The Unconventional Path to UX Research: From Engineering to Ford

All right. Uh, I think we're we're good to go. I think we've opened up the doors, so we should have people start filtering in. Um, looks like a couple people are starting to to join. So, we'll go over, I guess, ground rules. Um, so first, uh, my name is Brett Kjuski. Um, I am the VP of research and growth here at Accelerant Research. Um, you know, we've been hosting a lot of these webinars over the past couple months, these little mini virtual, uh, ARC conferences, as we call them. Um, you know, we usually have some really good clients and friends within the industry that, you know, we've asked to come speak and and talk about things that are relevant or that they care about. Um, this time we're joined by Susan. Uh, and we'll go into a little bit more detail about what she'll be talking about today. Um, but, you know, thanks for everyone for joining us. I'll go over some ground rules today. Um, we're at the mercy of tech. So, as we saw, uh, you know, we're at the mercy of tech in this new Zoom world. um please be respectful. You know, there'll be comments uh we'll ask for engagement throughout. Uh I'm sure there'll be there'll be topics that are a little bit more controversial at times in terms of um you know the state of our industry, but also uh you know would love your feedback and and connection. Um and then finally use this to network and engage right and interact. Um just makes it better for all of us. Uh uh Susan and I can go back and forth and rift with you and whatever comments or or questions that we get happy to address and answer. Uh but that's kind of it for for what we'll be doing here today. Um a few callouts. All these are going to be found under our resource tab on our website. Uh we have links to articles as well as conferences. So we're trying to contribute a lot to thought leadership. uh whether that be for uh accessibility design and accessibility research to uh hybrid methodologies, a bunch of different things. Uh you'll find a lot of stuff in under the article tab, but also all these conferences are under the resources under conferences tab as well. Um and then that leads to the final point, our next uh research conference. Um this is going to be an interesting one. uh Joe who was a founder of 2020 Financial uh he also served as an SVP for both Canar and GFK as well as his daughter Molly. Um so they're both part of research. So, uh, untraditional, um, you know, it's going to be an interesting where Joe started, uh, 2020 back in the day and obviously, you know, sold, uh, the that organization, uh, but his perspective of research. And then Molly, who is a a researcher that's bounced around to a couple different places throughout her tenure as a researcher, um, she'll be talking about, you know, what her perspective of research is versus her father's. Uh, so you know, I know I don't have anyone that really knows what I do in my family in terms of what human factors or what research or UX research is. Susan, I I'm sure you can share the same of trying to educate people of, hey, what do we do? Uh, so it's interesting to see a fatherdaughter uh, duo there being able to to talk through research and, you know, her go to her father about some of the challenges and methodology and scoping that she's had throughout her career uh, and his extensive experience as well. So um without further ado, I will throw it over to Susan. Um so we'll probably start uh with with you know Susan you talking about your background a little about who you are today and you know then we can dive into how did we get there right you know the topic of contention today is the unconventional path to research um UX specifically and you know kind of about your role today and and you know all the different twists and and turns that led you to to where you are. >> Yeah. So yeah, starting with just a little bit about myself. Um, I started as an engineer and ended up somewhere in UX. So, as Brett said, my family has no idea what I do. We got in a rental car, was it in March, and my father-in-law was like, "Oh, what's this button for?" And I was like, "Oh, what do you think that button's for?" And he he's like, "I think it's for this." And I'm like, "Oh, well, is that what you expected it to do?" And then he was like, "Well, this." And then it went on for a couple minutes. And then all of a sudden he just looks and goes, "Stop it." And I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "This is what you do." And I'm like, "Sometimes." Yes, sometimes. No. So, it's great to hear that experience. I'm going to share my screen. Um, let me know if you can see the right one. So, I'm in Am I in the right one? All right. >> So, background sort of. We'll I'll talk a little bit more about the different career paths as we go through it. But, a little bit about myself is I've got two little kids. Um, well, one's not so little. She's as tall as I am. And my son is 9 years old. So, we just um love summer, love Michigan weather. In the summer, in the winter, not so much. But we had gone to their first Tigers game. So, that's a picture I threw up there more recently. Um I love to bake. Uh that's my side hobby is I make cakes, birthdays. I've done one wedding, decided it's too stressful, so do cakes on the side. And I love to travel. Um my husband has a pilot license, so sometimes we'll do that, but I'm good with anywhere. And my goal is to see the whole country and the world. I have hit 52 states in my time as a consultant and personal travel. So goal is to hit a few more of those or did I say 52? Really know how many states are in the US? 42 states. Hoping to hit all 50. And um I think I've been to about 15 or 20 countries now. So that's just my background or my hobbies I should say. >> Yeah. And I know um you know you've obviously started as an engineer. What what was the start or what was why did you how did you land into that role? Right. What did what was the gravitation uh towards that specific profession? And I think your your husband's actually an engineer as well, right? Um so you know how did you start there and then how did you start exploring what other career paths were out there? Right. >> Yeah. So I started in engineering and it's really kind of a