How can pure researchers (not designers) get designers to collaborate across the aisle and take research data seriously, especially when designers seem to have a predetermined agenda?

Paul recommends building the relationship before presenting any data. Connect informally, learn what designers care about, and ask curious questions about their decisions ('why did you place that button there?'). When you do present findings, describe methods briefly, share themes, and offer recommendations rather than directives. Find the one designer on the team who is genuinely open to research and start with them. Build trust through small wins over time. Accept that not every recommendation will be implemented; your job is to conduct and report research accurately, not to guarantee its use.

Designers often do not know how to design for vision impairment and screen readers. How do we remove those barriers earlier in the process, ideally by involving people with disabilities from the start?

Paul agrees this requires thinking beyond the design process to hiring and recruiting practices. He recommends testing with people who actually use assistive technologies rather than relying solely on guidelines or automated tools. The company Fable employs people with disabilities to test interfaces. At JPL, Paul built a disability advocacy networking group and made it standard to include employees with disabilities in usability and acceptance testing for new tools. He also advises using the W3C Perspectives videos as a starting point for training designers and engineers on how assistive technologies are actually used.

Design, Research, and Human Connection: Lessons from JPL and Beyond

Paul Lumsdaine, head of research and design operations at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, joins Brett Kusi of Accelerant Research for a wide-ranging conversation on the evolution of UX and research practice over 16-plus years. Paul argues that the field's growing focus on business and technology has pulled designers and researchers away from their core strength, which is making genuine human connections. He draws on his experience at Cisco, JPL, and in accessibility advocacy to make the case for slowing down, asking simple questions, and centering people in every stage of the work.

Key Takeaways

Design and research derive their value from human connection. The field's shift toward product and business framing risks losing the core reason practitioners were welcomed into tech in the first place.
Interpersonal skills, specifically asking simple questions, storytelling, and building relationships, matter more than tool proficiency or methodology knowledge when hiring and when influencing stakeholders.
AI and new tools are useful when they solve a genuine human need, but they should be treated as assistants. Human judgment, ethics, and connection remain irreplaceable.
Accessibility guidelines are a floor, not a ceiling. Only talking to and testing with people who actually use assistive technologies reveals whether an interface is truly usable.
Researchers who want to collaborate with designers should build the relationship first, ask curious questions about design decisions, and frame research findings as suggestions rather than directives.
Career advancement consistently comes from person-to-person connections, mentorship, and community involvement, not from automated job applications or tool proficiency alone.

Questions & Answers

How can pure researchers (not designers) get designers to collaborate across the aisle and take research data seriously, especially when designers seem to have a predetermined agenda?: Paul recommends building the relationship before presenting any data. Connect informally, learn what designers care about, and ask curious questions about their decisions ('why did you place that button there?'). When you do present findings, describe methods briefly, share themes, and offer recommendations rather than directives. Find the one designer on the team who is genuinely open to research and start with them. Build trust through small wins over time. Accept that not every recommendation will be implemented; your job is to conduct and report research accurately, not to guarantee its use.
Designers often do not know how to design for vision impairment and screen readers. How do we remove those barriers earlier in the process, ideally by involving people with disabilities from the start?: Paul agrees this requires thinking beyond the design process to hiring and recruiting practices. He recommends testing with people who actually use assistive technologies rather than relying solely on guidelines or automated tools. The company Fable employs people with disabilities to test interfaces. At JPL, Paul built a disability advocacy networking group and made it standard to include employees with disabilities in usability and acceptance testing for new tools. He also advises using the W3C Perspectives videos as a starting point for training designers and engineers on how assistive technologies are actually used.
What advice do you have for recruiting and finding participants with various disabilities, since some populations are hard to reach?: Paul suggests attending accessibility-focused conferences such as the CSUN Assistive Technology Conference and axe-con, joining the IAAP (International Association of Accessibility Professionals), and connecting with accessibility professionals on platforms like Mastodon or Bluesky. Reaching out directly and asking accessibility professionals who they connect with is effective. Within organizations, building an internal disability advocacy network creates an ongoing pool of people to involve in testing. Always compensate participants for their time. Fable is also recommended as a service that connects testers who use assistive technologies with design and product teams.

Session Notes

Speaker Background

Paul Lumsdaine has 16-plus years in UX, starting with a contract at Cisco Systems through mentor Jamie Levy around 2009-2010.
At Cisco he worked on internal HR and business IT mobile apps within an early agile environment, designing for a bring-your-own-device policy.
He has spent seven years at JPL, where he was hired as the first UX designer in a division of roughly 100 engineers, database administrators, and systems analysts.
JPL is a federally funded research and development center with more than 60 years of history putting robots into space. Opinions expressed are Paul's own and do not represent JPL or NASA.

How the Industry Has Shifted

Paul describes a drift from human-centered practice toward business and technology priorities. He ties this to the rise of the 'product designer' title, which he sees as a signal that the field is moving away from people and toward revenue and technology.

"It's more about making money with fancy tech. It's about the people. That's really why designers and researchers were hired in the first place."

Early in his career, design decisions were governed by formal business requirements documents (BRDs). Pushing beyond those requirements drew pushback.
Over time, BRDs gave way to casual conversations with business partners and iterative prototyping, which created more room for dialogue but also more miscommunication.
Paul deliberately avoids the word 'user' because it removes the human from the equation.
He sees designers and researchers as having changed their narrative to align with the C-suite, trading their connection to people for a seat at the table.

Working in an Engineering-Driven Culture at JPL

JPL missions take a decade or more from concept to data return, which has fundamentally changed Paul's sense of pace and his approach to design.

The lab's culture values long-term thinking. 'Move fast and break things' is replaced by 'move slow and take care.'
His role is to support the humans who are helping the robots, bridging engineering culture and human-centered practice.
Scientists and engineers share all mission data, including Mars Rover findings, with the entire world, so storytelling and connection to the public are part of JPL's core mission.
Paul found that asking engineers simple, curious questions ('can you walk me through how this helps you in your job?') opens collaboration and gently challenges requirements without confrontation.

Tools, AI, and What Actually Matters

Paul describes himself as tool-agnostic, separating what he does and why from the specific tools he uses. He learned Figma in 2014-2015 after a student introduced it to him, and it is now the common industry tool. He sees new tools arriving constantly but does not consider tools the defining factor in good work.

