work in this field and that's the thing, like we do diligence. That's like the most highly used phrase that comes out of my mouth these days is we need to do due diligence in understanding what UX is, what design is all about. [00:43:38] Do I really want to pursue a career in this field? And how do I know? Have I answered all the important questions? And yeah. So that's why it's so important to learn all of this and not take a leap into something unless you fully understand it because you'll set yourself up for, sabotaging yourself or delayed progress because you haven't fully understood something before you've acted on it. [00:44:06] Matt Artz: [00:44:06] Yeah. And just to add to that too, the we recently gave a talk on a triple a webinar where it was about breaking into tech. And so a few of the slides were around really finding the right fit. You set it there. One of them is the right role, right? The right organizational culture kind of, even that related to maturity, are you going to be. [00:44:28] Okay. And maybe a low maturity organization where you have to do many things, wear many hats, don't have much oversight and we needed figure things out yourself. Where do you think you want to maybe try and get into a larger organization with more process where, you have somebody who's mentoring you, right? [00:44:42] Those are all really critical decisions that go into breaking into UX that are far beyond just our research skills. [00:44:49] Amy Santee: [00:44:49] Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. PR project management. If you love the logistics and Oregon, as, highly organized making processes, work for a team and getting everyone to move forward. [00:45:01] Just the, like the infrastructure of that's an option. There's so many different options out there and it doesn't have to just be about research. We can do lots of stuff and bring that perspective of human understanding and critical thinking to any role. [00:45:16] Matt Artz: [00:45:16] So maybe yeah, you want to be respectful of time, but maybe as we're wrapping up here, we could just dive into the four pillars as you described them, or even the fifth, you mentioned the website. [00:45:26] So do you have recommendations for everybody that for those four or five that, that you think everybody should consider? [00:45:34] Amy Santee: [00:45:34] Yeah. And do you want me to talk about people coming out of anthropology, education and training or anyone? It doesn't matter. [00:45:43] Matt Artz: [00:45:43] So of course, from my perspective it's different for a student versus early to mid career and especially, if you have experienced research experience or not, in business or in the field. [00:45:53]So I appreciate we can go in both directions. I'll give you the floor. If you feel that there's specific things that you want to call out for both. [00:46:00] Amy Santee: [00:46:00] Yeah. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Before I do that, you've mentioned one key thing that I think we should call out, which is experience like get as much experience as you can, even if it's class projects, those count academic experience, applying anthropology to answering questions and solving problems is experience. [00:46:20] It's a matter of communicating the experience in a non-academic. Way to people in a potential job situation. So I like if there's anything people can do before they go to a school that is the most important thing going to these these professional assets. Yeah. So I think of it one way to think of it is like having an online presence that helps people find you. [00:46:45] Evaluate you, know you like you trust you. That's like a common concept for this and then contact you. You're answering their questions proactively there. You're giving them information that they already want or that they didn't know they wanted. And that's like interesting about you, telling them stuff, but you want to set it up so that you don't have to do as much of the work. [00:47:05] You want to set it up so that you're not just relying on, I'm applying to jobs, going through a company websites and, job sites and that kind of thing you want to take advantage of the internet and your ability to be, found on the internet and imagine someone I'll use myself, right? [00:47:21] So I've been on LinkedIn for a long time. I love it as a platform. It's been crucial at every point in my career when I, whether I was like applying for jobs or being a consultant to get clients or doing coaching now. And I get pretty much all of my clients for coaching through LinkedIn. And the reason is because I am find-able on LinkedIn. [00:47:43] I put information out there that people. Find valuable. I engage in the community, so I'm you will find me in lots of different places on LinkedIn. I have a website. I make it easy for people to go, Oh, Amy looks interesting as a person she has a background in UX she's career coach. [00:48:04]That all that put together makes me interested in her. Let me check out her info. Okay. Then I will get in contact if I'm interested in chatting further. It's the same thing for anyone else. So if you're in the more traditional role of like actually applying for a job inside of a company, you can think of it in the same way you submit your application. [00:48:22] You have a top-notch resume that. That covers your jobs and what you've done, but most importantly, the accomplishments that you've made and the impact that you've had at a job and your skills your cover letter, which I highly recommend. There, there are lots of perspectives on cover letters. [00:48:39] Some people want them, some people don't, some people look at them, some people don't. So because of that, I say always do it just in case, unless it's not asked for, then maybe you don't need to do it, but that's a persuasive essay. So you're creating a multidimensional self out of and not just handing them like a piece of paper with like flat info about you like a list of what you've done. [00:49:02] So you're writing a persuasive essay to catch their eye and convince them that you're a highly that you're highly qualified for this role, that you're a good fit and that they should talk to you and take the next step. So have your resume, your cover letter. Your LinkedIn, if you Google your name and you don't have a website, then the first thing that's going to come up is your LinkedIn profile. [00:49:23] And you will get Googled. There's no doubt. I don't know why any recruiter or hiring manager, wouldn't Google you to see what they can find out about you. So you want to have that in a really good place. You want to have it filled out. You want to use it as a platform for storytelling. So not rehashing your resume. [00:49:44] It's