boring story was my dad um is a first generation moved here and wanted to make sure his kids were successful. So he kind of was like well I want you to go into engineering medicine or uh pharmacy. That was his like theory in life of that's how you can be successful and know that you're going to be okay. I wanted to teach math. Um, so engineering kind of fell into that category and that's how I started as an engineer and slowly realized I don't like staring at a computer screen doing CAD work. I really like people. Um, so I gravitated towards that in my first career and I will just throw this oh throw that up there. So I started as a planning engineer. um was working in did an internship at Caterpillar more in the manufacturing side and really loved it because I worked with the assembly lines and worked with the manufacturing teams on what we were doing and then as time went on I realized and then as I started my real job post internship at Striker I was doing more of the test engineering so designing test fixtures and that was where I spent a lot of time in CAD I did a little bit of technical writing engineers should never write I sprinkle in commas when I'm And um my husband's an aerospace engineer and he went into law. So neither one of us really use our degrees. He does more than I do as a patent attorney. Um and then when I was at Striker, as I said, I started gravitating more towards people. I did more manufacturing engineering because I knew I loved that from my uh career at my internship in Caterpillar. And from there, I slowly started working more at the assembly line, seeing people getting injured. I was working on a master's in mechanical engineering is and decided I didn't want it. Um and the University of Michigan let me pivot to a masters in industrial engineering in ergonomics. So I started an ergonomics program at Striker and looked at where people are getting hurt on the line, where are we causing those injuries. So still doing the manufacturing side of it, but added that little bit of erggo in and sort of redesigned those assembly lines. used a consulting company to come in to help us and slowly just jumped to that consulting company. So that's how the first pivot in my career happened. Um started doing consulting, loved it. Then I had a family, decided I didn't want to be on a plane every Monday morning, so I moved to automotive ergonomics. And while I was on Matt leave, they got rid of my position and moved it back to um Korea. So they said you could go work in UX, it's kind of like ergonomics or you can go find a new job. So that's where that other pivot happened and I went into UX and usability and I loved it. Um I still got to use a little bit of that engineering but it was more talking to people prying where they're thinking, how they're thinking. Um and been in UX since then. And I know you and I have talked, you know, countless times about just like uh, you know, your background and your career skills and essentially, you know, the way you leave organizations and and kind of, you know, and the way you start your next job, right? And I think you've you've told me in the past like, hey, I haven't interviewed in I can't even tell you how long. And, you know, they've been formal interviews, right? Uh, of you know, it's a it's what I have to do in order to to get it. But um you know I think that is is relevant in today's age with you know how saturated the market is but um you know obviously a wide spectrum of of different roles uh and obviously seeing the progression into where UX became your your kind of main role but um you know transferable skills uh and also just how you'veworked and how you've kind of leaned into different strengths uh or even you know cultivated weaknesses to be uh benefit you in in the roles that you have. Can you talk a little bit about that? I know that was a couple couple questions there, but I guess starting to um yeah, how how have you morphed and utilized your natural skill set to give you get to you where you are now? >> Yeah, we'll talk a little bit about Yeah, those transferable skills are huge. I think um Brett, what you said right there is spot on is don't leave a company on a bad note cuz you might be leaving for reasons you don't love but those things could change. So I've always left on a good note. I know if I needed to I could go back to any of those places. Um and yeah, I haven't really interviewed. I've always had a connection saying, "Hey, are you interested? We're looking for XYZ." And then yeah, you go through the interview process, but it was a step in the door knowing that someone was there. And I'm going to apologize now cuz our lawn company of course just showed up. So if you can hear that in the background I apologize. Usually they come in the mornings. Um but yeah when you step into these roles I feel like I'm an engineer and people look at me like oh you're an engineer when they hear it and then they're like well you don't know what you're doing in UX. But it's not. It's so I kind of call like the imposttor syndrome. You're not an imposttor. You're using those skills that you know from before and that degree isn't everything. It doesn't you don't just apply the skills, you use that mindset. So I still use my engineering mindset, what I learned back in the day, the communication, how to juggle multiple projects, those skills are what's transferable from career to career. It doesn't have to be that I use CAD. Um, having this variety of background has helped me be able to communicate and work with engineers and designers and project managers and be able to do those connections easily. Um, don't be afraid to ask the dumb questions. You're not the stupid one in the room. people are always thinking the same thing you are. They just may not be comfortable voicing it. So I think of that as a way of as an engineer I learned that um picking and digging deeper for that information that you need. Ask those questions others are curious. It helps us come in with a different set of skills and open mindset of how those things are working. >> And I guess specifically at Ford right is very engineering heavy or human factors heavy right? I think that was uh when I got started uh in in you know UX or human factors back in the day um doing a lot