Melanie Buset, Senior UX Researcher at Spotify, talks to Maze about the principles behind ethical research and how to scale them across the organization to guide research and decision-making.
The Optimal Path is a podcast about product decision-making from the team at Maze. Each episode brings in a product expert and looks at the stories, ideas, and frameworks they use to achieve better product decision-making—and how you can do the same.
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Ash Oliver:
Welcome to The Optimal Path, a podcast about product decision-making brought to you by Maze. I'm your host, Ash Oliver, UX Designer & Design Advocate. Great products are the result of great decisions, decisions that deliver value for customers and the organization. In this podcast, you'll hear from designers, product managers, and researchers about the ideas informing decision-making across all aspects of product development.
Ash Oliver:
Today I'm joined by Melanie Buset, Senior User Experience Researcher at Spotify. Since completing her Master's in Human Computer Interaction, Melanie has worked for large consumer tech companies, taught UX research at a university level, and actively writes and consults on topics within the field. I'm stoked to speak with you about UX research and ethics. Thanks so much for being here, Melanie.
Melanie Buset:
Thank you. Happy to be here.
Ash Oliver:
So let's start by talking maybe broadly about responsibility and ethics in UX research. Maybe you can start by sharing what you consider to be a good definition of ethics within this context.
Melanie Buset:
Yeah, I think something to consider is if you're doing a project and you're designing for specific solutions or even figuring out what this product might be, if you're questioning, "does it feel a bit sketchy?" Then probably it is. I mean it's good to question things, but if you're questioning the ethical practice of it, then probably just don't do it. I think that's a good rule of thumb.
Melanie Buset:
Things like avoiding the dark patterns in design where you're just doing something for the sake of trying to get more people on your platform or to use your product, but without actually giving anything back to the human who's using it—I think that's the definition of not ethical or unethical. Because then we get into a lot of issues like addiction to technology. We've seen so much psychology research come out about the effects of social media use and desensitization sometimes to certain things if we're engaging in a lot of virtual environments and things like that.
Melanie Buset:
So yeah, it's a very large topic, but I do think, again, what problem are you solving and is it bringing some kind of either enjoyment to someone's lives, enriching their lives in some way, or is it solving a problem and actually making people's lives better? I think that should be why we build technology, and not for a company's own personal gain.
Ash Oliver:
Well said, for sure. I have some questions later on about that complexity or conundrum between perhaps what individually might be seen as unethical versus the business goal for driving engagement or retention or profit. I've been thinking, as we're talking about the responsibility for our participants and users, that the topic of ethics is usually intentionally considered during user research, at least from my perspective as more of the design side. Like design, almost to our detriment, may rely too much on research to set the standards for ethics. But I guess my question is how can UX research and the practices of ethics be extended outside of just research so that it also permeates our design decisions?
Melanie Buset:
I think if there's any type of education that anyone who works in tech can do to understand more about ethics, even just ethics from other disciplines that have been quite well-established. Like, I come from a psychology background, and there's a really robust and tried and true ethics board that all of your studies have to pass through in order to be able to execute them.
Melanie Buset:
So just being aware that that exists in some disciplines, in some fields already. Then maybe even learning about some of the unethical studies that have gone on could be a good way into it and to understand why ethics is important, just to have that real-world example. I think it really does come to, of course, individuals to educate themselves, but also the company that they're working for to provide that material and that information to them.
Melanie Buset:
So at companies I worked for, we have how-to guides to do proper research, to understand how to get proper consent, and to allow the participants a way to exit the study if they'd like to. Also doing bias training is really helpful too, and being aware of certain laws and regulations, like GDPR laws that exist in Europe, for example.
Melanie Buset:
So I don't know if there's a clear answer to that. I think it is a combination of it's the individual's responsibility, but also I think the organization or company that you work for should definitely have someone or a group of people or a working group that is focused on ethics, and ethical design, and design practices, which research definitely plays a role in that.
Ash Oliver:
Yeah. I mean it may go without saying. I mean you've just given some examples of standards or compliance things that have come into play to ensure that there's more of that intentionality or guidelines around privacy and security, for example.
