The User Research Strategist: UXR | Impact | Career

• Physical Products, Brutal Honesty, and the Agency Way | Filip Cicek (Ruthless Insights)

  Listen now on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.—Filip Cicek is a seasoned researcher with a Master's degree in Sociology and over 15 years of diverse experience spanning academia, non-profit, and business realms. Proficient in both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, Filip leads Ruthless Insights, a cutting-edge consultancy specializing in UX and market research.In our conversation, we discuss:* How physical product research forces rigor, patience, and multiple rounds of muddy discovery.* The invisible weight of decision-making when mistakes cost millions and can’t be undone.* What it takes to manage client expectations and stop pretending research can always be fast.* Why Filip left academia and started Ruthless Insights after getting fired and how he made it work.* The real challenges of agency work and how bad recruiting, rushed timelines, and AI shortcuts create sloppy insights.Some takeaways:* Physical product research demands rigor, not speed. When mistakes cost millions and there’s no going back post-launch, teams take research seriously. Filip explains how physical product work forces multiple rounds of exploratory studies, each more focused than the last, until real confidence is built. There’s no skipping the mess of qualitative research, no rapid sprints, no quick pivots, no AB tests. The trade-off? You get to do real, strategic work that actually gets used if you’re willing to sit in the mud for a while.* Filip and Nikki both agree: multiple rounds of generative research can feel like an existential crisis. You finish each round with more questions than answers, stuck in abstract insights your stakeholders don’t always want to hear. But those vague, frustrating truths are the only path to real product clarity, especially in high-stakes spaces. Researchers need to get comfortable with uncertainty and help clients understand that clarity takes time.* Many stakeholders just don’t know what good research actually takes. It’s your job to tell them. Filip’s advice: don’t agree to three-week timelines just to be helpful, push back with clarity. Clients don’t need speed, they need to not be wrong. And when researchers stop overpromising and start managing expectations, trust and repeat work follow.* Ruthless Insights was built on rejection and a bet on honesty. Filip started his agency after getting fired and being told to “bet on yourself” by a client. That same client helped him name Ruthless Insights, based on Filip’s refusal to sugarcoat tough findings. His whole model is built around doing the job well without padding the process or the price, no fancy office, no fluff, just clean, useful insight. It’s not glamorous, but it’s what keeps clients coming back.* Most people don’t understand how hard research is until they try it. From clients underestimating how long recruitment takes, to stakeholders clinging to a single quote from an interview, Filip has seen it all. He’s learned to pre-empt confusion by overcommunicating upfront, bringing recruiters in early, and walking stakeholders through the analysis process. He doesn’t try to move fast, he tries to be accurate. And that’s what builds a reputation that outlasts a slide deck.Where to find Filip:* Ruthless Insights* Statis-fact* LinkedInStop piecing it together. Start leading the work.The Everything UXR Bundle is for researchers who are tired of duct-taping free templates and second-guessing what good looks like.You get my complete set of toolkits, templates, and strategy guides. used by teams across Google, Spotify, , to run credible research, influence decisions, and actually grow in your role.It’s built to save you time, raise your game, and make you the person people turn to—not around.→ Save 140+ hours a year with ready-to-use templates and frameworks→ Boost productivity by 40% with tools that cut admin and sharpen your focus→ Increase research adoption by 50% through clearer, faster, more strategic deliveryInterested in sponsoring the podcast?Interested in sponsoring or advertising on this podcast? I’m always looking to partner with brands and businesses that align with my audience. Book a call or email me at [email protected] to learn more about sponsorship opportunities!The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions, or policies of the host, the podcast, or any affiliated organizations or sponsors. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.userresearchstrategist.com/subscribe

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• Connecting the Research Dots | Iwalola Sobowale (Moniepoint)