of medical doing a lot of automotive and and at that time the role was like human factors researcher or along those lines right um and you know I still see a lot of that present in the automotive industry certainly in the medical industry uh with with some of our clients but also just friends within the industry as well um you know do you think that was easier for you to transfer getting out of like an engineering lens at a company like Striker, which sound like you were doing, you know, some of the stuff that was on the assembly line, but it's almost you were putting that researcher hat on before it was really called a researcher position, right? Where how are you diagnosing, you know, what was going wrong and making sure people weren't getting hurt or making sure people were able to do what they were needed to do and and how to optimize that experience. would love to talk about kind of your early stage career um and kind of some of the research skill set that you learned then that you're really seeing get activated or uh isn't necessarily something that you see some of the more junior younger researchers have acquired. >> So yeah, that's a great example. Um, so at Striker you would see that this part always failed or the quality here was not so great. These rivets were always bad or the weld was always cracking at these spots. And that's where your research comes in. And that's where I started a lot of my research is why is it always this one weld? Why is it always this one rivet that's causing us problems and you start digging deeper and deeper and that's where that human factor side came in. Oh, well that weld involves me like reaching above my head to do the weld or I'm bending at this awkward angle and twisting my back so that rivet isn't going in straight and that's why it's failing. And so you start digging into what causes that to be an issue repetitively. If it's a one-off, someone had a bad day, something just wasn't working, something wasn't heated up correctly, whatever it might be. But when you see that over and over, that's when you start researching and digging into what's causing it. And then that research takes us to, okay, what can I do to prevent it? What can I do to make that weld not above my head or is easier to do above my head? Cuz sometimes you can't move things. Depends on where it is. How can I get to that rivet without having to twist at an angle? Do I do it earlier in the assembly process? Do I find a different way to do it? Do I do it later in the assembly process when I can reach it in a different angle? And all that research kind of plays into what I do now of okay, why can't users adjust the climate in their car or what is it making it so hard to understand when the car is quote unquote driving in your hands-free system versus when you're driving? And that kind of all plays together of digging deeper of what's going on, why it's happening. >> And I know something we've talked about is like there's observation into insight, right? And it's just kind of black and white. And you know, my brother's an engineer. So I think knowing his personality and and how he does things, his world is very black and white, right? He's he's a mechanical engineer. He sees this, he has to do this, right? Versus a researcher, I think you call it merging of minds, right? You you have a strategic lens of it of like, hey, there is a cause and effect, but what is the what and the so what and the impact and the why behind it? um if you want to go into a little bit more detail about you know what you're looking at in in in terms of your current role right at Ford and and how you do a bit of that but would love to know your perspective of you know the engineering lens of of Susan into the researcher expertise that Susan uh has cultivated over the years and what what you going diving deeper into the merging of aspect of things. >> Yeah, I don't know if I have a slide really specific to that but I feel like I'll throw up a picture of a car. Um but yeah, we're working to merge what's happening to our customer, to our participant, to the engineer, to the researcher, to the designer, trying to combine all of those things into what benefits all of us at the same time. So yeah, our customers are end goal, but if we can't get it done correctly, it's not going to help them either. So, it's not just sharing the data and the research, but it's combining all those efforts to do the research correctly from the step start. Um, how do we put it all together? Who do we work with? Who do I need to talk to to make sure I'm getting all those pieces of information together? Um, and those decisions inform a lot. I mean, I guess this slide does kind of apply. We're informing decisions from the start to the finish, like where all necessary parties are included, customers from the onset and everybody else. I don't know if I really answered that question, Brett but >> yeah. No, I think more more so like your perspective too, right? I think um you know we've had long candid chats about uh research and the just scraping the surface of insights versus I think you know the mentality of like you know really digging into the richness and how you've cultivated that not just from your current skill set and where you're at with Ford and what's needed right where you just talked about like the balancing of business needs and customer needs and uh generating uh you know money or hitting your KPI eyes in order to continue doing what you do. Um, but you know, zooming out and where do you think you've started to cultivate or connect the dots in in early parts of your career and and you know, any advice for junior researchers, any advice for researchers in general of how to do that well and have that more strategic mindset, right, where you're saying it's not just doing the research, but it's you need to incorporate all necessary facts and parties and you know, you're you're kind of that conductor, right? So, I take that back to the um digging. So, dig a little deeper. Dig where you fit into that. Um what your passion is. Is your passion keeping in people injuryfree? Is your passion making something easy to use? Both of these sound like wonderful things, but you've got to figure out what you really want to do and dig into that part