In the latest episode of our podcast – If U Seek, we’re excited to welcome Joy Mentzing, a senior experience design consultant at Ommax. Joy talks about the challenges of educating clients about the importance of UX Research. She explains why stakeholders should appreciate UXR not just in financial terms but as a key part of business operations. Joy gives practical tips for resolving client objections, aligning UXR with broader business goals, and building strong client relationships with transparency and trust. Whether you’re a freelancer or part of a larger team, this episode is packed with useful advice for making UXR a core part of your projects.
You can find If U Seek on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Youtube Music.
Preview
Key Points in This Episode Include:
- Overcoming Common Objections: Joy discusses typical objections stakeholders have against investing in UXR and shares effective strategies to address these concerns.
- Budget-Friendly UXR Integration: Learn creative ways to modify project scopes or allocate resources to include UXR within a client’s budget.
- Success Stories: Joy presents successful examples of integrating UXR and Conversion Rate Optimization to achieve measurable business improvements.
Listen to this insightful episode and find out how to better educate your clients about the true value of UXR and drive meaningful business results.
You can follow the conversation from the transcript below:
Transcript
Layshi: If U Seek to shape the future, listen to those who design it. Welcome to If U Seek by Useberry, where expert voices guide us to UX wisdom.
Layshi Curbelo here, your host on the journey of If U Seek. If you are seeking a different way to learn and understand users, this is the podcast for you. Maybe you are questioning why If You Seek? In every episode we will strive to explore and gain deep insight from experts shaping their domains. We want you to feel enlightened, educated or even inspired after each episode. The idea is to foster connections within the UX industry.
Now an important information for you. Uncover the secrets of your website with Useberry usability testing. Pinpoint issues, explore user perspectives and make decisions backed by data. Your website optimal performance starts with Useberry. Dive into useberry.com, join us on social, and share your thoughts in the comments. Your journey to enhance user experience begins now.
Our guest speaker of the day, Joy Mentzing, is a senior experience design consultant of OMMAX, a digital strategy consultancy with its headquarters in Munich. Throughout her career, Joy’s portfolio has expanded from development, target group, and personas to UX research, conversion rate optimization, and implementation roadmap development. She guides projects for a wide array of B2B, B2C clients, from the inception of UX strategy and ideation to seamless execution, with a particular emphasis on e-commerce and lead generation. With a foundation in business administration, Joy crafts data-driving strategies and concepts that harmonize business objectives with user needs. Passionate about driving product results and creating user experiences, Joy fosters cross-functional collaboration within teams. Before OMMAX, Joy worked in diverse marketing positions at Microsoft, BMW, and Conde NAS, converting areas such as shelf-advertising, category management, to product and brand communication management.
Get ready to learn from Joy in this episode of educating clients in user experience research. Let’s start with the show.
Layshi: Hi everybody, my name is Layshi Curbelo, and this is another amazing episode of If You Seek. Super excited, I’m recording from the beautiful island of Puerto Rico where always is summer. Today with me is Joy! Hi Joy! Welcome to If You Seek. And where are you?
Joy: Hey everyone I’m so happy to be on this podcast! I’m actually recording from Munich so from Germany not that warm and hot actually it’s raining and cloudy, so yeah I hope that we tap into summer soon but at the moment it’s actually not very nice.
Layshi: I always try to say that Puerto Rico is beautiful and some of the guest speakers are, ah, okay, you’re in the summertime, okay, got it. I want to go to Germany. I think it was last year, it was last year, yeah. I was specifically on Berlin and it was super nice. The climate was fine. A little bit cold for me, a Caribbean girl, but it was cool. It was nice.
Joy: Yeah, I mean… I don’t know, at the moment it’s like one week it’s sunny and you can actually go for a swim. I mean Munich is also nice, I know Berlin is nice, but Munich too. And yeah, the next day you actually need to stay at home because it’s raining. So it’s still nice here.
Layshi: I will put Munich on my list, definitely. So happy to have the opportunity to learn from you in this episode of Educating Clients in User Research. Are you ready to share some insights?
Joy: Oh sure, of course, I’m always ready.
