future of work

Defining Hybrid User Research: Practices for Distributed and Remote-First Environments

Defining Hybrid User Research: Practices for Distributed and Remote-First Environments; Spotify, EPIC2022 Platinum Sponsor Panel
An EPIC2022 Sponsored Panel by Spotify Moderators: AUDREY TSE (Spotify), KARELL MCDONALD (Spotify) Panelists: KARIM HAMDOUN (Spotify), DOMINIKA MAZUR (Spotify), ALEXANDRA MCCARTER (Spotify), SAM WAY (Spotify) Over the past 2.5 years, researchers have had to become more resilient and adaptable in how they conduct research. Now that things are bouncing back, we’re at a crossroads in deciding what the future of user research looks like. In this panel, leading members of Spotify’s product insights community will discuss different perspectives on how researchers have adapted from face-to-face research to remote settings, and the adaptations we intend to keep in a hybrid practice. We will contemplate how this hybrid practice can morph depending on various topics, such as community making and the audio space. We’ll include some interactive components to encourage dialogue, and it will be a discussion you don’t want to miss! Moderators Audrey Tse is a User Researcher at Spotify working on creating a better Messaging...

Beyond Zoom Fatigue: Ritual and Resilience in Remote Meetings

John Sherry speaking on stage at EPIC2022. Projected slide says "How is remote work affecting resilience?"
SUZANNE L. THOMAS1 Intel Corporation JOHN W. SHERRY Intel Corporation REBECCA CHIERICHETTI Intel Corporation SINEM ASLAN Intel Corporation LUMINIŢA-ANDA MANDACHE University of Salzburg, Austria COVID-19 has precipitated a massive social experiment – the sudden shift of millions of knowledge workers from their traditional offices to homes or other remote work locations. This has inspired heated debates and new ways of imagining the future of work. This paper hopes to contribute to a better understanding of these changes by reporting on the results of several dozen in-depth interviews with remote workers from a variety of geographies, industries and professions. We focus in particular on their experiences of remote meetings, with special attention to complaints workers have with their current implementation. As we learned, workers’ complaints tended to be driven by social – rather than productivity or technical – concerns. We explore this social dimension in depth, propose a framework for thinking about meetings...