A concrete AI success at JPL: after the Southern California fires, engineers and a researcher-designer quickly built a Slack-connected chatbot to centralize HR documents and internal resources so employees could ask questions in plain language. Paul frames this as a genuine human need met by the right tool at the right moment.
JPL also researches human autonomy, keeping a human in the loop to monitor and guide robotic systems. Paul sees a parallel in how designers should use AI to assist workflows while retaining human judgment.
Whiteboards, paper sketches, and in-person collaboration remain highly effective. JPL still uses a large shared whiteboard room for mission proposals.
Brett summarized AI as 'scaled mediocrity': it can make a skilled designer or researcher a 'superhero,' but the human element is what pushes output from good to excellent.
Video conferencing is flagged as a genuinely revolutionary research tool, enabling access to participants who could never travel to a facility, though it also changes the nature of human interaction.

Skills That Matter Most: Technical vs. Interpersonal

Paul reframes 'hard skills vs. soft skills' as 'technical skills vs. interpersonal skills,' and argues the interpersonal side is the most critical, especially in constrained environments.

Bootcamps, certificate programs, and university programs produce graduates with roughly equivalent tool and methodology skills. Figma templates and interaction patterns are already built; no one needs to reinvent them.
What is missing more often is the ability to talk about design and research intelligently, to tell a story about why decisions were made.
Asking simple, humble questions ('can you tell me more about that?') consistently unlocks deep knowledge from subject-matter experts.
Storytelling, simplifying complex findings for different audiences, and making emotional connections with stakeholders are the skills Paul values most when hiring.
Learning from people outside design, including change managers, business analysts, and systems engineers, helps researchers and designers continually level up.

Juggling Immediate Business Needs with Long-Term, Exploratory Thinking

Paul acknowledges the tension between stakeholders demanding quick solutions and the slower, more iterative pace that produces real innovation.

He recommends pushing back on requirements through questions rather than opposition: 'What's the business case for this?' and 'How does this help you in your job?' reframe the conversation without being confrontational.
Designers and researchers are sometimes obligated to shape requirements, not just fulfill them. Not everyone has the organizational standing to do this directly.
If you cannot push back yourself, find like-minded colleagues across the organization and build an internal coalition. That is how lasting change happens even in large organizations.
Sharing work early and inviting critique helps teams fail early rather than failing late, when course correction is expensive.

Advice for Researchers Collaborating with Designers

A question from the audience asked how researchers can build bridges with designers who may have their own agenda or dismiss research findings.

Build the relationship before you present the data. Connect over coffee, learn what designers care about, and understand their pressures.
Ask curious questions about design decisions ('why is that button placed there?') rather than leading with your research synthesis.
When presenting findings, describe methods briefly, surface themes, and offer suggestions or recommendations, not directives. People resist authoritarianism.
Accept that not every recommendation will be acted on. Your job as a researcher is to conduct and report research accurately and clearly; it is the designer's job to execute on it.
Find the one designer on the team who is genuinely open to research and start there. Build trust incrementally through small wins rather than trying to change everything at once.
Books Paul recommends: Just Enough Research by Erika Hall and Designing for Emotion (not fully attributed in the talk).

Accessibility and Inclusive Design

Paul describes accessibility work as the clearest path back to the human-centered roots of the field. He is an accessibility advocate at JPL and trains colleagues on inclusive design.

An interface can pass all automated and manual accessibility tests and still be unusable for people with disabilities. Talking directly to people with disabilities is irreplaceable.
Every accessibility training Paul runs begins with W3C Perspectives videos (available on YouTube), which show how different people use assistive technologies.
Disabilities are created when society erects barriers. Designers and researchers must ask whether their chosen tools and platforms are enabling connections or creating new barriers.
He recommends the company Fable, which employs people with disabilities and assistive technology users to test interfaces.
At JPL, Paul and the accessibility lead started a disability advocacy networking group to build an internal community and ensure employees with disabilities are included in usability and acceptance testing for new systems.
Accessibility guidelines (such as WCAG) should be treated as guidelines, not laws. Rigid adherence without user testing can still produce unusable experiences.
To reach participants with disabilities: attend accessibility conferences (CSUN Assistive Technology Conference, axe-con), join organizations like IAAP (International Association of Accessibility Professionals), and reach out through platforms like Mastodon or Bluesky. Always compensate participants for their time.

Career Development and the Job Market

The current job market is difficult. Paul knows experienced, highly skilled practitioners who have spent eight to twelve months searching. He does not minimize this.
Every person he has seen land a role found it through a direct, person-to-person connection, not through automated application systems.
For introverts: volunteering at events creates low-pressure, structured interactions. Online communities (LA Tech and Design Slack, Tech Workers Coalition, Design Buddies Discord, accessibility study groups) offer similar benefits.
Finding a mentor early was the single biggest career accelerant for Paul. He encourages people to seek mentors actively.
The hiring process itself has become dehumanized, which makes leaning into genuine human connection even more important, not less.