  Listen now on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.—Iwalola Sobowale is a research leader empowering tech innovation in Nigeria’s exciting tech industry. As the Head of Customer Research at Moniepoint, she drives strategic research to enhance customer experience, improve product adoption, and strengthen market positioning.With a background in another Nigerian unicorn - Interswitch, Transsion who are the manufacturers of the Tecno and Infinix, the mobile device brands dominating the African continent, and Fidelity Bank, one of Nigeria’s leading commercial banks, she has led initiatives that optimize digital banking, payments, and financial inclusion.Beyond her role, Iwalola is the co-founder of Usability for Africa, a ground-breaking research initiative that seeks to democratice usability knowledge for African tech. She is currently co-authoring a book that captures these insights and is also the host of The Spotlight Podcast, fostering industry knowledge-sharing to nurture the tech and business ecosystem.Her passion for innovation and commitment to excellence mark her as a standout professional in the field.In our conversation, we discuss:* How Iwalola defines customer-centric product development and ties it directly to strategy, not just research.* Why sharing research isn’t just about visibility, it’s about timing, relationships, and understanding internal decisions.* The difference between reacting to requests and actually guiding what gets built.* Tips for navigating low-maturity orgs without letting them define your trajectory.* Why asking “why” is underrated, and how to do it without getting kicked out of the room.Some takeaways:* To make real impact, researchers need to understand three things: what the business is doing, what it’s not doing, and who the customer really is. Without clarity on these decisions, research either floats or gets ignored. Iwalola talks about the need for alignment—not just understanding the customer, but understanding the organization’s strategic bets. That’s where real influence starts.* You can’t guide decisions if you don’t know what decisions are being made. Guidance isn’t about “being in the room” once a month. It’s about reading internal docs, scanning Slack channels, asking for team roadmaps, and paying attention to who’s working on what. The research doesn’t stop at the user—it starts again inside the company. If you want to be helpful, you need to investigate your organization like you would any other system.* Iwalola makes research feel like a friendly place, no bad questions, no posturing. She shares often, asks stakeholders about what they already know, and brings curiosity instead of critique. That posture builds trust and slowly pulls even hesitant partners into the process. The goal is to help stakeholders make better calls, with you at the table.* Instead of begging for buy-in from resistant teams, start with those who already get it. Work closely with them, and let the results do the talking. Once other teams see that insights actually help drive progress, they’ll start to seek you out. That’s influence built by reputation—not explanation.* Leadership isn’t used to being asked “why,” but it’s one of the most important questions a researcher can ask. It unlocks context, helps you shape your work, and shows you’re genuinely trying to support—not challenge—the direction. If you understand why something is being prioritized, you can better decide how to contribute. Just know your audience, and bring the “why” with care.Where to find Iwalola:* LinkedIn* Instagram* Twitter* Blog articles* Newsletter* PodcastStop piecing it together. Start leading the work.The Everything UXR Bundle is for researchers who are tired of duct-taping free templates and second-guessing what good looks like.You get my complete set of toolkits, templates, and strategy guides. used by teams across Google, Spotify, , to run credible research, influence decisions, and actually grow in your role.It’s built to save you time, raise your game, and make you the person people turn to—not around.→ Save 140+ hours a year with ready-to-use templates and frameworks→ Boost productivity by 40% with tools that cut admin and sharpen your focus→ Increase research adoption by 50% through clearer, faster, more strategic deliveryInterested in sponsoring the podcast?Interested in sponsoring or advertising on this podcast? I’m always looking to partner with brands and businesses that align with my audience. Book a call or email me at [email protected] to learn more about sponsorship opportunities!The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions, or policies of the host, the podcast, or any affiliated organizations or sponsors. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.userresearchstrategist.com/subscribe

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• Using AI as Your Research Intern | Ryan Glasgow (Sprig)

