Meeting with Marie, UX Designer at UX-Republic.

Let's meet Mary! A calm and thoughtful person, two important qualities in a UX Researcher in my opinion.

I will describe Marie as a complete profile. She has a solid knowledge of doing user research and knows how to transform the raw data collected to lead to a solution during the design phase.

His journey, which you will discover in the next paragraphs, surprised me and made me smile (#ants). And I think it highlights the curiosity she has for our world and for the Human.
She's a great ally at UX Republic and on a mission. She is always there to help and share her passion for her profession with the teams.

I let you discover our exchange which will certainly make you want to dig into certain subjects such as Atomic Research or even myrmecology!

 

Hello Marie, can you present your background in a few words?

I have seven years of experience, mostly as a UX Researcher, but I would say UX Designer in a broad sense. In fact, through my studies I did psychology and then HMI ergonomics. And for me, UX Designer is the English translation of the concept of HMI ergonomics. These are terms that I later reappropriated. Today, we no longer really say UX Designer for my position, but rather UX Researcher. In my head, I'm still a bit of a UX Designer because I notice that it's the term that covers everything: research, HMI ergonomics and design.

So, are you used to presenting yourself as a UX Designer? Or do you prefer to target the term UX Researcher directly?

 I present myself most often as UX Designer. But it depends on the audience in front of me. Because sometimes UX Designer is understood as a workshop facilitator, without necessarily doing research or design, models. It will be the UI Designer who will really get their hands dirty. And a UX Researcher will be dedicated to research.

So I no longer always find myself under these very segmented terms. I take the time to explain it if necessary.

You see me acquiesce, but it's true that we get lost with all these terms.

Yes, and then we tend to always add more. Now we are talking about UX Data Analyst, UX Writer and many other specializations. I think that in the end they are the same methods. We have been trained in all these things and encouraged to over-specialize.

So if I understand correctly, you are mainly focused on user research?

Yes I do a lot of user research. From recruitment to recommendations, even modeling at the end. That's what I was talking about design. For example, for my first UX Republic mission, there was no research. I did workshops with the teams and then I took care of the functional design. I modeled the solution in black and white and then my partner brought the graphic layer.

Is the animation of co-design workshops something that you like and that interests you or is it the meeting with the users that fascinates you the most?

It's an aspect of design that interests me, but for this project I would have liked to have a user research part. To have raw data to use to design and not just rely on internal workshops. I am trained to do this functional design, the creation of paths and screens. On the other hand, I will not have the precision of a UI Designer because I have no graphic training at all.

The whole UI Design dimension might interest you?

I took the “fundamentals of UI Design” training at UX Republic and I know how to use a System design if it has already been created. But I consider that it's not my job, I don't have the language to talk about it or to be in charge of handing it over to front developers, for example.

You were telling us about your studies, can you tell us more about your background?

So after high school I did biology. So nothing to see! In fact, I wanted to be a researcher in entomology (study of insects) and in particular in myrmecology (study of ants). But in the end, I got a little discouraged talking with other researchers who made me realize that there was a lot of teaching. The time you really spend on your passion, researching what you like, is pretty minimal. And there were other obstacles (finding a doctorate, the choice of your subject which does not depend on oneself, finding and defending budgets for research, etc.). Also, before I could specialize in entomology, there were a lot of things that didn't interest me in biology.

You made a turn towards psychology at that time, how did you reorient yourself?

Animal behavior interested me a lot. And I said to myself that psychology is in a way animal behavior, except that the animal is the human! During my bachelor's degree, I really liked the lessons but I didn't have a professional project in mind yet. It was only at the end of the license that we had our first courses in HMI ergonomics and that's when I said to myself “that's what I want to do”! And then I followed up with a Masters in Ergonomics. So not only HMI but also organizational ergonomics and workstation optimization

Have you ever thought of working in the IT field before?

Yes, but I didn't feel up to it at the time. In my mind, those who did computer science were already coding in their spare time and had this “geek” personality. Me, the link I had with digital was video games. This is a sector that interested me, especially the sector of innovation in video games: VR, procedural generation, emergent narration for example. Video games have awakened this curiosity in me vis-à-vis digital tools.

After your studies, how was your entry into the world of work?

Before joining UX Republic I worked in an ergonomics agency. We were two, with my employer, who also came from the field of psychology. I had several very different missions. One that struck me was a collaboration for a concept store where I had to review the furniture, the lights and the path in the store. It was interesting to apply the methods of digital products to a physical situation, in store.