Ash Oliver:
When I was preparing for this interview, I was thinking back to the Facebook study in I think 2014, where they showed people less positive content within their news feeds in order to assess if it influenced emotions, which I think is a pretty notable example. You were just describing the micro and macro consequences. So it seems like there are factors to consider on the micro level of individual consent or participant data that might be collected in an ethical way. Are there any other factors that you see from a UX research perspective that could be overlooked or could cause harm if not considered?
Melanie Buset:
Yeah, for sure. So I think some things to consider is, again, starting with consent. So making sure that the participants know what they're getting themselves into, and they know that they can get themselves out of it if they want, and that they're not going to be reprimanded or punished for doing so.
Melanie Buset:
I think that goes hand-in-hand with creating a safe space for the participant, too. So if there is a touchy subject, you obviously want them to feel like they can talk to you about it, but also it's not necessarily your responsibility to give them psychological advice or a therapy session, because if you're not trained in that, then you definitely shouldn't do that. But I think also being empathetic or showing the participant like I'm a human too, and so are you. So if this becomes a bit heavy or challenging, I can relate to you in some way.
Melanie Buset:
I've had participants cry to me about design decisions that we made at a previous company of mine, and that's a really difficult conversation to be in. But, again, the approach I had was just being straight up with them and being like, "Yeah, I know this is really shitty what we did. We honestly overlooked it and we're going to try and fix that." I think if they just know, "okay, I'm being heard," then that goes a long way.
Melanie Buset:
So that's what I mean by creating a safe space and a human connection with them and not just being robotic and being like, "Okay, thanks for your feedback. Even though you're crying, let's go to the next question, because I need to get my insights."
Ash Oliver:
I assume UX researchers must be really skilled in this way, because it must be par for the course in order to establish that rapport. To what extent do we really feel like we would get good substance of information from users if we didn't open a space for vulnerability, maybe?
Melanie Buset:
Yeah, for sure. I think there are ways to end an interview if you feel that it's getting a little too intense, too heavy and personal maybe, is just to thank the participant and say, "We actually got a lot of information from you that we needed. We're okay to end it here." Also, just reminding them, "If you don't want to continue, you don't have to." So there's ways around that.
Melanie Buset:
I think, as you mentioned, if you are a researcher and you've had experiences like that, you're just going to get better at handling those situations over time. But I think back to your original question of other things we can do to uphold ethical standards with research is getting consent, helping them feel like they're in a safe human-to-human environment, and things like protecting their PII data. So making sure that when we do share-outs and reports, we're not using personal information. And we've also told them in the consent forms and everything, like, "We are keeping your data private," so we should definitely uphold that promise.
Melanie Buset:
I think a couple of things too I reflected on were we should pause research when needed. When I worked at Shopify, we put a pause on all research when COVID just happened, because we're like, okay, we're in the business of helping entrepreneurs in small businesses and COVID is just wreaking havoc on so many of their lives and their businesses, and this is their livelihood. So, again, it's like being human and being like if we were those merchants and those people, would we want Shopify knocking on our door and being like, "Hey, can you do this hour call for us?" Probably not. So that's also, I think, something to consider.
Ash Oliver:
That's such a good call out. I don't think I would've even necessarily considered that. Just thinking about the current affairs that might be impacting your users or participants and saying this might be a very pressing thing for us, but are we the only ones to stand to gain in this equation? That's really important.
Melanie Buset:
Yeah. It leaves a bad vibe with them if they're like, "Wow, this company really doesn't give a shit about me. I'm struggling right now and they're just wanting my feedback."
Melanie Buset:
That's another thing that I want to mention: you don't want people to feel like you are just taking and taking from them. It should be give and take. So you should leave time at the end of the call to ask them if they have any questions for you, follow up with them when you can if they ask for, "How is my feedback going to improve or impact some of the decisions you're making?"
Melanie Buset:
Sometimes we can't always give that information back to them, but if we can point them to similar studies, I think that's super important too, because I always think we never want people to feel like lab rats. They're people. So it's like when you have relationships with people, it's a give and take, and I think it should be the same with your participants, too.
Ash Oliver:
Oh, huge. I'm getting two things from you. Making them feel like they're part of it also can help contribute towards their feeling of investment towards the thing that you're working on. But then also that there's this brand extension that comes through in research. You could really deteriorate the brand's sentiment if you leave an interaction through research being really unethical or not well-facilitated perhaps.
