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
#88 - Research Operations for Democratization at Scale with Garrett Tsukada
#87 - User Interviews 201: Leveling Up Your Interviews with Therese Fessenden of NN/g
#86 - Research is Everyone’s Job: The Democratization of Research with Jonathan Widawski, CEO of Maze
#85 - So Meta: Doing User Research at UXR Company with Roberta Dombrowski of User Interviews
#84 - B2B Recruiting with Matthew Morrison of Braze
#83 - Being Black in UX Research with Dr. Lisanne Norman of Gusto
#82 - Games User Research — with Steve Bromley
#81 - Establishing Sustainable Research Practices with Gregg Bernstein of Condé Nast
#80 - UX Research and Arab Cultures – with Norah Abokhodair of Microsoft
#79 - Participatory Research – with Alexis McNutt Unis of Better
#78 - Accessible UXR: Recruiting and Researching Participants with Disabilities – with Samuel Proulx of Fable
#77 - Breaking Into User Research – with Eniola Abioye
#76 - UXRs Need to Care About the Business, Too – with Zack Naylor of Aurelius
#75 - Debunking UX Research Myths with Zach Schendel of DoorDash
#74 - Building a Product Vision with Rajesh Nerlikar of Prodify
#73 - Getting Stakeholder Buy-In at a Large Organization with Meg Pullis Roebling of BNY Mellon
#72 - How to Ask Great UX Research Questions with Amy Chess of Amazon
#71 - Running a Blended Research Team with Dave Chen of Flipp
#70 - Radical Listening and Practical Empathy with Babz J.R. Hall
#69 - Thinking Styles and "Average" Users with Indi Young
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