Transcript

Read the full transcript

um looks like people are starting to roll in uh you know so I appreciate you guys joining uh this is one of our many that we've been doing roughly monthly now uh accelerate many conferences and uh Paul I won't steal your thunder but I I'll let you introduce yourself uh before we get into that um always want to introduce who I am in in hosting these Brett KUSI uh vice president of research and growth here at exelant research uh overseeing all the research and and also some of our client relations and growth team so uh but without further Ado uh Paul if you want to just give a quick intro of of who you are and kind of some of your background yeah thanks Brett uh so my name is Paul lumsdaine I am the lead uh uh or head of acting manager whatever title you want to give it of research and design operations in our Enterprise business Information Services Division at the jet propulsion Laboratory um the jet propulsion laboratory is a federally funded research and development center I do have to state that opinions I express in this talk are my own I'm not speaking on behalf of the jet propulsion lab or of NASA uh it's it's an it's an honor to be there it's been it's been a really great seven years that I've been there so far um doing you know design and research work um similar to what you'd see in a normal business it or Enterprise ux environment um but really unique because of the the missions that JPL does and the the people that I get to work with um I started out uh in in US X about 16 years ago and that was really uh my one of my first gigs was with Cisco Systems it was through a contract with my mentor Jamie Levy and that kind of threw me into the the fire as it were into a global company that um really did practice uh software development design at scale um and so I got to experience that firsthand uh working for Cisco and then went into Consulting and then wanted to try something new didn't want to travel so much wanted to work more locally here in Southern California and that's when I applied at the jet propulsion laboratory and they were looking for someone to basically be the first ux designer in a division of 100 employees that primarily uh did you know software engineering uh database Administration and uh systems analysis so I work with a lot of those people um and there aren't a whole bunch of designers at JPL uh but there are a few in they're very very talented folks um I'm constantly humbled by the other people that I work with yeah I appreciate that and and we'll get into a little bit more of your your background and kind of where you've you've seen uh the industry morph into but um obviously you know we are uh going over our ground rules first as we always do um you know some of those are we at the mercy of the tech so uh you know whether one of us freezes or something happens um you know just bear with with us uh as as we get through that stuff um always be respectful you know feel free to drop comments questions in the chat but we do ask you be respectful to uh the others that are are also here but also the presenters um and then finally you know this is for you guys so Network engage interact reach out uh follow up with each other to just be able to start building that community in that Network right um finally another call out uh we are you know as I mentioned doing these pretty regularly so we have another one coming up on March 27th this is a full day conference I think we've lined up roughly four to five speakers for that day um they'll be about an hour each uh but we'll we'll have a full day starting at 11: am uh eastern time but going throughout the the rest of the day so uh without further Ado there um I'll sh stop sharing my screen here um and Paul you and I can kind of jump into it you know I know you mentioned you know talking about your background and and obviously you've been in the industry you know together collectively between that's what we said three decades roughly uh which which which is a long amount of time right um but you know within that time frame uh there's been shifts you know the the industry has started at one place and you know has gone through different Transitions and and morphed into what we know at now but you know during that timeline what have you really seen right starting out from when you first entered in your time at Cisco to where you are at GP uh JPL now like what what are some things that really stick out in terms of methodologies or just overall the things you've witnessed yeah so that's a that's a a great question but you know when I was at Cisco it was they were adopting agile and so we were building pretty a rapid Pace uh maybe every three to four months we were building these either mobile apps and it was all internal work so it was for Cisco internal it was for their HR it and their business it um but you know we were we were cranking out stuff pretty quickly and utilizing at the time there was a few Frameworks uh jQuery mobile was new there was also uh you know uh I think it was uh trying to remember the the mobile platform but mobile was really big and Cisco had this bring your own device thing so it was like trying to to catch up whatever latest device was there we had to make it work with that and so it was really fun actually and engaging because I got to just you know early stage prototype test it out on different devices see what would work and really I I had the entire company at my disposal I got to contact people across the company work with them across time zones um and you know that that type of environment kind of really makes you realize that the world's a much bigger place than whatever bubble you grew up in right and so I primarily have stayed in Southern California for most of my life I did travel a lot as a kid and I had some opportunities to to see the world but you know I went to school in Santa Barbara which is just two hours from here then moved back home so you know it's it's it's much different in other parts of the world and so that kind of opens you up right to the to a world of research and design different cultures the way they actually interact with applications uh whether at work or at home um and it kind of opens you up to understanding more about the human experience and how diverse that Human Experience is and so that kind of really was the Gateway for me to really dig a little bit deeper into understanding more about the the variety of experiences across the world and realizing that my work as a designer and as a researcher was really an understanding people and making a connection with people and over the years I've stopped kind of using phrases like user because just that word kind of takes away the human from the equation right you got to realize everything as a designer and researcher that that I'm doing has an impact right whe whether I intended or not and so I have to be really conscious in a way of the kind of impact that I'm making in the world and I I recently gave a talk and really it was it was about design for everyone and it was talking about how we really need to start considering if we haven't already inclusive design in our practice of of research and ux design it's it's one of those things that I think is so important and crucial to you know getting back to that concept that we actually build things for people um and and the variety of human experiences in the world so unfortunately I've seen the industry kind of move away from that a little bit and I've seen design become from where there was a lot of like ux design roles um to more product design roles and I I see it as a moving away from the people aspect more into focusing on Business and Technology right to basically making money with fancy Tech and that's kind of where I push back a little bit and I say look it's more about making money with fancy Tech it's about the people that's really why designers and researchers were hired in the first place that's why designers and researchers got a seat at the table right and we're we kind of welcomed into the the tech industry which was very much a heavy like engineering culture before research and designers really got to to have a foothold in the tech industry and so a lot of the work we do is so pivotal and important because of our connection to people and I hate to see us pull away from that yeah it sounds like there was almost like a roller coaster uh within your career of like you know ups and downs in uh human Centric versus Tech Centric or or business Centric and that's kind of where you've seen the industry morph to sounds like your time at Cisco was more of a almost like a startup environment where it was hey we're bringing our own devices and someone might have an iPhone or someone might have a pixel or whatever it might be and it was getting your hands on that and starting to test with those you know bring your own device uh and saying like hey is our platform intuitive or does it integrate with this software this uh operating system versus another uh and then also kind of your your point there of you know the the shift uh from you know I remember when I got started it was very human factors oriented right I did a lot in medical um and it was very you know human facted Centric uh and now you know being more in the tech and Retail spaces uh it it's very much more business Centric and and it's interesting to see the the shifts there would love to dive in there with you of you know obviously you're in a very interesting role at at Nasa with the the JPL what is what is the climate like what what is that that infrastructure like is it more engineering focused and how do you deal with uh you know being in a design a research ahead of operations role how do you communicate right to to those stakeholders yeah it's it's it's very engineering focused I mean you know for people who don't know J JPL puts robots into space and they've been doing that for 60 plus years right so um it has a long history it was actually the one of the first NASA centers ever um so uh and before that it was you know a a kind of a research center and some you know basically these Caltech grads needed a place to test their rockets and that's how JPL was born so it was kind of always a place of disruption a place where people kind of were really kind of pushing the pushing the edge so to speak so the the engineers and the the scientists that I work with are continuing to do that right pushing the edge of what's