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.

Driven by volunteers in the ReOps community, and organizers and participants around the world"RSF" is the result of a one and a half year project with the ResearchOps Community. A small team of volunteer leads and members, together with 76 facilitators, developed this project. See the full list of project contributors.ResearchOps Community

• 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.

Dave's Research CompanyDave Hora

• "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"