Layshi: So let’s dive in. I want to start with the big picture. In the industry, everyone wants their moment of attention and we know this. For example, in my case, I’m an accessibility advocate and I always recommend putting accessibility on the beginning. And I don’t know, developers can say like, we need to be embedded from the beginning in the conversations. And I know that is also true for user experience research. So that being said, let’s talk about resistance. What are some of the common objections that stakeholders raise against investing in user research? And what strategies can we address to actually embed this from the beginning?
Joy: Yes, actually very, yeah, actually I totally agree with what you said. So basically us as UX designers, we are totally convinced that we can only create user-centered design when we ensure that we collaborate with the user firsthand from the beginning. But that’s not often the case, right? And when we also address the roots of the challenge, I personally have also the experience that even if UX professionals might be integrated than ever before, we are still in a discipline where many stakeholders, not only clients, but also colleagues, friends, they don’t really know the world of user experience, especially also compared to the discipline of design, right? So everyone knows what design is, but UX user research is something that’s yet new for a lot of people. So basically, I think one of the challenges is that, yeah, stakeholders or clients might not really understand what the value is. Having said that, the main concerns that are being raised by stakeholders are mainly about the perceived high costs of user research, the time that is required because we know user research actually often, I mean, you can do it in one week, but often it might also take three weeks. So it will stretch the timeline. And yeah, the third point is really the uncertainty of tangible outcomes. So I would say these three concerns, I hear the most at least at work. And I guess depending on the nature of the project, the organizational structure as well, one of the challenges is maybe a bigger pain point. So we see it when we have website relaunches for bigger companies, the challenge is often actually related to the timeline because the extra time that goes into UXR will stretch the timeline. And then basically the client’s not happy because they need to have the website launched at a specific date, right? But when we have maybe more smaller work streams where we only optimize a specific element, we want to test, something on a page, there the challenge is more getting the extra budget for maybe the tools that you need to invest in to be capable to do the user research and the testing.
So it always depends a bit on the nature of the project, I’d say. But these are the three main concerns. And also actually one more prevalent objection is really the phrase of saying we already know our users. So I don’t know, I feel like everyone knows these sentences as well. that’s maybe in the same position, which is coming more from an overconfidence in their internal knowledge. But on the other way around, we also hear, you are the experts, you should know everything about it. Why do we need user research? You did this already successfully for many other clients, right? So that’s the other way around, actually, that comes rather from a misplaced reliance on past successes and also underestimating the unique context that you have for every industry and the evolving needs of the current users that are also different. So basically, that’s also very interesting how you hear these phrases as well a lot. So yeah, that I would say the main concerns. I don’t know if you want to already discuss the strategic solutions or if you have anything that you say you can relate to.
Layshi: I have a couple of things that I’m super related, I work with some of my clients in terms of accessibility and I love when they say to me like, yeah, accessibility sounds like a good thing to do, I don’t have the time now, this will actually put a longer timeframe for releasing the product and I always answer back like, yeah, the thing is like you are forgetting a part of the actual life cycle of a product and… maybe your product will be missing something. So it’s not that you adding something is that you are missing something. But I really love that you mentioned how some clients think that we are the experts on the topic. And because we already work with a company, for example, in FinTech and this client is from FinTech, we already have the answers, right? Not necessarily, I don’t know, hire us. for consultancy, they can say like in your experience, tell me this, this and it’s like, well, you do a research, no, tell me you. So yeah, it’s interesting what you do in these cases, like, I don’t know how you address these kinds of things?
Joy: Yeah, I mean, in the end, I think for us also a lot of projects, we start with best practices, yeah, and then it’s always like, so yeah, let’s do this benchmarking analysis and then we know what others do and what’s basically the best practice in the industry. But in the end, what I would then personally always say is that if in case you want to really exceed the expectations and exceed your competitors, you cannot reach for best practices and for what you’ve done for the others, right? For innovation, you really need to dive a bit deeper into the topics and there user research basically comes into place. But yeah, that’s I would say, particularly to this to this one, I would say phrase, we have this. I mean, if we talk about the other phrase where you say, okay, we know our users well enough. That’s another common phrase, right, that we often have on the other side. This is also, I think, very interesting because there a strategy could be really to bring all to talk to the client, bring the different departments together since they already have so much know how on their users. I mean, it’s a great method, right? Doing workshops, bring the different departments together, speak to sales, speak to the customer care, speak to marketing, make them sit together and share their knowledge about the entire groups. And then you will quite fast realize that people in the company do not speak with each other that much. And that there’s often still untapped knowledge to get the bigger picture. So this gives you also then the opportunity to expose the gap they have internally and pitch it then right there and say, hey, you know a lot about your customers, but apparently you don’t know what’s the USP of your company or you actually don’t know what the customer really needs. So, you seem not to have an answer to these simple questions. And this is why you need user research. So in this case, I would say, listen, of course, to the stakeholders, get all the information that you have. But then, yeah, tap into the potential that’s still there. So that could be one more strategy basically, particularly to this concern r to this challenge.