of that research. Um I love helping people make their life a little bit easier, which is why I've kind of moved away from that ergonomics to that usability side of it. Um, not that I care if people get hurt or not. I do care. I don't want them getting hurt. But if I can make that end product userfriendly, um, that's where I really love it. Um, but I think what you want to do is take that career that you have or that degree that you have or that background that you have, whatever it might be, and figure out one, the first question Brad asked me, why'd you go into it? So maybe you went into it because it was a passion. Maybe you went into it because your dad wanted you to go into it. whatever it might be, you went into it for a reason and you got out of wherever you got out of it. Um, take that skill set that you've developed and keep going. Find your passion. And I think part of me, the reason that my career has pivoted so much is my passions have changed as I've grown, as I've learned more about myself and where I've ended up in my life. I've been in DC. I lived in Michigan. I've lived in Illinois. My personality has changed. My mindset has changed. What I love has changed. And I think your career has to change with you. If it doesn't change with you, you're not going to wake up and love going to your job. I love what I do. And Brett and I have talked about this. I love my job. I want to do a little bit less of it every day because there's so many projects going on. But when a new project pops up and my boss will be like, "Hey, who wants to do it?" I'll shoot my hand up and he's like, "Susan, you told me you're swamped." I'm like, "But this one sounds fun." And so you've got to find that part of your career of what sounds fun, where do you want to dig and learn more? >> I guess going to um you know, changing gears a bit, uh thinking through, you know, like history, present day and future. Um if you could kind of reflect on where research was either when you started entering what research became in your career or even knowing you know dabbling towards putting like one foot over the line and one foot still in the engineering space. Uh where would you say we were at as an industry during that time in your career in your tenure? uh you know in in that that historical sense um in terms of that reflection >> I think when I started um and maybe it was where I was at but or when I did it but we weren't looking at that big picture as much we spent a lot of time focusing on the next person or the next step um you didn't think about so if you let's go back to an automotive example just because that's where I am now um using even Ford as an example but I wasn't at Ford when this was happening I thought about my designer or I thought about my PM. Um, I didn't think about the customer driving the car. I didn't think about them as much. And that's how my research originally started. And and that's part of the reason I changed. I don't really care how the designer feels about my input. I care about how my dad is going to react when he buys his first car or my niece is visiting and I've been driving with her. God help me. And her. She is 15 and learning how to drive. And I'm thinking about her, like, can she use this 2,000lb piece of equipment and not kill me or my children while learning how to use it on a highway? Um, and it so that's how it's progressed for me. I don't know if it was because I was a junior researcher or if we weren't thinking big picture 10, 15 years ago. I wasn't thinking big picture. And now, as time has gone on, I think big picture. I incorporate all those teams into it to make sure that we get not just the customer but the big picture back here. So starting back here all the way up here >> and I guess you know bringing that to present day hearing the hey thinking big picture thinking about incorporation thinking about advocacy of I need I need my partners involved to get budget or to get buy in and make sure what we're doing is impactful. But how else would you kind of state the the current state of the market? um whether that be at Ford or just you know talking through other research friends I know you go around Michigan and you know you see people with ADIS shirts on and you're like hey what does your parent do uh but um talking about you know that stuff with with colleagues or even uh currently at Ford you know where do you see the state currently as as researchers? Uh, so a lot of it is growing, but with the government and everything else happening, tariffs, things are hard. I know that a lot of people probably have seen that Ford's taking out credits, other OEMs are doing it as well. So, a lot of our stuff has gone internal. Um, so we're doing a lot of this research with internal participants versus external participants. It's not my favorite way to do it because no matter how unbiased you try to be, you work for this company. Um, another way that we're doing a lot of our research I see is moving towards the AI side of it. Um, so we're trying anthropology is what we used to do. I think that's another one I should have brought up is back in the day. I spent a lot of time looking at the size of people, the shape of people, more of the human factor side of it. And I feel like people aren't changing as much as we were um 100 200 years ago. Our heights have kind of leveled out of where we are. We're not having those 6 in changes in height between our grandparents generation, our generation like our grandparents did with their grandparents. So, we're more into that. We know what our dimensions are. Um, what was I now? I lost my train of thought when I went back. But yeah, AI, sorry. I feel like a lot of what we're doing now is we're trying to get AI to help us. I AI is not taking over. I don't think it's going to take over. I think it's going to support us. So when I do get verbatims back, I get, you know, hundreds of responses when I send out a survey or when I talk to people and I'm taking notes and I'm just typing what they're saying. AI is helping me analyze that data and it's helping me go through that data a little bit better. I think that is a tool that we'll use going forward. I'm trying to figure out how we can use that tool to help us do the research itself. I don't think that's