Getting stakeholders to engage with UX research: incentives, focused projects and pacing yourself

Henrik Mattsson · 00:09
Hi and welcome to the UX Research Rundown podcast. My name is Henrik Mattsson. I am the CEO of Lookback and I am your host for this podcast series that we’re making. In this series, I am going to get to talk to a lot of very cool researchers who’ve had very illustrious careers across a bunch of different companies, small and large. And we will be talking about my favorite, well, I shouldn’t call it my favorite problem, but the problem that I think is the most important and yet to be solved, the problem facing our industry and community.

Namely, how do you get the non-researcher part of your teams to engage with the research that you’re doing, so that they can actually go and build better experiences? And with me today I have Victoria Sosik, who has had a career mostly, I think, at Google, six years almost, but she’s currently the director of UX research at Verizon. So thanks for being here. Looking forward to talking to you.

Victoria Sosik · 01:12
Hello. Happy to be here.

How Victoria Sosik got into UX research

Henrik Mattsson · 01:15
Awesome. So we’re going to be talking about team engagement, or whatever you want to call it. But I’d like to start with getting a bit of your origin story coming into research. And the reason I always ask this question is because I think a lot of our field is very young. We’re also obviously still young, but everything is relative. So there’s a lot of people coming into research recently, which is a good thing. The field has grown. But I know that a common question among people coming in is: do I belong here?

Do I have the right background? Will I succeed? And when I talk to people who have been here for a while, they come from all sorts of places and backgrounds. So I love to hear those stories. So could you please start with your origin story, please?

Victoria Sosik · 01:54
Yeah, of course. I think I’m actually going to give a preface to it and say that, looking back, the origin story that I tell has a very seemingly clear narrative. But the one thing I would just mention is that while I was living it, it did not seem clear at all. So it started out with me… Really, it was a checkbox on my undergrad application. I happened to check this one box of a program at this one school that looked kind of interesting. It wasn’t what I was thinking I would study anywhere else, but it sounded cool there.

I checked that box, I ended up going to that school, and that really set me on the path to study what started out as computer and cognitive science. Then I added in psychology, then I added in fine arts, which led me to a grad degree in human-computer interaction, and then interning at a couple of companies, including Google, and then going full time as a UX researcher there. And the story continues there. But I think the thing is that at each stage, I really didn’t know why I was where I was or how to make sense of it.

And nothing felt quite right for a while. That’s what led me to keep exploring what was tangential to where I was, what are areas I could flex into, and adjacencies that I could pull into my education, to then come to something that felt right. I think that’s where I finally got when I was in grad school studying HCI. And then I found that final block, the missing puzzle piece, when I was doing my industry internships and realized that that’s where I wanted to be. So again, I feel like I have a relatively straightforward path, given that I studied HCI, which tends to lead relatively smoothly.

But at the time, it didn’t quite make sense. I didn’t realize where the narrative was going to go.

Henrik Mattsson · 03:37
Right. So was there a moment where you realized, like, oh, I actually have the background for this, or this is who I am? Do you remember when that switched?

Victoria Sosik · 03:49
Well, I think probably several moments of that throughout. But I think the first one was when I was talking to my undergrad advisor and just learned that HCI was a thing. Because I was in this computer science program, a traditional computer science program, and knew that that was not the right thing. But I didn’t want to completely give up that technical side, which I did like to some extent, and he helped show me fields that were similar but maybe a little bit more multidisciplinary, where I could pull in some other interests.

So that was one of the first sticking points. And then another was definitely when I did my internships and felt what it was like to be putting a lot of those ideas into practice, and actually driving some impact with them. That’s where I was like, no, I don’t want to go the academic route. This is what I want to do. And that’s what I did.

Advice for researchers unsure where they fit

Henrik Mattsson · 04:43
Cool. Awesome. It sounds to me like what you did was you tried out a bunch of things, internships, and felt what felt right and went with that, even if you didn’t really understand it at the time. Is that right? And looking back at that, what would you have told the very newbie version of yourself as you were going through this? Because you must have had doubts too, like, where am I going? Could you share some insight into that?

Victoria Sosik · 05:16
Yeah, I think it really is that there is a path for you, right? Because I felt very out of place early on in computer science. Even though, again, I could do the work, and I liked coding, I definitely felt it was not the right place for me. And I think just keep pushing, keep asking questions, keep exploring, and don’t feel like you need to completely give up on something. If you like it, you can just push the boundaries and see what may exist slightly outside of it that may feel like a better fit.