Layshi: The idea of today is actually learn from you. So I’m taking notes and I hope the audience are taking notes from this interview. Now that we talk a little bit of strategies and things that we can do, I know that from previous guest speakers and also from the industry, that the way that we can start embedding user research specifically into organizations trying to align with business goals. So how we can align user experience research initiative with organization broader goals and objectives to gain stakeholders buy-in. That’s the thing that we want to.
Joy: Yeah, I think in this case I would say it’s also quite similar to the strategies that we apply to gain the clients buy-in. So in the end we need to build up trust, we need to engage with the stakeholders, we need to make sure that we speak the same language and we use metrics that resonate with them. And I mean, of course, aligning with the business goal, that’s, I think, one of the main priorities and something that should always happen at the start of the project, right? So where you really understand what’s the goal and what are the different methods that we can choose from and what’s the actually method that really fits the best to reach the goal. That’s of course clear, like you need to have these, they are these collaborative sessions. But yeah, exactly. But if you think about gaining a stakeholder buy in, I think building up trust, more of the soft factors are really like super important to get someone also basically to advocate for user research, right? So if you have this more personal connection, building up trust, you will find someone who can speak for you, become an advocate for it and promote your goal as well as a user researcher. So finding a champion who can encourage then other people basically in the organization that this is a good thing and this is the way to go to reach the business goals. So I think this is super important. And in general, I mean, maybe that’s not only coming from the perspective of your clients, but if we talk really about general stakeholder, I mean, I also see it in my company, I’m working for a consultancy. So of course, also here, I need to get the buy in from my stakeholders. That user research is something we should sell. That’s something that is important when we do our and execute our projects. So trying also to adjust or make it really a standardized ingredient or integral part of proposals, I think that’s also important right when you send out a proposal user research needs to be part of it. So, it’s not an add-on that a client can buy, it should already be like an intriguing part of when selling a website we launched, for instance. So that’s definitely also something that can help too. Yeah, shift maybe the mindset in an in an organizational structure that is not familiar with UXR and yeah, educating, really just having breakout sessions, presenting impacts in the town hall, right? Really making it visible. We have created teams channels just for UXR and CRO and shared then the latest impact of our projects. So, yeah, making it more visible. I think that’s something that helps as well.
Layshi: I love that you mentioned adding this part of the presentations. Sometimes they have the data and they articulate the data in terms of the presentation, talking with the client, but not necessarily embedded in the presentation and you can see the entire research. And I think that is a super strategy in order to keep clients on our side. Another thing that you mentioned and want to share this with the audience because I learned this new, I mean it’s something that we know but sometimes we not necessarily put it on practice, we know that people learn in different ways and the way that I try to keep my stakeholders as part of my group or part f my team and my advocates and I don’t know, even my fans in terms of the work that we are doing right like my fans on accessibility, you need to communicate in different mediums, in the mediums that make sense for them. We talk a lot of their language, like we mentioned so many times that if people are really into numbers, trying to demonstrate percentage or metrics and that’s cool, but sometimes if you show in case important information for them in their medium and when I mentioned mediums, it’s like, this person really likes to see videos or this person really likes to listen podcasts. If you have the information that is important for them and you pass in the right medium, you can connect even better and more with that person and can help you that stakeholder in particular to gain a case.