there yet. I don't think AI knows all the ways a person could adjust the volume or all the ways a person would want to adjust the volume in a car. I know that's a really simple example, but I don't think it's going to take over in that aspect. I think researchers will always be needed. >> Yeah, it's almost it makes you superhuman, right? It's it's the it's scaled mediocrity, but if you have a really good researcher there, um you're able to just tfold what you can do. Um so it sounds like historically um specialists people that are really fine-tuned at uh specific aspects of the research process or specific needs. Then as we morphed into what present day is it's become more bigger picture and how do you connect the dots and how do you uh inform decisions and and bring people together to create a a unified vision. Um, and then in the future, uh, you know, I know we just started touching upon that, u, but I do think, you know, you you started hitting at that of like what does the future look like and and what the future will be in terms of what research and capabilities and where you're seeing seeing Ford or others lean in. Um, seems a lot more AIcentric. uh but anything else that you know comes to mind in terms of future aspects of of research or even how you're utilizing uh your past experience and bringing that towards what future optimizations could be in your role. >> Yeah. Um I think bringing it together is really it. It's just taking everything you know and that's why I think it helps to have quote unquote an unconventional background. um having that different mindset and that different background really helps bring people together in a new way. Um when we're looking at our team, I've got people who have a psych background. I've got software engineers. We have um straight up researchers, I have industrial designers. We're all those different things come together to build a building block of a new way of looking at things. I don't think of it as a conventional thing at all. I don't want to be in this box. We want to come with that variety. I think is am I answering this question at all? I feel like I'm not. >> No. Yeah. Yeah, you are. I I I think it's the other lens is, you know, you're you're in charge of building teams now, right? Like as as we grow in our tenure, we go from doers to, you know, help teach and and master and teach others around us to now, you know, forwarding and and inputting into the industry, right? I know you've done series of talks and and thought leadership um but also now you you have teams of your own that you've you've helped build and hire and coach and um you know you don't come from the traditional researcher whether that be academia to research or grow naturally up through a research funnel um like like some have or gone to a boot camp like so many have right um you know as a hiring manager as someone in a leadership role at a Fortune50 company you know what are you looking for? Um, how how has your unconventional role and and kind of trajectory uh inputed what you're looking for and candidates or or other personnel to to build your teams? >> Yeah. Um, I'm looking for people I call it the beer test. We can call it the coffee test, whatever you want to call it. I am looking for someone that I can have a casual conversation with. Brett and I have had many casual conversations, many workrelated conversations, but someone I can be candid with and someone who is going to be candid with me. I really want someone who's going to call me out if I do something crazy or something not not good. Um, but I also want them to be comfortable with me calling them out. Um, I think of it as active criticism and positive feedback. We don't want the negative um I think of the the criticism is that negative feedback, but I don't want to call it negative feedback. I call it active criticism. It's how can we be continue to get better and that's what I think of that active. So when I'm building that team is can we have these candid casual conversations or can I give you feedback and you're going to be accepting of that feedback and vice versa. Can you do you feel comfortable with me? I don't want it to be a formal relationship um between me and my team. I want them to be comfortable coming to me when something's bothering them about anything about be about me be it about something at work. what can we do together as a team to solve that issue and make things better. Um, and then when I'm hiring, I also am not looking for that traditional research background. Um, I've got a res pile of resumes that we're going going through right now. Do I want you to know how to do research? Yes. Can but but as Brett mentioned, there's boot camps out there. Can I train you to do research? Most likely yes. And my team isn't even all extroverts. I am an extrovert, as you may have noticed, but my team is not. We have a handful of introverts and they're still great at doing that research. Some of them still even enjoy moderating, which is very stressful on someone who's an introvert going out there and interviewing people all day long. But sometimes they make great moderators because they know when to poke and they're really good at letting you go when you don't need to and moving you on to the next thing. Um, so I have a team of very diverse backgrounds. Other things I look for um other than you know you know what research is we look for different types of research um foundational research, strategic research, qualitative versus quantitative. I want a team that can do everything. Um I don't want a person that can do everything though. I don't want a jack of all trades. I want people who specialize at least in one or two of those areas and then know a little bit about the others so they can support other team members. So, my foundational person may not be an expert in the usability test, but do they know enough that they can support my usability person when they're drowning? Yes, that's what I'm looking for. I don't need you to be an expert in both. Do we have people who are great at everything? Probably. Um, but that's not what my goal is. My goal is to build a well-rounded and then balanced team of a variety of backgrounds and skill sets. Go. I think something you talked about earlier in our conversation