Why research engagement differs between teams in one company

Henrik Mattsson · 05:49
Oh, cool. Awesome. Okay, so moving on to the main theme of the podcast. I have this observation that I made, and I’d like to get your view on that, because we all sit in our own perspectives. One of the privileges of my job is that I get to do research on researchers. I talk to researchers all day. So I’m probably one of the people in the world who has talked to the most researchers. That’s super interesting, but people have very different experiences. So here’s what I observed.

Our field has really evolved in a very positive direction over the last, I would say, five or six or seven years or something like that. People have a seat at the table. Research is a thing now. But it’s unequally distributed, and the same thing goes for this problem that we’re discussing today. That’s my observation. You have some companies where there’s great team engagement. It’s obvious to developers and designers to show up in research sessions and partake in that and be very engaged. And at the same time, you have a lot of teams of one or whatever, where perhaps they’ve never had the feeling that someone really cares about what they’re doing.

That’s also a narrative that I hear. So what has your experience been? I know you’ve been at large companies, but we talked earlier about Google being really a bunch of very small companies, kind of disconnected. So what has your experience been, have you seen some changes in this, and where do you think this is going?

Victoria Sosik · 07:26
Yeah, I’ve definitely seen a lot of change in that. I think the other nuance I wanted to add to what you just mentioned is that within companies you see that same spectrum many times, especially the larger companies that I’ve mostly spent my career at. I spent my entire time in one area at Google, and I know research colleagues had very different experiences. And right now I’m in the position where I oversee a central research team that works with a lot of different business units, a lot of different teams within Verizon.

And I see the same differences in the experiences that my team members are having, just based on how mature the practices are in different teams, and how used to working with research the different team members are. And it’s kind of cool to be able to track the trajectories as they’re happening within the same company, and see the progress that we’re able to make there. I think a lot of what my role is, is helping to facilitate that for my team members, and helping to educate.

Not that I’m sitting on top of the tower educating you, but to help show the value, and really advocate for how research can help everyone achieve their goals.

Henrik Mattsson · 08:52
Right. That’s a super interesting perspective that I kind of missed in my thinking about it: of course there isn’t one research culture per company. There are many research cultures, even within companies. And the old social scientist in me immediately thinks that this is a great experiment environment, because you can test different things. So what would you say distinguishes the two? Let’s say you have a group where this works really well, in the same company, because then we can hold the setting constant, and the experiment is clear.

What’s different, within the same company, between a group where this works and a group where this doesn’t work?

Victoria Sosik · 09:35
I think there can be so many different answers to that. On one hand, it can be leadership attitudes to research: how accustomed the most senior leaders are to working with research, and how much they are bought into the idea of research being a core partner and a really important part of the overall team. I think the researchers themselves, and how much they take it upon themselves to really be that partner, and see it as their role to, in some ways, insert themselves and continue to push for more and more collaboration across different phases of projects.

I think there’s resource allocation. Some resources look different, as far as how many researchers, how much budget you have, things like that, that obviously impact how much work you can do. And to some extent, the more resources and the more ability you have to do your best work, the more likely you are to show the value of the research. So those are a couple of different things that I think can impact how well positioned a researcher is.

Watching live sessions and what stakeholders are measured on

Henrik Mattsson · 10:49
Right. And how much of this is… I mean, you can ignore my questions and just keep talking about your experiences if this doesn’t make sense. But how much of this is organic? One thing we see in our data, for example, is that if people sit in on sessions live, they get kind of hooked. They see their first moderated usability test, and they see the participant struggling with the thing that they’ve built, and they’re like, oh, wow. That’s because they care. Everyone building product cares about the user experience.

They might not care about reading every user research report, but they care about the experience, right? And you also see the moderator. This is something I’ve observed very often: people who have sat in and observed researchers doing their thing value research more, because they’re like, oh, wow, this is hard. This is an art almost. This is a skill. That’s kind of organic. And then you also hear these stories that you alluded to a little bit, and I’m sure in your research leadership role you’ve come across that, where you have to convince or educate or even sell, or stakeholder management.

How much does this go hand in hand? How do these relate to each other, in your experience?