possible and of science um and designers at JPL a lot of designers who work more on the flight side and the engineering side they're really helping with that and they're helping to tell the important stories right and to keep that connection to humans to people uh a lot of the important work that JPL does also is in our Outreach to the community and to the world I mean with any money we get from NASA and the data that we collect the the information that we're collecting gets shared with the whole world so all all of that information that the Rovers on Mars are collecting in turn gets you know beamed down so to speak to JPL and then shared with the masses and sometimes that data is just raw numbers sometimes it becomes a story sometimes it's pictures sometimes it's these stories that get told and make these connections with people and hopefully inspires the next generation of Space Explorers and so my part in that is really supporting the engineers and the scientists at the lab so I'm I'm trying to help the humans who are helping the robots and you know in in doing that it's really understanding the mindset and the culture and the pace a lot of the things that are built at JPL they take a decade it takes a long time to get that thing out into space um you know sometimes seven or eight years from when we say bye-bye and then it's collecting science data to return to us so people have to have this really long-term perspective which is actually different than what I started out in which was this very short-term perspective so it's I think it's in a way shifted by mindset about the pace of things and about you know how sometimes the move fast and break things isn't the right way sometimes it's move slow and take care uh and and so there's there's a lot of in the research and design work I do like sometimes I realize I'm trying to push really quick to a solution to you know appease you know the the stakeholders or our business partners but at the end of the day it's I have to like tell myself to slow down and be like no you know like schedule that meeting talk to that person you know reach out to them see what their concerns are don't be so quick to just jump in and start designing something and in a design tool um and I think there's a lot that people can learn from that especially as we're using new techn IES and and integrating it into all of our daily practices you know AI being the big one um but how are we using those large language models to actually make a connection with people right and and how are we using those ethically and responsibly and those are those are kind of more of that you know thinking that you have to do really slowly right these are these are Big questions that you have to sit back and really think about and the technology and the pace of the industry moves so quickly that we don't always get the chance to do that um so that's why I kind of challenge researchers and designers to really like start to slow things down in their own minds and their own workflows and really start to think more critically about these things um and really do that centered in humans right and centered in in making a connection with people yeah I love that transition because you know my next question was going to be about tools and tech and and and you know love that you you kind of pushed it in that realm but um thinking through you know not just based off of the 16 plus years that you have in the industry but you know even in the future and what you're seeing in your role specifically I would assume that just the amount of technology and exposure to it is is vast uh with with the role that you have um you know what technology stick out right if you could share uh with the audience and I'll I'll also ask them is you know based off of your design research operations experience and oversight and Leadership roles what what are the fundamental uh kind of turning points that you've seen or technology that you've leveraged through your career that has helped evangelize or really speak out to the power of design and research and it could be tools or platforms or whatever right yeah yeah so I mean I am like and and a lot of designers might say this a lot of more experienced designers would say they are like platform or tool agnostic that they could jump in and they're the way they approach their work the what they the what they do right and and is is separated from like how they do it and so and and the why as well right so um you know of of course it was it was really interesting in 2014 I was teaching a class at UC Irvine and I I was talking about the tools I use and the students you know student raised my hand like what about figma and I was like I don't know what that is like you know this was 2014 or 2015 I was like I have no idea what you're telling me right now like what what is this thing and they showed me and I was like okay it's like a fancy illustrator with some like feur of like sketch or you know acture and I was like cool cool you know but then I noticed like all the students were using it and I was like okay this is something if I want to communicate to these students about design I have to actually learn this tool and so I started learning that tool and now you know that's kind of the common tool that I use and that a lot of the industry uses um and then I see new ones pop up all the time with with certain benefits but I think more so than the tools right it's like the why right like like why are we using these tools and as like especially AI or large language models one of the uses at JPL that I recently saw was in response to the fires here and basically bunch of brilliant engineers and and and someone who's kind of a more engineerd designer or researcher I would call them came together and built uh really quickly a chatbot that could take all this information that people were sharing on slack and just put it into a central place so that you could just ask this chatbot like I need information about this type of thing and it was it was very much curated to our environment to the the HR documents that were being shared and the like internal stuff that was going on and and things in resources people were sharing and that was like a wonderful usage of the tool right that's like it like the community wanted to reach out and help and we found a mechanism for doing that right and and that wouldn't have been possible you know 10 five maybe even a few years ago right but it was very much possible in today so um and and JPL is kind of really great at that like I know researchers and um Engineers working on like human autonomy and you know kind of working with robotics allowing allowing robots to do what they can do with with uh you know uh automation but having a human in the loop right who's who's checking making sure the robots like on track and and a lot of the missions now going out into space are are utilizing that kind of Technology um I do see designers doing similar work now or shifting and transitioning into doing that right where we're allowing something like a tool an AI tool to maybe design or assist in part of our workflow and I think that's just not going away that's that's part that's going to be part of everything um you know of course always considering like you know the the ethics and the the morality and the sustainability of some of those tools is important but I don't think that's going away anytime soon um but you know we we are just still seeing people getting together sketching things out on whiteboards you know drawing things on paper and we see that as being still one of the most effective ways to make that connection in push ideas forward that's the way that that JPL does proposals right they have a big room where people get together and there's a giant whiteboard and people are still there thinking up of the future of robotic space exploration and in the same way I'm working with analysts and other uh designers and researchers thinking up the future of the Enterprise and the business at J and even with the accessibility work that I do a lot of it just has to do with me communicating to people why it's important how you know how to utilize some of the tools there's automated tools and there's manual testing and then there's talking and working with people with disabilities and all of that right just is is more of a manual process and whereas you know things like Ai and Technology can assist us it's not replacing that human- to human connection yeah I I always I mean at the current state I consider AI like scaled mediocrity right and you know you can do a lot and really optimize a lot but it really takes a talented designer researcher operations person within the ux field or research field uh to take it up that Notch right so like it can make a really good designer researcher superhero um but it's as good as what you put in as what you get out and you really need that human element in order you know going back to like your initial Point uh user versus designing for the human uh it really depends on that human to kind of push it over the the uh the brink to put in that human element to get out what's going to be even better right um yeah you know I know we talked a bit about past Trends uh you know really the focus of this webinar is you know obviously we're at this pivotal moment within our industry and you know it's either we kind of start innovating of what we can be or you know we we have to kind of fall in and fall line to what the industry or what other Industries label us as right so uh shifting gears a bit in in that element you know next five years right where where do you hope and what do you evangelize to see as what we need to push for our industry what skill sets what what things are you looking for as a hiring manager or someone that is you know head of operations and research at at Nasa what are the things that you really value in terms of Technical and and uh actual like craft skills versus some of the soft skills and and you know what what do you what do you uh like what's what's important to you I guess yeah yeah and and I do hear that phrase a lot like the hard skills and the soft skills and I I've completely shifted my mindset to thinking them as technical skills and interpersonal skills because and those interpersonal skills are probably the most critical at a place like JPL or a place that has you know let's say certain amount of constraints right there's regulatory there's budget constraints