which was imposter syndrome right um you know I think in my role is morphing into the different positions I've been in definitely feeling that definitely seeing that right but you know coming from a non-ressearch background and then you're dropped in with these experts that are really good at usability or quantitative research or qualitative research and you know specific methodologies and you're managing them and you know you're not a traditional researcher you know could you talk about how you've managed that imposter syndrome, how you've managed the >> you don't know the answer to how to do a cono analysis, right? Or sequential menatic survey or something along those lines. >> Yeah. >> But your team is pushing that up to you and saying, "Hey, can you review this? This is going in front of executives tomorrow." >> How have you managed that? How has, you know, coming from that non-traditional role, your thoughts on on kind of that experience? >> Yeah. Um, I'm one of those people. I hate making up answers and I hate when people make up answers. So, if I don't know the answer, I will straight up tell you, I don't know, let me look into it or let me find out more. Um, I will go find the person who knows. So, yeah, there's research methodologies that I'm not an expert at and I don't plan on becoming an expert at. Um, and what I do is I work with that team member like, hey, you want me to present XYZ or you're going to present it. Let's get the right people to review this data together to make sure what we're showing is accurate. It's is it statistically significant? I know who exactly who I'm going to. I sent someone this morning. I'm like, "Oh, you need statistical significance. Go talk to X or Y." That's who can tell you I I can run a Z test because Google can help me. But am I going to be able to tell you how well it was and if that was something we needed? No. But I know I think that's part of being at a big company. And that's one of the perks of being at a big company is I can find you the right person who can review that data, review that PowerPoint, who can help you run that data if that's what you need. I'm gonna turn these slides off because I really am not using them and less people want to stare at my screen. But >> um same mindset of obviously you know as that manager um but also you know coming up the ranks where where did you want to specialize in what actually I know we talked about it a bit of like making things easier and um you know I think back I think he's actually on today but um you know my my first Boston research right uh we were doing a lot of medical work uh we talked about you know going into doing some eth uh ethnographies and uh at the time we were doing some pre-filled syringe Um, and you know, this this mother used to mix all these different kinds of medications together and you know, take out a syringe and then inject and and whatever. Um, and you know, the way her her daughter viewed her, right? You know, embarrassed to bring friends at home and you know, the this mom was the monster that had to mix all these different potions together. Um, and then we came into the house and we're testing this this pre-filled syringe. she could go to the bathroom, click the syringe, you know, put it in a a safety disposal and then walk out. And he was like, "That's what we're doing. That's UX." Um, you know, that is the gravity of the situation. hearing a lot of that uh excitement or passion in your voice of, you know, I have a niece that is is driving this, you know, two-tone vehicle or my father that is, you know, exage and he now needs to be able to utilize the infotainment system so quickly or else, you know, then he's distracted or or whatever that might be. But, you know, what was the aha moment for you of like, hey, I'm really doing something awesome and really cool. Um, and, you know, I want to try to see how I can make this my full-time job. Ah, so from going into erggo, I had that aha moment. Um, and I had it again with UX. So like going into Erggo, that aha moment was when I was seeing people get hurt and then I was able to fix it. Um, so my minor was biomedical engineering. So I do have a little bit of a physiology background and understand the human body, the muscles, the tendons, and how they all work together or don't work together if you're not being safe about it. So, my aha moment there was seeing someone be like, "Oh, my back doesn't hurt anymore. Like, I finished a shift of work and I don't need to go home and soak in a hot tub or get a massage pillow out or anything like that." Um, for UX, it was a little bit different. It was, like I said, I was kind of thrown into that field. I didn't have a choice. I came to work one day and this is what I was doing. Um, and I had told myself, I will give it a year. If I like it, I'll stay. If I don't, I'll leave. For me, the big aha moment was the first research clinic I was at um watching people struggle with what I thought was a simple task. So before we went, we had come up with three designs on how to save a preset. So like you you find your favorite radio station, I want to save it. We all were like, "This is it. This is common sense. We can do it. We don't need to test it. This one of the three designs is the best design." My aha moment was when I got to the research site and it failed miserably. The one that we all the experts in the field thought was going to be the best one, wasn't it? And that was my aha moment of I need to do this. I need to show with data that it just because I think it's the right one doesn't mean it's the right one. Um data is there. People are there doing it in the real world while driving versus sitting at my computer. This screen is perfect. Yeah, I can save a preset. no questions asked. So that was my aha moment of huh we need people to actually people and do it the way they would do it. And you spoke to data um in the aspect of you know I'm sure we all have different stakeholders that resonate with different kinds of data right the qualitative the quantitative um you know based off your experience where have you seen the ability to articulate things that resonate with engineers right versus product versus other stakeholders that you have I think you guys feed up to a design team right