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Victoria Sosik · 12:15
Yeah, I think it’s 100% true that when people see and feel the customer or the user, it definitely hits in a different way. I think that can be a really powerful way to expose some people to research who haven’t been before. I think, though, that only goes part of the way, because very few people, even those who are not super bought into research or who haven’t been exposed, don’t want to understand the user or the customer, or don’t want to help them. That is still something that I think is true for a good chunk of people we work with.

Where I often find a lot of value is by taking the lens of: what’s standing in their way? Why are they not? And oftentimes it’s things like: what are they incentivized by? What are the metrics they’re trying to hit? What time pressures are they under? Things that could be actively working against the inclusion of more people and more activities in the timeline. And if it’s not clear to them how these activities are going to actually influence their bottom line, what they’re measured by, then it’s a hard sell, even if they as people believe in the value of talking to people and understanding them.

So I think it’s really important to understand what your stakeholders are incentivized by, what they’re being measured on, what they care about. Because I think oftentimes those are the things that are standing in the way of us becoming an even closer collaborator or a stronger partner to different stakeholders.

Henrik Mattsson · 13:51
Right. So in your role as director of UX research, how much of this stakeholder understanding, navigating this landscape, trying to have impact, whatever you want to call it, how much of your job is focused on that? If that is even in your job description.

Victoria Sosik · 14:10
So to me, most of it, I would say. It’s understanding where we need the research, helping to resource it, and figuring out how to balance the resources we have, at a level that aligns to Verizon’s highest priorities.

When observing sessions turns into lasting engagement

Henrik Mattsson · 14:30
So how much is… One thing I’ve been thinking about with this is the reason why it works so well when I see this working, when there’s a lot of engagement and collaboration around not just user experience, because you can access that in different ways, but really the research: sitting in on sessions or whatever form it takes, showing up at research share-outs, contributing questions or whatever. My experience is that when that works, everyone gets very empowered by it. It’s obviously fun for researchers, because your job matters.

All of those hours you put into having the interviews, that counts, and you see the result. I think that’s motivating for everyone. But it also does something super positive with engineers and people developing the product and the product managers, because they get to see this very close connection. Otherwise they can just sit somewhere in a lab and build a product and ship it, and then someone gets angry on Twitter, but they don’t really know what’s going on behind it. So how much is that a shared responsibility?

The obvious answer is, yes, it’s shared. But in practice, how much of that do you have to carry in your research leadership role? And what’s your thought about all of that?

In Lookback When stakeholders contribute questions, record them in a stakeholder interview, and Lookback turns them into research goals. Learn more

Victoria Sosik · 15:55
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s certainly true that there’s a level of detachment that you can have if you’re not seeing it with your own eyes. It’s easier, perhaps, to ignore, or to say that’s not the most important thing. And it’s hard to do that when you’re observing people, when you’re talking to them. It’s interesting, though, because in my mind that’s actually a few steps down the line. That in and of itself isn’t really what’s going to cross some of the biggest hurdles to getting the strongest research partnerships, the strongest embedded relationships and the buy-in.

Because I think that can be a catalyst, that can be a spark. But even after people do that, if you don’t address those bigger issues, it can fade, or they do it once, and that’s not enough for sustained engagement, right?

Henrik Mattsson · 16:52
And it’s just a beautiful memory of something we did once.

Victoria Sosik · 16:55
Yeah, exactly. And I think the observation of sessions and the talking to users is both a tool to drive engagement and also an outcome, in a way. If you get to the point where they’re doing that regularly, I think that’s a strong signal that people are finding it valuable to spend their own time, which is oftentimes our most constrained resource, to actually engage in sessions in that way. So I think it comes down to best understanding what the barriers are. If it’s truly not believing that this type of data, doing this kind of work, is important, then I think that goes a huge long way.

If there are other organizational or structural constraints, I don’t think that’s necessarily enough to push it over the hurdle.

Building a research practice as a team of one

Henrik Mattsson · 17:48
Yeah, that’s a part of this. But I love this, because, as we were talking about a little bit before we pressed record here, my approach over the years has been to solve this from a tooling perspective. But that’s just one perspective. So I realize that I come in with this confirmation bias, that if we just get everyone into the session, it’s going to be fine. But I think you raise a very valid point. That’s why I want to talk to a bunch of researchers that have worked with this across all levels, and other leaders in the company too, because I realize that it’s other things too.

