Tent Talks Featuring: Janelle Ward

Determining Organization Maturity: Start assessing during interviews. Consider the clarity of decision-making in research paths.

Supporting Research Team Growth: Align with goals, involve in maturity determination, foster collaboration, and share insights.

Handling Hybrid Lead/Manager Role: Recognize challenges, support researchers, keep focused one-on-ones, and track time.

Reporting to Non-Research Leaders: Understand stakeholders, seek clarity, and educate on research challenges.

Working with Stakeholders in UX Research: Understand needs, establish relationships, and provide support as needed.

Hiring UX Researchers Responsibly: Trust in expertise, emphasize collaboration and transparency.

Good User Research Planning: Utilize frameworks, include stakeholders, define outcomes, and align expectations.

Explaining UX to Stakeholders: Align understanding, use accessible terms, and develop an "elevator pitch."

Addressing UX Research Maturity Variation: Consider nuanced evaluations, understanding differences within the organization.

Training Analysts in UX Research: Explore skills, provide tailored guides for different backgrounds.

Conveying Evidence Over Gut Feelings: Engage stakeholders in research, show process, build trust.

Involving Stakeholders in Research: Assess necessity, communicate directly, build trust.

Research-First Approach with PMs: Offer help, start small with contributions like tests, show value and ease of research.

Chicago Camps hosts irregularly scheduled Tent Talks with people from all across the User Experience Design community, and beyond. Who really likes limits, anyway--If it's a cool idea, we'd love to hear about it and share it!

What is a Tent Talk? That's a great question, we'd love to tell you.

Tent Talks are short-form in nature, generally lasting from 10-20 minutes (ish) in a recorded format--we like to think of them as "S'mores-sized content" because that's pretty on-brand. Tent Talks can be a presentation on a topic, a live Q&A session about the work we do, or the work around the work we do, or really just about anything--we don't want to limit ourselves, or you.

You should send along an idea or topic of your own so we can learn from you, as well! You don't have to be a published author or a professional speaker on a circuit to be good at your job, so please, put yourself forward, and let's have some fun, talk, and share your experience with others!