Awkward Silences

Latest Episodes:

#182 - The Future of Research (In a Moment of Change) Feb 03, 2026

Show notes

Ben sits down with Basel Fakhoury, CEO and Co-founder of User Interviews, and Baran Erkel, Chief Strategy Officer at UserTesting, for a conversation about the research industry's evolution. With AI reshaping customer behaviors and business decisions, both executives emphasize how the need for customer insights has never been greater, even as budget pressures mount across organizations.

Basek and Baran share frameworks for executive decision making, explore how AI tools are moving beyond simply replacing human moderators toward creating entirely new research methodologies, and stress that as AI transforms products and experiences over the next few years, customer insights will be fundamental to shaping organizational cultures that keep customers at the center.

Highlights

05:15 How research influences corporate strategy
12:25 Building effective decision making cultures
19:07 Data formats that drive executive decisions
26:28 AI everywhere in research tooling landscape
29:30 Consolidating insights across teams and tools
36:45 Customer centric approach during acquisition integration

Resources

#181 - Why We Need Design Now More Than Ever with Karl Randay of 383 Jan 20, 2026

Show notes

Ben Wiedmaier sits with Karl Randay, Experience Director at 383, to explore how designers can stay relevant in an increasingly automated world. Karl shares insights from working with major brands like Hilton and Jaguar on digital innovation projects that blend strategy, research, and rapid prototyping.

They also talk about the "beige-ification" of design, where templated systems and AI tools risk creating homogeneous experiences across brands. Karl explains how his team uses AI as a research copilot while maintaining human craft and creativity. He also breaks down the skills modern designers need beyond visual craft, including business acumen, stakeholder communication, and the ability to translate design impact into executive language.

Highlights

06:26 Design challenges across multiple touchpoints
19:04 Simple questions unlock stakeholder priorities
25:31 Multi-skilled designers beyond specialization
32:23 Career growth through T-shaped skill development
36:53 The beige-ification of modern design
42:44 AI as creative exploration partner

Resources

#180 - What to Fix in '26 with Maria Rosala of NN/g & John Whalen of Brilliant Experience Jan 06, 2026

Show notes

Ben is joined by Maria Rosala from Nielsen Norman Group and John Whalen from Brilliant Experience to wrap up 2025 and make some predictions for 2026. Maria and John share practical insights on everything from AI moderation tools to synthetic users, offering a balanced view of where these technologies excel and where human researchers remain irreplaceable.

Maria and John also dig into the democratization of research across product teams, the importance of governance and strategy when implementing AI tools, and how researchers can position themselves as orchestrators of both human and artificial intelligence.

Highlights

08:22 AI tools creating pressure for faster delivery
17:18 Governance and oversight for AI implementation
24:55 Composite and synthetic users explained
41:56 Hiring advice for new researchers
44:27 Demonstrating AI proficiency in job applications
49:25 Research industry predictions for 2026

Resources

#179 - The Future of Research Operations with Kate Towsey LIVE Dec 22, 2025

Show notes

Erin May sits down with Kate Towsey, founder of Cha Cha Club and author of Research That Scales, for Research Ops Appreciation Week. Kate shares insights from producing an audio documentary series on the future of research ops, including her fascinating experience co-creating content with AI. She reveals how research ops teams are increasingly surviving layoffs while research teams are cut, explaining that ops professionals focus on unblocking systems and delivering measurable business value rather than gatekeeping processes.

Kate emphasizes the critical shift happening in research ops from administrative firefighting to strategic systems design. She discusses the importance of discovery over knee-jerk solutions when building research ops from scratch, advocating for focused problem-solving rather than generic panel and library building. The conversation covers the newly released research ops career ladder, the growing need for strategy skills in the field, and how to effectively communicate value to executives by aligning with existing business priorities and measuring concrete outcomes.

Highlights

03:54 Bringing past skills to research ops
17:45 AI context and memory limitations
26:37 Future vision for strategic research positioning
36:28 Quality governance in AI era
44:21 Strategy skills gap in research teams
50:27 Translating research value to executives

Resources

#178 - How to Measure What Matters with Lyndsi Lee of Turnitin Dec 09, 2025

Show notes

Ben talks with Lyndsi Lee, UX Manager at Turnitin, about moving beyond traditional metrics like NPS and CSAT to measure user experiences more effectively.

