For the last two years, my posts about games user research, playtesting and starting a career in games user research have been spun off into my other site, gamesuserresearch.com.

You can also find my book How To Be A Games User Researcher, my Playtest Kit of templates for game developers, and my courses on games user research methods there.

Come and read my latest games user research articles. (and sign up for the newsletter while there so you don’t miss any future articles!)

See you there!

The post Where’s all the posts about games? appeared first on Steve Bromley - User Research.

As someone who only started learning about GUR in 2021 at the end of my PhD (in Management/Economic Geography – not the usual Psychology or Human-Computer interaction) these videos are the ones which helped me to understand what a games user researcher is, why the work is done, who it is for and how to start a career.

So, grab a drink and settle in for some learning from the experts – a full playlist for this article can be found here. 

This article is written by Helen Johnson, an independent video game researcher. Find her on Twitter

User Research? Game on with Steve Bromley 

A podcast interview style video which introduces the listener to the basics of games user research – including topics such as the history and evolution of GUR, paths into GUR, and advice for aspiring user researchers. This video along with another where Steve is interviewed by Seb Long from Player Research, are great audible aids to go alongside the book ‘How to be a Games User Researcher’.

‘Mainstream’ UX and Games UX – Alistair Greo, Player Research

Are you already working within UX and wishing to move into video games, or you are contemplating the differences between ‘mainstream’ UX and game UX. If so, Alistair’s video is a succinct resource where he explores his career from user designer at Pottermore, through various website/e-commerce consultant roles to becoming a user researcher at Player Research – working on over 100 games from indie-AAA. 

Mind the Gap Between Academia and Games – Josh Rivers, CCP – GRUXonline

Perhaps however, you are arriving to GUR from an academic background. Josh’s video describes how academic work can be integrated with industry standard UX. Using his experience of EVE Online, he discusses how there can be a communication gap between academics and game user researchers. Arguing for a coming together of both disciplines to enhance learning from each other. Additionally, as an anthropologist with over 10 years of experience in social science research, Josh in this video touches upon moving from academia to an industry research role. For those finishing their PhDs, a panel discussion from iGGi (EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence) starts a dialogue about transferable skills from PhD to industry – with game user research being part of this discussion. 

How to get games user research experience without a job, Steve Bromley – GRUX Online 2021

One of the largest fears when stating a career is how do you gain experience without having a job? Indeed, how can you even do GUR without being allowed access to titles? Steve in this video explains how reaching out to small game developers can provide opportunities to run independent usability reviews and to have the confidence to do it. He teaches how to find developers to work with and form relationships, how to run a usability review and structure your findings, before finishing with advice on building these independent reviews into a portfolio for future job applications. A very positive video which provides confidence that there is always something you can do, even if you feel lost at the start of your journey. A video which builds upon this is a panel session from GamesUR conference 2019 – ‘Levelling up your skills as a student researcher’.

What Makes A Great Usability Expert Review? Lessons From My Practice Game Analyses – Seb Long

As a junior game user researcher applying for roles, a usability review is often part of the hiring process. Speaking from experience, I had no idea where to start when I was first asked to do one of these! Seb’s video is a fantastic resource which breaks down how to critically ‘play’ a game, what should be included and ideas on how to structure a report to submit. Certainly, recommend taking notes during this one as I often go back to what I have written down as guidance for my own projects. 

What does your future games user research employer want you to do? Raphaël Leroy – GRUX Online 2021

Raphaël Leroy analyses 3 years of job posting data to figure out what future GUX employers may be looking for. A good video to align with job seeking efforts whilst crafting a CV or LinkedIn profile regarding key words and highlighting experience. 

GUR Café – Introductions & UR Mindset

GUR Café is a podcast comprising of 3 UX researchers at Ubisoft. They are a few episodes in now, however their first episode where they discuss the ‘UR mindset’ is an interesting listen for those interested in GUR. They explain how being a user researcher in video games is as much how you approach work, then how you do the work. Think of this one more as a holistic approach to GUR rather than a ‘how to’ guide.

An introduction to London’s UX Team

This video introduces work carried out by Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) London User Research Studio. A short but interesting video which discusses not only how first party titles such as Horizon: Zero Dawn were tested in their own labs, but also introduces how GUR informs hardware development – here the redesigned PS4 controller and PlayStation VR. 

