Rosenverse

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

Why I Left Research

Gold
Monday, March 27, 2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Share the love for this talk
Why I Left Research
Speakers: Lisanne Norman
Link:

Summary

After 7 years of working in UX Research Leadership roles, Lisanne left the field behind to return to education. In this talk, she will discuss the significant challenges she faced as a Black woman in UX leadership that ultimately culminated in a leave of absence and then subsequent decamping from the field. The retention rate for WOC researchers is low in the field, and there is an inherent need to understand what are some of the root causes and what can be the potential solutions to retain and potentially re-engage more WOC researchers whose perspectives, experiences, and expertise are needed in this field.

Key Insights

  • Early mentorship and a supportive diverse team were critical to Dr. Norman's initial success in UX research.

  • Large tech companies often have majority white, male teams with little diversity recruitment or clear career paths for researchers of color.

  • Microaggressions and assumptions about leadership roles can undermine the authority of Black women in UX research.

  • Pay inequity persists even when Black women researchers deliver more work and leadership than their white counterparts.

  • Startups may posturing about diversity but often replicate exclusionary cultures with favoritism and poor management.

  • UX researchers of color frequently take on extra DEI and recruiting responsibilities beyond their official roles.

  • Being authentic in the workplace is exhausting when constantly navigating where vulnerability is safe.

  • There is a critical lack of data and conversation about the demographic makeup of UX research teams.

  • Effective change requires systemic action: consistent bias training, managerial support, diverse recruiting platforms, and accountability tied to reviews and bonuses.

  • Embedding DEI into education, onboarding, and continuous team evaluation prepares organizations to be genuinely inclusive.

Notable Quotes

"The best job I ever had was with those two female VPs who believed in me and gave me a chance."

"At Dell, 90% of my design team was white and overwhelmingly male—a sharp contrast from my earlier team."

"I literally would have to jump up in meetings to introduce myself as the director just to be recognized."

"I learned about gross pay equity between me and my white counterpart despite doing more work."

"Startups promised limitless growth but often had cultures of microaggressions, isolation, and favoritism."

"I found myself doing recruiting and DEI work on top of my UX research job—work that wasn’t mine to do."

"You constantly perform calculus every day figuring out where you can be your authentic self."

"We need more co-conspirators who actively use their privilege to interrupt microaggressions and bias."

"There isn’t a pipeline problem; there are people out there—you have to invest in networking and recruiting properly."

"Diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging goals need to tie into annual reviews and bonuses—it's everybody’s work."

Ask the Rosenbot
Tanya Snook
Designing the team experience: Building culture through onboarding
2021 • Enterprise Community
Miles Orkin
Creativity and Culture
2018 • DesignOps Summit 2018
Gold
Cara Maritz
The Art of Extrapolation
2023 • Advancing Research 2023
Gold
Ana Ferreira
Designing Distributed: Leading Doist’s Fully Remote Design Team in Six Countries
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Tala Tayebi
Voice and influence in an age of noise
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Sara Conklin
Exit Interview: 20 Years of Tech, One Very Big Bet, and a Lot of Heat Pumps
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Catherine Courage
The Enterprise UX Journey: Lessons From the Voyage & The Opportunity Ahead
2015 • Enterprise UX 2015
Gold
Saara Kamppari-Miller
Key Metrics: Comparing Three Letter Acronym Metrics That Include the Word “Key”
2024 • DesignOps Community
Kristin Skinner
Opening Keynote: Org Design for Design Orgs
2017 • DesignOps Summit 2017
Gold
Llewyn Paine
Coexisting with AI: A practical guide for researchers to navigate tools, ethics, and integration
2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Gold
Sheryl Cababa
Integrating Systems Thinking Into Your Practice as a Designer
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Sam Proulx
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Screen Readers
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Ali Jeffery
How DesignOps Helped Enable Wall Street to Work Remotely
2020 • DesignOps Summit 2020
Gold
Feleesha Sterling
Building a Rapid Research Program
2023 • Enterprise Community
Joel Branch
Humanizing AI: Filling the Gaps with Multi-faceted Research
2021 • Advancing Research 2021
Gold
Erin Malone
Understanding the past to prepare for the future
2024 • Rosenfeld Community

More Videos

Taylor Jennings

"Seeing product managers and designers’ aha moments when they realize how impactful the tool is was great."

Taylor Jennings Joe Nelson Alex Knoll

Repository Retrospective: Learnings from Introducing a Central Place for UX Research

March 9, 2022

Nicole Aleong

"Expectation describes how things ought to be and reinforces the distinction between the present and what is not yet here."

Nicole Aleong

Future Orientations to Everyday Life: Futures Anthropology as a Methodology

March 26, 2024

Jeff Gothelf

"Nordstrom decided that innovation needed to be a corporate value, not a lab value."

Jeff Gothelf

Innovation Studios: the Engines of Enterprise Experimentation

May 14, 2015

Saara Kamppari-Miller

"Accessibility ownership should never fall on just one person but be understood and shared across entire product teams."

Saara Kamppari-Miller

DesignOps for Inclusive Design and Accessibility

May 26, 2022

Tess Dixon

"If you don’t have the basics taken care of, infinite promotions and ping pong tables are just noise."

Tess Dixon

C'mon Get Happy

September 29, 2021

Liam Thurston

"Our skills matrix became the center of gravity for our practice—it started writing job descriptions and guiding recruitment."

Liam Thurston

Why Your Design Team Is Quitting, And How To Fix It

June 10, 2022

Ian Swinson

"Why don’t we do what we do for users but apply it to our own careers? Absolutely nutty, right? So we did."

Ian Swinson

Designing and Driving UX Careers

June 8, 2016

Leisa Reichelt

"At Atlassian, many confident non-researchers were already doing lots of research, which was an opportunity and a challenge."

Leisa Reichelt

Opening Keynote: Operating in Context

November 7, 2018

Rachael Greene

"Consistent, gentle support over time creates deeply loyal adopters."

Rachael Greene Alison Davis

Building a Design Ops Practice that Really Works (Most of the Time)

October 2, 2025