Joy: Definitely. I’m 100% convinced of that. The medium and also basically, the format, right? So, maybe it must not always be a slide presentation. Sometimes it can really just be opening, having a teams chat just or channel of UXR and crow and having like three bullet points is more effective. You know, in this case, it’s really just a snackable content, basically. We actually have a team’s channel called XD snacks. Really like basically post to be very honest, we’re not that active anymore, but we started it. Basically post, you know, very interesting research, interesting results from studies that we have conducted to cater to the ones who do not have that time, you know, to read a whole report, but just who just want to stay informed and here and there just look into the channel to see what’s new. So yeah, definitely the whole media topic is super important. The whole format topic, I think it’s super important as well. Definitely.
Layshi: That’s a great advice. People listen, this is some of the tactics and tricks.
Joy: Exactly. And I, to be honest, like a lot of things you often already start doing without really thinking about it. But then when you think about, yeah, exactly what have you done in the past and you realize, oh, I actually did it. Maybe I should really push this a bit more because it’s something that resonates with the people around me.
Ad placement: And just for one moment, let’s stop the conversation. Recruit participants for your UX research studies easily with Usberry. Share a link or tap into our global, verified participant pool. Easily access consumers, professionals, and niche audiences from all around the world. Explore usberry.com or connect with us on social and share your thoughts in the comments. Your journey to data-driven decisions starts now.
Layshi: Now that we touched on some of the starting problems and how we can manage and convince them more to be on board with user research, I want to take the opportunity and learn from you Joy about why some of the examples of user research and CRO have been successfully integrated to drive measure improvement and conversion rates. I know that this is a hot topic. Everyone wants to know how we can do the numbers.
Joy: I totally get that. Something that a lot of people struggle with. I’m in user research or UX for three and a half years now. Not too long, but I have more of a background actually in business administration. So basically the whole topic of quantifying, bringing in the business metrics is, of course, also something that I’m interested in. But I also find it quite hard because another challenge is often that you have cool ideas and you execute stuff and then you tell the client, hey, this is performing better. Like, I don’t know, version A is to perform better than version B, but they do not execute it. And then you cannot really connect any data and KPIs and build up a cool case study, right? So it’s often a bit tricky because you need to rely also again on the stake on your client and on their trust in, really then implementing the changes that you that you want to build up a case study and to collect the KPIs to have the before and after. Because to understand if there’s an uplift of 10% in conversion rate, you need to track before and you need to track the after. So that’s always a bit of a challenge. And this is why, at least in our company, we have quite a cool setup. We have a lot of data analysts. So, with them, we collaborate as well if we want to launch, I don’t know, a new ATF area in a few weeks in time, we should collect the current data already. So we can build up a cool case study. But maybe just a bit more, I don’t know, practical on what we have done in the past. Maybe I have one example where also UXR and CRO was really successfully implemented. So normally with clients, we often begin with an as-is analysis and a performance data review. So we look into the heat maps, we look into Google Analytics, we look into several customer insights. And in this case, it revealed that the users were not clicking on the main conversion element in the ATF area on the homepage. Although we saw that actually this element, it was a search bar, it actually aligned with their main goals, they wanted to find something in the search, because we saw that in the navigation, they would look for it. So we were seeing this, OK, they are not clicking on this element, although it actually resonates with a goal. And they were also not scrolling then beyond the ATF area. So basically, they were just like not using the full potential of the page. And then we had, of course, hypothesis. So we suggested reasons around why they are not clicking on this element. One thing was because the design was quite busy. So basically there was they were not really getting a clear orientation towards this main goal. Also, the element itself was quite small. So maybe also the size of the element is something. So there were like some things where we said, OK, apparently that could be it. Or at least this could be maybe an hypothesis of why they’re not doing this or why they’re not converting. And also we saw no content was teased, you know, to further scroll down on this page. So maybe that was also then another hypothesis. So we had some hypothesis around it. Then we redesigned the ATF area actually. So we optimized the size of the main conversion element, we added trust signals, we teased the USP. Then we did a preference test. So here we did basically our second user research method. Let’s say it like that, because before we looked into heat maps, then we already used these insights. Then we did the second basically user research method by doing a preference test with our new redesigned ATF area where we then validated our assumptions to see, okay, does it actually, is it really the hypothesis that we had? Is it the design? Is it the size of the element? And when we did this test, we could validate that it’s working better, but we even got more valuable feedback for the new design actually. Um, because we then realized, okay, also the users dislike the imagery. So they were not feeling represented basically on this imagery. They wanted more diversity there. So that was really cool because we then adjusted also the imagery accordingly. And then we even did another test. We did an AB test. So really to refine our approach. And then basically from there, we implemented it and this led really to 84% increase in really engaging with this main element on the website. And also we had an increase in clicks on the contact CTAs on the conversion rate there as well with 5%. So, yeah, this really shows how UX and CRO really needs to be put together, right?