um and so you have to be very creative but you also have to be very convincing you have to really like know how to talk to people how to communicate how to continually kind of you know speak your piece but also listen critically to what they're saying and then repeat back to them sometimes in a more s simplified format um I really think that ability to like ask very simple questions and humble yourself in front of other people um even if you kind of have the answer already just asking very simple questions or asking people hey can you tell me more about that um it really opens wide like the a Fountain of Knowledge right especially at a place where you have so many very intelligent people who' dedicated their lives to a particular area of expertise when you ask them to tell me more they will tell you more yeah right and so that is so critical and important in terms of like you know job skills in general um yeah you know I I think it's it's hard to say that like there's specific technical skills because what I've seen is like these things like the boot camps the CER certificate programs these even you know accredited University programs that teach ux or design skills people already come out all with the same am amount of skill level in terms of design and and tools like figma make it really easy right people have already created templates they've already created interaction patterns you don't have to re invent any of that right but what is kind of missing sometimes is the ability to talk about that intelligently to storytellin others like oh this is the reason why it's designed this way this is why choosing this set of templates and this set of of Design Elements actually helps you solve your problems that's all interpersonal skills that's like you know it's very little leaning you could could call it a technical skill of design or research to speak intelligently about the work you do but it really comes down to to those interpersonal skills yeah I think you nailed on the head right it's the marrying the art with the science and as researchers that's what we we're on that balance be of we need to have research rigor so like we need to maintain that scientific rigor in methodologies approach uh consistency but what makes me special as a researcher what makes you special as as a researcher is what is Paul's flare what is what is his flavor that he's putting on the way moderates and and that's marrying that art into it and introducing it right like what you talked about is you know you're going to talk to these NASA Engineers or Automotive Engineers or whatever uh these these robotic engineers and they can talk your ear off and and talk about it forever um sometimes you'll follow it sometimes you won't because it's so complex uh but it's it's like you said it's it's dumbing it down to make it digestible for lame and speak but also being able to kind of go back and say like hey I heard you but what can you talk to me more about that right it's the probing the research on your process the research on your stakeholders that you're doing with your humans or your users that you're you're testing with or doing research with um you're almost taking that same process that a lot of the time we don't do and doing on your stakeholders as well right um where yeah and I wouldn't I wouldn't necessarily say that it's like you know dumbing it down or I think it's it's it's more of crafting a narrative right so what what you're you're trying to do is really reveal enough information to make a connection with other people and then as the connection is made people can dive in deeper I think the mistake we often make as designers and researchers is is assuming that everyone else has the same level of understanding of our field or our industry and they just don't like it's and it's okay that they don't right that's not their job right it's our job to be able to speak to them and make a connection with them and teach them things about what we do in the progress of of doing it right um and like I said what I see the industry doing is we've so eagerly wanted to have as designers and researchers a seat at the at the table in the SE Suite right decisionmaking that we've CH changed our story and changed our narrative to align more with business and technology and away from the connection with people and that's really why I've kind of just full gone into accessibility work and really thinking about people with disabilities because it brings me back to that central point about making things usable for everyone and and to also not assuming and challenging my pre-conceived Notions about what The Human Experience is like right I have a different set of experiences as a father as a designer as a musician that I bring into the world but not everyone has those same experiences not everyone has those same skills sets they have different ones and they have ones that I can learn from and I can borrow in my work and that's kind of what I've done with some of these Engineers but I've also done that with people who work in um change management roles or business analysis roles systems engineering roles right I learned from them the methods that they use and I try to incorporate some of it into my own I feel like every day I try to learn something new and then immediately incorporate it into the work that I'm doing right and that can be from anybody you can really learn new things from everyone you know it's it what's really kind of opened up my eyes is is being a father and watching my child grow up and the way they learn things right constantly experimenting constantly failing right they constantly try things and you're like why would you even try that like that of course that's not going to work but they don't know it doesn't work they haven't tried it yet and they try it and they adjust and sometimes they come up with things or ways to do things that you would have never imagined yourself and I really think at the heart of it that's what really drove me to design and really made me want to be a designer was that capability of learning new ways of doing things and incorporating it into the work that I do and so can AI do that yeah it can it can help us we can learn things from AI just the way same way it learns from us right but it once again it's just another tool and I really think we have this vast amount of knowledge and skill sets in people that we should be reaching out to and learning from more so than the the technology that's kind of curating that or you know assembling those pieces for us yeah I I think that's interesting where you know you talk about failing forward or you know not having the fear of failure right um you know I wanted to go back to what we talked about earlier it's like you have stakeholders that have immediate needs and and you know it's the the finite game of hey we need to put this rocket into space or we need to address this robotic issue of how do we get this to transmit from Mars or wherever down to earth right uh and that's that immediate need of like we just need to make it work right and we need to figure out a solution and solve things uh for for a lot of our business folks right quarterly earnings or you know making sure we get conversion rates up or Etc um but then you have that fi or that infinite game of like constantly failing and you know really it's it's up to how many resources do you have left how much energy time money whatever um how how would you say you know as it all these researchers or designers Within These different Industries how do you juggle that right how do you how do you juggle the uh immediate needs and and solution orientation that a lot of these companies have with the culture that you're saying is is the benefit the long term the the infinite game the let's fail forward and continue failing because that's what's going to lead to the Innovation right yeah yeah I I think it's it's difficult at times and I'm far enough in my career and you know I sit in a position where I I do have some Sway and I've I've gained the ear of people the decision makers so it's really easy for me to say this but it's really sometimes about pushing back about what people say is the need and what they say is the requirement that that was always the interesting thing to me when I started out in Cisco I was basically given what was called a a BRD it was a business requirements document and I designed according to the BRD if I designed something extra that wasn't in the BRD people would question me they'd be like why did you do that thing that wasn't like did you do did you read the BRD and I'm like yes I read the BRD but even in those four years I was at Cisco I saw the shift away from the BRD to more of this like casual conversation with with you know product owners um you know we didn't call them product owners I don't remember what we called them back then but they they're business partners right we had these casual conversations with them and then I prototyped the thing and then we worked it out and talked talked about it together right um and in that process there was a lot of miscommunication there's a lot of failure there was a lot of like me on a call quickly changing things in my prototype to make it work with what they were asking but I wasn't really pushing back right I wasn't really saying no you don't need that thing right I was just doing what I was told I was I was a you know younger designer and I was in a really big company um in a place like JPL which is smaller even though we we achieve big things it's actually a much smaller organization I realized I can sometimes push back on things I can sometimes go you know what is that really what we need or and I and I don't kind of push back in a way which is like you're wrong I'm right I just ask questions like I said I ask people to tell me more about it I ask them okay what's the business case for this can you can you walk me through how this helps you in your job right just that framing of it helps you to push a little bit on the requirements right and so it it prevents this miscommunication that often Happ happens and that designers find themselves in a trap where they're like I don't even know why I'm designing it this way it's against everything I believe in but I'm just going to do it because it fulfills the requirements that's when that's when you know like your your your you know whatever your Spidey senses are tingling and you're like this isn't right um and and