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
#70 - Radical Listening and Practical Empathy with Babz J.R. Hall
#69 - Thinking Styles and "Average" Users with Indi Young
#68 - Actionable Generative Research with Lucy Denton of Dovetail
#67 - Growing a UX Research Startup with Basel Fakhoury of User Interviews and Benjamin Humphrey of Dovetail
#66 - Agile Research Ops with Joey Encarnacion of Slack
#65 - The Best of Awkward Silences (So Far)
#64 - Civic Tech with Cyd Harrell
#63 - Information Architecture in UX with Page Laubheimer of NN/g
#62 - The State of User Research with Katryna Balboni
#61 - The Role of Research in CX Transformation with Kim Salazar of Nielsen Norman Group
#60 - Discovery Research and Interview Skills with Maria Rosala of Nielsen Norman Group
#59 - Ethical Hacking, Information Security, and UX with Ted Harrington of ISE
#58 - The Lone UXR: Being a UX Research Team of One with Izzy Nichols
#57 - Research Amid Sudden Change: Working on Google Classroom During COVID with Amanda Rosenburg
#56 - 2020, UXR Year In Review
#55 - So You Want to Be In Research Ops? How Roy Olende of Zapier Made The Switch
#54 - End-to-End Experience Teams with Danielle Smith of Express Scripts
#53 - Everything in Context: Anthropology and User Research with Vanessa Whatley
#52 - The Missing Ingredient: How Storytelling Makes User Research More Impactful with Harrison Wheeler of LinkedIn
#51 - Uncharted Territory: AI & User Research with Hana Nagel
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