Remote UX Research in Unpredictable Times: Takeaways from Early Pandemic Practices

The recent global pandemic had shocking impacts on societies and economies worldwide by bringing complexity, ambiguity, and uncertainty for extended periods. UX researchers, faced with numerous challenges, were compelled to adapt to emergent conditions through remote research methods. Investigating how some members of the UX research community adapted to the emergency offers valuable insights into how they responded to uncertainty and showed resilience. Therefore, we studied the early practices of UX managers and researchers in Turkey during the first 6 months of the global pandemic under lockdown conditions. Our goal was to understand how UX research and design teams responded to uncertainty by customizing their methods. We focused on seven firms as different cases to conduct semi-structured interviews with seven managers and 13 UX researchers. The results demonstrate that the adaptable nature of UX research allowed them to quickly respond to these emerging conditions. In the early period of the pandemic, our study participants- UX managers, designers, and researchers-experienced the advantages and challenges of remote UX research necessitated by the lockdown. These included issues related to participant recruitment, work performance, readiness, and methodological concerns. Based on our findings, we make recommendations for UX researchers to conduct moderated and unmoderated remote research while maintaining inclusiveness and rigor.