um you know how how have you utilized your different background your voice your uh you you know, experience to find a way to communicate or articulate those findings in a way that's going to resonate with either something that was in your past role or roles that you were adjacent to. Right? Research verse design is is the adjacency, the engineering uh in in your your your historical experience. >> Uh and so when I put a report together, it's actually the same stuff reiterated maybe three different ways because of who I target market is. Like you said, I report to a design team, but I've got engineers, I've got designers that I'm also looking at this data. So for the engineers, I've got bar charts, I got pie charts, I got graphs showing that quant data. Okay, well our average liquor score was this or 75% of people wanted this or whatever it might be. Um, and then for the designers, I have usually I take their screenshot of their center screen or their cluster screen or whatever it is and kind of mark that up of where people went to do a task. Um, sometimes it's a heat map. Um, other times it's like people have no idea what this icon means and it'll just be a circle around a button, but I will make that more design related. And then for the executive sum executives, I have a summary slide. It's I call it TLDDR. Too long, did not read. I mean, >> we have that slide. It's five bullets of this is your takeaways. Um, my boss calls it the so what. He's like, whenever you put a report together, I want to so what. What do I do with this data? Why did we do it? So, for the executives, there's the TLDDR. This is the so what. If you go a little bit further, you'll see some bar charts and graphs. You go a little bit further, you'll see some images. Not everything fits into a bar chart. Not everything's qualitative or quantitative. Sorry. A lot of it is qualitative. So, then you get those verbatims. Um, I will put those verbatims together and what I will do with that verbatim is I will count how many people said one thing versus another to get some sort of quant out of it if I need it. >> Other times I flag those good quotes as we call them. Um, they're positive, they're negative, either way. They're a good quote to make a story. And I think that's what my reports do is it makes a story to show this is what you want to do with it. And I feel like that's how my background taught me to do it. Like I started as an engineer. I started with bar graphs and charts and then when I did erggo I was doing more of that physical pictures and things like that and then as I've gone into management I'm doing those bullet points so that those career progression kind of fits into that report and the style I report out now is how do I touch every single one of those people in that field. >> Yeah, makes sense. Um and then I guess shifting gears this can be our last kind of portion that we'll discuss. We are coming a bit on time so I want to give some some room for a question and answer but um you know advice to those wanting to get into the industry um feedback of the current state of how to best get into the industry. Um kind of rifting off that that sense of you know hey I'm a I'm a new researcher. I don't have experience. I do have experience in these different areas marketing or engineering or wherever it may be. how how might I based off of Susan's advice get get placement into or get able to to get into a role like like you have there? >> Uh I think it's start anywhere you can. Um start with mini research projects. There's a lot of places out there where you can do freelance work um or you that need just a oneoff. Uh I don't let your background or your career stop you. Um if you've been a teacher for 100 years, hopefully not that long, teachers need a break. But if you've been a teacher for 20 years and you suddenly realize, I want to go into research instead and do UX, you've been doing it. Every career out there has been working in some way of digging. So take that background and figure out what part of it you can apply to research and put that on your resume. Make that your tagline of as a teacher, I was able to probe students into understanding why these math equations were whatever. I don't know. I'm making things up. But make that your tagline on your resume. So even if your background isn't coming from a research background and you want to get into it, I would make that. And now if you're a somewhat experienced researcher and you want to get into more and you looking for a new career, um, switching companies or whatever, I think you need to make that portfolio instead of just the tagline on your resume, go ahead and put a whole bunch of black squares and what you can't share, whatever secret information. But if it's already out there, get it out there. Make that portfolio. Make your case of this is the research I've done. this is where that research was used. I think that's what I look for a lot in interviews is not just the research you did, but the impact your research had on your industry or whoever your next person in line was. You may not have impacted Brett, but you may have impacted your manager or your designer or whoever it might be. So, what did you do with that research or what did someone else do with that research? I would say is even more important than what you did with that research. What did someone else do with your research? And that's what you want to push as you look for that position. >> Huge on the impact and >> um you know we can design a button that solves world peace and put it in Japanese and I don't speak Japanese neither do you. So uh how how is that going to make impact? Yeah. Absolutely. >> Awesome. >> Yeah. Um, we'll open it up to Q&A. Um, and and just, you know, any questions you might have for Susan about her current role, about uh some of her processes, workflow, experience, or even prior roles. Um, we'll kind of open that up. I know we have, uh, the YouTube open as well. So, um, anything that that's filtering in there. Um, but yeah, so I'll I'll uh throw it over. If not, we can give you guys some time back. Um, and you know, appreciate everyone joining and hope to to see you at the next one. >> Have at least one question. Come on. >> If not, I'm probably gonna just make Bill