About Amanda
Amanda has been immersed in the world of UX for nearly a decade and utilized her vast experience to help others advance their own UX careers. She consults to Aquent, an international Creative, Digital, and Marketing talent firm, interviewing UX candidates, assessing their skill sets, and helping them better resumes and portfolios. She also evaluates client needs and job descriptions to ensure roles are appropriately represented and the team can find the best match for each role. She currently serves as the VP of UX at 352 Inc. where she leads a team that provides user research, usability testing, and UX strategy services. Amanda's expertise has helped companies new to user experience to assimilate user-centered design into their existing processes and she managed the UX sales process. When not performing UX magic, Amanda can be found teaching fitness classes, drinking mojitos, and sunbathing with her spoiled pooch, Bromer. She has a human factors background and an engineering degree from Tufts University. Follow Amanda on Twitter at @MandaLaceyS
Presentation
Research is not just for UXers
UX research is often relied upon to gather iterative feedback in the design and development process, but not every team has a research specialist. It can be hard to know what kind of research to do when and easy to assume that as designers or developers you'll be able make the best call for your user. However, leaving user research out of your process leaves room for you to spend time working on a feature that isn't a priority for your target customers or implementing a feature ineffectively. Come to this session to get an overview of the key goals of user research, the key methodologies that any team member can employ, concrete tips for how to select the best method given your goal, and advice to craft your research plans the best way to get the information you're looking for.
