Harini: 0:00

It's a really tough job being a researcher. The more Ashley keeps talking, I'm like should I be trying to be a PM? Why are we doing this to ourselves?

Marcos: 0:11

Mass exodus from the field. Thanks, Ashley.

Ashley: 0:16

Join the dark side with me.

Marcos: 0:31

Welcome to User Experience Research Confidential a podcast by user experience researchers for user experience researchers, about user experience research. My name is Marcus Enyo and I am a user experience researcher with 25 years of experience in the industry.

Harini: 0:48

And I'm Harini Chandrasekhar, a researcher with over 20 years experience across a variety of industries, including tech.

Marcos: 0:56

Well, this is exciting. This is our pilot episode of this podcast and hopefully we'll have many conversations with interesting user researchers that can provide our audience with some perspective and some insights on this field.

Harini: 1:12

Yeah, we're really excited to share this concept with you and really excited to kick off our first one.

Marcos: 1:21

We had a really good conversation with a user experience researcher who transitioned into the PM role and it was really interesting hearing her journey through user research and also the insights that she had having worked in both sides of that relationship.

Harini: 1:38

Let's do this.

Marcos: 1:39

Okay, and with that, let's listen to the interview. And with that, let's listen to the interview. I'm very excited to have our first guest on our pilot episode of our podcast. Ashley R, would you like to say your last name or do you want to keep it more confidential? Let's keep it confidential.

Marcos: 2:03

Protect the participant data. Yes, exactly yeah, pii, we we'll keep it confidential. Yes, exactly yeah, pii, we got to keep that confidential, cool. So Ashley is a former user experience researcher who transitioned to a PM role, and she's also a former Californian who's transitioned to living in Europe, in Germany and Switzerland. So welcome to the show, ashley. We're very happy you could join us today.

Ashley: 2:29

Thank you Really. Really happy to be here as well.

Marcos: 2:32

All right. So what's a typical day like for you?

Ashley: 2:37

A day in the life? Good question. So I, as you mentioned, I'm from California originally and I moved to Berlin where I worked with you at Get your Guide, an e-commerce travel website and app, and I recently moved to Switzerland a year and a half ago and also, at the same time, made the transition to be a product manager. So I like to say I moved over to the dark side, into the PM world and a day in the life a lot of meetings, writing documents and then, when I'm not doing the PM job, exploring Zurich, skiing, spending as much time in nature as I can.

Marcos: 3:22

How did you get to user experience research?

Ashley: 3:27

So my background started at UC San Diego. I studied cognitive science and I was really lucky because I had some great mentors coming out of that program that had ties to the Bay Area and industry roles. When I was studying cognitive science, I actually wanted to study animal cognition and so I was doing research studying elephant and dolphin cognition. My mission was to prove to the world how smart animals were, and then I quickly realized that the idea of sitting in a lab just studying at the time it was video recordings of these animals, lab just studying at the time it was video recordings of these animals was not for me. It felt very isolating and lonely and slow. And at the time in my program there were some human-computer interaction classes, very collaborative, doing exciting things like building web apps, and the first web app I built with my team was it was called Beach Bum and it was the idea was video cameras to see how busy the beaches in San Diego were. So that was the original idea where it all started.

Marcos: 4:35

So you finished school, and what was the next step for you then?

Ashley: 4:40

The next step. I went to a yoga class back in the Bay Area as I was applying for jobs and met the former head of UX from Google, who was a yoga teacher and also working at a VC. And then she put me in touch with some of her coworkers who still worked at Google and I was applying to many different companies in the UX space. I wasn't sure if I wanted design or research, and so very lucky to end up at Google to learn from such amazing researchers. I think any big company is such a great starting point to learn and really understand best practices. To learn and really understand best practices and then eventually realized big companies were not my thing and so switched over to a startup, and I've actually been there ever since. So yeah, coming up on five years, I get your guide.

Harini: 5:39

I'm curious too about, like you said, you were deciding between design and research. You know, like you could have gone in either direction, like what made you choose research good question.

Ashley: 5:52

So, yeah, when I was in in class in university it was it was a very fluid like there wasn't a clear division between design and research. I knew I wanted to do something in UX and the other thing was I had a background doing this animal research from before, because I thought I originally wanted to continue that career path and potentially go into academia, and so it just made sense, at least for my first job. I could tell a better story when interviewing with my research background. So it came down to honestly what I could get my first job in. But I'm really happy I stuck with research because I think it's a much better fit than design. I don't think I'd be a good designer.

Harini: 6:36

It's awesome. I mean, it's funny. I can relate so much to your story because it's a similar path for me and I actually ended up switching from design to research for those reasons. So I fully, I get it.

