What if your research could shape the direction of your company or business unit level strategy? The key is multidisciplinary research. This type of research, which can be seen as a natural progression from mixed methods User Research, is about bringing together complementary insights disciplines to more holistically answer a nebulous question. In this collaborative research approach, we have the power to create a one-stop-shop for leaders to have the evidence they need to make informed decisions about future strategy.

In this talk, we will explore two important components for this type of strategic research:
1) how to match complementary insights methods together to generate more comprehensive answers to research questions
2) how to create product and business impact from research.

No matter what your organizational structure looks like, this talk will arm you with the tools you need to find the right insights partner(s) for your next strategic research project to drive impact at a leadership level to advance the product and business teams in your company.

Colette Kolenda leads Strategic Research for Spotify Free. Triangulating User Research, Data Science, and Behavioral Science, the team uncovers comprehensive insights that enable product and business leaders to make evidence-based decisions and user-centric strategies. She holds a B.S. in Neuroscience from Duke University.

Are you tired of being asked for larger sample sizes for your UX Research work? Or asked why we should do UX Research rather than A/B testing? Triangulating multiple sources of data, including qualitative studies, surveys, site metrics, and social listening, offers rich returns. It helps validate hypotheses, make sense of seemingly irrational behavioral data, and provide nuance often missing in statistical data. In this case study we will look at how Ticketmaster leverages mixed methods to tell deeper, more meaningful stories about our fans and their needs.

Kathryn has built a career out of gathering customer insights that lead to marketplace wins. She started in advertising research, became a UX researcher, and is currently a product research leader for the Well-being group at Instagram. This varied background has given her wide ranging experience in mixed methods research. Prior to joining Instagram, Kathryn built and led the Research & Insights at Ticketmaster, the world’s largest live event ticketing company. She has launched dozens of successful new products as well as hundreds of websites, mobile apps and interactive experiences over her career. Kathryn founded the Los Angeles chapter of the User Experience Professionals Association, and served as a Director on the International Board for UXPA, where she helped significantly expand global membership. She currently advises the LA UX Research group, one of the largest UX research interest groups in the world.

As gaming and gamers evolve, the phone is becoming an increasingly important piece of the ecosystem. The modern gamer moves seamlessly across devices throughout their day, and their phone is seen as an extension of their console, PC or other gaming device. They reach into their pocket to chat with friends about gaming, read news about their favorite developer, and share highlights or silly screenshots from the game they just played. And in many cases, their phone is the first place they need to go after buying a new device, or to sign into a subscription or app that they want to use.

In Xbox, we continue to deliver on the goal of meeting gamers where they are. And that means creating gaming experiences that aren’t just limited to their Xbox consoles. So as we were developing the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, we knew mobile devices had to play an important role. This case study is about one specific area where we wanted to put a gamer’s phone front and center. It is an experience that every new Xbox owner would have: the unboxing and setup of their console for the first time.

We will discuss how the Xbox Research team used mixed methods across hardware and software features to help inform the strategy and execution of the new mobile first Xbox console setup experience. We will cover a variety of methods, starting with deep dives into past pain points and friction. Then how we evaluated concepts, measured end to end flows, and later how we validated the experience at scale. All while partnering closely with other data and release management teams to get real world feedback during a console launch under the extreme conditions of COVID in 2020.

Tom Lorusso is a Principal User Research Manager in Xbox at Microsoft. He and his team are focused on games and gaming experiences across the entire Xbox ecosystem and Windows. Tom has been working in games for over 9 years, with 20 years of total experience in the User research field. He has been a researcher on phones, operating systems and portable ultrasound. Tom and the User Research team for Xbox Experiences tackle a variety of research questions for areas including social gaming, community, monetization, communication, cross platform gaming, video consumption, accessibility and inclusivity and of course, designing engaging games. He is also a frequent presenter at conferences and universities and is always happy to sit down and talk about games research with anyone who wants to listen. Tom is currently playing way too much Fortnite and Hearthstone and is using any excuse to jump on Xbox

In this use case on integrating design, data and AI, I will show how human-centered technology can contribute to the transformation of healthcare. By showing an explorative, first-of-a-kind clinical design trial with bariatric patients and healthcare professionals of the Catharina hospital in the Netherlands, I’ll present how patient engagement can be improved by making care more personal and precise. And how we explored different ways to interact more directly and effectively with patients and a multi-disciplinary team of healthcare professionals. By testing an intelligent ecosystem, including sensors and data-trackers we were able to gather data about patient’s experience, context and behavior, and I will show how that has led to a better understanding of patient’s needs and new forms of care delivery and future healthcare concepts.

Jos-Marien is specialized in UX research for healthcare innovations and in Data-enabled Design where mixed methods are used to collect qualitative and quantitative data, which is input as a creative material for innovation. In her work, she combines intelligent ecosystems, artificial intelligence and deep user insights into user needs. She loves to work in multi-disciplinary teams with designers, statisticians, data scientists, psychologists, clinicians and patients.

This talk reviews three primary models (Cramer, 2017) of Mixed Methods research design and from those creates a ‘cheat sheet’ model that supports researchers in deciding how and when to incorporate Mixed Methods in their research designs.

Through three different real world cases we will discuss each model and its application. These examples will showcase how Mixed Methods can be an important factor in influencing many types of impact; from product strategy, audience strategy through to company strategy. Each case discussed will help shine light on the benefits of a particular approach and limitations of mixed methods when applied.

Rina Tambo Jensen is a UX and Product Leader, experienced in managing and scaling teams including design, research and product. Currently leading the talented and diverse Design & UXR team at Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for our Science products. Busy applying human-centered design to our world of scientific tooling, open source products and new scientific technologies. Previously Director of Design & Product for Mozilla's Open Innovation team.

There will be a one-hour discussion panel with the mixed methods design experts above. Audience quesstions will be submitted via the Q&A function within Zoom.

Paul Bryan is the organizer of the UX STRAT Europe, UX STRAT USA and UX STRAT Asia conferences, as well as this Design Thinktank. Prior to organizing UX STRAT events, Paul worked for 10 years as a design strategy and innovation consultant.