Join Lanie & Oli in a discussion inspired by a talk from Julien Huguenin, "Blending User Research into the Design Cycle to Maximize Impact" given at the 2019 #gamesUR Summit in San Francisco. 

Julien's talk here : https://youtu.be/kExXN1atx3c     

There is certainly no shortage of discussions regarding the importance of building influence as a researcher, but what does it mean to be a blended researcher? What have we learned and how have times changed in the last 2 years since Julien's original talk? In this episode we'll discuss:   

- The difference between embedded vs blended, as well as what it means to be a partner vs support to our design teams  

- Some of the current issues that can and do hold us back as researchers  

- The many ways in which we can be blended into the design cycle and begin to own at least a portion of the iteration process  

- How we and our teams have built healthy relationships with our stakeholders and production teams, as well as how Covid has (or hasn't) changed all that  

- Steps we can all take to move towards a more blended relationship with our design teams while fighting the iteration black box