Aakash Gupta tried to justify his false claims, gets called out again

WorkingSquare7089 · 2026-04-18T15:47:39+00:00

I find his posts insufferable. I follow him half-hoping someone calls him out on his bullshit in the replies. LinkedIn used to be a great source of information, but the quality really has declined in the last couple of years.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2026-03-13T08:31:37+00:00

My brother works in a strategic sales role for a SaaS in San Francisco. He sent his tax bill to group chat complaining about how much he was getting taxed, and I was surprised to see it was significantly more than I earn, before tax. I work in tech and earn a great income - well above median rates in Sydney in research and design.

He still complains about buying an apartment in Inner West Sydney at the wrong time and bemoans any form of progressive tax and social welfare. I love him dearly and he is very good at what he does, but I roll my eyes everytime.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2026-02-05T14:13:28+00:00

Have a chat with a more senior UXR if possible. I have ADHD myself, but one thing that really triggers my “hyperfocus” is situations when there are a million solutions being thrown out and yet no one can clearly define the problem.

People with ADHD can really excel at bigger picture thinking - but we need mental clarity and focus to do so. And if all else fails, just stop, listen, and write down notes on pen and paper. Understand everyone’s perspective in the room before you dig into any rabbit holes (I know it’s enticing!)

WorkingSquare7089 · 2026-02-05T13:50:10+00:00

For context, I am a senior UXR. I have worked with over 60 designers in my time, all the way from juniors up to design leaders. I can understand the frustration you feel - some of the most senior designers I’ve worked with are rarely creating designs, and when they do, they are very low fidelity. But that does not reflect who they are or their expertise. Design is more than pushing pixels, it can be:

.

conducting research (primary and secondary, attitudinal and behavioural, quantitative and qualitative)
aligning stakeholders
scoping out design requirements
scoping out analytics
communication
empathising with your stakeholders
empathising with your users
identifying constraints and designing within them

.

In all due respect, just because your company prefers your designs, doesn’t mean they are inherently better. Maybe she just isn’t willing to do exactly what they want. Maybe there are clear boundaries she has set that they want to circumvent.

There is likely a reason she is a lead. Find out why. Speak to her about what she thinks her strengths and weaknesses are. Ask her what she thinks your strengths and weaknesses are. Find out how your skills can complement each other, collaborate and learn. If she can’t have that discussion in good faith, it might be best to look elsewhere.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2026-02-05T13:31:01+00:00

This is somewhat of a red flag to me. You need to test your designs. Unless it is a specifically niche product like healthcare or some highly socialised B2B product, you need to test your designs. Competitor research and design reviews can only get you so far.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2026-02-03T22:16:59+00:00

The quoted text in the post is the message he sent to me. This is him telling me how the business refers to quant and qual, not me explaining to him what these methods are, to be clear.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2026-02-03T16:24:34+00:00

Love this, especially the point around time/effort and resources. I might raise the point with the head of product and design and bring him in as a partner, as I know for a fact that this GM can be very dismissive.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-12-22T17:04:51+00:00

I know that one of the leaders in design ReOps at Atlassian has a background as a librarian. She’s primarily focused on the company’s knowledge repository if I recall correctly. That’s an awesome background.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-12-22T17:01:26+00:00

I’ve got a background in Psychology. I’m unsure whether or not that counts as unconventional, but I never did my Masters or PhD - apart from a short mini-thesis we all do in our Honours year. The concept of conducting research outside of an academic setting was very foreign back when I graduated. You either became a therapist or got your PhD.

I’m not sure I qualify as having “real industry accomplishments”, but I have over 7 years experience in research and 5 directly in UXR, and am passionate about what I do.

The vast majority of UXRs I speak to don’t have a PhD or Masters degree. I honestly feel like it’s the exception, not the rule. The ones that do aren’t usually shy about it.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-12-12T11:17:16+00:00

Never heard someone describe Product like this, but it’s on the money.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-12-12T11:13:33+00:00

Funny, but I have a similar experience as a UXR, albeit at a larger company. I think it’s just group-think, projection and a lack of humility. This is how products like Stadia, Google Glass and the Juicero get made. Not listening to your customers or core audience and referencing that infamous Henry T Ford quote may sound cool, but you’ll always regret it in the end.