Melanie Buset:
Yeah, definitely. I always tell the people that I do research with, "We're not testing you, we're testing our products." So I think be very clear about that. This is why if you've ever, I don't know, talked to me about research, I always share my disdain with user testing as a name because I'm like that implies that you're testing people and testing users, but we're not ever doing that. We're testing the products.
Melanie Buset:
So, yeah, just calling that out before we start any type of research, I think, is really important. And the last thing, which is more of a personal reflection, is that because we work in this industry where we are having a lot of conversations with people, we are trying to build relationships with people, it's important to recognize when you're running out of gas and when you're starting to feel burnt out, or you're just like, "Today's not a good day for me," and how could that come out in an interview or come out in a call with someone who I'm trying to do research with.
Melanie Buset:
That's true with your coworkers and your partner and your friends and your parents and whatever else. So I think there's no exception here to being the same way when it comes to doing research. Again, we're all human. We all make mistakes. We all need help sometimes. I think it's okay to raise your hand and say, "I'm really not feeling good today. Do you mind taking this interview for me?" or even reaching out to that participant and saying, "Something's come up. Can we reschedule?" because chances are rescheduling is going to be a much better outcome than just powering through the interview and being completely drained and checked out.
Ash Oliver:
Can you speak to any examples of maybe ethical research principles or strategies from your work at Spotify? How do you ensure that the user research that you're doing is considered ethical?
Melanie Buset:
Yeah. So I think some things that I like to remind people and even myself is that we are not our users. I work at Spotify and I use Spotify all day long. So it's really easy to think—because it's one of those products that is so intertwined in our lives—that we could be like, "Oh, this is the way I use it, and because I'm using it so much, I know best," and it's like, well, actually I think we're the worst people to make decisions, if that makes sense, which maybe sounds contradictory because we're the ones working there. But I mean we should be making decisions based off of the feedback of the people that are using Spotify, who aren't us. So that's what I try to share with my team: we're so biased. We know the inner workings. That's another point that I have: we can't make assumptions because assumptions can actually be insults.
Melanie Buset:
Then the other two things would be what problem are we trying to solve? Then are we helping or are we inhibiting? Because there are some products out there and companies where I feel like they share how they're doing so much good in the world and that's their mission and blah, blah, blah. But then you see how it is in practice and it's not actually doing what they intended. Maybe they had good intentions or whatever, but then it's not how it's happening. So those are the things that I try and think about.
Ash Oliver:
Yeah. So I wonder... I mean these are really good principles to lead by. How would you maybe put steps in place to build an ethical research into practice? Are there maybe steps that you could put in place that would help keep these philosophies top of mind and engaged within the work across the entire team?
Melanie Buset:
Yeah. So I think some of the things I mentioned earlier, which was ensuring that there's consent, allowing participants to leave if they need to, sharing that we're not testing them, we're testing our products. I guess it's more of a one-to-one to share with them. But also when we build our vision docs or the product briefs, always having some sections in there about what is the value that we're bringing to our customers or to our users, what's the cost of not doing this, and what's the cost if we do do it. So what could the negative effects be and just trying to think those through before actually getting started on it.
Melanie Buset:
Something that I've done in the past is an assumption slam. This is when you get all your assumptions out with your whole team. It just provides this really nice space for everyone to talk about what they believe to be the best way forward and the best way to solve the problems that we're trying to solve. Then we actually go through those assumptions and map them on how risky they are if we get them wrong and whether we actually know that those assumptions are true or not. Then that actually allows us to go a little bit deeper into what kind of research do we need to do further to investigate this before we actually get going. So that's a really good practical thing that people can do.
Ash Oliver:
Yeah, assumption slam or assumption mapping sounds like a really practical and visible, tangible way to be able to bring that out of the team. Do you see scenarios where that's done just as a research team or is this extended through design, for example, to check those assumptions around the actual solution?
Melanie Buset:
Yeah. So when I've done it, I've done it with my whole team. So that's product engineering, design, research, data, anyone who's on the project. So I think it's super important to have the perspective of all the different disciplines and not just research, because, I mean, we could be privy to more of the findings than some of the other disciplines and we don't want to just be within our own blocks and just think from a researcher insights perspective. Because it is super valuable to get other people's perspectives, especially from the business side too, because sometimes I think, at least for myself, I'm always cheerleading for, "This is what the users want. This is what our customers want," but then there's always, well, we are a business and we need to consider the business needs as well. So it's good to get that reminder, too.