User Research on Destiny 

The final section of this post introduces UX post-mortems and presentations. For the junior games user researcher, I believe there are no better way of understanding how UX fits within the wider game development process than by listening to those who have tried, failed and succeed before us. This GDC talk from 2015 is a standout example, with John Hopson (Head of Research – Bungie). Discussing how they integrated new research methods moving from Halo to Destiny and how they studied raid groups.

Watch Dogs Podcast – Episode 6: User Research | Ubisoft [NA]

As part of developer diaries, Ubisoft invited members of their North American UX team to discuss the process of UX research at their studio. The podcast is a deep dive into how UX was executed, and the types of playtests carried out. They discuss their relationship between participants in the playtests and themselves, talking about how play testers responded and how the UX team learnt/implemented findings from the data collected. 

Article written by Helen Johnson, an independent video game researcher. Find her on Twitter

Keep up to date with Games UX and User Research

Games UX and User Research is a competitive field. It’s important to keep up with the latest thinking to get your first industry job. 

Every month we publish free lessons on games user research and UX. These teach people how to run high-quality user research studies, and how to start a career in the games industry. We also interview people working in the industry currently for their top tips and guidance.

Sign up now to start your games user research career.

The post Essential videos and talks for new games user researchers appeared first on Steve Bromley - User Research.

In this article, we explore why research-focused PhD’s and MSc’s should consider becoming user researchers in the games industry. We also cover some tips on how to get your first role.

What is games user research?

Game user researchers run structured playtests through game development. They apply best practices from science and UX to find reliable answers to game design questions.

They use qualitative and quantitative research methods to help game designers + developers make successful games. The type of questions that we help game studios with include:

• Do players understand what they are meant to do?
• Is the difficulty of this level correct?
• Does the tutorial teach players successfully?
• Why do players drop out of the game after two weeks?
• Are the controls hard to use?

Why work in games user research

Game development is a passionate industry full of people who deeply care about their work. Games User Research gives people with academic research experience the opportunity to combine their passion with games with the expertise they have developed in postgraduate study.

68% of people working as games user researchers have postgraduate degrees, many from psychology, neuroscience and UX backgrounds. Junior roles can earn between $22,000 and $100,000 depending on where in the world they are. They also have very high levels of job satisfaction (source: 2021 Games Research & UX salary survey). This can make it an attractive industry for people looking to move on from academia and get started working in a high profile and entertaining industry. 

What transferable skills do I have from academia?

Any experience you have of designing and running studies will be hugely beneficial. Many degree programmes give you the opportunity to practice core research skills such as:

• Identifying research objectives
• Designing studies
• Moderating qualitative studies
• Analysing qualitative and quantitative data
• Presenting results to diverse audiences

This is all hugely relevant for the role of a games user researcher – designing and analysing studies in a robust and believable way is essential, as is being able to influence non-researchers. 

Jess Tompkins wrote a fantastic thread on drawing out the relevance of your experience, see the thread here:

What other experience will you need to develop

One of the most common gaps that people coming from academia have is exposure and experience with real-life games development. This understanding of how games get made, the roles involved, and the pressure that game devs are under is essential to identifying sensible research objectives, making sensible recommendations and convincing teams that user research is worthwhile. 

When working with people to help them get their first games user research job, I recommend finding opportunities to work with indie developers to fill out this experience. Do ask me about it if interested! 

Getting your first job

A typical hiring process involves reviewing a CV, a series of interviews, and completing a research task.

Writing a good CV

During the CV review, employers will be looking for evidence that you can design and run reliable studies and apply a variety of methods including interviews, observation and survey design. Make sure that your experience with different research methods is explicit in your CV.

Two-thirds of hiring managers also expect to see some evidence of previous research work – such as a portfolio or a case study.

Acing the interview

Interviews probe deeper into your experience designing and running studies, but will also want to explore your ability to work with other professionals. User researchers have to be excellent communicators in order to dig out the appropriate research objectives from colleagues and to help them apply your findings to their own work. Showing an ability to work with other disciplines is essential.

The research task

Many hiring managers ask candidates to perform a usability review as part of their hiring process. This involves playing through a game, identifying usability issues, and producing a report that communicates those issues to the developers. This is a skill that can be practised and is one of the activities that I have done with mentees before. You can learn more about how to do that from my video here.