You talk to us about concept store, I imagine there was a great richness in the typology of projects and also sectors of activity. Can you tell us more about it ?

We changed clients every 2-3 weeks. So, it was very rewarding because I was able to work for many different business sectors (B2C, B2B, B2E). But also on marketing-oriented topics, such as consumer tests for chocolates. We create a parallel at the level of the methods and we adapt according to the subject. The approach remains the same, even if the subject is completely different.

On a daily basis, what do you like best about your job?

To have the opportunity to change the subject and learn new things. Learn about topics that I wouldn't have looked for on my own in my free time. For example, I did an assignment for an automotive group, for a car financing simulator. I would not have been interested in it in life, but I find it fascinating to discover this field through my work. Learning and understanding is something stimulating and the fact of being able to change missions often really pleased me.

In this agency, since you were specialized in the research part, how did you live the fact of not seeing the evolution of the product on which you worked?

It was precisely the frustrating side: not seeing the result of what we produce! Often, we took care of the user tests and we communicated recommendations, but after that, it was over. We did not see if the recommendations were applied, we had no follow-up or feedback. By integrating the UX Republic teams, I can be on the same mission longer to see the effects of what I produce, while keeping the possibility of changing missions.

You arrived at UX Republic at the end of 2019, what made you want to join the teams?

I wanted to join a structure like UX Republic. And I already knew their work because I was able to see it with clients. I also knew their site, their blog and the UX cards. For me, it was a reference in UX in Paris.

How did you experience the health crisis and remote work in your missions?

Before the health crisis, I was already on a mission in aeronautics, with a remote organization. So we haven't had any big changes. But the mission was cut short for budget reasons linked to the crisis. Then, I joined a new mission where I stayed for 1 year. Face-to-face for the first 4 months, but from the second confinement the team switched to 100% teleworking.

So, were you already comfortable with remote work methodologies?

Yes completely. I was already used to it. And in addition, the teams are spread over more than 80 countries, with 60 websites. So all interviews, workshops and user tests were done remotely even when I was in the office.

Can you tell us more about your missions? The first for example.

During my first mission, I had the role of UX Designer.
First, I worked on the redesign of the website where I mainly led workshops and did some design. The difficulty was to make the client understand that the raw data collected during the workshops should then be transformed into a solution and not necessarily be the solution.

Did you have the opportunity to do user research during this mission?

Still for this mission but on another project, I was actually able to do research with their innovation center. The objective was to create a mobile digital hub for parents, students and teachers. I did user interviews, collection of needs to see what the actors thought of the existing tools, how they used them, what they lacked. And I was also able to tell them about this hub project and see how they would see themselves using it.

Has it ever happened to you during your missions to have as user feedback that the product did not interest anyone?

I had worked for a startup that produced a handheld scanner. They had not done any interviews to collect needs beforehand. They had managed to raise a lot of funds thanks to the support of investors. But when I went to the field, to notary and law firms for example (thus people who need to scan a lot of papers) to see the interest around this new tool, I realized that nobody was interested! Of course, they had desktop scanners and on the move, they used scanning applications on their smartphones. It suited them perfectly.

How did the return to your client go?

It was a bit tricky to tell the client that we can't find a target user. Thanks to a report, written with tact, we showed them that we were not detecting any use cases. And today, their product does not exist, it should not have succeeded.

Afterwards, you worked for an aeronautical group, is that right?

Yes, in this mission it was a little different. I rather had the role of UI Designer to work on an innovative business application for airports. I had a Design System available and I had to create the screens. The research part was done through discussions with a user and with the project team to guide the project.

Following your departure from the group, what mission did you start?

For a year, I worked in a Design team with two UX-UI designers and the UX lead. I was in charge of all the research part. It was a mission with many different projects, with an international component. The organization was also completely different from my other missions. We were organized in agility, and that's when I saw the power of this working method.

During this mission, what was the task that you liked the most?

It is to set up a database of user insights on the Airtable software. Atomic Research makes it possible to centralize lessons in the same place by tagging them by theme. It answered a big frustration I had when I was doing user tests, which was to have a lot of rich and interesting data but which went outside the current scope and not to have a dedicated space to store and share.

I imagine that this database also makes it easier to maintain and develop?

Reports take a bit of dust, having a database accessible by all teams makes it easy to find information. And it's also comfort when you start a new study. We can consult the database to see where we are starting from and avoid redundancies. Since this mission, I want to set up this method with all my future clients!

If you want to know more about Atomic Research, Marie's article on the subject.

Is there a downside to setting up a research database?