  Listen now on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.—Ryan Glasgow is the CEO of Sprig, an AI-native survey platform built to replace legacy tools like Qualtrics. Sprig combines advanced survey capabilities, AI-powered analysis, and an intuitive user experience to help research and product teams get richer insights, faster. Before starting Sprig, Ryan led product at Weebly and Vurb, where he saw how slow, fragmented research workflows could limit product velocity. Today, Sprig is used by companies like Stripe, DoorDash, Notion, and Netflix to run surveys, analyze results instantly with AI, and deliver insights that shape product decisions.In our conversation, we discuss:* How the research community’s mindset toward AI has shifted from fear to experimentation.* What it means to treat AI like an eager intern and why that mental model changes everything.* How to break your workflow into “job steps” and plug AI in where it can actually help.* What Sprig is building to support both qual and quant researchers at different levels.* Why sharing raw data with stakeholders (not just summaries) might be the next big unlock for research impact.Some takeaways:* Many teams outside of research are still figuring out what AI is good for. Meanwhile, UXRs are already experimenting with real tasks, like synthesis, survey creation, and study planning, because they’ve had to. Ryan points out that researchers are becoming internal AI evangelists, getting asked to present their workflows to other departments. The field’s willingness to experiment is turning into a quiet leadership moment.* The best way to work with AI? Pretend it’s a new intern. It’s fast, eager, and can take on a ton but needs oversight, review, and clear direction. That framing unlocks a very different way of thinking: not “Will it replace me?” but “What can I delegate to it so I can focus on higher-impact work?” That shift is showing up in how researchers manage tasks across their workflow.* Before you plug AI into your stack, audit your actual workflow. Break it into steps, like study planning, stakeholder requests, distribution, synthesis, insight sharing, and decide where AI can support. Sprig is built around this approach, helping researchers insert AI at specific job steps. Trying to use one tool for everything often backfires; success comes from surgical fits, not general use.* Sprig is expanding from in-product surveys into long-form survey support with built-in AI features for study creation, open text clustering, and synthesis. Ryan shared how qual researchers use AI to draft surveys, get feedback, and even generate first-pass summaries of open ends. Other tools like Notebook LM and Gamma help researchers do faster analysis and deck creation without skipping the rigor.* One of the most radical ideas Ryan shared: share your raw research data, transcripts, open ends, survey results, so stakeholders can ask their own questions. With tools like ChatGPT or Notebook LM, that data becomes living, queryable insight. It turns research from a static deliverable into an exploratory tool. It also takes the pressure off researchers to have all the answers, all the time.Where to find Ryan:* Website* LinkedIn* XStop piecing it together. Start leading the work.The Everything UXR Bundle is for researchers who are tired of duct-taping free templates and second-guessing what good looks like.You get my complete set of toolkits, templates, and strategy guides. used by teams across Google, Spotify, , to run credible research, influence decisions, and actually grow in your role.It’s built to save you time, raise your game, and make you the person people turn to—not around.→ Save 140+ hours a year with ready-to-use templates and frameworks→ Boost productivity by 40% with tools that cut admin and sharpen your focus→ Increase research adoption by 50% through clearer, faster, more strategic deliveryInterested in sponsoring the podcast?Interested in sponsoring or advertising on this podcast? I’m always looking to partner with brands and businesses that align with my audience. Book a call or email me at [email protected] to learn more about sponsorship opportunities!The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions, or policies of the host, the podcast, or any affiliated organizations or sponsors. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.userresearchstrategist.com/subscribe

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• Researching for Real Life | Loren Flores & Kathryn Ambroze (JPMorgan Chase)

  Listen now on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.—Loren is a UX Researcher with over 8 years of experience designing user-centered financial solutions. She’s passionate about uncovering actionable insights that bridge user needs with business objectives, and specializes in transforming complex behaviors into strategies that elevate digital experiences. Loren currently works at JPMorgan Chase as a Lead UX Researcher for digital commerce solutions. Over her time at Chase she has worked across several organizations, getting to know a wide variety of customer-facing and employee-facing products and services giving her a unique insight into how the customer views Chase as a whole.Kathryn is a behavioral neuroscientist with experience in consumer research and methodological innovation. She earned her Bachelors in Neuroscience and Business from Muhlenberg College and her Masters in Behavioral and Decision Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She currently works at JP Morgan Chase as a User Researcher, with a focus on methodological development, infusing behavioral science and design thinking into the customer experience.In our conversation, we discuss:* What end-to-end research actually means in practice and why it starts before users ever touch your product.* How to use habit loops to map and influence real customer behavior without forcing change.* The power of live account interviews for breaking out of prototype fantasyland.* Strategies for building alignment and shifting stakeholders from “I need” to “we’re solving.”* How internal playbooks, role-play exercises, and empathy maps help teams stay grounded in real life.Some takeaways:* End-to-end research isn’t just a longer study, but a wider lens. Loren and Kathryn define end-to-end research as everything from a customer’s initial intent to what happens after they close the product. It’s not just about usability or funnel drop-off, but about how their lives influence how they interact with your product. To get real insight, you have to look outside the interface and understand what’s happening before, during, and after each interaction. That kind of zoomed-out context changes the questions you ask and the recommendations you make.* Customers don’t live inside your product and they won’t change their habits for you. Many organizations build with the assumption that users will adapt. They won’t. Through live account research, Loren uncovered how users ignore offers, stick to their routines, and reject anything that adds complexity. Kathryn explains how habit loops (cue → routine → reward) help teams understand why users behave the way they do, and why your product needs to slot into existing routines, not disrupt them.* Usability labs are structured, focused, and quiet. Real life is not. That’s why live account research can be so powerful; users bring their own data, context, and mess. Watching someone navigate a real account reveals things no A/B test or journey map ever could, especially when paired with tools like empathy maps that capture what people are saying, doing, thinking, and feeling.* To build cross-team alignment, make the customer the common ground. When products span multiple teams, priorities clash. Loren uses design rationale briefs and vision statements to realign teams around what the customer wants, not just what each team needs. Kathryn emphasizes the importance of shared language and moving from “I need” to “we’re building.” Getting people into the same room, physically or virtually, and grounding them in the customer’s perspective is what turns politics into partnership.* If you want teams to understand context, you have to simulate real life. Kathryn runs role-playing workshops where stakeholders juggle real-life distractions while interacting with a product. It’s a reminder that customers are busy, stressed, and multitasking, and your product has to work under those conditions. Loren adds that this mindset shift helps counter the overconfidence teams can get from testing in perfect research environments. Their advice: don’t just study what customers say, watch what they actually do in the wild.Where to find Loren:* LinkedInWhere to find Kathryn: * LinkedInStop piecing it together. Start leading the work.The Everything UXR Bundle is for researchers who are tired of duct-taping free templates and second-guessing what good looks like.You get my complete set of toolkits, templates, and strategy guides. used by teams across Google, Spotify, , to run credible research, influence decisions, and actually grow in your role.It’s built to save you time, raise your game, and make you the person people turn to—not around.→ Save 140+ hours a year with ready-to-use templates and frameworks→ Boost productivity by 40% with tools that cut admin and sharpen your focus→ Increase research adoption by 50% through clearer, faster, more strategic deliveryInterested in sponsoring the podcast?Interested in sponsoring or advertising on this podcast? I’m always looking to partner with brands and businesses that align with my audience. Book a call or email me at [email protected] to learn more about sponsorship opportunities!The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions, or policies of the host, the podcast, or any affiliated organizations or sponsors. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.userresearchstrategist.com/subscribe

