Erin and special co-host Ben Wiedmaier are joined by Julian Della Mattia of the180 for a deep dive into being UX team-of-one. Julian has been the first user researcher at a number of companies and shares his top to-dos, milestones, and things to consider before accepting such a role.
The episode digs into the ways a solo UXR can start making an impact, but in a strategic, sustainable way. Julian identifies questions to ask stakeholder teams, processes to consider standing up, and the tools to consider investing in from the start. We also discuss the dual hat-wearing of UXR and Ops on smaller teams/teams-of-one. Julian shares how he balances his time between executing on business-critical work and organizing research workflows so that other teams can start connecting with customers.
Even if you're not a solo UXR or a team-of-one, Julian's experience building bridges between/across departments and his suggestions for aligning user research to core business goals from the start will help you and your team be more impactful.
Episode Highlights
About Our Guest
Julian is a UX Researcher specialized in Research Operations (ReOps), founder of the180 and based in Barcelona, Spain. Whether in-house or working with clients, he repeatedly found myself building Research teams from scratch as the first Researcher in the team. This experience helped him develop a real knack for infrastructure, so he decided to fully specialize myself in ReOps. He likes to talk about this as his switch "from Finder to Builder".
More Resources for Building UX Research Teams
#110 - Experience Design Research in Healthcare with Tiffany Mura and Erica Devine
#109 - The Challenges of Hybrid Work with Eduardo Gomez Ruiz of Miro
#108- Perfecting the UX of UX testing with Nicholas Aramouni of Userlytics
#107 - Making Research Ops Visible with Benson Low of REA Group
#106 - Navigating gender, religion, and politics in UX research – with Zoë Glas
#105 - Tacos and Tide Pods: Big plans, a product relaunch, and healthy organizational tension
#104 - User Research Incentives with Nick Baum of Tremendous
#103 - Ethical Design and Respectful UX Research with Kat Zhou of Epidemic Sound
#102 - Tacos and Tide Pods: Authenticity, Exciting Milestones, and LinkedIn
#101 - Onboarding UX: How to Research and Design a Great First Impression with Pulkit Agrawal of Chameleon
#100 - UXR Productivity Hacks with Michele Ronsen of Curiosity Tank
#99 - Leading UX Research for Healthcare Apps with Wendy Johansson of MiSalud Health
#98 - Customer-Centricity in Practice with Ferdinand Goetzen of Reveall
#97 - Tacos and Tide Pods: House Cats, Research Repositories, and the Economy
#96 - Your UX Career Is a Product with Sarah Doody
#95 - UX Writing and Content Design with Yuval Keshtcher of UX Writing Hub
#94 - Tacos and Tide Pods: A New Series from Awkward Silences
#93 - Digital Ethnography and Real-World Context in UXR with Megan McLean of Spotify
#92 - What Librarians Can Teach UXRs about Insights Repositories with Nada Alnakeeb of DoorDash and Joanna Perez of Netflix
#91 - Design Psychology with Thomas Watkins of 3Leaf
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