The only problem with these tools is finding people who have the time and inclination to aggregate information. And it takes a guarantor to add and moderate shared data.

On this mission, you evolved in a design team. Is it an organization that you like or do you prefer to work alone?

I liked being in a design team with other UX, even if they weren't necessarily UX Researchers. If you want to know more about Atomic Research, Marie's article on the subject. Being surrounded by people who understand your job allows you to have a dialogue and validate each other's work. It's nice to be able to ask questions without fear of being judged and to compare our ideas.

If we go a bit into the future, with a view to a new mission, for which sector of activity would you like to design interfaces?

I would like in the health sector. I have already worked on radiotherapy machines which act on tumours. Otherwise, I would very much like to work in the video game industry.

What particularly interests you in the video game industry?

The fact that this is new to me. And also because we don't interact in the same way on a game as on a site or an application. There are other issues, such as the challenge for the player: we don't want the user to complete their tasks too quickly. My first internship was in the field of video games, I had worked on the menus. But I would like to go further.

Let's talk a bit about the trainings you were able to follow at UX Republic. Which ones have you participated in? And above all, were you able to apply what you learned on a mission?

I followed the Design Thinking training where the part on workshop facilitation was interesting. We had worked on the Experience Map. I already had the theory and the fact of having a practical case helps to project myself on a mission. I learned how to facilitate workshops by practicing. I inquired to know in which situation to use such a workshop. Give them a try, see what works, what doesn't. And the second training was “the fundamentals of UI Design”, but in the end it was more of a Figma training. It was good because I had never worked on this tool, it could be useful to me during my future missions.

Marie, we have almost finished our little exchange, before leaving us I would like to ask you 6 quick questions. Rather on your tastes than on experiences like the previous questions:

I think I already know the answer, but if you had to choose: UX Design? UI Design? User Research?

User Research without hesitation!

A research methodology that you particularly appreciate?

Semi-directive user interviews with thought aloud. This is my favorite method! I knew a colleague who preferred to time and not interrupt the person, but I find it more rewarding to have users talking while they use the tool.

Sketches? Figma? Or did you tell me about Axure earlier?

Yes, I'm going to say Axure because, even if it's a big tool, it takes a long time to develop on it and there's rarely time, it's still a very powerful tool. It's rare that I can use it with clients but for making animated prototypes, it remains the top tool for me. So yes, Axure!

iOS or Android?

Rather Android, I'm getting used to the work macbook but it's true that I've always been Android and Windows.

Music or no music when you work?

I like it when I put on music. When I put it on I say to myself “Oh, I should put it on more often” but I forget, I don't think about it.

You're rather calm, in your thoughts

Yes that's it !

Or with the thoughts of the people you interviewed!
Yes, that's often my audio, replaying the test recordings!

A book, a film or a documentary on digital that marked you and that you would recommend?
During my studies, the book “Design & Interface”, by Amélie Boucher marked me a lot. She shares use cases of user tests she has conducted.

And what I found interesting was that in her book, she showed how we had to break out and bend the ready-made rules. While during my studies, I was very focused on design rules and best practices.

But each situation is different, each user is different and therefore we cannot say that a rule will work in 100% of cases.

A designer you follow on social media?

I have been following Stéphanie Walter's blog and activity for a very long time. I recorded a lot of resources she produced. Every week, on her blog, she highlights the latest articles she has read and found interesting. For monitoring, I think it's a good starting point.

To discover Stéphanie Walter's blog, it is this way ! 

I completely agree with you. She is inspiring, I find that we easily identify with her.

Yes, and it is versatile. She talks about user research, design, UI and sometimes even development. So it's quite interesting to have the vision of a person who is a bit on all fronts.

There you go 🙂 We're done! Thank you again for our exchange Marie! The question I always ask at the end is do you want to add something that we haven't covered?

No, but it's funny that you ask me this question because it's also my final question every time during user tests. And I believe that in 99,9% of cases, people say “no it's good”. I was just thinking about eliminating it from my tests!

I think that's a polite way to end an exchange. As we could ask the person if he has questions, for example!

And in the end you give me an answer, because you share your methodology with me, telling me that it's a question you ask a lot in tests.

Yes it's true, I was doing a little feedback! And I think that in testing, the people I interview are caught off guard and have nothing to add, this is especially true in B2C”.
While there, we are in a less formal exchange. It's interesting to keep it, you never know!

I'll give you feedback when I have about fifteen interviews with this question at the end! 😉

 


Image sources: https://undraw.co/illustrations

Alexa Cuellar, UX Designer @UX-Republic

 


Our next trainings