Course Description
While there are many skills that contribute to being a successful UX researcher, one of the most foundational is being a superb listener. Strong UX design relies on listening at many stages of the process: focus groups, client sessions, and 1:1 user interviews to name just three environments where these skills contribute to excellent deliverables.
Using UX researcher Ximena Vengoachea’s book Listen Like You Mean It as the core text, students in this class will learn techniques to actively engage with users, particularly in the 1:1 environment, by listening to their needs in order to glean meaningful data which then inform UX decisions. To do so, this class will spend the quarter hearing from UX practitioners about their listening habits, engaging in listening exercises, and in groups producing an original listening methodology proposal, all to refine essential listening skills required to conduct superior user research and to create user-centered deliverables.
University of Washington
Department of Communication