Researc.her — Maria José Aguilar
Maria José was my first real contact with Research. We’ve worked together many moons ago and instantly became good friends. She has a passion for keeping on learning and cool stationary. We are both crazy for some new pens and brushes. She is an excellent professional, and now I have the privilege of working with her again with a massive challenge of international research. I’m thrilled that we can go on this adventure together.
Can you introduce yourself?
My name is María José Aguilar, and I work as a UX Researcher in a company called Solera based on Madrid.
We develop solutions for damage claims and repair estimations, and our customers are Insurance Companies and car repairers. My goal is to provide feedback about our current solutions and insight about new needs in the market, to the UX design and product team while building a UX Research framework that gathers all the information that we collect on each UX Research track.
What is your background?
Chilean by birth, I studied a Graphic Design degree in Chile and a post-degree in web design in Madrid and ended-up living here permanently.
Although my designer career evolved and moved me to where I am, I think that the origin of my motivation in Research was with my first job doing survey questionnaires for a market research agency in Santiago where I enjoyed to meet different people and listen to their stories (although I had to walk a lot).
After several years in working as an external consultant in Usability, I moved to Tuenti for working in Product Design as an Interaction designer first and as a UX Researcher later.
Since December 2016 I moved to work at Solera, leading the UX Research area.
On the research field, which female professionals inspired you?
Ivonne Rogers since several years ago I went to a talk she gave at the Carlos III university about social design where she explained some projects that involved a whole community. By those days I was working on web projects, and it was very inspiring to see that design solutions and research can go beyond the pixels.
Also, she is a co-author of the book “Interaction Design” which is one of my favorites.
Haiyan Zhang due to her dedication to social goods on “The big life fix,” a TV show where a team of designers and developers help people in need. There are few episodes, but I especially loved her dedication developing a tool for allowing another designer who had Parkinson, to use a pen and be able to draw again.
Locally Maritza Guaderrama since she is a relevant figure in the research field in Madrid. She gave us a couple of classes during the lean startup course at the H2i school, and they were so useful, very clear and practical.
In your opinion, what is the value of design research?
I identify two layers of value depending on the scope that design research can have:
Working with a UX research framework:- Allowing to identify different customers profiles based on usage/consumption trends it is also possible to observe the evolution of those segments, their changes in some behaviours or discover new patterns. This facilitates business decisions.
- UX Metrics makes it measurable what gives the product team knowledge over what is happening with the product along the time.
- Data-driven conversations put the team on the same page and keep personal opinions out of the table.
- Further steps/actions are based on real user’s goals rather than a guess or tech boundaries.
Introducing a UX research track into a single project:- Reduces design proposals uncertainty and gives a way to measure it
- Reduces product/service value proposal risk
What obstacles do you find in your daily work?
For international projects run by several people (sometimes outsourcing people you do not know), there is a lack of protocols and procedures for logistical aspects. In my case, I do research in several countries in collaboration with local teams, and it is hard for me to find a good recruitment agency for specific interviewee’s profiles or to reward participants abroad.
Also, it is common to deal with technical issues like what software to use when recording especially when doing field research.
Lessons I have learned about these things are:- To pay attention doing the screener (it is better to include a couple of questions to narrow the sample) and to double check with the agency the participants and the agenda.
- Apart from the screener, share with the agency the goals of the research or give them as much context and support as possible.
- Ask for the research agenda closed one week before starting the execution of the track and share it with the rest of the team while checking that everyone is familiar with the tools you are going to use and that there are licenses for everyone.
How do you see the future of research?
Since the technology is allowing richer interactions in our daily life such as the hue light bulbs, the nest thermostat, mobile phones connected with cars, printers or televisions, I see an interesting future for a ubiquitous UX research beyond the web and mobile devices.
I see four big stages for every UX research project: Planning, Execution, Analysis and Delivery.
For the Planning and the Execution stages maybe we are going to use more field research, but I do not think that the tracks and their logistics will change that much.
I think that the big change is going to be in the Analysis and the Delivery stages because we are going to need different frameworks that consider all these new layers of information and their variables. I see an exciting challenge there.
Also, thinking about an ideal future, I would like to work in a future where I could say “I am a UX Researcher” without having to explain what it is.
Finally, regarding the feminist side of this interview, I really would like to see more women involved as managers in projects developing new business, services, and products.
Can you give some advice to someone that is starting now?
Be curious. In general, as a permanent attitude. Read about design and all the topics around such as psychology, history, communication. For a research track, get familiar with the product or service you are going to do the research and know about it to be able to do the right questions.
Do not do the work alone after the kick-off meeting. Along the Planning, stage have follow-up meetings with the stakeholders to feel that everyone is on the same page.
About meetings, follow-up meetings should be well planned to review the status of several specific topics and should not last more than 20 min.
For each track, define specific research objectives and keep the focus on them. Keep away the temptation of trying to solve everything in one track and help other stakeholders to do the same.
Based on these objectives think about the outcomes first, before doing the script and keep them in mind while conducting the sessions.
Look for the unexpected. During the Planning, if you are testing something, prepare your script to allow people, not like your idea and give you feedback. If you are discovering needs and observing people, leave room for unexpected things.
In the end, schedule a retrospective meeting with the team to talk about the past research track and what would they enjoyed and what things would they improve for further projects.
Finally, take advantage of failure and constraints. If you make a mistake or things do not go as expected, use this to learn, to review yourself as agile as possible and improve your workflow. It may sound like a big challenge but failure well managed can be an excellent tool for skills development and team motivation.
Please, recommend 3 books that you love about research
Specific about UX research:Measuring the User Experience — Tom Tullis
Exposing the Magic of Design — Jon Kolko
101 Design Methods — Vijay Kumar
For other strongly related areas:Designing the conversation — Russ Unger (for moderation)
The Good, the Bad, and the Data: Shane the Lone Ethnographer’s Basic Guide to Qualitative Data Analysis — Sally Campbell Galman (for qualitative data analysis)
Quantifying the User Experience — Jeff Sauro (for quantitative data analysis)
The Manga Guide to Statistics — de Shin Takahashi y Ltd. Trend-Pro Co.
(for statistics)
Did you love Maria José as much as I do? You can find her on Linkedin or write her a love letter!