Marcos: 6:49

And what kind of, without breaking NDA? What kind of work did you do at Google?

Ashley: 6:54

I was originally working on a voice application for a smartwatch. It was a very experimental project that left Google X and then that we weren't able to validate product market fit and so it actually spun down the classic technology looking for a problem rather than technology solving a problem. And then I ended up moving most of my time on the Google Play team, which was kind of a boot camp. I spent most of my time on the Google Play team, which was kind of a boot camp I like to think about. It was such a high pressure, very high performing team which was again great to learn, understand best practices, learn from really strong researchers. And then I moved over to the comms team, which was also very fun, a really really collaborative environment. Fun, a really really collaborative environment. But then, with Google, there was a lot of reorgs happening and and ultimately my heart was telling me to move to Europe, and so I ended up moving to Europe.

Marcos: 7:54

Reminds me of a conversation that we had like a long time ago, where you're mentioning the that still. Google, like any other company, does an internal survey of its employees and just track employee satisfaction and things that could be improved upon, and one thing that you mentioned that I thought was really interesting was that the user experience researchers had a lower job satisfaction score than other maybe engineers, also designers even. Why do you think that is? What is it about our roles that leads to dissatisfaction?

Ashley: 8:38

I would it's. It's a great question. I would love to hear both of your points of view on this as well. I believe research is like oil and water with industry. It felt every time I did research, both at Google and Get your Guide the only two companies I've done research there was so many external pressures that made it really hard to do research the time pressure, the pressure to come up with results, because if you think about research, we don't ever know what the results will be. But of course, especially when people are putting a lot of money behind it, they expect results and often there's biases at play. You know product managers, designers, executives trying to bias the results, product managers, designers, executives trying to bias the results, trying to skew the presentation. So I really feel like research is oil and water when it comes to industry and I think it's so important. But I do find it's really challenging to combat all of those things.

Harini: 9:39

As a product manager. Now, how, if at all, has that perspective changed, like, do you still see it the same way, or do you have like, is it the same with product managers, or do you find it's a completely different relationship?

Ashley: 9:52

So with product managers, I, when I stepped into this role, I dropped two levels and I went from a lead researcher to an associate product manager and I was paid a lot less, lower job title and yet I still managers do have more say, more voice and it's they don't have to fight for a seat at the table, whereas with research it felt like it was constantly fighting for a seat at the table. And what I think is really valuable about research that was a PM like. I still really, really value it and I actually don't have a dedicated researcher that I can work with, so I miss that so much. But I definitely think there is a place for research and it is very important that companies have it, and it could be the misunderstanding of how to work with research. You know, I think with teams in general, in tech teams, you have all these different functions trying to work together that have completely different incentives and goals, and it makes for a really challenging environment but also great results can come from it.

Harini: 11:19

Yeah, I mean that's interesting. I think competing goals is a true concern and it's a true challenge. But I also sometimes wonder if, like researchers kind of come from more of an area of passion. Like you know, looking across researchers at least I work with and even my own like background and how I relate to it, it's like less about you know, I don't know, I don't even know how to frame this, but it's much more about like you find so much of yourself invested in, like the problems you're solving and the people whose voice you are, you know, and like you take that kind of personally and you're like what do you mean?

Harini: 11:55

Like people are saying this you know I'm not the one saying this and like why is nobody taking that seriously? And it starts to become like like you kind of see yourself as this champion of the voice of, like you know, users which I think is really different from any other function Right, like most other functions have like less emotion in some sense attached to it. It's like you code or you you know, identify, like the business strategy or the business opportunity, and you triangulate, like these different business signals to get you there. But I feel like there's something about research and I don't know, maybe I'm alone in this that is inherently more emotional and like passion, and you know it requires like more empathy, like in general in terms of soft skills, and I feel like there's something about that melting pot of those things that make things sometimes feel more personal than maybe it should be.

Ashley: 12:56

It's so important that that emotional aspect gets brought to other team members. And I remember one of the biggest indicators of if a study would be successful or not when I was running research is if the stakeholders actually saw the data firsthand, so in an interview, if they actually observed the interview. If no one observed my interviews, or very few, I was like, okay, this study it's not going to go well, and um and so as a PM, what I've noticed is we're incentivized to think in very high level, kind of statistics Um, if things have small reach, we we have to discard it and it completely takes the emotion and empathy out of the problems we're solving, which is not a good way to work. I think it's really important to have that very close tie to the customers, the empathy. So that's what I'm really missing right now in my job because I don't get to work closely with a researcher. There's not one allocated to my group yet.