Ash Oliver:
Yeah, that actually leads me to one of my questions, because I think in some cases researchers are striving for ethical research practices, but they might work in companies that prioritize unethical products or experiences, or are at the crossroads of making an unethical decision. So how do we balance the decision to increase company profits while being ethically mindful of users?
Melanie Buset:
Yeah, that's a good question. If I was working on a project that I felt very strongly against and I was like, "This is ridiculous," I would probably speak up and say something or just be like, "I'm not going to work on this project because that's not where I want my energy to be focused," because sometimes we have the privilege to pick and choose what we work on and where we work. And sometimes we don't, and that can be a really tricky situation.
Melanie Buset:
If you are in the situation where you're like, "I just have to do this job because of whatever reason," then it's just a matter of reminding yourself that maybe this is just a means to an end and eventually you'll get out of it and you'll be able to choose what kind of companies and causes you want to work toward and work for.
Melanie Buset:
Another thing is to try and use your skillset to convince maybe the person who's making the decision to not make unethical decisions. I mean from an insights point of view, we have a lot of data and a lot of qualitative feedback too that we can use to be like, "We tested this out and this is the feedback we're getting. It's very negative." You could do different projecting analysis or whatever to see what is the cost of shipping this.
Melanie Buset:
I think then if the CEO or the product lead, or whoever it is that's making the decision, can see the potential impact of moving forward with this shitty, unethical decision, then maybe they'll second-guess it if they see that the dollars are not going up but actually going down.
Ash Oliver:
Absolutely. I love the ways in which we're taking our skills and experiences and utilizing them inside the business, being able to use that as persuasive on behalf of the user, on behalf of what we're hired to do. But I think, yeah, like you said, there's two words that every designer or researcher, or anyone in product really, should be comfortable saying, and that's no and why. I think just being able to think critically.
Ash Oliver:
I think everyone on a UX team has the potential to play a role in collecting and analyzing product and UX research data. For example, designers might need to conduct their own usability tests, or PMs and developers might be analyzing interview information. Obviously, UX researchers are driving a lot of this practice overall. So how do you scale the ethical practices into conducting UX research if you're not a UX researcher? So it's not just maybe about scaling the work and activities of UX research, but actually the values that guide it.
Melanie Buset:
That's a good question. I think making those values readily accessible to anyone is something that is important. If there's a how-to guide for non-researchers, that would be super helpful. Also, if you can offer training. We offer training and at Shopify, we had a similar thing too.
Melanie Buset:
It's definitely encouraged for designers to do a lot of their own tactical research. So if they're doing usability or concept testing or things like that, we want them to feel empowered, and that's part of their skillset as well. But, of course, we recognize that it's not always something you learn when you're a designer.
Melanie Buset:
So I think recognizing that and just having a team that is devoted and willing to educate them on what it means to conduct research in an ethical way goes a long way. Sometimes that could be a lot of work. That could be one person's job at a company—to go through this training with people who are not researchers and to make sure that everyone's doing anti-bias training and things like that.
Melanie Buset:
But I think if you want to be an ethical company, then it's worth putting those options out there for your employees, or not even an option, making it mandatory. Then I think also just making sure that these other disciplines know that although we want them to do their own research, and that's great if they do it, that a researcher's always available for them if they need to talk through something or if they're not sure about something.
Melanie Buset:
Also, if there is an ops team of some kind, trying to make it easy so that if they need to sign or send an NDA or if they need to send a consent form, the way to do that is not super difficult because there could be a whole process that could be just adding a lot of friction that's unnecessary. So, yeah, it seems like a lot of organizational and operational things need to happen. But, again, I think it is important to consider that if you want to have a company that is doing things right.
Ash Oliver:
Definitely would be a big oversight, especially in the industry where we're seeing a lot of conversation in regards to scaling user research and how this is really a collaborative and team sport. It's not just all relegated to UX researchers. It would definitely be, I think, a big blind spot for teams to just scale the documentation or the architecture or operations around just fulfilling the activities and miss the whole guiding principles behind it. So having that documentation to be able to interact with and incorporate, I guess, ensures that ethics is a part of any of the research, not just the researchers that are doing it.