What if I don’t have a post-graduate degree

Roughly a third of games user researchers don’t have a post-graduate degree. A degree is one way of proving that you can design high-quality studies, but it isn’t the only way. Experience in the games industry, other research experience, or doing courses can help convince a hiring manager that you have the necessary research skills to get an interview and prove yourself.

Standing out from the crowd

Unfortunately, entry-level user research roles in the games industry can be rare and competitive, so it’s really important to stand out from the pack when applying.  

I’ve spent the last year interviewing games user researchers about their careers and put together a short e-book that covers their top ten tips for aspiring games user researchers. It includes contributions from respected researchers from top game studios such as Activision, EA Blizzard, PlayStation and more. It is essential reading if you want to get your first games user research job.

Signing up to receive the book also gets you free monthly games user research lessons by email, that I send to over 1,000 aspiring researchers. We cover topics such as how to write high-quality surveys, how to analyse playtest data, and how to develop a UX portfolio. Sign up to get free monthly lessons, and the free e-book today.

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Working in Games UX and User Research is a popular career choice for people who have studied UX, Human-Computer Interaction or Psychology. It’s also popular with those transitioning from another UX role, or a bootcamp. 

Being an effective UX designer or researcher requires developing deep study design, moderation and analysis skills. Great researchers also develop broad understanding of how games get made so that we can ensure our studies are impactful. 

I often get asked by students or career transitioners what reading they should be doing to get up to speed. To help with this, I’ve put together this list of two sets of games user research books. The first is core research skills for games UX designers and researchers to learn what is expected from them. The second set is of broader games UX books to round out your games experience – giving you the context needed to make an impact.

Games user research books to develop your core skills

Recommended reading to become a better games user researcher or UX designer.

Games User Research – Anders Drachen, Pejman Mirza-Babaei, and Lennart Nacke

The Games User Research book draws together insight from top researchers across the insight to deep dive into many contemporary topics that are important for games user researchers and UX designers.

It’ll give you great insight into the range of approaches and challenges that exist in the industry, and will help you understand how to integrate games user research throughout the development process, and deep dive into skills such as moderating, biometrics and analytics. 

Learn more about the Games User Research book

How to be a games user researcher – Steve Bromley

The book How To Be A Games User Researcher was written based on five years of running the mentoring programme for the Games Research & UX community. We placed over 150 students with mentors at top companies such as Sony, EA, Valve, Ubisoft, and Microsoft, and helped many people get their first job in games.

The book covers the core lessons that people wanting to join the games industry needed to know. The first part covers How do games get made, and where does UX research fit in. The book then dives into How to plan and run usability studies in games. The final section is career guidance – what skills do you need to demonstrate in an interview, and how to get the experience needed to get your first games job. The book will save you a lot of time by avoiding common mistakes, and helps you ace your games interview. 

Learn more about How To Be A Games User Researcher

Find the book on Amazon

Quantifying the user experience – Jeff Sauro & James R. Lewis

In games UX and user research, we’re often asked to compare things – player’s opinions about different levels, builds, or the perceived difficulty of each level. This requires drawing robust conclusions, often from a combination of qualitative and quantitative data. 

If you haven’t done a course in statistics, this book is an essential reference for how to select and perform the right statistical test for your research objective – I personally find it helps give me confidence that I am being accurate and truthful when reporting quantitative data.

Learn more about Quantifying the user experience

Surveys that work – Caroline Jarrett

Games UX and user researchers are often required to write surveys to help quantify player sentiment. This is a skill that takes practice to avoid bias, leading questions, or restricting players from expressing their true thoughts.

This book, surveys that work, is a great resource for designing and running reliable surveys, that doesn’t start from the assumption that a survey is always the right thing to do. I found it helpful for improving my own skills at survey design, and increasing my confidence in assessing player opinions reliably.

Learn more about Surveys That Work 

Other books to be a better UX researcher or games UX designer.

Broaden your UX and user research skills by understanding game design & psychology.

The Gamers Brain – Celia Hodent

The Gamers Brain

Understanding player behaviour is easier when we have a good understanding of what players are thinking, and why. This allows us to properly explain why players act in the way they do (“why didn’t they see that prompt on the HUD”), and improves our odds of making the right change to fix the problem.

