In winter quarter, the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering hosts a 10-week seminar series on User Experience (UX), where we welcome industry experts to speak about current issues and research in the field. Talks are open to members of the UW community to attend. Find the full schedule online at www.hcde.uw.edu….

Sure everyone can do research...but can everyone be a researcher?  Exploring the future of the user experience research discipline

Is there a role for the User Experience Researcher in the rapidly changing world of technology and product design? With the rise of data science and agile methodology, the prevalence of robust design patterns and libraries, and the easy access to research tools that can empower anyone to be a user advocate, why should the role of UX Research continue to exist? This talk will review some examples that illustrate the multiple challenges that face the UX Research discipline, and propose a series of approaches that counter the challenges to ensure its continued success.

Stephen Giff is a native of London but has lived in Seattle since 2001 (with a brief spell…3 years... in Copenhagen). He received a Bachelors Degree in Psychology from Birkbeck College, University of London, and a Masters in HF/HCI from UCL. Since that time, Stephen has worked on a variety of technology - from the web, eLearning, ERP, developer tools, to advertising and hardware. He is passionate about the UX Research discipline and thinking about how it needs to evolve to meet the ever-changing challenges of the tech industry. He loves seeing the world through the eyes of customers, and partnering with design/business/engineering to turn the insights uncovered into meaningful solutions. Stephen is currently a UX Research Manager at Google where he is focused on the Google Cloud Platform.