We need to constantly understand what does the user need, really try and test things out and use all the data that we have basically to make data-driven decisions and then implement it. And that was like really cool success story, I’d say, where we applied several user research methods before we implemented something. And yeah, it led to two good numbers, I would say.
Layshi: In previous experience, I heard a lot the phrase of, there’s no budget for user research. And I know that you know this, maybe you passed the same experience. What are some of the creative approach that we can take to adjust project scopes or allocate resources to accommodate user experience research with client budgets? Sometimes I mention, you don’t think it’s necessary? Let’s do a try and they buy the try. But I don’t know how about you, Joy? How you do it?
Joy: I mean, I think also this resonates a bit exactly with the challenge that you say that, yeah, stakeholders do not have budget. And I think also one strategy is here. We need to say, yeah, to just get innovative, basically, and present also UXR methods that are options also for low budget, just to get basically a foot into the door. And I don’t know, maybe just really try to implement very lean methods. For instance, just reach out to a colleague or a friend that fits this potential target group. So we had, for instance, one example that we just applied in the past. We had a goal where we needed to optimize the menu navigation for a bank. And in order to find optimization potential in the first place, I wanted to get, again, firsthand insights. So in this case, it was easy because it was about a bank, a sustainable bank. So we just reached out to people, actually colleagues here in the company. who have a bank account, which is very easy. Everyone has a bank account, right? And we just asked them if they have 15 minutes time and just then basically asked them three quick questions about the usability. And yeah, we got like a really great first impression of where do people click? What do they not understand in terms of terminology, in terms of usability? And it was really like low budget because every interview took us 15 minutes. We reached out to just colleagues basically here at work because in the end everyone could have been a target group and it was a super cost-effective methodology, right? And I don’t know, I mean I think maybe also you know this like statistic but from the Nielsen Norman Group they also found that speaking to only five people is enough to uncover 85% of the usability issues. Just speaking to five people can already be enough to get at least a good starting point. And then from there you can go and try to then basically show what great valuable insights you received and maybe then the client is hooked and sees insights that they wouldn’t have thought about and then they are maybe also then more willing to really invest more budget into user research. So lean methodologies I think is definitely one way to really get it put into the door.
In general, also, of course, prioritization. So we need to prioritize our research activities if there’s not budget or not enough budget for UXR. So maybe, when you know you have a product page, this product page has really the highest traffic, but users are not converting there, then just start there. Maybe just really start with one little project. So that could be one thing. And yeah, again, just collaborating, I guess, with the clients, trying to find ways to engage with them if there’s no budget. We sometimes ask also our clients, hey, can we speak to your customers? I mean, it doesn’t cost you any budget, right? If you know your customers, maybe your sales team actually has a good relationship to them. Can we speak to two or three of them? And this already helps, at least. So this is, I think, one thing and. Maybe one of the last things I think that helps as well is to just really leverage the existing resources. So, as I said, maybe looking into Google Analytics can already help as well. Using the tools that you have to look into conversion funnel, bounce rates, etc. That is also something that doesn’t cost you a lot of money, or actually no money. And I guess there are also a lot of tools, UXR and CRO tools, that allow you to test them. So maybe that is also sometimes a good solution, to just take a tool, just test it out and then show the client also what you could do with this tool and then ask them to extend on the plan and actually pay for it basically.
So, yeah, different ways of tapping into UXR and then from there slowly getting the client to understand the extra value of user research.
Layshi: So we have this particular client that says that they don’t have budget, but also we have this type of client that says I already know my u ser. I do my research and when we know that research could be biased and we when we see that research and we see a lot of information or we see that they don’t have the correct parts or they don’t do it properly. How can we address this diplomatically and advocate for more comprehensive approach to do research?