Marcos: 13:59

Yet, yeah, yeah, it's interesting like hearing both of you describe this, this situation. It's, on one hand, we have this, like you said, like this empathy and this affinity to represent the voice of the, of the user, and then, when we take that to the teams, and if it's, if it aligns to something that they already had a hunch about or they had a belief, the feedback often is like well, we knew that already, even though, like well, you didn't know it, you thought that might have been the case. Now we confirm that. But there's pushback, like no, no, no, you didn't discover anything new. But then when you come up with something that is counter to their ideas, or something that new, there's pushback because it resets their understanding of the condition that they're trying to address. So it's kind of like this push-pull that they're trying to address.

Ashley: 15:01

So it's kind of like this push-pull Right. Both are losing paths. They either don't think that they learned anything new or they don't believe the results because it doesn't validate what they already thought. So it's, I think, to me. I really felt that struggle and I know there are ways to work around it and great researchers will, but I felt that frustration as a researcher.

Harini: 15:22

Totally.

Harini: 15:22

I think we can all relate to that right on some level.

Harini: 15:25

And to make things more complicated, especially in like larger companies, it's also hard to humanize the user perspective because you got to anonymize, you got to like blur faces perspective.

Harini: 15:34

Because you got to anonymize, you got to like blur faces.

Harini: 15:37

You can't, like there's so many kind of guardrails around representing the voice of that user or users, and that makes it challenging too because, like you really want, like you said, like when people hear it firsthand, it's a very different experience than seeing, like something in a deck or a dock, and it gets increasingly harder and harder to bring you know, truly bring it to life in a deck or a dock, and it gets increasingly harder and harder to bring you know, truly bring it to life in a way that can be immersive and empathetic and bringing people along. So that's also part of the challenge. Like I feel like in many ways we're kind of between a rock and a hard place, where we're trying to represent the voice of the user and that's the job, but it often, to Marcos's point, either counters or contradicts, like where the business wants to go, and then there's all these competing goals and you're trying to kind of, you know, like juggle all these balls and try to make people happy but find middle ground. And it's really sometimes really hard to do.

Ashley: 16:41

You have to do. It's so difficult. I do think researchers have to play in between all of the job functions and collaborate the best, have the best communication skills. I think researchers have way better communication skills than other job functions. Thinking about the PMs engineers, designers because they have to. They have to bring their insights to life. They have to get people on board stakeholder interviews to align groups even before starting research. So it's really challenging. In some ways, I actually think it's harder than being a PM. It's a really tough job being a researcher.

Harini: 17:16

And the more Ashley keeps talking, I'm like should I be trying to be a PM? Why are we doing this to ourselves?

Ashley: 17:25

Join the dark side with me.

Marcos: 17:30

Mass exodus from the field. Thanks, Ashley.

Ashley: 17:36

Or it's like bringing the research ideas to life by kind of influencing the industry through other job roles.

Marcos: 17:45

So you mentioned that there are a few years at Google, you were done with big companies and done with the Bay Area and you wanted to make this big move. What was the main motivation behind that?

Ashley: 18:03

I had always had a desire to move abroad to Europe. My mom is from Canada, my dad is American, so I think I always had a little bit of an international leaning. I studied abroad one summer for a month and a half when I was in university in Berlin, had an amazing time summer in Berlin and I think that really stuck with me and so I thought I would move to Europe for a year, kind of taking a break, needed a reset after being in a burnout situation at Google, and then ended up really liking it and deciding to stay for one more year. It's been five years and I just keep telling myself eventually I'll move back to the West Coast of the US because the job market is really incredible on the West Coast. I think I'm pretty jealous of the job market, especially in the tech scene in the US, so much smaller in Europe. But the work-life balance keeps me here the ability to travel so easily.

Marcos: 19:04

And how was that moving from Google, I think 100,000 employees when you left in 2019, to Get your Guide that I think had like 400 employees when you joined.

Ashley: 19:15

It was a very big transition. The early days of Get your Guide were chaos, as you remember. So one of the biggest things moving to a smaller company is there isn't the infrastructure. So at Google there's the research operations team I'm sure many, many big companies have that which help with recruiting and scheduling. You have access to tools. Budget isn't a big deal.

Ashley: 19:39

And then I remember going from doing many studies in a quarter to the reality was I think we could only do maybe two studies per quarter, especially if they were bigger, because we had to do so much more ourselves. It took a lot longer to do the recruiting and things like that. Ourselves took a lot longer to do the recruiting and things like that. That was definitely a big thing.

