SKILLS
I am a tree-shaped researcher.
deep expertise in research
supporting experience in product・content・strategy
Jump to:
Quant
Qual
Mixed method
Influence what’s worth doing
Crystallize the goal
Determine the approach
Unearth what matters
Translate it to others
Strategy
Product
Content
Rapid prototyping
Research approaches
Qualitative
Techniques
Contextual Inquiry — in home, at work, shop-along
In-Depth Interview — often remote; can be in-lab
Qual-focused surveys
Remote, unmoderated — a la usertesting
Diary Studies — dipping in, across time, in context
Focus Groups — most people hate them, but I’ve led a few that really unlocked things
Expert / extreme user interviews — contextual or IDI
Activities / Tools (sample)
Card sorts — physical or digital
Journey mapping
Co-creation
Video recording — self-recorded
Relative ranking
Photo journaling
Outputs (sample)
Hypotheses
Potential patterns
Quotes
Video clips
Archetypes
One-off inspirational insights
Principles
Examples
Creating a weekly cadence of remote interviews with Omada participants: Thursday align on topic, Friday recruit and plan, Monday and Tuesday develop activities / artifacts, Wednesday research all day, and then Thursday synthesis, report out, and align on the next topic.
Remote interviews with IT professionals to inform design of a remote management tool for external drives.
Interviews with sales people to inform adjustments to their implementation of a customer relationship management tool so they’d see more value in it and, thus, use it more consistently.
Qual-y survey to inform underlying technical architecture to support pet owners’ experience across diverse portfolio touchpoints like shopping and veterinary care.
Duo interviews with no-contract cell plan holders to inform business strategy recommendations for the cell company.
Observation of and interviews with employees wrangling multiple systems to manage consumer and cross-departmental requests.
In-home interviews with people looking to lose weight and change their health habits to inform product changes to the program experience.
Expert research interviews with a former Air Force flight test engineer and contextual inquiry session with race car designer and driver to inspire design of a heads-up display.
Focus group with gamers to help inform design of a remote to control a touchscreen display from 10’ away — the conversation got much deeper with their cross conversation than it would have in 1:1 interviews.
Seeking meaningful nuance.
Quantitative
Techniques
Surveys
A/B testing
SQL — mining existing product data
Activities / Tools (sample)
Card sorts
Heatmapping
Relative ranking
Outputs (sample)
KPIs — satisfaction, NPS*
A/B test results — [in collaboration]
Survey analysis — stats, patterns
Hypotheses
Dashboards
Examples
Running a rapid prototyping team at Omada — me (research / PM), a health coach, and a data scientist — launching A/B experiments every 2-4 weeks.
Structuring baseline surveys at Omada to power a pulse-check dashboard covering satisfaction and key product area stats (along with a treasure trove of open text qual to mine).
Structuring automated surveys to Everlane customers, either 6 days or 6 weeks after a purchase, combined with sales and returns data, to create Everlane’s first product analytics dashboard.
Same-day launch of a heatmap survey to “break the tie” of a design disagreement — the heatmap output the next morning ended the debate.
Highly branching surveys designed to solicit information on up to 4 topics at a time, branching based on the answer to the first 1-2 questions.
Regular use of SQL to investigate in-product participant behaviors … to fuel recruitment for surveys … to be used to recruit participants for in-depth interviews.
Understanding patterns at scale.
Mixed Method | Examples
Under construction! Come back soon.
Research Process Skills
Influence what’s worth doing
Align with OKRs / KPIs.
Assure research efforts connect to company / org / team objectives.
Recommend research opportunities to fill KPI / OKR data gaps.
Help translate KPI / OKRs to human-centered needs and opportunities.
Proactively engage with product and strategy goals.
Foster relationships to stay in the know.
Stay up to date on evolving product and strategy goals and approaches.
Curate existing research to support evolving goals.
Recommend baseline and episodic research to support goals.
Manage resources wisely.
Consider how to meet current, near, and future needs.
Consider how much time to spend on any effort, given its relative importance.
Consider if/when to recommend that research doesn’t happen.
Crystallize the goal
Define clear objectives.
Trace the origin of research requests — get to the root needs.
Negotiate the intersection of divergent objectives — cross-functionally and with execs.
If you can’t say it simply, you’re not ready.
Align on anticipated outputs.
Understand what will provide confidence to stakeholders — and know how they best consume research.
Anticipate adjacent research uses.
Determine appropriate scope. (If any!)
Consider research objectives, relative importance to the organization, available resources, relevant milestones, and cross-functional interdependencies.
Zoom out to make sure that the right team is doing the work.
As you dig deeper, be willing to revisit opportunity costs and consider whether to proceed.
Determine the Approach
Select the best methods.
Based on the objectives, timeline, resources, and output requirements.
Consider layering qual and quant approaches.
(See Qual , Quant, and Mixed Method sections above for more detail .)
Collaborate with cross-functional teams.
With data science and product: consider collaborative or complementary approaches.
With design and content: collaborate on stimuli.
With engineering: to consider feasibility (as needed).
Pre-mortem A/B tests.
Ask: If we were to see a null result, would we consider it solid, or is there some aspect of the test we would ‘blame’?
Adjust the testing plan to eliminate future second-guessing.
Unearth What Matters
Question assumptions.
Hold hypotheses lightly.
Stay authentically curious.
Unlock motivations.
Go beyond action to dig into conscious and less conscious motivators.
Look for often layered and sometimes internally conflicting rationales.
Focus on what’s actionable.
Pre-think the “so what?” for stakeholders during research.
The goal is to provide product and business with the confidence to make decisions.
Synthesize diverse data sources.
Triangulate qual with quant …
… and both with analytics and other key sources.
Translate It to Others
Distill complexity to concise clarity.
Keep essential nuance.
Say things plainly.
Cut to the chase. Offer supporting info as needed.
Focus on actionable impact.
To the org, to the team, to the product.
Tailor the approach to the audience.
Adjust level of detail and format.
Visualize where helpful.
Stay open.
Execs and other stakeholders may have related or contradicting information — stay curious. The goal is clarity not ownership.
Adjacent Skills
Rapid Prototyping
Getting messy to learn quickly — e.g. Learning enough code to contort a survey tool to emulate the product
Facilitating multi-prong experiences — e.g. Bringing together product changes and coaching shifts to coordinate the overall experience
Content
Knowing what matters to say — Getting to the essence of what’s needed.
Speaking simply — Direct, plain, clear.
Incisive editing — Drawing out the point. Structuring what’s needed. Eliminating what’s not.
Content system design — Considerations for scalable Content Management Systems.
UX copywriting — Guiding people through an experience, step by step.
Content team hiring and management — People, systems, vision.
Product
Running a backlog — Prioritizing and grooming potential project for the Rapid Prototyping team I ran
Hub of cross-functional collaboration — Bringing together data science, design, engineering, coaching, research, and execs to move quickly.
Strategy
Business model innovation — Exploring ways to adjust the business with the dials of value proposition, customer channels and relationships, customer types, key resources and activities, key partners, and revenue models.
Service and product innovation — Zooming out to consider opportunity gaps in terms of who we serve and how.
Honestly, a big part of this is just genuinely finding business to be interesting.