Awkward Silences User Interviews

What company isn’t “customer obsessed”? Well, a lot, as it turns out. 

That’s not for lack of caring—but building a customer-centric culture is easier said than done. And how you do this depends on whether you’re starting from square one or trying to change a company’s culture from the inside.

According to Prayag Narula, CEO and Co-Founder of Marvin, changing a culture towards customer centricity requires starting from the bottom-up. Building something new? Leaders should be obsessing over customer feedback, actively placing research and customer insights front and center from the very beginning. 

In this episode of Awkward Silences, Prayag sits down with Erin and Carol to discuss his strategies for building a customer-centric product culture at Marvin. Tune in to learn more about what it means to obsess over customers, doing research versus using research, how customer centricity is put into practice at Marvin, and more. 👇



Highlights: 

[00:00:31] The origins of Marvin

[00:04:40] Building a culture around customer centricity

[00:08:35] Why leaders should obsess over a customer centric culture

[00:13:59] How the rest of the team can keep customers front and center

[00:18:04] Balancing doing research and using research

[00:21:46] “Capital R” versus “lower case r” researchers 

[00:28:21] Getting researchers more involved in strategic conversations

[00:30:35] Practicing customer centricity at Marvin

[00:39:36] The Marvin repository

[00:46:53] Prayag’s parting words of wisdom: talk to your market



Sources mentioned in the episode:


userinterviews.com/awkward


heymarvin.com



About Our Guest

Prayag Narula is an entrepreneur and trained researcher with a passion for building technology he always wished for when conducting user research. He is currently the Co-Founder and CEO of Marvin, a qualitative data analysis platform and research repository for user-centric teams across the globe. He is further the Co-Founder and a Board Member for LeadGenius, a demand generation automation company automating and accelerating outbound sales and marketing for mid-marketing and enterprise companies across the world. 




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AI is a big part of Notion's strategy for the future of knowledge work, and they're exploring ways to use AI to make people's lives easier.



Linus Lee, a Research Engineer at Notion, spends his time researching and learning about AI—how users interact with it, the challenges of building trustworthy AI systems, and its - potential to help people work more effectively.



In this episode of Awkward Silences, he sits down with Erin and Carol to discuss Notion’s approach to designing interfaces for Generative AI tools. 



Tune into this episode to learn more about the challenges of instructing AI, the importance of user feedback to the AI design process, security considerations, use cases, and more.



Highlights: 

[00:05:03] Tools Linus is excited to see come to market

[00:06:50] Generative AI and its function at Notion

[00:10:22] Recognizing AI is useful versus finding the use cases for it

[00:13:58] Lessons from the Notion design process

[00:22:09] Breadth versus depth in workflows

[00:26:10] Learning about models in the wild

[00:28:52] Security considerations with AI products

[00:32:13] Understanding the difference between AI generated and human written text

[00:36:34] Should we be scared of AI?



Sources mentioned in the episode:

Awkward Homepage



About Our Guest

Linus Lee is a Research Engineer at Notion, prototyping new software interfaces for augmenting our collaborative work and creativity with AI. He has spent the last few years experimenting with AI-augmented tools for thinking, like a canvas for exploring the latent space of neural networks and writing tools where ideas connect themselves. Before Notion, Linus spent a year as an independent researcher in New York City.


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“I think people really connect when you are just genuine and not transactional. I think it's much more easy to get to those kind of opportunities because they just feel genuine.”

According to Andrea Amorós, Associate Principal Research at ADP, giving research a seat at the big table is all about building meaningful connections with the people you’re presenting to.

Andrea joins the Awkward Silences podcast to provide insight into how she learned to make research meaningful for stakeholders at higher levels of the organization. Having been hired to conduct discovery but with no plan set up for her, she took the initiative to interview the leaders within the company to understand their needs and identify opportunities for strategic research. 

Tune into this episode to hear Andrea’s advice on building relationships with stakeholders, approaching push-back, and creating meaningful change in the current research landscape.

Highlights: 

[00:00:50] Andrea’s motivation to give research a seat at the big table

[00:07:46] What bringing research to the big table really means

[00:11:06] Presenting research to bigger audiences versus smaller audiences

[00:14:08] Making presentations meaningful to the audience

[00:17:47] How Andrea made it to the big table

[00:22:26] How product-specific research can be escalated to the big table

[00:24:53] The marginalization of research today

[00:30:27] How changes in research apply to other fields

[00:32:23] Andrea’s advice for building courage

[00:36:17] The possibility of getting to the big table without presentations

[00:38:46] Navigating push-back

Sources mentioned in the episode:


📘 Awkward Silences blog
🔗 Andrea's LinkedIn
📘 Andrea's article: How to Present Research Insights to Executives with Ease


🎁 Get 3 free participants for your next research project with User Interviews
✍️ Take our survey to let us know what you want to see next

About Our Guest

Andrea M. Amorós is the Associate Principal Researcher at ADP, a payroll solutions provider leader globally. She has always been a really deep thinker, curious about understanding human behavior and the unconscious mind. Her expertise lies in conducting strategic research and discovering patterns at scale to improve people's lives. She has a background in Design Engineering and has worked in various startups, consultancies and large-scale corporations.


