Have I told you I LOVE learning AND teaching? Both allow me to share and build on my passions and give back. And both fuel my own curiosity, too! Fortunately, a great community of professional colleagues, students and alumni means I regularly have an opportunity to learn, and share what I learn as well.

Here are four things I learned along with the Fall 2021 Ask Like A Pro cohort:

1. Survey fraud is on the rise

Some of my Fall ’21 students were targeted by a ring of scammers impersonating others to collect study incentives. The scammers borrowed identities from people on LinkedIn who fit the participant target group, figured out how to pass the screeners, and filled the student researchers’ study calendars with sessions for themselves. (If you missed the full story, check out my blog post here. Since then, I’ve been working on a tool to help my students and other researchers get the information they need to identify and / or reduce the chances of this type of fraud. I’d love to hear your thoughts or suggestions for this tool! Click here if you’d like to receive a copy of the tool when it’s done.

2. Leave yourself time for big pivots

Sometimes circumstances will throw you off track, and you’ll have to adapt and overcome them. Project sponsor Team.AI was interested in learning more about the hiring process in the newly legalized cannabis industry, but we found it extremely difficult to recruit participants. (We discovered why it was so difficult — which is a fascinating story in itself — but we'll save those details for another time!) We had to pivot to hiring and recruiting in the child- and elder-care industries, and therefore had to adapt our research plans, our screener, and recruiting tactics to that group to complete that study. Lessons learned? Leave yourself some time for the unforeseen! And shore up your improv and resilience skills!

3. Clients are tightening their data privacy policies, and so should UX researchers

All kinds of organizations, but especially tech companies, are getting serious about data privacy. When you land your next client, be prepared to read, digest, and ensure you can comply with a long, detailed data privacy agreement. As researchers, we’ll have to plan extra time for anonymizing nearly everything during a study; make time to fully comply with formal data deletion policies after a study; and be flexible enough to work within whatever systems clients may put in place. (Many distribute hardware like company laptops to their consultants and contractors to ensure data doesn’t leak via devices outside their control!)

Regardless of your client’s policies, you should be thinking about how to implement and document these kinds of systems for your own business. Be ready to talk about your Written Information and Security Program (WISP). This includes your Information and Security Policy (internal facing policy that specifies how information must be handled and protected), Document Retention Policy (internal policy outlining how records must be kept and disposed of), Cyber Incidence Response Plan (internal policy document describing your company’s response in the event of data breach), How to Encrypt Confidential Information, a BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) Agreement and a Confidentiality Agreement.

Information is the currency of our industry — guard it like gold!

4. Be mindful of your (temporal and mental) bandwidth

Working with two sponsor clients was a great opportunity, but also required a lot of time and mental track-switching. Throughout the cohort, we had to consider the needs of two different clients, and different levels of UX maturity, in our work. We went from presenting to UsabilityHub one week to Team.AI the very next. As an instructor/mentor/sometimes-client-liaison (in addition to my personal consulting practice) it was a big juggle. Thankfully, the Ask Like A Pro All-in workshop participants came through like champs, and we provided both sponsors with impactful learnings and actionable insights they can move forward on now and over time. GO TEAM!!!

Speak up, get involved, share the love

• Follow me on LinkedIn for more UXR tips and UX discussions.

• Read about Curiosity Tank workshops (the next Ask Like A Pro series begins in January/February!)

• Participate as an On-Demand, or as an Observer, for less!

• Register for Michele's General Assembly classes (next class is TBD.)

• Forward this email to someone who you think might enjoy it. Better yet, sign them up here. It will be the gift that keeps on giving.

• Ask us questions related to user research. Seriously, bad research keeps us up at night!

And that’s a wrap!

We try to alternate between a theme and UX/UXR jobs, events, classes, articles, and other happenings every few weeks. What do you think? We're constantly iterating and would love to hear your input.

Stay curious,
- Michele and the Curiosity Tank team

PS: Register for the Curiosity Tank / Fable Accessible Research Series here, now! Together we can create more awareness for accessibility research and raise more money for causes that matter.