Ashley: 20:02

The other lesson I learned if the product team is not organized, if they don't have their shit together, research will not have impact, and so, again, it somehow falls on the shoulder of the researcher to figure out how to make the product managers work better and if they're not working well or kind of like, make up sometimes for some of the gaps in a team, because we have so much pressure to make sure the research has impact and there could be many failure points if the product manager isn't able to translate the insights into action or if they don't have an organized process for adding things to their roadmap. You know, sometimes I saw that in the early days of the company and felt like I had to step up a lot there. I know you did as well.

Harini: 20:53

You know, ashley, like if you could just listening to this transition right from one extreme to the other. I had the opposite. I went from like a small startup to a large company, so I kind of had the reverse experience. I'm curious, as you, if you could go back in time and give yourself advice for when you were joining the start, like the smaller setup from Google, what would you tell yourself? What advice would you give yourself?

Ashley: 21:20

set up from Google. What would you tell yourself? What advice would you give yourself? I think the key advice I would give myself is really taking time to interview and make sure that the startup is the right place, and I was willing to make sure that. I'm willing to accept the trade-offs of maybe not doing as many studies, having to do more self-service, more of the processes that we're already taking care of at bigger companies.

Ashley: 21:46

Because she had a similar path. She went from a very small startup to a big company and she said make sure that the startups they ask you tough questions and make sure the interview processes is very tough, because if it's not tough, like many startups, it can be very, very casual and that's actually a red flag. That's a bad sign. It almost feels good that the interview processes can be so easy. But she did say that and I do think that was good advice and Get your Guide did have a pretty robust interview process. But in comparison, one of my friends the interview process for her at one Berlin startup was going for a coffee chat and then having a phone chat, not really being asked serious questions, and then you know, if you know that they're not evaluating you seriously, then they're probably not evaluating other candidates seriously. What advice would you give?

Harini: 22:49

yourself. Yeah, that is really good advice. I mean, when I transitioned from like a startup to a big company, I think you know I had no idea what I was in for and I joined as a as the first qualitative researcher in a really, really technically complex part of the company and I remember telling my husband, like, if I don't get fired in the next month and I figure this out, I feel like I'm going to be able to do anything after this, you know. So that was a good feeling to see it through. But I think the thing that the advice I would give is just ask questions, you know, like don't, don't, like you have the benefit of being that fresh eyes in the room, so I would literally walk up to really seasoned tenured engineers and be like, please explain this to me, like I'm five, because this is, I don't get this, and I found like when I would do that and then I would ask them like a few follow ups, oftentimes they didn't really have a clear like reason or understanding why something was the way it was either. And then that made like that opened up a lot of rich discussion and debate and I found a lot, lots of like low hanging fruit to address and kind of establish like my reputation in that space. And then what? Like you know, start small, grow big.

Harini: 24:07

And the other advice I would give is really like, at the beginning, don't be a perfectionist. You know like, do some scrappy work that you might not like feel great about, but you're doing it to kind of for the greater good. You're like learning the space, you're gaining trust, you're doing a few things, you know, to appease your stakeholders and kind of get a seat at the table, so to speak, so that you can do more impactful work later, once you've earned that spot. So that's kind of what I would probably looking back like. I think someone gave me something along those lines, like similar advice, and it held me in really good stead.

Ashley: 24:47

I love both of those, especially the one about asking questions. I think for me, one of the things that I learned as a product manager as well, is like asking questions can be so powerful also as a negotiation tactic, which I didn't realize. And then I recently read some books and took a workshop that the company hosted and they said the best negotiators ask the most questions. And it's true, because it's exactly what you said as soon as you start asking questions, even the people who thought they knew something then all of a sudden uncover themselves that they don't actually know know everything and and it's it's such a powerful technique. So I really I really liked that one and I actually at one point wrote on a post-it note ask like, ask more questions, ask a question before I say my opinion, because it's so, so powerful.

Marcos: 25:39

Yeah. So before the advice, I think that idea of like asking questions, that can be a way of inoculating research against that pushback that we already knew these things. Because if you can have these conversations before you run this study to really map out like the knowledge base, like these are the things yes, we know, because we have supporting evidence versus these are some hunches or beliefs that we have but there's actually no evidence to support that. But by asking questions you can kind of tease those apart and then when you come back with findings that can move some of those hunches into the knowledge space, then maybe that can actually be a one of the researchers at the company.

Ashley: 26:40

And she designed the deck so she documented hypotheses, so she had these stakeholder interviews, documented what the hypothesis was, the key, let's say three to five hypotheses going into the study. And then when she wrote the report and presented it she listed the hypothesis which was kind of spoken in the words of her stakeholders and so they couldn't easily be like, oh, I already knew this, because what they had said was documented very, very clearly. And then the story she could say, okay, this was not validated or here's more nuance to what we thought we knew. So the hypothesis and then learning format of the deck worked really well.

