Penelope Rance

UX Researcher

The UX Life Chose Me newsletter

I have been searching for a newsletter about UX Research and Research Ops for ages, and while there are plenty of UX Design newsletters, a research focused newsletter was impossible to find. So I decided to create it myself!

If you are interested in UX Research or Ops, sign up for this monthly newsletter which collates the most interesting articles, videos and podcasts from across the web in an easy to access format.

It is for anyone, whether you are just starting out as a researcher, do research as part of your design job, have years of research experience or are just plain interested.

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This Months Issue

Issue 42 | April 2024: Bad Research Doesn't Stink; The Research "Impact" Problem; Knowledge Management Is More Important Than Your Repository and more.

Sign up to The UX Life Chose Me Newsletter and get the most interesting UX Research articles, videos and podcasts from across the web straight into your mailbox once a month.

Newsletter Archive

Issue 41 | March 2024: What Makes Users Adopt A New Feature Or Tool?; 16 Best UX Research Tools in 2024; The 9 Principles of Better Stories and more.

Issue 40 | February 2024: User Research Retrospectives: Your Key to Running Sommther Studies; Kate Towsey on Starting a Research Ops Practice; A 3-step Guide for a Better Partnership with UXR Stakeholders and more.

Issue 39 | January 2024: Beyond the Buzzwords: Alternatives to Research, Data and Insights; Quicker UX Research Synthesis; Top Tips to Level Up Your Qualitative Research Interviews and more.

Issue 38 | December 2023: Testing ChatGTP-4 for 'UX Audits'; The Point of UX Reserch is Action, Not Answers: The 2023 UX Research Software Report and more.

Issue 37 | November 2023: Happy 3rd birthday to the newsletter; Re-evaluating Usability: Delivering Value Via Research Practice: A Better Way To Do Competitive Analysis and more.

Issue 36 | October 2023: Finding your hidden UX research impact; Avoid crappy and misleading desk research: Is UX research a vanity metric? and more.

Issue 35 | September 2023: The state of user research 2023; Stop asking researchers to defend their sample size: Evidence-based interviewing deep dive and more.

Issue 34 | August 2023: Calculating the value of user research; AI-Powered tools for UX Research: Issues and limitations; What does 'rigorous' research really mean? and more.

Issue 33 | July 2023: A Farewell to UX Research; The reseach report is NOT the deliverable; An ancient technique that makes UX research findings stick and more.

Issue 32 | June 2023: Strategic UX Research is the next big thing; The situational framework for research democratization; Resources for a more inclusive UX research practice and more.

Issue 31 | May 2023: Speaking to Penny Rance, Senior User Reseacher at Post Office; I tried out SyntheticUsers so you don't have to; 9 Bogus reasons why some designers claim UX research is a waste; ReOps learnings at the UK Deaprtment of Education and more.

Issue 30 | April 2023: Speaking to Anja Maerz, Head of User Reseach at StudySmarter; The 2023 Self-Care Playbook for UX Researchers; Here's the Deal with Democratization; UX Glossary and more.

Issue 29 | March 2023: Speaking to Natasha Kapur, UX Researcher at BT; 32 User Experience Research Statistics to Win Over Stakeholders; Does Thinking Aloud Affect Task Metrics; Empathy Card Sorting and more.

Issue 28 | February 2023: Speaking to Paul Boag, Independent Consultant at Boag World; Can ChatGPT write a proper usability test script?; Embracing subjectivity: Using Autoethnography in UX research; The state of UX research and more.

Issue 27 | January 2023: Speaking to Franny Gant, UX Researcher at UK Home Office; How to start setting priorities; Do we need rigor in UX research?: From finding to doing and more.

Issue 26 | December 2022: Speaking to Paul Blunden, Founder and CEO of UX24/7; New tool Research Benchmark; Escape Velocity: Finding our path in the next decade and more.

Issue 25 | November 2022: Looking back over 2 years of sending the newsletter; 50 ways to carry out more inclusive research; What are research insights? What makes them different from findings and more.

Issue 24 | October 2022: Speaking to Harriet Swan, UX Research Manager at Conversion; The future of UX Research; Don't ask your users your burning questions and more.

