IIEX APAC 2023 Speaker Interview with Muzayun Mukhtar of Google

Disclaimer: opinions represented here are personal and do not represent those of Google.

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Question #1: Give us a brief peek into your talk. What are the key take aways?

It’s one thing to be a great researcher and build deep insights, and it’s another when you land your insights for people, products and the business. Both these hats are necessary for our role in the industry today.

I am Muzayun and I lead research for Google Search in India where I focus on making the internet useful and usable for the next billion users. In the past 15 years, I have worked for different stages and domains of product development, in the design research service industry, and from large companies, to medium scale to start-ups. Join me at IIEX Asia Pacific this year – I will share tips, tricks, and lessons learned in my career. Don’t forget to bring your stories along.

Question #2: You have a great topic. Tell us the reasons you chose it?

I believe in a holistic approach to research and designing products which combine all perspectives: Human computer interaction, business needs, design thinking, psychology, sociology, anthropology and all methods: from big data to ethnographic study. One thing that I constantly think about is how we can develop sustainable and ethical business thinking as UXers. Even while doing many of my mentorship sessions over ux-coffee-hours, I realized most researchers in the industry are looking at more and better ways to make an impact in their workplace through their insights.

One is definitely that we need to be able to tell effective stories and deliver them well. but also how the key to it is to understand your stakeholders, and understand what are the business needs. As soon as you find that beautiful moment when we understand all sides well, that’s when the true value is generated. Therefore, as naturally empathetic people, we need to have to have this hard hitting discussion on how we may also need to activate our business thinking, understanding what we’re good at as a team.

Question #3: We are glad you are joining us at IIEX APAC. What are you hoping to gain from this event?

I am looking to learn from my fellow colleagues in the industry on how MR and UXR would benefit from each other’s specialized skills and how we can learn about where our industry is “heading”. I also want to identify innovation trends in insights creation to implementations from so many amazing organizations and teams in different domains that are being represented at the IIEX Asia Pacific, and bring those learnings back to my team at Google.

Question #4: IIEX events focus on all things innovation in insights. What does research innovation mean to you?

AI and ML trends will definitely play a pivotal role in the future. Use of AI in insights creation – which is probably set to remove a lot of manual work for researchers, more human investment is needed to let it help us in the right way…. Another one – I would still wish to see more of is how we can have more confident sense-making, more time efficient and less manual and deal with abstraction, from documenting to listening to learning to actually making actionable insights for people, business and products and reaching the finishing line.

Dealing with uncertainty and anxiety – researchers are passionate about ethics and doing the right thing and it takes a lot of it from them to sensitize their stakeholders about more abstract concepts that impacts their mental fitness and well-being..

Last: sense of purpose in our work.

Question #5: Our industry is always evolving. What is the next big change you’d like to see?

That’s a good question, I would say our ability to design and build for everyone, everywhere – no matter where you are,  which geography, what age group, Everyone — no matter their location, financial means, background, language or digital literacy — deserves an internet that was made for them – is the mission that I am personally also very aligned with.  As the industry takes more notice for bringing the enjoyable experiences to all beyond the first billion or tech-natives, contributing to that change of thinking and vision resonates deeply for me.

Question #6: Research Technology, or ResTech, is booming. How do you see this impacting us further?

There are multiple levels at which we can look at it. Research tech has been challenging when you are  learning about the next billion users, something that can work very well in where human interactions are involved, I still think deep questioning and listening and observing and psychological understanding are gonna give us more deeper insights and get to learn about our users. However, when it comes to what happens to raw notes and post processing and pattern identification, which is a highly manual process, I am hoping automation will be a great tool and save us from a lot of  manual work. That’s my wish, if we make them…

Visual storytelling and evolution of our methods of investigation for confidence and risk taking. And also, how tech could help us in doing less or not doing certain things.

Question #7: IIEX and GreenBook focus on the future of insights. What more do you think we can contribute?

Super excited about the exchange that can happen at IIEX – would be seeing how it helps build connections, and bring the insights industry closer for a discourse and open/honest discussion among the leaders and like-minded professionals are coming in the industry – to share creative new ideas in a collective effort to realize and evolve the future of insights. Integration of  the world of UXR and MXR, and drive one message that we are here to inform throughout all the product development and marketing process from need discovery, product development, pre-sale, post-sale, close the loop experiences.