especially when I do work and and I think about inclusive design and I think about accessibility that's really where my senses go off right because somebody will Design something or build something and I'm like can you navigate that with a keyboard only and they're like I don't know and I'm like let's let's let's try it out let's see you know and and just that little opening of the door and saying oh okay yeah someone can't use a mouse for whatever reason can they navigate this interface and then you know the the engineers and the technical people they kind of love that they kind of dig in they're like oh yeah this is kind of a challenge right and so that was never a requirement that was originally built into the thing but that's something I'm passionate about and I know is important as a designer and as an accessibility Advocate that needs to be there right so sometimes as a designer researcher you are helping and you are almost obligated to shape the requirements to question them and you'll hear a lot of design leaders talk about this the the reality is not everyone can do it it depends on where you are in the organization depends on how much experience you have but if you're not the one to do it find the helpers find the people who are like-minded who are going to help you to do that and there are people whether it's your manager or even your manager's manager or somebody in a different area of the place that you work you find those people and you help you build a little Coalition right and that's how movements are made internally in organizations even large ones right so if you can find people who are kind of like-minded find people that want to approach the work that you do in a similar Way start working with them more start start get bouncing ideas off of them right that that whole thing about letting putting yourself out there getting some early critique about the work you're doing it really does open you up and and help you understand more about your work and it it helps you fail early right um instead of you know failing all the way down the road or you know just doing something that you you're you're questioning yourself all the way right you you don't want to be in that position yeah I mean it goes back to that intrapersonal skills right that we talked about it's the how necessary they are in in our modern industry uh of being able to get those coalitions to go across the alley and and be able to convince Engineers or product or whoever you're working with of you know it's it's the we're big Ted lasso fans at at accelerant so the stay curious not judgmental uh right the the I think Walt Whitman quote um and you know that's kind of the framing that I heard from you it's it's not necessarily that you agree or disagree but it's more hey tell me more about this and give me the why behind it so then that Curiosity Sparks the engagement which Sparks an interest into uh a collaboration versus a US versus you mindset right where I feel a lot of the industry um especially lately just because of layoffs and downsizings and and you know it is negative out there and it is a negative standpoint of we need to prove our Worth or else we're going to get cut and if you know how can we justify it and it's US versus product or US versus engineering where's the headcount gonna lose like um but that that Curiosity adds value and it also adds stability and security of like Hey we're all working together and we are parts of this machine that you know make make the The Innovation go forward yes yeah and and I think it's you know I I see that struggle and if if you're on Reddit you go to the ux design subreddit and you just see most of the negativity just come out right I mean you just um and even anyone tries to say something positive it like immediately gets attacked but um like the you know the the good thing about sharing that is that people can feel camaraderie right um and and I do see some some hope in the industry right um where people are not kind of you know it's it's really Bleak out there and I'm not going to Sugar Code it right I have I have friends and people I know who are as experienced as me as skilled maybe even more skilled than I am really struggling after eight months a year into finding finding a job right finding a role for them and that's just what it's like there's just too many people too little jobs right um it has started to to to pick back up you know I've seen a few of those people start to land like maybe contract positions or or or work um but it's it's really hard um and I I feel very fortunate every day um I will say the one thing that really helped me early on was to find a mentor and I just I got really lucky that the person who who was going to be a mentor to me also was like my boss and and got me the work at Cisco because they had the contract and they said you know come work for me and you can work this contract with me and I was very fortunate early on you know but that was a completely different world it wasn't it was still you know it was right after the recession it was 2009 2010 so like things were still tough you know but um right now what we're kind of experiencing is also in a way some of the like um God dehumanization of the hiring process um and so that's actually when we need to lean in more to the fact that we are humans and there's other humans that are hiring these people and really you know focus on building mentorships building connections and networking all the people I'm hearing of Landing roles always is a direct person-to-person connection with somebody in the company with somebody they spoke to at a conference um you know that that is just invaluable right and I know it's really hard because some people are more introverted I'm actually on the introvert Spectrum believe it or not I'm I don't like big parties I like very small conversations with a few people um so it's sometimes hard to put yourself out there but one of the things I did early on was just starting to volunteer at events because I could quietly volunteer in the background and I'd have that forced interaction you know where somebody had to come up to me to get their badge at a conference or something and I'm there and I'm like oh okay what's your name and it some of those people have ended up being really good friends some of those people are all other you know leaders in the design field field or the research field and so you you start getting more familiar with the landscape and you start seeing people at these events and things that you're going to um and it's really hard and it can be done virtually too right I'm part of a number of different uh you know slack groups there's a La Tech and design slack group there's a tech workers Coalition group there's um you know uh on Discord there's design buddies there's an accessibility study group right there's these different things that I'm just starting to put myself out into because I realize once again there's a vast amount of different experience and different humans all around the world that want to connect and so in something like design buddies you have what is it like 70,000 people in that Discord and so you're GNA find connections with someone and I've made connections with people there right and some of these have turned into Real Life Connections I went to a conference this past weekend where I I spoke at and there was actually two people there and then I was like why are they so like so familiar they look so familiar and I realized were just people I met in a slack and I had no idea they lived in the same area you know and that they would be at this conference but you know that's that's how the things start moving and that's those human connections enable you to advance in your career that's how it's always been for me it's always been the human connection that's enabled me to Advance in my career yeah good another great transition for me that I I appreciate you you set me up here um you know we have a question from the chat uh on on YouTube um this is specific to Pure us XR so people that are just researchers not researchers and designers um you know advice on how to get researchers to collaborate across the aisle you know with designers right um you know different interpretations of of research data um design might have an agenda uh that they're trying to push for specific functionalities what would your advice be to you know someone that is just a researcher just the research haton um how to how to make allies how to how to even convince designers to you know go with their data versus let's say kind of what a direction is that a design wants to take right yeah I mean it's it's I I worked with a pure researcher and and she was someone who would basically say I don't do design like like could could do some design but hadn't really touched design right in in a long while and was a pure researcher and I jumped into the opportunity to learn more about research because I was actually more of a designer than I was a researcher for much of my career right I didn't really understand how deep you could go with research right it was all very surface level for me um and then you know learning learning from her realizing I had this opportunity to learn so much more about my own craft through her so and she was doing that with me by making logical connections she was looking at designs and even though she wasn't a designer she was asking these questions about the design that I hadn't considered she was was critiquing my design and you know I was I was open to it as a good designer should be should always be open to critique but when you find those opportunities right as a researcher to critique the design or to ask why those decisions were made right um you know not a not an authoritative way but in a in a friendly like hey can you tell me why you put that button there or why did that image is selected and you'll find out sometimes designers are like I don't know like I I liked it I thought it looked good um you know I saw it in this other thing and you know and then that kind of opens the conversation right and then you can point to the data you don't start out by dropping your research synthesis on their desk and going like here's what I found we should do it like this right and and and as in the research work I do right everything is like I very much describe to the the group that I'm presenting the methods I use very lightly right and I and I'll just tell them you know we