But what really interests me is when you’re coming in as someone who is building out a research practice. We have a lot of teams of one that are doing this, and they’re trying to get their organization from a place where they’re just doing everything, and perhaps they just have one stakeholder that they’re reporting to, and are trying to build this up. Is there a recipe for this? What has been your experience? What do you address first? Because obviously this is a necessary but not sufficient condition, or whatever it’s called.

Is there a method to this madness to start building it out, or what’s your view?

Victoria Sosik · 19:13
Yeah. I mean, it’s an interesting question, and I’m not sure if this 100% answers your question, but it’s what comes to mind. As researchers, especially when you mentioned the team of one, we try to do everything. We don’t like to say no, and we like to help. We want to help as many people as possible; it’s in our nature. And I think oftentimes, though, that doesn’t set us up to do our best work, our deepest work, our most impactful work. And I think the way that you’re really showing the value is by doing those deeper, really impactful projects that, by necessity, require you to focus.

So it’s not a recipe, but a really important approach can be to not try to do it all, but to identify a project that has all the makings of a really impactful one. It’s one that leadership cares about. It has unknowns that research is well poised to solve. Maybe it has opportunity for strategic development. It’s not already well defined, for one reason or another. So find something that fits that, and really partner closely on that to show, instead of trying to tell, the value of research.

Because there are so many potential things we could do, being able to identify what has the makings of impact is a really important skill, especially as you become a more senior researcher. And then being able to use that to create your own case studies. As you start getting a couple of those case studies under your belt, that’s where I’ve seen the ability to scale really take off, because then stakeholders start talking. Then you have examples that you can point to when you need to make cases for resources.

If you’re trying to either grow a team or get more money, it’s hard to do that without having a couple of really solid, impactful cases. And in part I’m also talking about tying to business metrics. I think sometimes in UX, we’re getting better, but sometimes we still are a bit too afraid of making claims around how our work has really directly driven metrics that our company at large cares about. And if we can do that, that’s when I think we show the value. And then we can start leveraging that to continue to grow, to meet with new people and new stakeholders, and just as a function become larger and more impactful and more sizable at a company.

How long it takes, and choosing your kind of research role

Henrik Mattsson · 21:57
Oh, so many questions come out of that. Thank you. I think all of that makes a lot of sense. As someone who’s working with people to try to pick the right people for the right job and everything, I hear you talk about this and I’m like, yes, of course she has this career, because of course you’ve been successful. So, great. But for someone starting out… First of all, this sounds like a very long process. How long should one expect to spend going from the starting point of this to the situation that you’re describing now, where you’ve gathered all of these case studies and you’re able to use them?

Is this a seven-year thing, or a two-year thing, or a six-month thing, or what is it?

Victoria Sosik · 22:47
I mean, I think you definitely hit the nail on the head by saying it’s a very long process. I will say I think it’s very hard to be a team of one as a junior researcher, because you just don’t have some of the support to help guide you through all those processes I just spoke briefly to. So it’s actually one of the reasons that I think, for researchers, it’s important to have a sense of what aspect of the role we enjoy most, and what kind of role we want to be in.

Do we want to be in a role where we are having to forge that way and build that? Do we want to be in a more established researcher role, where we can do the research, work closely with team members, drive impact, but don’t have to continually be pushing and fighting? Because, coming back to the very beginning of our conversation, there are research roles on that spectrum. And I think it’s important to be very aware of what taking a role on a different side of that spectrum could mean for your day to day.

I mean, all the more power to anyone who’s in this position. But if you’re a junior researcher trying to really form it on your own, I think it’s a long process, because it’s hard. I’ve been able to make some of this progress in my role at Verizon in the past three years. But I came in already having many, many years of research experience and learning from those more senior than me. And I think that’s how I was able to level up the way that I did.

I observed those around me. I took in the way they were managing and negotiating, and really tried to model my work after theirs in many ways. And I think that’s really hard to do. I don’t think I’d be able to come in and do everything now in my current role had I not had that experience.

Learning from senior researchers and your manager

Henrik Mattsson · 24:38
Oh, totally. And that’s great, because that’s a perfect segue to my other question. Who are these allies that you… Because what I see here, and I’ve heard it in other conversations that I’ve had about this too, is that part of this is you are applying your research skills, I would argue, to the internal organization. You’re researching your audience and you’re navigating that, just like you would understand the user experience. You’re like, how are my stakeholders experiencing research, and what do I need to do? So that’s something that everyone can apply as their research skills grow.