The Gamer’s Brain gives a comprehensive overview of how the brain works, and how this applies to game design – including looking at concepts such as attention, memory, motivation and emotion. The context allows us to understand and explain both usability issues, and what might make a game engaging or dull. 

Learn more about The Gamers Brain

A Playful Production Process – Richard Lemarchand

One of the biggest challenges for user researchers as their skills develop is identifying where they can have impact. Relying on teams to ask for help missing many opportunities when we can be testing our hypotheses about player behaviour, and helping our teams. I strongly believe that it’s really important for user researchers and UX designers to understand how games get made, and what other disciplines are doing, so that we can intercept decisions at the right time.

A playful production process describes ‘how games get made’ from game designer Richard Lemarchand, who worked on the Uncharted series of games at Naughty Dog. The book explains a complete production process for making games, and allows us to identify where user research and UX design can fit in.

Learn more about A Playful Production Process

The Art Of Game Design – Jesse Schell

Game design is a complex art-form that has a huge crossover with the skills required for UX Design. When testing hypotheses or suggesting changes, it’s really important to understand the design intent – what was the designer trying to do. 

This book covers almost 100 different perspectives that designers think about when making games, and different . Understanding how game designers make decisions, and growing your own skills at appreciating the different angles that each game design decision has to consider, will help you make more impactful decisions, and avoid making naive mistakes.

Learn more about The Art Of Game Design

Keep up to date with Games UX and User Research

Games UX and User Research is a competitive field. It’s important to keep up with the latest thinking to get your first industry job. 

Every month I publish free lessons on games user research and UX. These teach people how to run high-quality user research studies, and how to start a career in the games industry. I also interview people working in the industry currently for their top tips and guidance.

Sign up to get the monthly games user research emails.

The post Essential Games User Research Books – Games UX reading list appeared first on Steve Bromley - User Research.

For the last six months, I’ve been interviewing game developers about playtesting. I’ve wanted to explore how they define it, why they do it, how they do it, and what makes playtesting difficult.

My suspicion was (and still is) that there is a lot that professional games user researchers could bring that would help game developers run better playtests but that the cost is prohibitive. 

It’s reasonably expensive to hire a user researcher or commission a user research study from an agency. Game developers are also time poor, meaning a lot of the games user research expertise is out of reach to them or not a priority. 

I want to change that. 

My journey to learning about playtesting

I am very early on this journey. I imagine the steps will be something like this…

1. Understand the situation for game developers currently, including what’s difficult about playtesting
2. Consider what tools, resources or things would help them overcome those difficulties
3. Prototype potential solutions with developers, iterate, and refine until I’m confident this is providing value 
4. Launch the final thing into the world

And I’m very much in step one currently. But it’s going great so far. 

These interviews have meant breaking out of my normal games user research circle (Interested in joining the games user research circle? I have a book and a newsletter on how to do that). 

I’ve been speaking to producers, UX Designers, community managers, CEOs, solo devs, and more, which has been extremely illuminating. This has only been possible due to the support of industry pros who have helped shaped my thinking and given guidance so far, including Caspar Field, Brynley Gibson, Rami Ismail, Juney Dijkstra (and all the kind people who have signed up for my interviews).

Doing this in the open also creates serendipitous opportunities. Dr Alena Denisova from City University in London has already got in touch about teaming up for a study she and a colleague are leading, which I’m really excited about.

What’s at the end? 

I believe the output from this work will be a collection of tools to help teams who can’t afford professional support apply games user research techniques to their own playtests.

If you are interested in following this journey, you can follow me on twitter or sign up to this email address to get pinged when interesting things occur.

If you have a huge amount of faith, you can pre-order whatever I’m going to make now. I don’t yet know what it will look like, but I’m confident in my process and know that it will be valuable to game developers who run playtests.

I believe you won’t be charged until launch. (Plus this preorder price will be a discount from the launch price, to reward your confidence in me!)

That’s it for now. There will be plenty more to share on this journey – as I try to build it in the open. Do say hi on Twitter if you are interested in playtesting, and I’m looking forward to sharing what we learn along the way. 

The post Exploring playtesting appeared first on Steve Bromley - User Research.

The book covers a lot of the topics that have been particularly helpful to games user research mentees in the past.