Harini: 27:24

That's a really good tip. I love that one, yeah, and if there's one thing that comes naturally to researchers or people that gravitate to any you know anything in this realm, this field, it is asking questions Right, so it's a really easy thing to lean into, definitely.

Marcos: 27:41

That's great because you get them on the record.

Ashley: 27:43

Exactly.

Marcos: 27:46

If I were to go back, I think it aligns with a lot of the things both of you are saying.

Marcos: 27:53

Right, it's to be scrappy and to take time to bring your stakeholders along with you.

Marcos: 28:04

Because when I first joined, I was coming from Microsoft and from Google, like these really big companies with really robust research programs, and both of those have a very I would say, very mature research culture.

Marcos: 28:20

And then going to a smaller company that knew that they wanted and needed user research but not really internalizing what that would mean on a day-to-day basis and having some of that pushback when I went to them and be like hey, no, no, no, we need to do it this way so that we can do some learnings before we rush out to build things. So I was a little bit frustrated because I was wanting them to be at this level, like operating at level five, but they were coming from level one and then like being frustrated that it took so long. Why, why, why weren't they? Why weren't they like just jumping up and and operating at that higher level, but being more patient and taking them from? Okay, this is where we are now. Let's take a little bit, a more gradual, more gradual step and evolving that skill and that discipline, rather than in one big leap and expecting them to join me where I was walking them through these incremental steps.

Ashley: 29:22

Which is something designers don't have to do product managers, engineers none of these other roles have to do. But what you're describing is familiar, where you actually have to kind of diagnose what's wrong with how a product culture, ux culture, is working and then fix it. And it goes way beyond what the scope of a research researcher should be doing. But to have impact, I do think we have to play that role like diagnose what's not working with a team, try to help fix it, if not escalate it. But for us to have the most impact, the team has to be working well.

Harini: 30:04

It's so funny because I feel like there's so much parallels between being a parent or being a therapist and being a researcher. Right, like you kind of have to step away from the problem space, be a bit impartial, not take things personally, diagnose the problem exactly as you're saying, and then identify, like why is something not resonating or landing? Is it like a relationship problem? Is it a structural problem? Is it a process problem? Is it a problem of trust? You know, and like, is it a problem of maturity, like Marcos brought up, and like then chip away at it using a whole arsenal of tools.

Harini: 30:41

So similar to being a parent or a therapist in so many ways. And I truly feel, after being, after becoming a mom of three kids, I'm a much better researcher now, not because my the way I research has changed, but because I fundamentally like like identify the alignment problems or like how, like you know these, these, all these issues that surround the research, and my patience for it has grown exponentially, because I'm like I'm going to reframe this and like think of how would I explain this to my four-year-old and here's how I would approach that, and then I break it down and it's. I found it to be such a kind of like impactful, you know efficient way of like reframing the problem for myself to get it done.

Marcos: 31:29

So you got used to working with toddlers and that helped you working with stakeholders across your team.

Harini: 31:35

I also have way fewer hours in a day now to make progress and to unblock things right. So I've developed this process of where is the problem and how do I diagnose it and how do I unblock myself in a very structured way, similar to how I deal with it in my personal life, and I found that to be effective.

Marcos: 31:57

It's my. My wife says the same thing, right? She says that if you want to get anything done at work, give it to a working mom because she ain't got time to be messing around.

Harini: 32:08

Right, she's, she's in and out and she has to, you know, do everything that she needs to do to get done so that she can go and, you know, be with the family and I mean, I think it's also it's exactly like being a therapist too right, like I feel like all those soft skills that we talked about early on, like it's those skills that, to Ashley's point, like researchers kind of need to a greater degree than many other functions we support or work alongside, and it's both our greatest strength and our weakness in many ways.

Marcos: 32:41

So, after having to deal with all that for a number of years, you got fed up and decided to become a PM. Is that? Does that describe the thought process behind that transition?

Ashley: 32:53

Not, you know, not exactly. I definitely felt the frustration and over time, realized that, for whatever reason for me I, you know, maybe it was I was more unlucky with some of the teams I ended up on, or maybe I had less patience than others I ended up on, or maybe I had less patients than others. But I also actually wanted to move to the PM role because I am very motivated by impact and I do really love the idea of building things and launching things. So, at the core, what gets me very excited is the idea that you know there are problems and we as a team of engineers, designers, researchers and PMs can help bring about improvements. And so that's what really excites me.