The conversation centers on outcome-based assessment, a framework that breaks user experiences into atomic outcomes. Rather than asking broad satisfaction questions, this approach focuses on specific user goals like "users can complete repetitive tasks without friction." Lyndsi explains how teams can identify these outcomes through existing research and customer feedback, then prioritize them using methods like card sorting with actual users.

The framework helps product teams move away from vague directives and toward specific, measurable improvements that directly impact user success. This episode offers practical guidance for researchers and product teams struggling to demonstrate impact beyond traditional satisfaction scores.

Amazon Prime article

Highlights

13:49 Complicated Opinion on NPS and CSAT
18:51 Outcome Based Assessment Framework
27:36 Getting Strategic with Stakeholder Buy-in
32:00 Traffic Light System for Stakeholders
38:57 Revisiting Outcome Statements Timeline
41:40 AI's Role in Quantitative Research

About Lyndsi
Lyndsi is a Senior Manager of UX Research at Turnitin, where she leads efforts to make the student and educator experience more meaningful, measurable, and user-centered. She started her career in public education as a school counselor and School Psychological Examiner, working alongside educators to support students’ learning needs. Eventually, she found her way into UX research, where she combined her love of psychology, education, and technology. Lyndsi is passionate about helping teams stay focused on what truly matters to users, and firmly believes that good research is part art, part science, and part really well-organized sticky notes.

Resources

#177 - From Informing to Influencing with Shalin Pei & Natalie Golub of Coinbase Nov 25, 2025

Show notes

Ben is joined by Shalin Pei, Head of Design and Research and Natalie Golub, Head of UXR , both from Coinbase's Base product. Base is part of the crypto space, functioning as a network that offers secure and low cost ways to build decentralized apps, essentially helping create what they call the new internet.

The conversation reveals how their small but mighty teams operate in one of the fastest moving industries. Shalin and Natalie share how they've weaved internal stakeholders with customers, played with their structure to maximize visibility and effectiveness, and enabled partners to get more involved. It's a practical conversation on the value of experimentation, cooperation, and building influence.

Highlights

14:00 Overcoming Impostor Syndrome in New Industries
25:37 Embedded Research in Live Design Sprints
32:33 The Power of Cross-Functional Collaboration
36:21 Documentation Challenges in Fast-Moving Industries
40:39 Partner-Led Research Methodology
43:33 Future of AI in Design and Research

Resources

#176 - Building a Research Program from the Ground Up ft. Microsoft Azure Data Nov 11, 2025

Show notes

Erin is joined by Samira Jain, Serena Hillman, and Jackie Ianni from Microsoft Azure Data to discuss how they built the Swift Research Lab over the past two years. The team shares their systematic five-step approach for creating research programs that result in stakeholder satisfaction while delivering insights every 1.5 weeks.

The Azure Data team also break down their method for fostering relationships, building infrastructure and templates, measuring success, and continuously iterating. The discussion reveals how clear branding, stakeholder collaboration, and systematic infrastructure helped them action on high priority research requests while spotting cross cutting insights across Microsoft's product ecosystem.

About Our Guests
Dr. Serena Hillman is a Principal UX Research Manager in Azure Data at Microsoft. Her work focuses on Human-Data and Human-AI-Data Interaction, leading a team that explores how people engage with data and intelligent systems. She has studied user behavior across domains like video games, e-commerce, edTech, and enterprise cloud tools, and has published 40+ peer-reviewed papers presented at leading conferences and organizations including CHI, CSCW, Grace Hopper, Yahoo!, and Google.

Samira Jainis a Senior UX Researcher on the Azure Data UX Team, where she has been for over five years. She leads SWIFT, a cross-team research program, which encompasses several key initiatives. With a foundation in product design, she brings dual fluency to her research practice—understanding why things matter from a user perspective and how they can be shaped from a design perspective. With extensive experience in both non-profit and enterprise research, Samira is dedicated to enhancing experiences for data professionals.