Joy: Yeah also very good question actually. I think comprehensive approach is already a good keyword, to be very honest, I would say exactly like this. Comprehensive approach. But just really frankly speaking from my past experience, I would just always be very honest with the client, really explaining the limitations that you see in this study by also maybe using supporting theory, scientific frameworks, limitations or having just different biases is a very common thing in research and there hardly also exists like studies that do not have any limitation, right? So I think it’s totally fine if you’re honest with the client, explain why you have the concerns. But also on the other hand, it’s also always the way of how you do it. And I think if you can also acknowledge that they actually spend effort and time and budget. Yeah, they invested all of that in really understanding the users, showing that you also maybe understand why they might have chosen this research in the first place. Just basically seeing eye to eye with them. I think this is always a good foundation, right? And then you can really frame it as a partnership, basically, that you aim at really enhancing the existing efforts that they already have. Then instead of saying, yeah, you dismiss their work, entirely. So more to foster really a constructive dialogue, encourage and openness to new perspectives and really exactly as you said, just phrase it as a more comprehensive approach. You build up on the insights by maybe validating them, and then you can at least also in the end maybe say we were not able to validate your data, but we build up on that and we used your previous work, it was not something that you’ve done and that’s now being thrown away, I guess. So I think this could be like a good way to approach it.
Layshi: I love your approach of using as a foundation, but also be with the clients, it’s grabbing their hand and go together.
Joy: It’s what collaboration and also good client relationship in the end is all about I would say yes.
Layshi: I know that I’m getting harder with the questions, but I promise that I really want to be your friend. So, what happens about transparency? I know that we talk a bit about if this client doesn’t have the correct approach, we can hold their hand and work together. But what happens when sometimes we know that this is not working as the way we want to? How we maintain transparency with clients and keep it informed?
Joy: I think transparency, again, it comes with me with also honest communication and open communication. So I think this is really important also to because if we say building up trust is one of the main yeah, main ways of getting to a stakeholder and also convincing them, for instance, user research is important. I think in this case, you need transparency and honest communication if something is not working well. But in general, I would say communication should happen on a frequent basis, I guess it would be more the usual initiatives, having a road map where you can really follow the plan, take the client by the hand exactly as you said, maybe map out the different user research methods that you would apply, explain why you would apply which method for which work stream. Because there is a big pool of different tools that we can use. So in this case, being transparent about what works in which way. And then of course, if we see, a specific user research did not provide the answers that we wanted, maybe we need to do another round, then that’s also something I think you can openly communicate and discuss, hey, we have these insights gained so far, but we realize we only got these insights from one specific target group. And we know there might be another target segment that could be important. Shouldn’t we try to launch another study for the segment? Also from a client perspective, it will always depends a bit on the UXR maturity, let’s say it like that. But I don’t want a consultant to just, sorry for the word, but bullshit with me, right? I want honest communication and I want someone who is an expert and an expert can also say, hey, this is the research that we did. The outcome that we have is not that satisfactory. Maybe we should actually add on that at a later point in time, or maybe they can then do it if they don’t want to pay for it now. Just like saying there’s potential for optimization in this research area. So I would say very transparent basically on the limitations or on the gaps that you might see along the process. And then just having really regular check-ins, updates, reports, I guess, I think this is something that we all know. I think also another really cool way is always to have interactive workshops and boards. That’s always a cool method, or also cool tools to collaborate. I mean, to be very honest, in our company, we have worked with PowerPoint a lot in the past. So actually, Miro, Figma, all the collaborative tools were only introduced some years ago. And these are really becoming the main tool to collaborate with the client. And we see the joy that they have when using them, because exactly that’s also, again, a way of transparency. You can really follow the process of analysis. And in the PowerPoint, often you don’t, you might not see that whole thought process. You can see the results. You see the deliverable. But this is so nice that, yeah, if you have more of those collaborative tools, you can understand what was the process to actually come to this final deliverable. So I think this is also really great format.