Ashley: 33:41

And, you know, I think research can help bring about those improvements, but I do think as a PM, you can sometimes have, unfortunately, maybe like more of a seat at the table to help bring about the changes. So that was ultimately what led me to try out being a PM and I was like, you know, worst case scenario I can always go back to being a researcher, and then I've learned what it's like. And, you know, I think the more I yeah, the more I work on product teams, the more. I wish that all of the for us to all rotate and have firsthand empathy for what all of the roles are like, um, because I think that would all make us work, work together better and and realize where, where other people are coming from as they, as they work on projects so when you were a researcher, how would you define what a good researcher?

Ashley: 34:53

is when I was a researcher.

Marcos: 34:56

Okay, yeah, yeah.

Ashley: 34:57

Yeah, early out I really looked up to people who came from academia were really advocating for the rigor in studies planning very complex studies, rigor in studies, planning very complex studies. There was one very well-known researcher at Google at the time very, very senior, originally started out in academia, then moved over to Google and was strongly advocating for things like not having anyone else really participate in the research, especially not do simple usability studies, and I thought that that was what a good researcher was, and I learned that actually the best researchers are people who are really really like, really good at working with other stakeholders and bringing them along in the journey, asking questions, listening well, having empathy, helping teams level up when they're not performing well as a team, things like that. And it's not about doing the sexiest studies using as many methods as possible. It's kind of going back to what you mentioned earlier. It's diagnosing okay, what does the team need now, how can I help the team? Maybe it's a simple usability study or maybe it's a more complex study and then really bringing people along and also the other thing, having strong ideas and recommendations.

Ashley: 36:25

So now that I'm a PM, I really value it when people give me very opinionated, strong recommendations and I remember getting feedback when I was a researcher that I was too prescriptive with some of my ideas, and it probably varies from team to team. Some teams don't want prescriptive ideas. I really love it when people come to me with very specific solutions and then we can have a conversation about it. Um, other teams work well with how might we use? I think there's a variety of ways to do that, but I I really love having really strong opinionated researchers because it it makes the conversation easier and as a PM I have very little time, so it's it's helpful just to kind of get to the core of things, and that's my journey through. You know, starting out thinking a researcher was great if they had fancy titles and were very academic in their approach, and I think the most successful researchers in industry have a different way of working. What about you? What have you found? What are some good qualities?

Harini: 37:33

You know, I kind of agree with you, like I feel like there's something to be said for be like like the industrial, like the environment of industry is so different from the walls of like an educational institute. Right, and I I myself am kind of a self thought researcher who came up through very unconventional means. This is not a career I ever expected to find myself in, but here I am and I found what works for me is I've come from more of a scrappy industry background where it doesn't matter so much to your point, like the fluff around the thing and how, even to some extent how rigorous something was, it really matters more how actionable is the insight and how much, what change can it impact? And then what are the risks of getting it right or wrong. And, in many ways, like what I think makes for a good researcher is having a wide toolkit that you really think of as a toolkit rather than like a wide toolkit that you really think of as a toolkit rather than, like you know, holding yourself really kind of too true to any one thing, but being like having this exploring mindset of being open to a variety of things, depending on, like what it is you're trying to do and then also being willing to throw a bunch of spaghetti at a wall, see what's sticking, what has legs, and then kind of go from there, right.

Harini: 38:54

So, if you, when I plan out my studies, I like to plan them in phases but I never really think beyond the first phase because I'm like I want the first phase to guide what should be phase two, three and four, because if I go in saying these are my five phases and this is exactly how I'm going to do it, it means I'm not willing to learn as I kind of go from step one to what lies ahead.

Harini: 39:16

So that's kind of how I think about it. I feel like academic rigor is valued and has a place, but it's often at odds with what is really meaningful in an industry environment and we have to be willing to to adapt, evolve and really see where. Where is their legs, like directionally, what should we pursue? Right, because, like our methods are, so there's so much of like humanness built into it. Like that's the same question, but depending on how it's being framed, you're're probably going to get a different output of answers. And so much as we like to think of research as a science, I would say it's as much an art, if not more, and really leaning into that, I think, is what makes for a good researcher.

Marcos: 40:06

Yeah, I totally agree Like this idea that letting go of the idea that we are like a science, right it's. I think the best researchers are the ones that can influence people in the way that they need to be influenced, and some people it is okay. When you just need to bring a lot of data to bear to this question, other stakeholders might be like no, we're going to workshop this question and we're going to come up with a solution collaboratively, and others may be, you know, completely different way. I think some of the biggest impacts I've had on products and teams it's not because I did the right study, but I knew how to present information in the way that they needed to hear it.