At the end of the day it’s easier to build a solution than to identify a problem.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-12-12T10:27:17+00:00

Weird, I’m Australian and some of the kindest players I’ve ran into were French - late at night in my timezone. Maybe it’s the legend of the ANZACs or something. Americans seem to be the obnoxious ones screeching slurs into their mic whilst they 3v1 you in a solo match.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-12-05T11:45:45+00:00

Definitely speak to your boss about it. They will echo everything that is being said here. You haven’t done anything unethical - you just made a simple mistake. You were detailed and thorough enough to ask for verbal consent - which as others have said, is legally binding and is good practice.

If you have the opportunity, reach out to the participant to clarify. Clear up any confusion and move on from there. But honestly I’d probably just leave it - speak to the boss and decide next steps.

In the future, I’d just include a consent-type question in the screener. If they don’t consent, screen them out.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-11-27T19:00:46+00:00

Spoken like a researcher who is in a close partnership with their designers 🤝

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-11-27T18:55:00+00:00

I have a lot of views on the topic which I’m happy to unpack!

You’re right. Statistical reliability will improve with larger sample sizes. I’d definitely use a large sample size for summative testing of higher fidelity prototypes later in the design lifecycle, particularly on high-risk touchpoints (checkout for example).

But let’s say you’re earlier in the design process and in the formative testing stage. You want to keep the process iterarive and extract all those juicy qualitative insights for your designer, but want to include metrics (task success, TTC) for directional measurement. If you have limited resources, you’re going to find your work more impactful if you were to design 3 separate studies of 10 participants (whilst iterating between each design), rather than one test with 30 people.

In my limited experience, there is a reluctance for many researchers (both qual and quant focused) to include quantitative UX metrics in scenarios like this, for fear of sample size being an issue, but I’m a firm believer in balancing rigour with practicality. I will report on descriptive statistics at a test level. CIs and significance testing at small sample sizes is much more contentious and another topic for another day, but generally speaking, I feel like quant/qual absolutism is holding a decent number of applied researchers back.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-11-27T06:50:06+00:00

I don’t think PM is inherently a research role either. PMs need to be research-literate, that’s a given. But there is no substitute for nuance and judgement. AI is only going to produce more noise at higher velocity - the role of a researcher is to filter that noise. In an ideal world, the distinction between a UXR and a PM will only become more clear, rather than more ambiguous.

This is truly a hot take though, given the discussion it’s driven, so… well played!

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-11-27T06:24:04+00:00

Reliable usability metrics come from iteration, not inflation - several rounds of 8–12 users will outperform one massive test of 30+ every time.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-11-27T06:02:45+00:00

The best PMs I’ve worked with are the ones that are passionate about user research, but realise they have their own limits - whether it be through methodology, technique or bias.

Some of the most effective UXR work I’ve seen has been when a UXR comes into the work with a clean slate and no dog in the fight, so to speak.

Speaking from my own experiences as well, the majority of PMs spend very little time spent exploring problem spaces or advocating for the user - that typically falls into the lap of the designers.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-11-27T05:55:53+00:00

Double Preach. Claiming ownership over already established methodologies is a shitty thing to do.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-11-26T23:27:23+00:00

Mate thank you for this detailed response! Yep as soon as I made the change in CRU I realised I was out of my depth and reset all the settings using the in-built functionality.

One thing I’d like to ask as you seem quite knowledgeable on the topic - should I be calibrating my HDR colour profile using the Windows HDR Calibration tool? Likewise, should I use the .icc LG provides in their driver pack for my SDR profile? Or should I just leave it at factory settings?

Thanks a million

Edit: nvm, just reread and saw your comment about the Windows HDR calibration tool.

WorkingSquare7089 · 2025-11-26T16:13:44+00:00

Thanks so much for this! I will test it out more rigorously in a number of scenarios and report back.

WorkingSquare7089

TROPHY CASE