cut. LinkedIn is like a combination of a resume and a cover letter and a portfolio put together because you can add your own kind of featured content on there. So yeah, it's these, let's see LinkedIn resume cover letter portfolio. Yes. For people who want to get into design a portfolio is absolutely essential. [00:50:04] And this includes researchers. And the reason is because we need to be able to talk to people about projects we've done and what our experiences and indicate to them that we're competent in not only practicing as a researcher, but in storytelling. And in visually communicating to people what we have done. [00:50:26] And when I say that, it doesn't mean you need to be like, have stellar design skills. There are lots of portfolio templates out there. You can Google for that kind of stuff. I have resources for that, that I share with people. But the reason is because they're going to have to communicate your research, oftentimes in that same way. [00:50:43]Either verbally or through, some kind of visual storytelling about your process and your findings and all of that stuff. So yeah. Those are essential. And website is also great too, the more cohesive and robust of an online presence, you have the better and, your website is whatever you want it to be. [00:51:01]You can put whatever you want on there. And whether it's the same stuff as your other. As the other four pillars or some different things. Just one more thing to show that you're really being considerate about this and that you have a concept and a strong purse concept of your professional identity that you want to communicate to people. [00:51:23] Matt Artz: [00:51:23] Great. And, one thing on the portfolio that I think you touched on it when you said that the design is not super important. And for those who maybe already have some kind of. Visual designs that they can include at the emphasis is not on those, right? Those are maybe there to articulate other points, but we are not designers. [00:51:45]So that's not really showcasing our work per se. It's much more about the way we. Think right. The way we maybe got to the recommendations that led to that visual design, of course, the outcomes of that, it's not meant to show off the the visual interaction or interaction design of somebody else. [00:52:02]Amy Santee: [00:52:02] And you can, yeah. You can do, you can show examples of, a prototype that you're testing or if you're doing something in school, whatever it is that you're working on for a project to tell a story, but you're right. It's about showing people like. Here's what I've done to indicate the kind of value that I can bring to this job. [00:52:19]Again, storytelling, can you walk people through something in an articulate way, talking about your process. Decision-making how you involved people as collab in collaboration with your project outcomes. And on that note, if you, if your project didn't have any outcomes, that's okay. Because that's not always the case, and we have to think of outcomes, not just in terms of we got this many more users or, whatever it can be that had an impact on the design of some marketing materials for this nonprofit that you worked with, whatever it may be. [00:52:52] So thinking, yeah. Thinking broadly about what it is that you did. And again, communicating. How that's relevant to the job that you're applying for. [00:53:03] Matt Artz: [00:53:03] Yeah. Great. All right. Wonderful. Amy do you want to maybe tell everybody where they can find you as a career coach and maybe mention anything else that you wish to plug. [00:53:12] Amy Santee: [00:53:12] Yeah. You can go to Amy santee.com. You can go on my LinkedIn and I love connecting with people on LinkedIn. Like I said, I'm on there a lot because a it's a really helpful for running my business, but B because I love engaging in not just the design and user experience community, the anthropology community Social justice community on LinkedIn. [00:53:34] So there's a lot of cool people that, you can connect with on there and learn from. So I love that part of it. So definitely LinkedIn and yeah, I think that's pretty much it. I would also mention my blog. It's the 10 year anniversary of my blog this year. Anthropology.com. Yeah. And I, I started that blog right after I graduated with my master's to think out loud about w what it means to practice anthropology in the world. [00:53:58] And not only did it help me talk about it out loud, but it helped me actually figure it out and process that. As I went on. And there's a lot of documentation of, things that I've done and encountered and thought about on there. And I recommend it for anyone who is interested in, general applied anthropology, but also working as an anthropologist or practicing anthropology in user experience. [00:54:21] Matt Artz: [00:54:21] Yeah. Great. Yeah, that's a great blog. I definitely would. Second that to recommend it to everybody else. I know. Are you going to do anything to celebrate the 10th anniversary, any kind of series or anything planned? [00:54:31] Amy Santee: [00:54:31] No I did a guest post on a blog that a friend of mine has called leaders. [00:54:38]And it was just more of a reflection on. The things I was just talking with you about. So I don't know, that's a nice little way of documenting it. But I, my goal is just to continue posting more stuff on my blog. That's pretty much it. Cool. [00:54:53] Matt Artz: [00:54:53] Hi Greg. Amy, thanks again, really enjoyed talking with you. [00:54:56]I know that the work you're doing in career coaching is great and Hey, we'll help everybody. So if anybody needs help, please reach out to Debbie. [00:55:04] Amy Santee: [00:55:04] Yes. And you as well. I know you do some similar work you should don't be afraid to mention that. Or if you don't want to, then I will recommend that people reach out to you, especially because you focus just on anthropologists. [00:55:15]Which is really awesome. [00:55:18] Matt Artz: [00:55:18] Yeah, thanks. I think both of us don't love the sales process. As much as [00:55:22] Amy Santee: [00:55:22] that, I like to be salesy. Yeah. It's not my style, but that's the whole point. It's let your work speak for itself. And that bringing that back to the people, listening to this podcast today, let your work speak for itself, put it out there. [00:55:35] And eventually you're not going to have to put a ton of effort into gaining new opportunities for yourself and your career. [00:55:42] Matt Artz: [00:55:42] Yeah, said. All right thanks again. Appreciate it. [00:55:45] Amy Santee: [00:55:45] Thanks. Please note this transcript is an automated transcription and may have some errors .…

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