Melanie Buset:
Yeah. I think about onboarding to companies, too. If they have that as part of their onboarding, whether you're a designer, a researcher, a product person, whatever it might be, and just having a section in onboarding like, "This is how we talk to our customers and this is the kind of company we want to be when it comes to ethics and how we treat and interact with the people that use our products," I think is super important. Not just like, "Here's your first day. Here's a nice sticker for your laptop and a hoodie. Now go wild."
Melanie Buset:
I would say one thing that you could do to encourage it maybe is to, like, rather than have someone go through the training on their own, which could be grueling and boring or whatever, is to just do shadowing, like shadow a researcher, so you can see how they integrate ethics into their work. That could be another way too, rather than just, again, "Here's some documentation. Go read it," and hopefully you do it.
Melanie Buset:
I think as researchers too, it is part of our job to educate people about this kind of things. We need to bring it up and we need to showcase why it's important too. At a company I worked for before, we did something where we encouraged people to come out and do visits with our customers. So it wasn't necessarily a research activity. It was just getting that one-to-one with our customers.
Melanie Buset:
I think that made it really exciting because you didn't have any expectation that you'd have to come out of the visit and have another report to make. So it was just like you can go and meet these people. I think once you get that face time, then you'd give a shit more about the ethics, because you're like, "Oh, this person was so lovely. I wouldn't want to build something for them that sucks or that isn't useful or is being detrimental to their lives in some way."
Melanie Buset:
If you just think about your parents are using these products, your grandparents are using them, your nieces and nephews, your kids. Everyone is using them. I think when you just take a step back and think about that for a second, then maybe that would be enough to be like, "Yeah, I wouldn't want my four-year-old niece to be using this product that's making her feel like shit because she's not pretty enough," or whatever.
Ash Oliver:
Yeah. I mean the more you describe this, it's clear to me that empathy is so interconnected within driving ethics. You ultimately can't have maybe one without the other.
Melanie Buset:
Yeah. I think doing those types of things, going face-to-face or reading support tickets, if that's something you have access to, if there's any kind of ongoing survey that your company is involved in, like an affinity survey or a sentiment survey, something like that, like reading those open-ended comments. Going on Reddit even sometimes can be really interesting and seeing people's comments there.
Melanie Buset:
Yesterday when Spotify went down, I was on Instagram and I follow this—I think it was Vice News—and they had commented about it. There were so many comments from people being like, "Oh, my run was just interrupted," like, "I just had to pull over on the side of the road to log back in," "Just ruined my dinner." It's just like it's so interesting to hear because that's real feedback. I'm not there. There's no researcher there. There's no research guide. That's the real shit.
Ash Oliver:
Unabridged in the comments.
Melanie Buset:
Yeah. If you go to those public forums, they're so interesting. You could just do that on your free time. It's not like anyone is expecting you to come up with any new piece of work from just reading those things.
Ash Oliver:
Absolutely. Getting that in-context exposure definitely can be illuminating. I'm wondering if there's a heuristic for ethical UX research. How can we measure ethical maturity within UX research as a whole, and maybe if there are elements of ethically mature user research practice?
Melanie Buset:
Yeah. I feel like most companies that I've worked at that I feel do have a really high standard when it comes to ethics, they're providing anti-bias training to all their employees, which is super interesting, too. I studied psychology, so I'm really interested in how people think and how we do things and our biases and things like that. So when I did that, I was like, "Wow. This is so cool to see what my biases are." You think that you know and you're aware of it, but then you do something like that and you're like, "Holy shit. I have some work to do."
Ash Oliver:
Yeah, the unknown unknowns are the most scary.
Melanie Buset:
Yeah, for sure. I think if you do that too, I would just say preface it with don't be too hard on yourself if you think the results that you get are worse than you thought. Because a lot of the biases we have are because of who we are, where we grew up, and those types of things that are innate and sometimes can take a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of training and practice to change. So, yeah, just something to keep in mind. It doesn't mean you're a horrible, bad person. It just goes to show how deeply ingrained our biases are. I think that's super interesting.