use grounded Theory we let the themes kind of speak to us from the data and here's the themes we found and then here's the suggestions and I've always as a researcher said here's some suggestions or recommendations for what you can do uh you know sometimes that requires a followup because they just don't take any of the recommendations right but the work that you do as a researcher is in doing that right I mean it's not your job to make sure that research is put to good use and I know it pains me to say that because you would always want to see your work be put to good use but your your job is to do the research and report it as accurately and as clearly as you can um and it's the designer's job to then execute according to that research right so building those alliances like I said finding the helpers you may work with a Design Group and one of the designers doesn't listen to research you're you're probably not going to make ends with them right like you're probably G to make ends with that person who's like really open to it maybe even someone like me who wanted to learn more about research methods and dig deeper into that side of of myself and my skill set um you find those people and then you you open the door right and in turn as a researcher you learn more about design I'm sure you know Lynn would say that she's learned a little bit about design from me um but you know at the same time she would not call herself a designer um but you know I I I feel like that connection is really important right so like once again it's about making that that connection with someone asking some very simple but critical questions you know and then pointing to the work that you did as a way to help right as a way to assist them right not as a way to direct them right PE people are usually allergic to you know authoritarianism so you know they don't they don't they don't want you saying like it has to be this way because of my research they they will they might be open to a suggestion and the research says this you know so yeah I think your spot on where the research does if you're talking about the research you're too late right like that that initial conversation needs to happen over coffee or lunch or the humanistic element that we keep going back to of like establish that Rapport about who you are and who they are as a human get to know them that builds up that that Rapport that builds up that uh communication and then like you said it's it's asking questions in a way that uh is often and early and in in ways that is more disarming than it is confrontational and it's hey you know would love to learn about what you're doing and you know walk me through that and you know they're like hey I put the button over here because we've always done it this way well actually there's heris neelson Norman heris sixs and Neilson nor her say consistency in in in the industry right so there's that uh the other element I'd say is like the priorization component right so like I'm sure as designers you guys are working on so much that us researchers don't realize that you have eight projects and some of them are different fidelities and some things are require more as researchers we get fully ingrained in like we just immerse oursel in what we're doing and it's being able to prioritize with your design counterpart say like hey these things or these three things need research these later two you know are more generative in nature and and we're going to hit that in Q4 or five or or q1 whatever uh and then you know in general it's those little winds that build up the Rapport and that trust as well right so it's not trying to change the entire system it's not trying to change everything that they're doing but like little by little building up that trust in order to make more lasting and sustainable change right it's it's running that Marathon yeah and and I will say that for me as a designer the book that really opened up the world of research was just enough research by erah Hall and people kind of quote that a lot um but it really was good for me because I I went into it thinking like oh great I can just like do the minimal amount of research possible and that's not what the book is about right yeah the book is more about finding that that match right um and and understanding that research is just this systematic inquiry right and and that there's things that you can do yourself there's things that you can do by you know reaching out to other humans and observation experimentation there's there's like applied research you can borrow ideas and te techniques and it's really being more open to that right not being so stuck in a in in one one groove or pattern um and so like it's it's it's really interesting because it's like you know it it it talks more about the science of research in a very approachable way and I think that's how researchers need to to do the same way that designers have had to do right is like you have to talk about design in a very approachable way and in a way that people understand making analogies you know like comparing it to other things um you know making it something that other people will be like interested in um and making an emotional connection right so you know designing for emotion is also like a great a great book too um in the same vein as just enough research and that you know does talk a little bit about how you how you make that emotional connection and why it's so important um but also how design effects of human emotion and I would say research too right um so you know there's I I I think I try to learn also from different different Industries different perspectives especially working at Nasa like I never was really heavy into science or robotics but understanding how those people operate how they how they even grew up got into that went to school for it you know some of these people have multiple phds like just the rigor to go through that process and to be able to get to the level they are at there's so much I can learn about that to level up my own skills and and really if if your researcher looking to connect more with designers just connect with more designers I mean really try to find a connection ask them about what they do research them and find out what they care about and what they're you know most interested in and then that opens the door for how you can see your research work more in the work that they do yeah there there was some comments in the chat um about you know the essentially prioritizing and and looking at things because you my mind meant to my mind went to uh the comment about rigor that you made right so there's times that you do the bare minimum because you know you know that's all that's needed right low risk low reward you don't really need to spend six months doing some research on something that is you know do you change a button versus putting a rocket in space high risk you know great reward but it's super high risk you need to do super thorough research with that and that's kind of what you're talking about is it's uh where I've seen um people struggle whether they're they're more junior or they're switching from Academia to Industry it is the uh need for rigor and almost the boxing themselves into what a methological approach is and really following that as like the law of ux right or the law of research uh and that's where they struggle to be adaptable to be flexible to be able to morph into uh what's needed at that point in time and it's it's almost much too robotic and removes kind of their their intuition their critical thinking skills to be impactful to make that Rapport to get Advocates on their side to to show hey I'm not a cogn machine I can be flexible and and be able to morph what research is without uh you know duding the the scientific aspect of the research yeah and and I I think yeah like you're talking about the laws or the guidelines right that were given but they should be treated like that like guidelines right they're they're not they're actually not like laws where if you break them you're GNA be you know some someone's gonna you know lock you up or find you you know um there there's it's it's not really that that rigid um and to go back to my accessibility work I've really had to learn about that right there's guidelines for accessibility and by the book you can you can build something that follows the guidelines that passes an automated test that passes a manual test but it could still be an unusable experience for people with disabilities and it's really about talking to people with disabilities and learning how they use a sift of Technologies every training that I create for for for people around accessibility starts with these perspective videos w3c puts them out and they're on YouTube if you just look up w3c perspectives and it just shows you how different people use assisted Technologies that's the Gateway that opens you up right and that's where the power of research is right because it's it's opening you up to a world of of of people and Human Experience right um and and I know there's other types of research right where you're you're doing more kind of like the heris analysis or brand audits or you know you're looking at more analytical you're looking at data but once again you're really trying to like do something about people for people with people right so just go back to that right go back to that human connection because I really think everything kind of hinges around that aspect right it's it's really easy and it's especially over the last you know five years as we've seen this shift you know like I like going back to that technology or tool that you've seen revolutionize the design research process video conferencing I mean we all take it for granted but there was a there was a a time when you didn't have video conferencing you had phones and you could interview someone over the phone but it was much easier to interview someone in person because you could see you know how they were moving their their manorisms how they were interacting right um now we have video conferencing and although it changes the way we Act and the way that we converse with people it is one of those revolutionary tools for researchers designers and everyone in every workplace to utilize right um you can have people sitting in a boardroom staring at a screen with people all over the world right and that was something when I was working at Cisco they were just trying to imagine how to make