Jackie Ianni is a UX Researcher on the Azure Data team at Microsoft, specializing in rapid evaluative and programmatic research. Before joining Microsoft, she worked as a researcher at both an agency and in-house, conducting global financial services research. Jackie is passionate about advancing UX research practice, exploring AI tools, and sparking conversations about the evolving role of research.

Highlights

05:47 Five Step Program Development Method
09:02 Building Stakeholder Relationships
15:39 Continuously Improving Research Programs
18:37 Cross Product Insights and Breaking Silos
23:24 Collaborative Team Success Formula
33:58 AI Tools in Heuristic Reviews

Resources

#175 - The Scourge of Wasted Research with Jake Burghardt of Integrating Research Oct 28, 2025

Show notes

Ben sits down with Jake Burghardt from Integrating Research to discuss his new book Stop Wasting Research and how organizations can maximize the product impact of their customer insights. Jake breaks down the critical problem of research waste, where valuable insights from studies get left behind instead of informing future decisions and planning cycles.

Jake introduces his framework of three root causes driving research waste: preparation, motivation, and integration. He emphasizes practical solutions like creating insight summaries with stakeholders, building cross-silo research communities, and establishing recurring touchpoints beyond traditional study deliverables. The conversation covers actionable strategies for researchers at all levels, from individual contributors looking to extend their impact to research leaders building organizational initiatives that elevate research as a collective stakeholder voice.

Highlights

08:15 Defining research waste and value
14:48 Identifying research waste in organizations
21:36 Breaking down research silos
30:21 Creating insight summary statements
37:38 Integration and recurring stakeholder touchpoints
42:52 Building research initiatives not individual efforts

Resources

# 174 - Qualitative Research's Enduring Impact with Nancy Baum of C+R Research LIVE Oct 23, 2025

Show notes

The popularity of AI moderation tools, increased attention on "big" data sets (and streams), and the ongoing uncertainty in the research job market have (understandably) led some to wonder about the future of qualitative research. Our guest today, however, is bullish, and explains why.

Nancy Baum leads the qualitative research practice at C+R Research. She has nearly 20 years' experience in the field, exposing her to many ebbs and flows. Nancy believes that qualitative practitioners are vital to sifting through the mounds of data, information, and competing interests flooding many companies' attention. Focusing on and uncovering the "Why?" and "How?" still matters today.

Listen to learn ways to advocate for qual research, what Nancy thinks of AI-moderation, and how she's developing new researchers.

Highlights

09:19 How stakeholders misunderstand qualitative research
22:46 AI moderation complements quantitative surveys
32:32 Customizing deliverables for stakeholder impact
41:09 Flexibility navigates unpredictable human conversations
47:49 Deep listening trumps active listening
50:26 Early stakeholder conversations secure research value

Resources

Research Ops 2.0, Episode 5: The People of ResearchOps Oct 14, 2025

Show notes

In just ten years, ResearchOps has transformed from an obscure Silicon Valley speciality into a vibrant global profession. Despite economic headwinds, ResearchOps roles are emerging across industries far beyond tech, and the field is evolving at breathtaking speed. But where have we come from, and where are we going?

In this five-part audio documentary, we’re exploring the past, present, and future of ResearchOps—and it’s exciting, fascinating, and, at times, pretty mindblowing stuff! Each episode features the voices of Cha Cha Club members, senior research leaders, and the smart minds behind User Interviews.

In this fifth and final—”awwww”, we hear you say—episode of ResearchOps 2.0, we’re turning the spotlight on the people of ResearchOps: the curious minds, problem-solvers, and system-builders who’ve made this profession what it is today. We’ll explore who they are, where they’ve come from, and what drives them to transform how organisations learn from their users.

If you’re a ResearchOps professional, this episode will make you feel seen and heard. If you’re a leader looking to hire a ResearchOps role, this episode will help you think differently about who might hire. And if you’re looking to transition into a ResearchOps career, this episode will give you a great sense of the skills you need and the incredible profession you’ll become a part of.

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