Issue 23 | September 2022: Speaking to Kameshini Pillay, UX Researcher at Equity Bank; Writing better hypothesis; Dealing with burnout as a user researcher and more.

Issue 22 | August 2022: Speaking to Vaishali Meswani, Research Insights Manager at Post Office; How do we shift from 'user research' to 'systems research'; You might be using the wrong wording when talking about user findings and more.

Issue 21 | July 2022: Speaking to Fiona Baker, freelance UX Researcher and Consultant; How to test for accessibility with users at every design stage; How to triangulate data from multiple sources in user research and more.

Issue 20 | June 2022: Speaking to Dr Ari Zelmanow, Vice President of Research, Insights and Analytics at GtmHub; Surfing the waves of UX research; Five traits of great user researchers and more.

Issue 19 | May 2022: Speaking to Andrea Lewis, Global Director, User Experience Research at adidas; Getting started with ReOps; Why UX researchers should revist academic resources and more.

Issue 18 | April 2022: Speaking to Danielle Macdonald, Research Director at Wise; The State of User Research 2022 Report; The Stages of Growing a UX Research Team and more.

Issue 17 | March 2022: Speaking to Catherine Richards, Head of Customer Design at Tesco Bank; Addressing Concerns Around Research Repositories; Researching the Research and more.

Issue 16 | February 2022: A new twitter account to follow; Researching Products That Don't Exist Yet; Ethical Considerations in Research and more.

Issue 15 | January 2022: Speaking to Rik Williams, UX Architect at Moorfields Eye Hospital; The Power of a Research Strategy; Jared Spool on Democratizing Research and more.

Issue 14 | December 2021: Speaking to Kate Towsey, Research Operations Manager at Atlassian; Building a ReOps Team; The 3 levels of UX Research impact and more.

Issue 13 | November 2021: Speaking to Katie Valentine, Lead UX Researcher at Marshmallow; Winning awards; Creating strategic impact with multidisciplinary research and more.

Issue 12 | October 2021: Celebrating a whole year of the newsletter; Changing your mind about research practices; The building blocks of research repositories and more.

Issue 11 | September 2021: Speaking to Fiona Warner, User Researcher at Hargreaves Lansdown; How to create actionable insights when you don’t have access to your users; The ROI of UX research and more.

Issue 10 | August 2021: Speaking to Helen O'Doherty, UX/UI Manager WiggleCRC; What we can learn from the Greek myth of Cassandar; Where to go next in your career from UX Research Manager and more.

Issue 9 | July 2021: Speaking to Chris Bailey, Senior Accessibility Manager and President of UXPA UK; Pratical tips and guidelines for doing research with older people; 16 of the best user research podcasts to listen to and more.

Issue 8 | June 2021: Speaking to Lija Hogan, Customer Experience Consultant, UserTesting and Intermittent Lecturer at the University of Michigan; Not everything is a research problem; Why UX research needs archivists and more.

Issue 7 | May 2021: Levelling up and self care as a researcher; How to get stakeholder buy in and what to do with it once you have it and more.

Issue 6 | April 2021: Speaking to Gen Chow, UX Researcher at Facebook Reality Labs; The State of UX Research in 2021; How to improve your presentation slides and more.

Issue 5 | March 2021: Speaking to Anne Stevens, Director of UX Research at Culture Trip; Planning and running accessible research; How to improve your discussion guides and more.

Issue 4 | February 2021: Speaking to Laura Yarrow, Head of Deisgn at HM Land Registry; How to scale research; The dangers of becoming too data driven and more.

Issue 3 | January 2021: Speaking to Sophie Mitchell, LTUX London founder; How to write better research notes; Getting people to care about your research and more.

Issue 2 | December 2020: Speaking to James Parker from Post Office; What to do with all that data; Asking better questions and more.

Issue 1 | November 2020: Getting started with UX Research; The UX of User Research Surveys; When Strangers Meet by Kio Stark and more.

Contact Me

If you have any questions about my work please feel free to contact me.

Email me on peneloperance@gmail.com or find me on Twitter or Linkedin.


Sign up to The UX Life Chose Me Newsletter and get the most interesting UX Research articles, videos and podcasts from across the web straight into your mailbox once a month.


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