Resources
Top Tier:
Research Skills Framework
The framework breaks down the range of skills necessary for modern user research, and provides a number of perspectives and tools for skills and career growth.

- The Research Skills Framework, published in 2020, is a project I co-led with Tomomi Sasaki and hundreds of volunteers from the ReOps Community and beyond. We answer: what are the skills and capabilities that researchers and research teams need to succeed in and empower the organization?
The Researcher’s Journey: leveling up as a user researcher
The growth of a researcher through Process Mastery, Technical Competence, and Organizational Influence.

- "The researcher's journey" in 2017 was my first attempt at breaking down skills, growth, and progression of a UX/user researcher, after working in the field for 7 years and starting my own team. It's a useful look at researcher-growth in isolation — on reflection, I see its shortcoming as the lack of contextual hooks into design and the product development process.
Talk & Workshop Index:
- UPCOMING: Research That Influences Workshop — RM AR, March 2023
- Advice for Establishing Research — RM Advancing Research, December 2022
- Research Ops: Research Skills Framework — UX LX, May 2022
- A Research Skills Evolution — Advancing Research, March 2021
- The Research Skills We Need to Succeed — UXRConf Anywhere, February 2021
- The Power of Pattern Language — September 2020, EuroIA 2020
- Working with the Research Skills Framework workshop — September 2020, UXinsight Festival (with Tomomi Sasaki)
- Tools for the Trek — February 2020, Interaction 20 Milan (w/ Tomomi Sasaki)
- Shaping Effective Research — October 2019, IXDA Berlin
- Elevating Design: Create a strategic plan to increase your impact — September 2019, EuroIA 19 (w/ Alissa Briggs)
- Considering Research: function & impact — June 2019, User Research London
- Research: Goal, role, having an impact — June 2019, Strive UX Research
- Lean Learning: Applied UX Research — October, 2018, Develop Denver
- "Maps & Markers: enacting a strategy to transform your design team" — August 2018, Adaptive Path UX Week (w/ Alissa Briggs)
- Lean Learning: Applied Product Research — May 2017, "The Center"
- UX Research for Live Products — January 2015, ConveyUX
Essay & Article Index:
- Dscout: "Researchers Should Lead the Product Development Process"
- Dscout profile: Rebuilding Research and Making Wine
- The Building Beauty Seminar Series, on Architexturez —
• Nature of Order #1: Christopher Alexander's work
• Nature of Order #2: The First 8 of 15 Fundamental Properties
• Nature of Order #3: Fundmamental Properties nºs 9 – 15
• Nature of Order #4: Discovery of the Self
• Nature of Order #5: Book I Summary - Medium: "Reading List for Researchers and Designers"
- Medium: "The researcher's journey: leveling up as a user researcher"
- Medium: "Strategy and hiring a user researcher"
- Medium: "User research at Instacart"