come up with a question. >> There you go. My favorite color is blue. If you come to Michigan, the best ice cream spots dairy ground. I don't know. Someone's got a question. If not, it'll be us just nerding out about uh Oshkosh. >> Yeah, airplanes. I did watch the night show. It was pretty cool. Anyone else in airplanes? I >> think Gavin, you have a question. Would you want to put that into the chat? I don't think we're able to uh let people open up. >> Are you using AI for open-end analysis? So that one's from Kimberly. Um, yes and no. So I use AI to more so just summarize verbatims. Um, summarize findings. Sometimes I'll put the quant in there as well as the qualitative and ask it to summarize both together. I don't usually ask it to hypothesize or recommend based on the data. I take that data and work with my team to do that. Uh we're using it at times on our end. Um again we do quality checks with our personnel. Um so you know utilizing just coding uh on the back end but doing a lot with our screeners when we recruit. Um doing a lot with some open-ended diaries uh but you know quality checking and making sure that we are going back and and seeing that. So uh don't completely trust it at times. There's been a lot of hallucinations and and feedback, but yeah, >> do that quality check. I think that gut check is the most important part. >> Yeah. Yep. >> Fact check. Gut check. >> We had a non-related uh question about have you ever tried hummingbird cake? Um I know you are a big big baker. So >> I have made a hummingbird cake. Yes. Uh someone requested one. One of my team members requested one for their birthday one year. That is not an easy cake to make. I made the mistake of deciding to shred the carrots myself. That took way too long and then getting all the water out of the carrots out. For those of you that don't know what a hummingbird cake is, it's like a coconut or a carrot cake with like a cream cheese frosting and then there's nuts in there and then it's got toasted coconut on the outside. >> Another auto specific question. Um, seeing a lot of innovations in auto come from Asia. Uh, wondering if we are on the cusp of a major changes in the driving and passenger experience. So, I've driven a couple of those Asian cars. We may or may not have some here. Um, but I've only been able to drive them close on cross tracks because they're not approved to be on US roads. The tech is pretty interesting, but I haven't seen anything that like blows my mind that we aren't there or close to. I can't say too much about that one, but I don't think that they're going to blow us out of the market. No, I think that we still have a fair market share. There was a second part to that, wasn't there, or no? >> Uh, no. Just wondering if we're on a cusp of any major changes, but >> we're on parody. And I know there's >> we all read the news and see how uh I guess factories are being shifted back to the US in different areas, right? Chevy is shifting, I think, to Indiana um and and whatnot. But I'm sure we'll we'll see production in a different lens. Um different one from YouTube. Uh, do you find that there are more and more people outside of research looking to break into research? >> I do. I noticed that a lot more lately actually. Um, a lot of the resumes I see or the people I've talked to, um, I will sub in at a class once in a while at the local community college and there's a lot of people in there who don't have a research degree like I do and I think it's great. Um, more people are breaking into this field. I asked why and they just people didn't know it existed. I didn't know it existed um when I was in undergrad. So I think that's part of it is people realize as we get more into technology and screens, people are understanding that there's more out there on the usability of these things. Um I get on an app sometimes and the first thing I do is complain about the user interface and how much I hate it. So someone else who hates it is probably going to go, I'm going to go make that better. Oh, there's a whole field for it. Let's go do that. >> Yeah, I think we're seeing the same, right? Um you know the the market is oversaturated right now uh with talent from boot camps, talents from all these layoffs and these uh major tech companies. Um but definitely seeing there there's a want to join and and enter the research space. Some of it is fueled by like we get to talk to people and make things better and make things better for the world. Um, you know, the other stuff is the innovation that you spoke to, right? Going on Gavin's question is what what is all the cool stuff that's happening that is behind the scenes that you have exposure to that the the general public doesn't and what a cool job to do. And then I think also a compensation point right where um it is very much a white collar job and you know that it does pay well uh right out of school with little to no experience and as you continue to uh increase in your experience and time within the industry you know you're you're sitting at a good salary that uh you know earning and and learning and also uh enjoying what you do um is is a pretty pretty sweet spot to have. >> Yeah enjoying what you do is the hardest thing to find. I think >> indeed. Yeah. >> I mean, I may or may not be able to make more doing something else, but would I be happy with it? >> Yeah. >> Awesome. Uh look forward to the 28th of August. We have our next webinar. It is with uh the founder of 2020 Financial and his daughter who is now a Google researcher. Um, so they'll be going back and forth about their experiences on, you know, his tenure as a researcher, her entering the research market and what that looks like. Uh, but Susan, I appreciate the time. Um, always love the conversation and the candidness and, uh, you know, the opinions that that you have and love, uh, being able to nerd out about research, methodologies, airplanes, dogs, everything with >> Oh, yeah. We didn't talk about the dogs, but thanks for having me, Brett. I really enjoy doing this. Um, it was great to talk to people. Thanks for coming, everyone. Awesome. Uh, thanks everyone. Take care and and reach out if you need anything in terms of uh, Accelerant and and any projects you might have upcoming. Bye. Take care. Bye.