Melanie Buset:
Another thing is to have some kind of like, if there's a research operations team at the company, definitely on the top of their list is ethics and making sure that we have things like consent forms and NDAs. We're able to also recruit people in a representative way, so we're not just only doing research with white, English-speaking, North American people. I think part of being unethical is just always sampling and talking to the same people and only getting the perspective of one type of person. So I think being able to, again, recruit in a more representative way is something that I think companies who are pretty mature in this area would have those resources.
Ash Oliver:
Yeah. The diversity element would definitely in my mind stand out as a representation of how ethical—not just in the sampling of diverse participants but also the diversity and the makeup of the team, too. That's the other extension of making these decisions and concluding and synthesizing, like, how diverse is the people that are assuming all of this information or evaluating it. So are there any questions that maybe designers or researchers should be asking themselves in order to uphold these things?
Melanie Buset:
Yeah. So I think what we just talked about is how can I include a representative sample in my research? It's definitely one thing to consider. If there's a language barrier problem or physically you can't go to a part of the world where you'd like to gather feedback from, we have a lot of remote tools now. We have ways that you can work with translators. There's research agencies out there that specialize in this type of thing. So there's ways around that, and not just, again, sticking to your own kind, which is really important.
Melanie Buset:
I think another question that I like to ask myself is if I ask a personal question ... and I see this all the time in surveys and in interview scripts, especially with junior researchers and people who aren't researchers. And, again, this is not to fault them. It's just you learn this as you go. But saying things like, "What's your age? Where do you live? What's your occupation?" I'm like, "Is that really important to the product that we're building and to the decisions that we're going to be making?"
Melanie Buset:
Because I always would give the example of the course that I taught back in Toronto. It was like, put yourself in someone else's shoes. We're going through COVID right now. If you said, "What do you do for work?" it could be, "I just got laid off because of COVID and now I'm struggling to have enough money to feed my kids and to make my rent."
Melanie Buset:
Then it just snowballs into this whole really difficult and challenging and heavy conversation for that participant. So I'm like would there be a change in our decision-making if they worked as a teacher versus they worked as a bus driver or whatever? It probably won't make a difference. So just don't even ask those questions.
Ash Oliver:
Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's one of the first things, at least that I've seen, is when people approach user research, they typically feed in all of these demographic questions without even thinking that it may be completely unrelated or do more harm.
Melanie Buset:
Yeah. Another one that I share with the students that I taught was ... Because they would often ask, "What's your address?" I'm like, "What? That's so specific." But also like, "Where do you live?" I'm thinking like, imagine you're like, oh, I live in this neighborhood and it's run down. I'm embarrassed to say that I live there. Then I get on a call with this researcher who works at Google, who's making six figures and has this beautiful backdrop. There's this whole power dynamic that gets introduced. What I mentioned at the beginning of the call was to create an environment where they feel like this is a safe space and we're equals here. Although you're driving the conversation, we're still human beings.
Ash Oliver:
That's hugely important. I'm so glad that you brought that up, because I don't think we give maybe enough thought about what happens once we have that answer too and what that could look like from the other side.
Melanie Buset:
Yeah, because then, speaking about biases and things too, there are experimenter biases and participant biases too, where they might be like, "Oh, now that you know this information about me, I'm going to answer in a way that makes me feel more superior," or whatever it might be. So there's all these different things at play that could happen by asking these questions that really bring no value or they won't change your product decisions whatsoever.
Melanie Buset:
So I always say if you really need those questions, ask them in a questionnaire that happens beforehand, or can you get them from your data scientist? But also, again, if it's not going to make any changes to the products, just forget about it. We don't need to know that information.
Ash Oliver:
Totally. Yeah. Thinking critically is definitely a theme throughout this, as you've been describing it. I think that's really important. Templates are really helpful and checklists are really helpful, but making sure that we don't just templatize this thinking, that we actually think critically about the context, the scenario, the human dynamics that are involved, as you've described.
Melanie Buset:
100%. I think another thing too I wanted to mention, which is another question we could ask ourselves, is can this question or conversation or research be triggering to someone in some way? If so, how am I prepared to react to that?
Melanie Buset:
An example I could think about, and I'll use the context of Spotify because that's where I'm currently working, is I ask someone about their personal playlist, and that's a personal playlist. So it probably has some sentimental value. Then maybe if the playlist was made for couples, like anniversary or their honeymoon or something, and then maybe the spouse passed away or they broke up. Then they're flooded with all these memories of that person. Then there's a lot happening there now.
