Web Directions Summit 2018

Session Details

Cyd Harrell

Metaphors in UX Research and Analysis: A Secret Superpower

Cyd Harrell former Chief of Staff 18F

Metaphor is one of our most powerful innate capacities as humans, and unlocking its power in UX research work can bring us to a whole new level of insight and stakeholder engagement. Metaphor is a lot like sketching - most people wouldn’t identify themselves as skilled with it. But almost everyone can use it productively with a little bit of attention and practice.

Cyd’s talk will illustrate how to use your metaphorical capacity to do great qualitative analysis. She’ll dig into how to source apt metaphors from users and from your team, how to use them as pointers into the salient parts of a mountain of qualitative data (interview transcripts, for example), how to evaluate which ones are useful, and how to combine them in clusters to get at deep insights. Finally, she’ll show how to share metaphor-driven insights with stakeholders so that design and dev teams can come together and create great experiences.

Cyd Harrell

Cyd is a user research expert who believes you can answer any question as long as you are fearless and creative about methods. She was the VP of Research for SF-based UX design firm Bolt | Peters until June 2012, when Facebook acquired the company.

While there, she helped clients such as Sony, Volkswagen, and Rdio to conduct remote research and real-time usability studies. In the early 2000s, she led desktop experience and design standards groups at Charles Schwab.

Don't miss your chance to see Cyd Harrell and many other inspiring speakers at Web Directions Summit 18.

Tickets start at $1295, for two in-depth days with the world's leading product, design and engineering experts.

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Two big tracks, one Product/Design, one Developer focused, plus stellar keynotes and much more.

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