Research The Researcher S1C2 feat Devika Ganapathy

Name and a brief intro about yourself…
My name is Devika. I am a design researcher and usability consultant.
I started my career as a graphic designer in the late 90’s after I graduated from NID, Ahmedabad.

Since 2011, I have been running my own consultancy — A small user research set up called Anagram Research.

Current place of work
Anagram Research — www.anagramresearch.com

Designation/role/title
Design Researcher

What you up to? (any interesting work or project you want to talk about)
Well — That’s what I love about running my own (small) consultancy — Most of the projects that we take up are super interesting!

Being a lean setup, we can afford to take up just the projects that inspire, excite or challenge us. Or projects from domains or research topics that we haven’t yet had an opportunity to work at.

The kind of research that we do is really varied. Ranging from research to inspire packaging… To creating a detailed customer experience map to help our client understand how Indian’s buy imported products online… To intense home walkthroughs and interactions to inform décor and furniture design for the Indian market.

We also enjoy doing standard usability and user research studies in between our more intense research projects.

How and Why did you get into User Research?
I decided to move out of design just 1–2 years into working as a designer in the industry. As a junior designer, I found it frustrating and bewildering that I could not easily rationalize the design directions/decisions I was taking.
Expectations from a graphic designer were also very different in the industry, compared to what we experienced at design school!

That’s when I came across HCI / Usability and decided to move to Mumbai to work at HFI — The only company doing that kind of work in India at that time. It was through HFI that I got introduced to ‘ethnographic research’ as well…

One book recommendation for those who want to get started in User Research (can also be a book which you often refer to)
I can't think of any one book that I often refer to now..

But I remember that the ‘Handbook of Usability Testing’ (Jeffrey Rubin, Dana Chisnell) was what I used and found practical and very useful early in my career.

And although I haven’t read it myself, Nick Bowmast’s Userpalooza (https://userpalooza.co.nz/) seems a good read for people starting out in User Research.

What skills do you look for when hiring Researchers? (or what skills you think Researchers should have)
There are a lot of good resources out there about what to look for when hiring researchers/skills that are important for researchers.

While those are definitely a good base reference, I would say that each unique work context/role has very specific skill requirements.

What I’m trying to say is that while there is a base set of skills all researchers should have, the skills a researcher in a large company like Google / LinkedIn would need would be very different from the skills of an independent researcher… or a researcher in a startup… or in a research consultancy…
or a senior researcher vs. a junior researcher…or a researcher working in a ‘design/research mature’ organization vs. an organization where a design/research mindset is new or immature.

How do you grow as a Researcher? (what should Researchers do to stay valuable)
It’s important to try and work on a range of different things — Different types of research projects and domains / Hands-on research work as well as research related work like client interactions, coordination, logistics, admin.

It was also invaluable for me to have had a chance to work as a researcher in very different environments — In a product company, at a services company, within a research-focused consultancy, as part of an insights team, as a lone researcher in a design and engineering focused environment, as an external research consultant.

It’s also really important to interact and exchange ideas with other researchers — Probably more of a challenge for Indian researchers who have relatively less access. But can be countered by participating in discussion forums/mailing lists for researchers.

Teaching / interacting with students also helps me to keep relevant and well-informed:-) — I try to do this at least once a year.

What are the sources of info which you follow to stay updated in the field of User Research (can be people you follow on Medium/LinkedIn/Twitter, Websites, Publications, etc)
I don’t follow any particular source or person consistently, but I do come across some relevant information that keeps me updated, through posts/links from my LinkedIn connections.

I try to check in on research mailing lists and discussion groups that I belong to whenever I get a chance. The discussions on these forums can be very enriching without eating into my time too much.

And I have to say that each project that I work on / opportunities on some projects to work with other researchers across cultures and backgrounds are where I have always learned something new / picked up new perspectives to doing something.

Thanks, Devika for your insights!

To know more about “Research the Researcher” do read the intro post.