Layshi: Talking about tools, I have a tip that I learned, I will not say it in a hard way, now I think it’s beautiful, in that moment, it was not. I’m part of the LGTB community and when I try to go out of the closet as we use the phrase, I remember that I say to myself, I will say this to my mom when she do the question because I will know that she’s prepared for the good or the bad, right? So she’s prepared for something if she’s asking the question. And it works almost there, almost well, but she was prepared for something for some type of answer. And I use that for my clients too. I do a sort of dynamic that every time that I need to do a communication with the client or a meeting, I always put the good and the bad news. So I always prepare to the client for something bad. And sometimes it’s kind of be funny that bad thing is like, I finished my coffee and I don’t have energy. But they know that we have a moment for talk about hard things or bad things or difficult things. So when I need to communicate something that is actually bad, they are prepared already, that’s the moment to have the strong conversations. And it really helped me. I mean, again, I just put in my studies out there, take it if you like it and take it if it actually works for you. For me, in the past couple of years, has been working in order to put a moment and a clear channel to address situations.
Joy: I love this. This is such a great tool. I didn’t hear about this before, so I will definitely take this with me. You can do part of that.
Layshi: That’s cool. I love when we have the opportunity to share knowledge, and I think this is the best way to learn, learn from people. You can learn from a book, that’s cool. You can learn from a class, that’s awesome. But when you have this kind of conversation that you are learning from other people’s lives, it’s amazing. It’s super cool. And talking about that, talking about your life, sometimes I am in LinkedIn and check my guest speakers. Sorry, I’m a stalker online. And I know that you do a lecture, you were a guest lecturer on applying user experience research. Sorry that I cannot pronounce the name of the college. I’m trying myself really, but it’s a little bit tricky in terms of the language. Congratulations on that by the way! I’m curious to know how meaningful it’s for you to share your knowledge with future generations of researchers and if you have any recommendation for people in the audience that listen to you and really want to enter to the industry.
Joy: Yeah first of all thank you for that! Actually, it was really my first time that I presented at a college.
Layshi: What is the name of the college?
Joy: Technische Hochschule Nuremberg.
Layshi: I will try but it never will go in that specific talk.
Joy: This is the technical college of the city or technical University of the city. I say it like that. In general, I like sharing knowledge, it is incredibly meaningful to me. I mean, as a young professional, I always sought out learning opportunities and I still continue to do so today. My recommendation also for future talents is to stay curious, to attend interesting events, do not shy away from that because you might not know the people. I know that I did that when I was in college and today it’s easier for me, but still not that easy to, you know, just attend events where you not know any person and really also never hesitate to ask questions. Also something I’m still struggling with, but there are no dumb questions and if you ask questions, that’s like really how you learn. Otherwise, you won’t, right? And as I already said a bit earlier, I have more of this background in business administration and then my path brought me into UX design. That happened also because of some unforeseen opportunities. And yeah, I’m so happy I just took the chance and was not afraid to do it. I think in this case also what really helped me was the importance of mentorship and actually great, great colleagues. I love my colleagues at work. And yeah, really seek mentorships, people that love to share knowledge as well, because they can provide you with great guidance and powerful, right? They can have a powerful impact in your career. And also this might be the turning point where at some point you are willing to mentor others in your career as well. So yeah, having really strong, supportive professional community is something that’s super valuable.
Layshi: I cannot say how much has changed my career and my professional career having a mentor and I’ve been obsessed with mentors that I tried to have a mentor in different areas of my life. I have mentors for UX design, I have mentors specifically for graphics, I have mentors specifically for business. In Spanish we have a phrase that says, no aprendes por cabeza ajena, you don’t learn from another person’s head because you need to live that experience yourself in order to learn. But it will help you, it will guide you, it will grab you by your hand. So yeah, mentors are really important in order to grow. I always recommend that definitely. So we are getting to the end of the episode but before we go I want to thank you for sharing your knowledge. It has been an amazing interview, super funny, super practical. I really enjoyed my time with you, Joy. Thank you so much for being part of If U Seek.
Joy: Yeah, of course, same for me. I really loved the questions, very interesting questions. I also felt we had a really great vibe here, although we are talking remotely. I appreciate that you invite me.
Layshi: It will be to the next episode of If U Seek. Thank you for joining us on If U Seek. For more exciting content, follow us on our social channels. Your review means the world to us. So don’t forget to leave one and of course, hit that subscribe button on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts or Spotify to stay updated on our latest episodes. If U Seek is a platform for discussions and personal insights. The opinions presented by guests are independent and do not represent the official position of the host, Useberry or sponsors.
See you on the next episode of If U Seek.