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134 episodes. 

That’s how long Awkward Silences has been going with Erin and JH as hosts.

But now it’s time for something new.

JH says goodbye to Awkward Silences as he kicks off a new chapter in his career. Today, he and Erin reflect on the years. They share a bit of the original background to the podcast, their favorite memories, and even some behind-the-scenes aspects and outtakes that may surprise you. 

Tune into this episode to learn all about Awkward Silences and bid a fond farewell to JH 👇

Highlights:

[00:02:01] Why did Erin pick JH as co-host?

[00:05:03] JH’s favorite part of the podcast

[00:06:52] A look back to when the podcast first felt “real”

[00:10:07] Favorite episodes, memories, and guests

[00:13:26] Secrets of the intro

[00:14:50] JH’s podcast future

[00:17:01] Where is JH heading?

[00:20:25] Funny outtakes and memories

Sources mentioned in the episode:


userinterviews.com/awkwardsilences



hybrid workplace experience platform.


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As a researcher, you know the value of using research to drive business decisions—but other stakeholders might not. In order to drive action from research, you need to create alignment with key decision-makers and the research you do. 

Pejman Mirza-Babaei joins the Awkward Silences podcast to discuss how to transform research insights into actionable design decisions by collaborating with stakeholders. With over fifteen years of experience doing UXR and interaction design on various applications, Pejman shares insights on the importance of effective communication and collaboration; the need for actionable and cost-effective research; and the challenges and biases that can arise in decision-driven research.

Tune into this episode to learn all about the intricacies of decision-driven research 👇

Highlights:

[00:01:53] Pejman’s extensive experience with games and user research

[00:04:40] Making good, directed, actionable decisions from research

[00:08:53] The inspiration behind The Game Designer’s Playbook

[00:13:14] Collaboration with stakeholders to determine research necessity

[00:16:53] Ensuring alignment between decision-makers and researchers

[00:23:30] When decision-centric research backfires

[00:27:31] Avoiding marketing your company to your participants

[00:30:07] Specificity in context 

[00:32:28] Navigating difficult decisions stemming from research

[00:37:03] Successfully seeing research insights through to action

[00:43:46] Life motivations mirrored in games

Sources mentioned in the episode:


userinterviews.com/awkward
The Game Designer's Playbook

About Our Guest

Pejman Mirza-Babaei is a UX research consultant, author, and professor. His latest book, The Game Designer's Playbook, was published in September 2022. He also co-edited the Games User Research book (2018), a compendium of insights from over 40 experts on UX research in games. He has over 15 years of experience doing UXR and interaction design on various applications, from mobile apps to VR games and everything in between streaming content, console, PC games, and even delivery robots! He worked as the UX Research Director at Execution Labs (Montréal, Canada) from 2015 to 2017 and was a UX Researcher at Vertical Slice and Player Research (UK) from 2009 to 2013.


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Competition can be scary. But in UX, competitive research is insightful.

You don’t want to chase your competitors, but you need to know what they are doing to know how you can improve.

Rachel Miles joins the Awkward Silences podcast to discuss the value of competitive research in UX and design. As the UX research lead at IBM, Rachel integrated competitive research at IBM to measure their products’ performance and to align their existing internal measures with external measures. She shares insights on selecting benchmark competitors or metrics, communicating competitive insights, and navigating legal challenges. 

Tune into this episode to learn how competitive research can inform your product development and strategy 👇

Highlights:

[00:00:41] Rachel’s interest in competitive research

[00:02:27] What makes up competitive research?

[00:05:54] Choosing your competitors to benchmark against 

[00:10:08] Determining benchmarking metrics

[00:16:33] Rule #1: Avoiding over fixating on the competition

[00:21:37] Opportunities for non-researchers to do competitive research

[00:23:28] Creating and sharing benchmark assets

[00:27:95] Managing participants for competitive methods

[00:30:11] Navigating legal challenges

[00:34:56] Priming participants for fake scenarios

[00:38:05] Teamwork makes the dream work in competitive research

Sources mentioned in the episode:


userinterviews.com/awkward



About Our Guest

Rachel Miles, UX Research Lead at IBM, is a user experience researcher and strategist. A self-proclaimed nerd of all trades, she loves to learn about everything that crosses her path. In her spare time, you might catch her reading, drawing, traveling, or working on her blog where she talks about where technology meets wellness.


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