Why technologies that are conceived as a solution to user problems end up not finding their customers? Why might users resist or refuse new products and services that were supposed to make their lives easier? Why, in reality, products can be used differently than the developers planned? These are the questions every product team faces.
UX researchers and sociologists studying user behavior within the Science & Technology Studies (STS) and User Studies approaches provide different answers to these important questions for the industry. That’s why, the the European University at St. Petersburg, in cooperation with t E-Center (Yerevan), is launching a discussion about technology users between product teams and social researchers.
The discussion will be built around three main themes.
User cultures. Potential users tend to live within their established cultures: professional, gender, generational. We will talk about how these cultures affect people's wishes and ability to use new products and technologies.
Inscrutable ways of users. Very often people not only follow the path invented for them, but also supplement, change it, sometimes beyond recognition. We will find out how and why this happens, and discuss what product teams should do in this case.
The product experience of the developers themselves. How does the team run through, understand and test their own products and services? How does user research fit into the product development process? What difficulties arise along the way? We will touch on the development of a culture of research within product teams.
In the round table format, practicing UX researchers and sociologists that study users will discuss specific cases from the practice of developing new products and technologies. We invite you to join the discussion offline and online.
The event is aimed at CX/UX professionals, product managers, designers, developers, and anyone interested in learning about technology users.
To participate, please register.
Moderator: Andrey Kuznetsov, Ph.D., researcher, STS Center, European University at Saint Petersburg
Speakers:
- Anna Chernysh, Ph.D., Head of UX Research Group, VK Advertising Technology Team
- Liliya Zemnukhova, Ph.D., researcher, STS Center, European University at Saint Petersburg; Scholar-in-Residence, Deutsches Museum (Munich)
- Natalia Sprogis, Director of User Research at SberMarket
- Nikolay Rudenko, Ph.D., researcher, STS Center, European University at Saint Petersburg, research fellow at E-Center (Yerevan)
The online event will be held on the Zoom platform.
The offline event will be held on December 19, at 18.00 (GMT+3) at the address: Yerevan, st. Charents, 31/4.