Harini: 40:51

Yeah, and I feel like also using and leaning into, like what makes us unique, right, like so researchers often have visibility into the gaps that no other function does. And so how do you think, beyond your org chart or beyond, like the space you're even assigned to, to bubble up those problems that you see that lie in the gaps and maybe nobody else cares about that problem, right, but then see that as an opportunity, like how can you, to your point, bubble that up in a way that makes people want to take action? You know, is it about, like here is the potential loss of business if we don't do this, or here's the potential risk? But really like getting other people to see that problem that you now see is powerful. And I kind of feel like a good researcher thinks outside the job function and the space that they're assigned to, to really kind of lean into what makes research research.

Ashley: 41:47

So yeah, so well said. Research, research, so yeah, so well said. You know, and as a PM now it's so much of my day is focused on just keeping things afloat, trying to spin the wheel when things break with bugs or things like that, and kind of moving quarter to quarter to achieve our impact. And it is hard to think about these, to even have the emotional energy to think about these bigger problems, unsolved problems or what's between the cracks. I think, as you said, and that's where research could have a lot of value if, again, the stakeholders that you're working with are open to listening to it. And then I guess to Marcus's point. It's how you try to convince the stakeholders, to get them to see these other problems that need to be solved, these other opportunities. But researchers can add a lot of value there.

Marcos: 42:39

So, Ashley, what advice would you have for a researcher that's looking to make that transition to a different role? Maybe PM?

Ashley: 42:48

I would say go for it. I think product teams in general can work. My dream is to have everyone, at least for one week, try a different role, and when I was making the transition for PM roles but I think for any role it's very tricky to go to another company to try out a different role. So if someone is interested in moving from research to PM or design, analytics, engineering, it's so much easier to do it within the same company. But go for it, because at the end of the day, it is so valuable to know what it's like to be in the shoes of a different stakeholder that you have to work with and try to convince and influence, and so even if you realize after a few months it's not the right thing, at least you've learned so much from it, so it's definitely worth it. Yeah, I think for you coming from a design background and then going into research, I'm sure you're so good at collaborating with designers because you know what it's like. You know what frustrates them, what delights them, things like that.

Harini: 43:56

Yeah, I love this idea of yours. I hope it scales. I'm all for it.

Marcos: 44:03

So, looking back at your career trajectory, it seems like it's been defined by a number of transitions from Google to Get your Guide, from the Bay Area, to Berlin and now to Zurich. What is your next big transition?

Ashley: 44:22

I'm very passionate about the ocean and solving ocean problems. Going back to what I said earlier, I thought I wanted to prove to the world how smart animals were, to help save animals. And you know, I realized none of the existing professions really made sense for me. But I think my next move is trying to do something to help the ocean, help the ocean. So it could be going to an ocean-related startup and working on ocean problems, and in terms of the specifics, I have no idea what that looks like, but I also like the idea of continuing to downsize, go to smaller companies and go to the early phases of a startup.

Harini: 45:06

Yeah, See, this is what I mean, like researchers are so purpose-driven and passionate, right, like we pick these fields we really, or topic areas that we really truly care about, and then, like, go in. But I just think that's how we're wired.

Ashley: 45:23

Yeah, I hadn't thought about that, but I can see it now that you bring it up, like we have to care so deep. We have to fight the fight. Right, it's as researchers. You know, when I was a researcher, I always felt I was fighting the fight, and so we do. I think we do have to be very passion, passion driven.

Marcos: 45:43

Cool. Well, thank you very much, ashley, this has been very fun.

Harini: 45:46

Yes, thank you so much. Oh, of course.

Ashley: 45:48

I loved yeah, I loved chatting with both of you and let me know how I can help with the podcast in any way. Would love to support it so yeah, awesome, awesome.

Marcos: 46:02

Well, we may have you back when we start having more issues with our. Pm partners. Nice Well, thanks again, and I will see you in Berlin.

Harini: 46:09

Sounds good. Thank you so much, Ashley, it was so so lovely to meet you.

Ashley: 46:14

Yeah, really lovely to meet you too.

Harini: 46:14

Thank you All right.

Ashley: 46:15

Have a good rest of your day.

Marcos: 46:24

I really enjoyed the conversation with Ashley because I think she has a really unique perspective in going from Google to a smaller company and then transitioning from a UX researcher role to a PM role and really highlighting what the different strengths are of the different roles.

Harini: 46:42

Totally. And I think you know what, like listening to her fresh perspective really kind of made me look at our discipline in new light, like we, there were a lot of those moments where, you know to your point, we were like, oh, we're really special because we do all of these things, and in many ways it is, it is true. And one of the things I walked away with from that discussion was about how we really should lean into what makes us such a different and distinct discipline. You know, looking through the gaps, like being the mom and the therapist and all those other functions at different points in time, and sometimes we almost bury the lead, so to speak, like we try to fit a certain box and try to kind of be in service of everyone else, when really there's a certain power to just leaning into what makes researchers research.

