Researc.her — Mayus Sierra
When I moved back to Spain many moons ago, I met Mayus. She was a great neighbour and a better friend. We shared a similar past and present, changing from psychology to design, it was delightful to share some of these experiences with her.
Dear reader, I think you will enjoy as much as I did to know what she is up to now, and what she has to share with us.
Can you introduce yourself?
Hi! I am Mayus, researcher, service and interaction designer. I was based in Madrid but came back to Asturias one year ago, so now I work remotely, trying to find that unicorn called “work-life balance.”
What is your background?
After completing my degree in Psychology, I started working as a researcher at the University of Oviedo with a focus on Social Psychology. After some years (and a big economic crisis!) I decided to move on, and here is where I found the UX world. I took Javier Cañada’s Vostok course and a few months later, started working in Fjord Madrid as an intern. There I grew up as a designer. I was involved in quite a lot of “concept design” projects, so research was a key part to build something based on real needs.
After 6 years in Fjord, I moved back to Asturias and took a pause to spend some time with my newborn son. Now I am back in the game, working remotely for Hanzo Studio.
On the research field, which female professionals inspired you?
Lorna Ross had a great impact on me after I saw her in Fjord’s Kitchen event talking about her experience as Design Director in the Center for Innovation at Mayo Clinic. There, she worked to improve patients experience in the hospital and faced challenges when having to explain the value of design to healthcare professionals.
Jee Park is one of my favorite research brains. She has a strong ability to extract insights from huge amounts of data. If you want to know her a bit more, you can find her in Impossible (London).
Joumana Mattar is a fantastic researcher and the queen of workshops; she is a great facilitator and comes up with activities that will help you get the most of the participants. You can find her in Fjord Madrid.
In your opinion, what is the value of design research?
It’s the basis of successful service. Design research focuses on finding and understanding the real problems users face and helps define the final purpose of a project.
This way we avoid developing not only what is technically possible but also useful for the final users.
Often not even our clients have a very clear or actionable definition of the service and design research helps them find a way and build a roadmap for that service.
A very useful value for designers is that research results kill opinions and personal experiences, focusing only on insights with real impact.
What obstacles do you find in your daily work?
First one is, of course, budget! Research phase is still something difficult to sell, and even if so, the budget for it is not usually enough to plan proper research. Anyway, if you don’t have much time, some guerrilla research can bring valuable insights.
Another pain point usually appears when working with external recruiting agencies. Not getting the right questions in the screener can bring some problems and make you end up with a different sample than the one you are expecting, so it’s very important to be specific and clarify everything with the other team.
An important topic that should be an obstacle, but a positive one, are ethics. During my previous experience doing research in Academia, I learned the importance of valuing our users time and effort, make them feel comfortable and respected. Make sure your research will not have a personal negative impact on them. And of course, if you get paid for your job, users involved in your research should get compensation too.
Finally, involving all the team in different moments of the research process (PMs, IxD, Visual designers, developers,…) saves a lot of time and makes sure the insights learned don’t get lost in the way.
This is not possible sometimes and very difficult most of them. We should anyway try to find common spaces and moments to share where we are in the planning and what we have learned so far.
How do you see the future of research?
I hope the value of research will increase as the Design market matures in Spain. So hopefully we will be able to expand the research phases and go deeper in technologies like VR, gadgets embedded in our bodies or no UI designs.
When talking about people, also new needs will emerge for new family structures, new jobs coming and others disappearing, people living longer,…
My personal dream: I hope Design Research will also be involved in the process of improving the social dimension of companies. Help build more inclusive and diverse work environments.
Future in research looks as interesting as challenging.
Can you give some advice to someone that is starting now?
Be open-minded and enjoy the ride while putting yourself in other peoples’ shoes. Get involved, hands-on, observe and participate. And never, ever think that you already know the answers, you might be surprised.
Shit happens, so try to prevent but also be flexible. Always test your scripts; do it with the first users and then take some time to review and rethink. Try to foresee future stoppers in the design process and plan the research, so you get solid answers to refer to when doubts arise.
Look around and spend some time reading about other fields like Psychology, Anthropology or Business. This will lead you to a richer understanding of causes, effects, and behaviors.
Please, recommend 3 books that you love about research
Just enough research, by Erika Hall
Design research: Methods and perspectives, by Brenda Laurel.
Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights, by Steve Portigal
Hope you enjoyed knowing more about Mayus! You can find her on Linkedin and send some love.