The book opens with an excellent foreword from Sebastian Long, the Managing Director of Player Research, and an introduction to why games user research is an important part of the gamedev process.

Part one, how games get made gives a background to games development, and what working in games is like, to decide whether this is the right career for you.

Part two, how to run games user research studies explains how to plan and run reliable playtests, the bread and butter of being a user researcher, and how to work well with other disciplines.

The final part, starting a career in games user researcher covers how to develop and demonstrate the right skills to excel in job interviews, and get a job in the games industry.

Is the book for me?

It’s written for people who are new to games user research (GUR), so is hopefully ideal if you are:

• A student, academic or games enthusiast, looking to decide if GUR is the career for you
• Just starting a games user research or UX role, and want to do a great job
• A user researcher working outside games, looking to make the transition
• A game developer, looking to get more from your playtests

If you have been working in GUR for a few years, a lot of the contents will be familiar to you already, so maybe this book isn’t quite right. Check out the 2018 Games User Research book instead (it goes deeper on methods)!

Is the book any good?

I hope so. I asked some excellent user researchers and UX designers to feedback on it during the many draft stages, which helped improve the contents massively.

Some of the reviewers were nice enough to write testimonials, to help you decide whether the book is appropriate for you…

Jess Tompkins, UX Researcher at EA:

This book is essential reading for anyone aspiring to work in games user research as well as those who are early in their careers. Steve leverages his extensive industry experience to craft a comprehensive overview of the games user research discipline, including what to expect on the job, user research methodologies, interacting with stakeholders, potential pathways, and more. This is a book I sincerely wish I had at my disposal when I was a grad student making my transition to industry work; there’s a wealth of knowledge here to put into practice!

Nida Ahmad, UX Designer and Researcher at Netspeak Games:

A must read for UX/UR professionals & teams looking to include UR as part of their development

James Berg, Games Research and UX Special Interest Group Chair:

This book is an introduction to the core knowledge you actually need to run games user research. It’s not fluff, it’s crunchy

Seb Long, Director of Player Research:

Steve Bromley’s book is an exceptional catalogue of professional advice, purpose-built to develop your skills in this domain. Every page is filled with Steve’s hard-won lessons and examples from the day-to-day realities of game development… I wish I had had this resource in my early career.

Heard enough? The book is available from Amazon. If you’re having difficulties getting it in your country, drop me an email and I’ll help out!

The post How To Be A Games User Researcher – Book Out Now! appeared first on Steve Bromley - User Research.

In the interview we cover topics that complement the book’s contents:

– Testing new technology in games
– Why games user research often starts with usability
– What’s in a user research study
– Why does everyone always ask for focus groups?
– Advice for mentors and mentees
– Practical tips for practising games user research
– The future of #gamesUR

Sebastian is the Managing Director of Player Research, the leading user research agency focused exclusively on video games. In his career, Sebastian has lead research for over 200 games, and is recognised as a leader in the games user research industry. Follow Seb on Twitter here. 

I’m tremendously grateful for Seb’s time to plan and run this interview, and for the insightful questions he prepared (alongside all the other support he has given in preparing the book). 

Looking for more information about becoming a games user researcher? Sign up to the newsletter for regular community updates, and free stuff, starting early 2021.

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Quantitative experiments are a powerful tool for product development. However relying solely on quantitative methods misses valuable data. This wastes your product and development team’s time and costs your company money. Read on to learn why a mixed-methods approach is best for finding data to inform product decisions. 

Some teams find it hard to justify qualitative research. Quant research methods are faster and can be cheaper. It may not be immediately obvious why we should bother with slower, more expensive, qualitative research. 

To address this, I’ll explain some of the gaps left by relying solely on analytics, surveys and quantitative tests. As we’ll see qualitative research complements those studies. By working together, we can provide our teams ‘complete’ conclusions that are safe to take action on.

“Why did they do that?”

Analytics and A/B tests are great at revealing what users are currently doing on your site. This is extremely valuable when measuring the impact of changes you make. But they give no insight into why users are behaving that way. These methods also fail to show what users are doing immediately before and after they use your site.

Understanding how using your product fits into the user’s wider journey is essential to make informed decisions about what to do. We want to change user behaviour (to meet business goals such as encouraging them to use our service, click our buttons, etc,). Understanding the reason behind current behaviour will help us make the right interventions to change it.  