But part of it also is: when did you realize this? Do you have any memories of where you started figuring some of this out, and who were your allies in that? You can mention names if you want, but I mean more the function. Was this a senior researcher, was this other people?

Victoria Sosik · 25:35
Yeah. I really clearly remember one moment where I had just started full time at Google. I interned there for three months, but the intern experience is different in many ways from joining full time. And I joined full time in a remote location, so I was not seated near any of the researchers on my team. And I was just like, what the heck am I doing? How do I get anything done? I know how to do research. I just finished the PhD. I know how to do research, but how do I actually get anything done here?

I think that’s when I was just really owning the fact that I do not at all know how to get anything done here, so I’m going to have to learn that aspect of the role. That is a gap from my training. And in that role, I was fortunate to have a solid team of UX researchers, many more senior than me, and my manager. A lot of it was just trying to… I would try to partner on projects with my manager. I would try to observe them and watch them in meetings: what kinds of emails are they sending, how are they driving conversations, how are they executing?

How are they going from “here’s a research project that we can maybe contribute to” to actually shaping that project, asking the right questions? How are they communicating those findings? All those things were things that I just watched, primarily my manager, but a few other senior researchers as well. I had allies along the way, for sure, and I don’t want to sell them short. But primarily it was really by seeing someone that was successful doing things the way I wanted to be able to do them, and observing that person.

When it feels hopeless: pacing yourself

Henrik Mattsson · 27:15
Researching. Perfect. Okay, great. So we’ve reached that part of the conversation in this short podcast format where I’m going to have to round off, unfortunately. My feeling in all of these, and I recommend everyone listen to all the other ones we’ve done, is that there’s so much to talk about here. It’s been such a pleasure to have you. But I’d like to finish on one question about handling this journey. Because when I talk to people who’ve had success and worked through this and learned these things and applied them and have a track record, everything is easier once you reach that point.

It’s still hard, but you have the track record, you recognize the situations and you’re not lost in it. But the road to getting there, and I’m sure you will agree, is full of moments where it’s like, I’m just going to give up. And your story sounds very hopeful. It’s like, I tried this and then it worked. And I think that’s important to maintain. But I also hear a lot of hopelessness out there, where it’s like, no one’s ever going to care about my work, or I try, but no one is interested.

Is that something that you recognize? Is that something that you, as a research leader, work with your junior researchers on? And what would be some advice to people in the audience who might be feeling that this is never going to work, because, as you said, it’s a long process and it’s difficult? What are some words of guidance?

Victoria Sosik · 28:53
Yeah. I mean, it’s always funny to hear you characterize my journey in your words, because of course it didn’t always feel straight up like that. The things that I didn’t call out before were the moments of feeling like, what’s the point? Why are we doing this? This person over here is never going to see the value, so why even try? I’ve certainly had several of those moments. And I think the way that you approach them, you have to look in a little bit and say: where am I right now?

Am I in a position where I’m feeling confident enough that I can take on those challenges? Or am I actually feeling a bit burned out myself, and I just need to take the foot off the gas for a little bit and be okay with that? Just let things go, let some of those moments that can be failure moments just happen, and recharge myself so I can get back to the point where I’m feeling like I can take it on again. So oftentimes it really is just acknowledging: where am I, and how well positioned am I feeling, personally, emotionally, whatever it may be, to take on those challenges right now?

And if the answer is, I’m not, that’s okay. You can chill for a little bit and things will still be fine.

Henrik Mattsson · 30:13
Lovely. What a perfect way to round this up. Thank you so much for being with us. Do you have any presence on social media? Are you open to people reaching out if they have questions?

Victoria Sosik · 30:27
Yeah, happy to. Feel free to find me on LinkedIn and send me a message. I don’t always respond instantly, but I try to get back within a few days.

Henrik Mattsson · 30:34
Awesome, awesome. Well, thank you very much, everyone, for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this conversation and learned as much as I did. If you want more of this, you can sign up for our newsletter, the UX Research Rundown, where we publish new releases, and tune in for more podcasts like this one. Thank you very much, and happy researching! Bye!