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• Business-Savvy Research and Onion Layers of UX | Amanda Stockwell (Stockwell Strategy)

  Listen now on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.—Amanda runs Stockwell Strategy, a user experience research and innovation strategy practice. She has spent the last 15 years helping teams understand who their users are, what they need, and how to tie those insights to product and business strategy. Happy clients include startups, nonprofits, fortune 100s, and nearly everywhere in between. Amanda is happiest when helping teams spin up their UX research practices and individuals refine their research and strategy skills. She also frequently writes and speaks about all things UX and product, teaches classes on LinkedIn Learning and for Duke's Design and Technology Innovation program, and helps organize local Ladies that UX meetups. You can also find her hiking, spoiling her dog, or sharing lobster facts.In our conversation, we discuss:* The concept of “research onions,” how core skills are just one layer of what makes someone effective in UX.* Why understanding business goals and context makes research more actionable, not less user-centered.* How collaborating with cross-functional teammates means more than just scheduling whiteboard sessions.* Tips for solo researchers on becoming better collaborators, from small talk to strategic alignment.* A networking approach that’s not transactional and why your next opportunity may come from a six-year-old Slack intro.Some takeaways:* Research is more than the craft. Amanda introduces the idea of “onion layers” to describe the full spectrum of skills researchers need. Beyond knowing methods and tools, researchers should understand how business decisions are made and where their insights fit in.* You don’t need to be a business strategist but you do need to care. Understanding cash flow, team capacity, and strategic priorities helps researchers frame insights that get acted on. It’s not about becoming a PM; it’s about asking the right questions and understanding how your work fits the broader picture.* Relationship-building is essential, especially when you’re the only researcher. Whether it’s baking banana bread to attract teammates or tailoring your report formats to individual preferences, Amanda shows how small acts of intentionality lead to better collaboration and insight adoption.* Network like a human, not a transaction. Amanda advises networking consistently and authentically, not just when you’re looking for a job. The best opportunities often come from long-forgotten connections so be curious, be helpful, and stay in touch with generosity.* Treat your stakeholders like users. Just like you wouldn’t ship a product without understanding your users, you shouldn’t present findings without understanding your audience. Customize communication styles, understand what they care about, and make it easy for them to act on your insights.Where to find Amanda:* Website* LinkedIn* BlueskyStop piecing it together. Start leading the work.The Everything UXR Bundle is for researchers who are tired of duct-taping free templates and second-guessing what good looks like.You get my complete set of toolkits, templates, and strategy guides. used by teams across Google, Spotify, , to run credible research, influence decisions, and actually grow in your role.It’s built to save you time, raise your game, and make you the person people turn to.→ Save 140+ hours a year with ready-to-use templates and frameworks→ Boost productivity by 40% with tools that cut admin and sharpen your focus→ Increase research adoption by 50% through clearer, faster, more strategic deliveryInterested in sponsoring the podcast?Interested in sponsoring or advertising on this podcast? I’m always looking to partner with brands and businesses that align with my audience. Book a call or email me at [email protected] to learn more about sponsorship opportunities!The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views, positions, or policies of the host, the podcast, or any affiliated organizations or sponsors. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.userresearchstrategist.com/subscribe

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