All of these issues cause teams to make assumptions about user behaviour. Unproven assumptions risk incorrect decisions about how to change that behaviour. This wastes time, and costs money.

Although surveys can be used to ask “why did you do that”, they are subject to biases, such as participants wanting to give ‘pleasing’ or socially desirable answers. This can make the answers unreliable. I also frequently see the error where the participant’s understanding of the subject is different to the researcher. Sometimes neither recognises they are describing different things. This is very hard to notice in survey responses and reduces the validity of the responses.

Quantitative research understands ‘what behaviour do we see users doing’. Qualitative research, gathered through direct observation in moderated research understands ‘why do they do that’. Both together are a very strong combination to inform product decisions.

Learning too late

Reaching the number of users required to draw reliable quantitative conclusions requires a reasonably ‘complete’ experience. It relies on unmoderated sessions being performed by a large number of participants. This scale is often only possible later in development, compared to testing early on prototypes. 

This creates wasted development time. Learning problems earlier, and being able to explore or dismiss ideas without creating expensive assets leads to quicker decision making, and less need to throw away ‘completed’ work.

Early decision making is best informed through an understanding of current user behaviour, and the issues they encounter, rather than hypothetical “what would you do” questions which are unreliable predictors of behaviour. An experienced user researcher and designer working together can identify business opportunities, and dead-ends early on in a project through running qualitative research. This can be then be combined with quantitative research as the product scales up.

Optimising for the local maximum

A/B tests are extremely good at polishing experiences. They give designers and product managers the ability to measure the impact of changes, and make iteration easy. 

A/B tests are often focused on the impact of small changes – changing the button text, or the colour of a webpage (google famously tested 41 different shades of blue to measure the impact on their KPIs). However over time this can discourage teams from making significant changes that can’t be measured through the impact of small interventions. They end up with an extremely polished version of an imperfect solution. Moving beyond that imperfect solution is bigger than the difference between A/B versions, and is perceived as risky – teams become unable to escape their local maximum. 

A/B tests will take you to the top of the smaller mountain, but can never get you across the valley to the larger mountain.

Qualitative research allows outside inspiration to disrupt the local maximum, and can give a steer on radically different changes that can eventually lead to a better solution. However it is less suitable for noticing the impact of small changes. Combining both methods overcome that limitation.

The limitations of qualitative research

Relying solely on qualitative research is also misguided. Although observational studies are good at understanding user behaviour, and identifying usability issues, they are less good at recognising how representative that behaviour is. ‘How big is this problem’ is important information for de-risking decision making. 

To give ‘complete’ answers, researchers need to be aware of the limitations of each method, and be able to draw safe conclusions, while being transparent about the gaps of these conclusions. Combining qualitative and quantitative methods helps overcome the limitations of solely using only one method.

This doesn’t mean researchers have to be able to run A/B tests themselves, but they should be actively cultivating relationships with colleagues who can. By working in partnership they can provide complete answers to inform product decisions. 

I wrote how to build and empower a new user research team, who can run insightful qualitative research studies in my book Building User Research Teams. Find the book on Amazon to learn more about how to run great qualitative research.

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I recently gave a talk at the Games Research and UX online conference, about how to work better with our colleagues to increase UX research impact.

In the talk I cover three reasons research studies fail to have an impact, and how to address them.

Research is often unintentionally hidden from decision-makers. I cover why this happens, and some techniques for exposing our colleagues to research findings.

The second, colleagues don’t understand why research is relevant to them. We discuss how working closely with colleagues can turn ‘interesting information’ into a plan for action.

Finally I talk about how colleagues misunderstand the conclusions of research studies, and how to make sure we are being clear and comprehensive in our reporting.

The full talk can be watched here:

There were lots of other great talks from some fantastic games user researchers on the same day. The full playlist of talks can be found here on the Games Research youtube channel. Topics covered include representation, building a UX process from scratch and moving from academia to industry.

Collaborative research is a topic I cover in my book, Building User Research Teams, alongside other ways to increase UX research impact. Get the book here.

Next year, I will be releasing a book on how to run games user research studies. Learn more on the Games User Research.com website.

