2021 Year in Review

2021 Year in Review

Letter from the President of UXRS

As we look back on all that the UX Research and Strategy (UXRS) group  has done in 2021, we do so with a huge sense of pride and accomplishment. We continued to deliver high-quality content and provided opportunities for our community to network and engage personally with people all over the world. 

The word of the year that comes to mind as we reflect is growth. Although the Covid pandemic has lingered on, UXRS has grown immensely and built an even stronger community through the last year.

Along with my founders, Lauren Singer and Lorie Whitaker, we formed a group that is actively dedicated to upholding our mission: 

To make UX Research and Strategy both approachable and actionable, by ensuring our attendees come away with concrete examples of how to confidently implement user experience research and strategy methods in their day-to-day projects and work.

I am proud to say we are still going strong in fulfilling that mission for all of our global community members. 

Now let’s take a stroll down memory lane and highlight some of the great things that UXRS did in 2021!

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Events
We did not let the pandemic slow us down! We had 17 online events which showcased a number of speakers and topics. ​​

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Speakers
Our speakers represented a number of industries including finance, government, UX agency, market research, software, information technology, social media and more. ​

• Laura Faulkner
• Jen Blatz
• Cory Madaris 
• Ann Culp 
• Erika Hall
• Mai-Ling Garcia
• Lauren Jong 
• Iran Narges
• Adam Polansky
• Paula Desmond
• Angie Nery
• Ona Anicello
• Michaela Mora
• John Sarmiento
• Amanda Stockwell
• Jared Forney
• Lorie Whitaker
• Matt Duignan
• Erik Olesund
• Andy Vitale
• Trine Falbe
• Morten Rand-Hendriksen

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Board Growth
This year was all about growth and scaling to ensure we provided the  same quality events and content. To keep up with the demand, we  expanded our Board of Directors. 

Nisha Balaraman joined UXRS as our social media director in early 2021. We have her to thank for the educational content and well-designed social media posts that keep our community informed and engaged. 

Malari Barber also joined our team in 2021 to ensure we continued to provide the community with great events. Malari is working hard to ensure that our events are best-in-class and worth every minute of our community’s valuable time.

Both ladies have helped UXRS expand our offerings and take us to the next level. I am forever grateful for the time and energy they volunteer every day to help our group succeed. 

As we move into 2022, UXRS will continue to scale, adding committee members to help increase our impact.​

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Community Growth

Social Media
Not only did we put on a record number of fantastic events in 2021, but we also shared tons of resources and content to help educate the UX research and strategy community.

We launched three social media campaigns this year, geared toward informing the world about UX research methods, terminology and cognitive biases. 

All of our social media channels doubled in followers, with our professional LinkedIn page accumulating nearly 40,000 people. We attribute this massive growth to the quality content that we deliver almost on a daily basis.

Thanks to all of you who have been engaging with us on social media! Our followers who drive conversations with us and each other are what make this community so fantastic.​

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Slack Community
Another venue that saw massive growth for UXRS was our community. I know that a community is difficult to measure, so I do so in a couple of ways. First, let’s talk about our UXRS Slack channel. Like our social media channels, our Slack channel has experienced massive growth, with over 3,400 community members by the end of 2021. 

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Networking Community
We know how important it is to build your professional network, and we understand how challenging that can be in our remote world. So at our monthly meetings and our special Networking Extravaganzas, we created smaller rooms for more intimate settings for people to get to know each other better and replicate that “build your professional network” experience. 

It is important to us that UXRS events should be not only about learning, but should also foster a supportive community to make new UX friends and connections – from all around the world. 

Support
Finally, I wanted to send a massive thank you to all who have supported UXRS in 2021. Thank you to our event attendees, presenters, Slack community, social media followers, and to everyone who has engaged with us on so many levels. 

Most importantly, I wanted to extend a HUGE thank you for all who have donated to UXRS in 2021. UXRS is a non-profit organization, and we function completely on donations. Over 400 people donated funds to help keep our events going by paying for our operational costs. Those who have donated to the group keep us going, and for that we cannot thank you enough.  If you'd like to donate, you can do so directly via PayPal.

With your donations, we are able to:

• Provide one free event each month
• Ensure other events are low cost
• Provide a website where information on all of our past meetings can be found
• Enable the Zoom large meeting add on so we can accommodate up to 1000 people per meeting
• Cover other admin costs that keep us afloat
• Allow us to provide events and content around the world and to reach those who might be in underserved communities

Looking Ahead
When we started locally in Dallas, Texas in 2019, we never imagined that we would become a global sensation with thousands of followers and community members. 

In 2022, we hope to bring our UXRS community even more chances to make connections, to learn from each other, and to help up-skill together. We are truly honored to serve each and every one of you, and we are excited to see where the next year takes us.

​Thank you again for your support and we look forward to seeing you in 2022 and beyond.

Jen Blatz
UXRS President