Marcos: 47:31

Yeah, totally, totally.

Marcos: 47:32

I did think for a while that we lost you there where you're like that's it, I'm jumping ship, I'm going to be a PM now.

Marcos: 47:39

I'm glad to see that you came back into the tribe.

Marcos: 47:44

I was thinking about something that she was saying about how she could tell that when she was a researcher, when she was working with a team that wasn't very involved in the research process either they didn't participate in the planning or they weren't present during the sessions she knew that she wasn't going to have a lot of impact from that study.

Marcos: 48:07

Which made me think, like oftentimes when we're, when we join a company, when we join a team, we're assigned like the biggest um, biggest projects, that the highest priority for the, for the, for the company, because that's where the company sees um, the most opportunity for research, but that's not necessarily the, the projects where we would have the most impact as researcher. To Ashley's point, there's an opportunity for us to show our impact over time by, instead of going through the highest priority projects, is going to the, working with the teams that are most eager to work with us, that are most willing to adapt their processes to incorporate research, and through successive engagements like that we can begin to show like, hey, when you modify your ways of working to allow for user research, this is the outcomes that you can have. Allow for user research, this is the outcomes that you can have, and over time we can have some more organizational buy-in to then get change at those higher, more impactful projects.

Harini: 49:22

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and you know, in addition to that, I think you know part of again, coming back to that superpower, part of it is providing insights to things people aren't thinking about yet, but that you are right. So maybe it's not a question that's top of mind for anybody else, but you know that down the road it will be, or it should be, and sometimes that's just enough reason to pursue it. I mean all this to say it was really refreshing to hear from Ashley both sides of the table, right, like what it's like being in the thick of being a researcher and then what it's like with that transition and, from the PM side of the things, how a researcher is perceived and valued and the challenges. So I think that was a really kind of interesting take.

Marcos: 50:09

Yeah, definitely, definitely, definitely. Well, I'm excited. I think our very first interview went very well.

Harini: 50:21

And I'm looking forward to seeing who else we can convince to talk to us. Me, too, I'm curious, you know, as I'm also somebody who comes from a family that has a very traditional you know career background and then I kind of chose this path. I'm curious, you know, those BuzzFeed memes where this is what I actually do, this is what my family thinks I do Like. How would your family describe or think of what you do as a researcher?

Ashley: 51:03

That's a good question. Yeah, they had no idea, no idea whatsoever what user experience meant. Yeah, they probably. I think they just honestly think in the tech world we have so much fun because for them they never have budget for team events. If they get free peanut butter in the kitchen at the hospital, that's like a huge, big deal. Meanwhile, at Google, these other companies we get amazing free lunches, dinners, breakfast. So I distinctly remember them saying you know, we get peanut butter sometimes and you get these gourmet meals.

Ashley: 51:46

So they, yeah, it's such a different profession. And so they, yeah, it's such a different profession. My earpod fell out. No, such a different profession. Actually. And my favorite team offsite ever was the one Marcos planned at Get your Guide, which was this epic team offsite where he told the entire UX team to show up at the airport at 5 am, I think, and we had no idea where we were going. And then we flew to Finland for the day on EasyJet and came back and he had planned this really fun, fun day with activities. So that's still the best team event I've ever done. Nice, Marcos.

Harini: 52:27

Way to step it up.

Marcos: 52:30

That was so much fun planning that and keeping it secret from everyone because we had a team. How big was the team then? It was probably like 15, like a dozen designers, researchers and UX writers.

Ashley: 52:41

Yeah, I think it was about that much.

Marcos: 52:45

Yeah, from all over.

Harini: 52:47

So you were literally like bring your passports and show up at the airport.

Marcos: 52:51

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. It was actually kind of a challenge because we had people from. We had a couple of people from the U? S I think you and me were the only or and and Amanda were the only people from the U? S, but then you have people from all over the all over Europe and all over the world. So trying to find the one place where everyone could travel without needing a visa was like this huge spreadsheet of like, and it ended up being. Helsinki was one of the places that we could fly relatively quickly, because that was about I don't know an hour hour flight from Berlin at the time. Well, it still is an hour flight from Berlin.

Harini: 53:32

I'm also just so impressed that all those people showed up with those cryptic instructions. They must really trust you.

Marcos: 53:37

Yeah, yeah, I'm surprised that one yeah people willingly showed up and that everybody was on time and nobody missed the flight.

Ashley: 53:46

Yeah, nice. I still remember the email subject line was go to hell, dot, dot, dot helsinki oh yeah, oh, puns travel, puns are the best.