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Earlier this year, I read Jeff Gothelf’s new book, Forever Employable, which promises to invert the job search. Instead of looking for a job, new opportunities will start to come to you. I thought it was really great in helping me clarify the trajectory of my career, and make explicit what I do (which is currently ‘helping new research teams get established’).

Many of the points the book made were relevant not just for someone defining their career, but also for a new research team describing what they do to new people. This is particularly useful when working with organisations unfamiliar with user research. In this post, I want to share how the idea of ‘planting your flag’ can help a new research team, and how to apply it in your own organisation. 

What is planting your flag?

The first concept explored in the book is ‘planting your flag’. This means making it explicit what it is you do, and having a story to tell to supports it. Examples of people who have planted their flag include:

• Simon Cowell is the mean TV judge
• Liam Neeson is the actor who plays retired special agents called upon to use their skills one last time
• Jeff Gothelf is the Lean UX person

Being ‘the person’ is helpful, as it means that people start to come to you when their problem fits your niche. When someone is looking for an mean judge to host a TV programme, they will contact Simon. Someone looking for an actor to play a retired CIA agent who needs to save their family from terrorists will call Liam. As a user researcher, you want the people who need to understand their users to call you.

When working in an open marketplace, being ‘the’ person also allows you to differentiate yourself from others on factors other than price. People will pay more for the right person, and this helps you avoid having to be cheaper than competitors. 

What does planting your flag mean for a research team?

For user research teams based in large companies, planting a flag is a very helpful lens to consider when getting established.

A lot of the work for new research teams is helping others understand what your team does, and what sort of problems to come to you with. By ‘planting your flag’ and clearly explaining what it is your team does, it’ll help the right sort of problems to come to you.

A narrative I use frequently when describing what our user research team does is “helps you make better-informed decisions”. I talk about how the jobs of product managers and designers require them to make a lot of decisions, and that those decisions require them to understand a lot of complex spaces. Some of the areas they need to understand include technical limitations, stakeholder demands, timelines and user behaviour.

I go on to describe how our team make understanding user behaviour easier, and reduce the complexity of the product managers role, allowing them to focus on exploring those other domains. Once engaged, our user research team will take responsibility for making sure they understand everything they need to know about users to inform their decisions.

This helps our colleagues know when to come to us – if they need to understand their users in order to inform their decisions, we’re the team. Any of those other domains – stakeholder demands, technical limitations, are not for us. It also clearly places ‘user behaviour’ is one of the domains that need to be understood when making decisions.

Hopefully, it also resonates with our colleagues, who recognise how difficult the decisions they have to make are, and the variety of factors they have to consider. 

How to plant your research team flag

When working inside an organisation, it’s easier to plant your flag than in the outside world, due to a lack of competition. In the outside world, your research team are competing with prominent research institutes such as as the Nielsen Norman group, unmoderated tools like usertesting.com, or research agencies as a source of knowledge about users. 

Whereas there are thousands of research teams in the world, inside a company, there are only a few teams that do something similar to what your research team does. This could include other teams who run studies, such as a market research team, teams who use other methods, such as an analytics team, or colleagues who apply research methods themselves, such as service designers.

Working closely with these other teams to first describe the difference between what your teams do, and then come up with a consistent message, can help reduce friction or competition between teams, and create a clear differentiation that can be communicated. This can be run as a joint workshop where each team plots how they assist a project onto a ‘project development’ timeline, and the nuances can be exposed and discussed.

The other competition for your internal research team will be external research agencies, who may be considered by teams who don’t know an internal team exist. This is where a story can help, that can be understood and passed on between people to help disseminate knowledge of your team. “You’re looking for a research agency to run a usability test? I heard there was a new team who can help with that internally”, can be a good source of referrals. Being very visible inside your organisation will help with this – make sure people know you exist, and that you are talking about the work you do.

Within your research team, it’s also valuable to have a shared goal or mission to create a consistent message. That can be the output of a mission statement or vision workshop. Anna Watt gave a great intro on how to run this kind of workshop on the Product Coalition blog. 

What’s the benefit?

Planting your research team’s flag ensures that the right research problems come to you, reducing the outreach work you need to do, reduce missed opportunities and frees up your team’s time to focus on the other parts of the role. I’d love to hear any approaches you’ve found work particularly well in the comments below. 

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