Show Notes
Jen, a UX researcher at BECU and creator of BlatzChatz, discusses why traditional user personas fail to serve teams. She explains how her frustration with personas drove her to create her own framework - Scenario Alignment Canvas (SAC). She also shares how this method facilitates productive discussions, surfaces assumptions, and helps prioritize research opportunities, ultimately leading to more user-centric and effective design solutions.
👉 If you have any tips on fantastic speakers from across the globe, feedback, or any questions, we’d love to hear from you. Reach out to [email protected]
🔎 Do you want to know more? Check out this episode at: https://www.uxtweak.com/podcast/jennifer-blatz-why-user-personas-fail
Episode highlights 00:01:14 - About Jen 00:02:27 - Jen’s journey to UX research 00:05:26 - Why user personas fail 00:09:26 - How many teams struggle to use personas 00:13:00 - Jen’s Scenario Alignment Canvas 00:18:18 - Running a Scenario Alignment Workshop 00:20:40 - Jen’s tips on running a UX workshop 00:25:16 - Final advice
About our guest Jen Blatz is a Principal UX Researcher at BECU (Boeing Employee Credit Union), one of the largest credit unions in the United States. Jen's path to UX started in journalism and graphic design, progressed to UX design, and finally landed in UX research and strategy. She has worked in a number of fields, including finance, mortgage, cloud storage, security, and pet health.
Jen loves being active in the UX community and is the co-founder of the UX Research and Strategy group, one of the largest UX groups in the world. Jen is a seasoned conference speaker who has spoken at several UX International conferences. She spends her free time interviewing UX pros and creating videos for her YouTube channel called BlatzChatz.
🔎 Where to follow Jen LinkedIn
👉 Did you know that UXtweak also offers a series of webinars packed with practical knowledge for UX professionals? Check out the episode with Stéphanie Walter, where she talks about overcoming the challenges of enterprise UX: https://www.youtube.com/live/d9p4ShC_fMA?si=eYEl_S0UErpJiT4B
About this podcast: Welcome to UX Research Geeks, where Tina Ličková, a researcher and strategist, talks with researchers from around the globe about topics that matter to them.
🐝 Brought to you by UXtweak, an all-in-one UX research software. Start your research for free at: https://www.uxtweak.com/ 👈
🐝 Where to follow UXtweak: LinkedIn / Instagram / YouTube / Facebook / Twitter
More from UX Research Geeks
In this field notes episode, Petra Rajkov reflects on her conversation with Joel Barr and outlines the lessons she is applying to her own user research practice. She examines why getting out into the field and observing users in their own environment remains key for teams building software, which business metrics demonstrate the research value better than CSAT and NPS, and why she shares Joel's view that AI can support researchers but should not replace the people at the center of the work.
Deniz Kartepe, a product researcher at Miro, reflects on the most prominent changes AI is bringing to product development and UX research. He explores how agentic AI transforms the speed and quality of research, reshapes organizational culture and collaboration within teams, and redefines the skills the next generation of researchers will need. Deniz also advocates a distinctive view of the product lifecycle: bottlenecks never disappear, they simply shift from building to discovery and alignment, which gives researchers greater influence over what gets built in the first place.
Mujaahida Shakur, a behavior scientist and UX researcher with a background in public health and experience at Amazon Web Services, reflects on her journey into UX research and the challenge of translating a nontraditional career path into a compelling professional story. She explores career pivots, resume language, AI in hiring and research, inclusive recruitment, and the realities of navigating today’s job market. She also explains how she turned networking into a research project and how her curiosity turned career conversations into opportunities for learning, self-discovery, and genuine connection. UPD: During the editing process of this episode, Mujaahida was hired at the SteerBridge as a User Experience Researcher. We wish her best of luck at her new company.
Angie Amlani, Executive Director of Strategy and Research at Metalab, talks about what it really takes to design AI-native products. She covers how UX researchers can navigate AI-specific challenges like user trust and ethics, stay rigorous while working at speed, and build stronger storytelling and systems-thinking skills. She also shares tips for using AI in research for running studies, synthesizing findings, and communicating insights to stakeholders, while keeping empathy at the center of UX research.
Joel Barr, a UX engineer and software creation professional, reflects on why we need to rethink the place of UX research within organizations, arguing that researchers have much greater impact when they sit under operations rather than product. He explores the decline of field research, the importance of connecting UX to sales and customer success teams, and the risks of overrelying on AI and synthetic participants. Joel also advocates for measuring UX through business outcomes such as revenue, retention, and operational success rather than product-centric metrics, debating that only by proving its commercial impact can UX secure its future.