that work across the world over right they were really pushing like trying to get these these uh conference rooms where it'd be like video you'd have a wall of screens where you'd be sitting at a table with someone we still haven't gotten there right we still have tiny boxes that we're staring at on our screens but once again it's about that connection with people the reason why that's such a revolutionary tool is because it allows people to connect better in in and in a way which brings us closer back to that human to human interaction yeah I know we're coming up at you know roughly seven minutes left um and I want to leave time for accessibility because I know that's something that is near and dear to your heart and we talked about it a bit uh throughout today's Days webinar but um you know loved your point that you kind of spoke to of uh video or you know virtual research right remote research um and and you know playing off of that the ability that we now have to get at populations we didn't I think through you know the single mom that has three kids and you know she's got to rush home from work and have to watch her kids because she can't afford child care and now she has the ability to speak up about what she needs for whatever companies interested in doing research or those that are you know mob uh mobile impaired or or vision impaired or hearing impaired that aren't able to get out of the house and go to a fac a specific facility or travel or as easy as others um and how that's opened up the ability for them to take part in research and have their voice heard right so that that shift in technology um especially since 2020 when everything was online has been great for uh some of the accessibility work um but would love to to hear your thoughts real quick and and kind of sum up you know today's conversation and you know what what would you want to leave people with and then we'll leave the last couple minutes for for some Q&A yeah I think I've repeated it multiple times and like this research design is about people and the more you can connect with others and learn from other people about the different experiences that they have the better you're going to be in your job right it's just flat out that's it it has very little to do with how well you can use figma or how well you organiz ize Your Design files or the different types of research methodologies you can use or how you can do quantitative analysis it's going to come down to your connection with people that's really what has for me allowed me to be successful in my career right and so that takes work just like anything else right it it and for some people it's easier than others some people it comes naturally some people it doesn't right and so those are areas where you might need to figure out different ways to interact and make connections with others right and we do have a lot of great things to enable us to do it those things can also be barriers right and you were talking about people with disabilities a lot of times Technologies are great and open the door sometimes it closes the doors and it creates barriers for people and really disabilities are created when Society puts up barriers between people so you know it's it's a challenge right and it's something that in our modern era we really have to continually think about are these tools which we think are helping us make connections actually helping us make connections or are they creating barriers between us and others um and just I'm going to leave it at that right so just thinking critically about the tools that we use the platforms we use are those tools assisting us or are they impeding us from being able to make connections with other people yeah there was there was a Q&A in the chat that said you know while there's tools like figma or you know video chat Etc that help integrate accessible prototypes um kind of like what you were just rifting on that same point of of you know a lot of the time you know for for this person they gave a vision impairment example um a lot of designers don't know or don't know how to design for vision impairment in screen readers right and uh I've obviously that's a a near and dear thing from for me with training seeing eye dogs but also being part of the accessibility team at Walmart uh and helping leading up that aspect um you know we we put a screen reader on one of our screens and the amount of stuff it would pick up and it took probably five minutes of just constant to just get over the the global navigation right uh and you know the idea there it is really hard to introduce technology with some of these prototypes because they aren't first thought or first mind to those with accessibility and and like you said it it creates those barriers uh this person said you know ideally we'd have staff that with disabilities that are active uh in the early design process um so you know could be even the hiring aspect right so how do we shift where we remove those barriers even earlier by removing those barriers within the the design functionality in teams correct and I realized to be an an advocate for accessibility and for disability rights I had to think of that larger aspect right how are we even preventing people with disabilities from you know a finding a you know the listing on a job site right like how you know how how are we you know approaching the networks and places we reach out to there are just certain social media platforms that are not very usable for people with assisted Technologies in in screen readers or anybody um some you know and these are large huge companies that have a complete ownership over these platforms and sometimes that's the only way that certain people interact and so you just have to think about that critically right the platforms you choose and where you're choosing to put your time and energy into is that actually helping to make a connection or creating more barriers um I would say like for a designer you know approaching you know screen readers I've really have tried hard to use a screen reader in my work I am not the best at using it it's not a native tool for me it's not something I use really well so it is best if you have the means to hire somebody who uses a screen reader to test your interface right um because they are going to tell you the best they are somebody who uses that technology right you're not going to ask someone who doesn't own a cell phone to test your mobile app right you're going to ask somebody who uses that technology and so there's wonderful companies one's called Fable they actually hire people with disabilities people who use assisted Technologies to help test out your interfaces and you can you can utilize that network of people you can also just talk to and ask people with disabilities um you know being respectful and kind and realizing they're not all the same not everybody with you know low vision actually even uses a screen reader right they might use the zoom feature the magnifier they might use other things um somebody who's who's blind might use a brail reader connected to their machine so there's there's all different modalities of The Human Experience and we have to do our best to try to learn about those and and think about it as we're designing things Yeah final question um which goes off of what you just said uh any advice for recruiting finding participants with various disabilities uh they've struggled to find those people uh I'll plug accelerant first uh just more we we have relationships we are doing a bunch of pro bono research in the accessibility space right so self-funded uh so we are building up our participant panel with accessibility in mind um but you know Paul to you uh anything else in terms of finding those participants with various disabilities uh some populations might be a struggle to find yeah so I I joined the IAP which is the like an international I forgot what it stands for but it's an organization for accessibility professionals so I AAP and um that has connections with a lot of people but they also put out webinars in different right like I said it's just you attend some of these webinars you know DQ usable net web aim they also put out webinars going to conferences there's a there's actually a conference going on right now which I wasn't able to attend but the seon assisted Tech conference um that's Cal State University Northridge um there's also axcon which happened uh uh two weeks ago which is a virtual conference but once again you can go in the chat you can make connections you can ask accessibility professionals who they reach out to who they connect with for me I actually with with the the accessibility lead for the lab started a disability advocacy networking group to connect with people who were either Advocates or people who had disabilities so I built up that Network right we built a network of people that we can reach out to and then I made sure it was a priority when we do things like select a new timekeeping solution that we're getting employees with disabilities to be part of the the user acceptance testing or the usability testing of that platform so it's easier than you would think right but but also you can go out on different social medias I recommend like things like maedon or blue sky to go out and reach out and find different accessibility professionals find people who you know s self you identify as having a disability and just ask them you know like I know sometimes it feels awkward putting yourself out there but just ask them like how can I connect more with the disability Community how can I find people to help me you know build and design uh more accessible interfaces people are usually there willing to help if you have the means to pay them that is always the best right that's a great incentive to anyone um and I don't you know I I do recommend that you don't just try to solicit people with disabilities and then not pay them or not offer them you know uh money for their time but if you know if you can connect with those larger groups of people you will find that there are people out there willing to help or make those connections for you yeah awesome well we'll leave it at that we are uh a minute past but Paul I appreciate your time and and you know thanks for all the the thoughtful conversation and you know all of your input and and feedback so this is awesome I really appreciate it uh we have a next one on the 27th uh but thanks for everyone joining today