Melanie Buset:
It's just like you thought maybe you're just walking into a conversation talking about how they curate their playlist, but actually that could have very sentimental value, and it could go many different ways. So just, yeah, really thinking about the questions you're asking, the research you're doing. In which direction can it go? Then, as I said, how are you prepared to handle that if it does go in a direction that's maybe not the favored route?
Ash Oliver:
Yeah, that's perfect. I really appreciate that. These are really helpful insights and gives us a lot of great practical ways of approaching ethics within research. I think sometimes we might get lost through some of the theory or the bigger, more macro systemic level things that are connected, and it's important to remember the micro, implementable ways that are coming into our day-to-day lives as well.
Ash Oliver:
I have our hat-trick questions. These are three questions that we ask every guest. It's just a personal way for us to get to know the humans on the other side. And so, my first question for you, Melanie, is what's one thing that you've done in your career that has helped you succeed that you think very few people do?
Melanie Buset:
I don't know if this is what very few people do, but there's two things that come to mind. One thing is ask why and just keep asking questions. With that, I think it's just admitting when you're like, "I don't know what's going on." I think it could be really easy for people, especially in the tech industry, to build a sick persona of like, "Oh, I know everything," and, "I have to know everything or I'm not successful."
Melanie Buset:
I'm like, honestly, if I don't know something, I'm not going to be able to do my job as best as I can if I'm just making assumptions. So I feel like being humble in that way too is just really important. And, yeah, to keep questioning things, even if it's something that people are really excited about, but maybe your research or even just your hunch or whatever is like, "This doesn't seem so right." Yeah, just questioning everything, and maybe even questioning why you're questioning it too. It could be a nice introspective exercise.
Ash Oliver:
I love that.
Melanie Buset:
The other thing is to build relationships with your team. I think this also goes hand-in-hand with asking why, because if you have strong relationships with your team, then you don't feel embarrassed or ashamed or stupid for asking for clarification. It makes work so much more enjoyable when you feel like you can connect with the person and you want to actually hang out with them outside of work, too.
Ash Oliver:
Yeah, and builds in that environment for vulnerable question-asking and things like you described too, which is so great. My next question is what is the industry-related book that you have recommended or given the most?
Melanie Buset:
One that I've read that I would recommend is called A More Beautiful Question. So it's funny that you mentioned some things earlier about critical thinking and deducive reasoning and all that type of thing, because this book highlights really well that. What's really great is to keep asking questions and to build a really great question. It sparks good conversation. It helps you get insights really well in your work if you're a researcher.
Melanie Buset:
I think what's really interesting is that the book talks about how when we're younger, we grow up asking questions all the time. It's cute, but it can also be annoying. So I think as we get older, maybe we think more that it's annoying and we don't want to disturb people. So we ask questions as a kid a lot, and then I think we get worried about coming off as stupid or whatever if we keep asking why, like I was saying. And so, I think the book goes into the whole history of why it's important to ask really good questions, why do we stop asking questions, and how society has played a role into why we don't keep asking questions.
Ash Oliver:
Definitely. That's a great recommendation. My last question for you is what is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?
Melanie Buset:
This actually happened last night while I was packing. I'm just so sick of packing. I've been doing it my whole life or whatever, and it never gets easier, it seems. When I do things that I don't necessarily want to do, I just start singing songs about the thing that I'm doing and how much I hate it.
Ash Oliver:
That's amazing. You sing your way through it.
Melanie Buset:
Yeah, exactly. I'm just like, "Oh, this sucks, but how could I make it, I don't know, a bit more fun?"
Ash Oliver:
Oh, this has been incredible. I really appreciate you taking the opportunity to share this with us, your experience and expertise in this area, and, of course, for playing along to get to know you a little bit better. This has been great. I really appreciate it.
Melanie Buset:
You're welcome. Yeah, me too. It was a lot of fun.
Ash Oliver:
The Optimal Path is hosted by Ash Oliver and brought to you by Maze, a product research platform designed for product teams. If you enjoyed this episode, you can find resources linked in the show notes. If you want to hear more, you can subscribe to The Optimal Path by visiting maze.co/podcast. Thanks for listening. And until next time.