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- 🤖 When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling + 😠 Dealing with Difficult Participants in Research
🤖 When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling + 😠 Dealing with Difficult Participants in Research
This week: Learn How to Deal with Difficult Participants in Remote User Research!; What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling than the Truth?; Designing for Serial Task Switching. Check out our Research Lunch Club member interview from 🇨🇦 Canada, our podcast pick on AI Therapy, plus the latest job opportunities in research. And finally - join Research Lunch Club, now live in 33+ cities, before we send out our THIRD round of matches this month!
People of Research
June 11, 2025
🎤 Community Highlights
👋 We love seeing researchers connect through Research Lunch Club!
🍴 Here’s a moment from a Research Lunch Club lunch in #Berlin 🇩🇪 with Tatiana, a Market Research consultant and Giulia, a Senior UX Researchers at Doodle.
Fancy meeting new researchers? Building a few bridges over lunch? and growing your research network?
🚀 Research Lunch Club is matching researchers across 30+ cities worldwide this May - connecting members in trios from fields like AI ethics, cognitive science, ethnography, and UX research. Whether you’re in New York or Sao Paulo or Sydney, there’s a seat at the table.
Be part of our thrid round of matches in the coming week! - it’s like networking, but tailored, fun and over lunch!
🔬 Research Lunch Club Member Interview
This week’s interview is from Research Lunch Club - where researchers meet in person for monthly lunches in their city.
🔬 Our Meet Our Members series shares the journeys of researchers across disciplines - so you can get to know who you might be sitting down with over lunch!
 Research Lunch Club Meet our Members #8 |
📰 Article Picks
🔗 Learn How to Deal with Difficult Participants in Remote User Research!: Benjamin Tey outlines common challenging participant archetypes encountered in remote user research and offers practical strategies for moderators to navigate these situations effectively. He details various difficult behaviors, from "The Ghost" who gives minimal answers to "The Multitasking Pro" and "The Talkative Expert," explaining potential root causes like nervousness or misunderstanding the interview's purpose. Tey provides specific tips for each archetype, such as creating an open environment for shy participants or gently steering overly talkative ones back to the main topic, to help researchers gather valuable insights despite the challenges.
🔗 What Happens When AI-Generated Lies Are More Compelling than the Truth?: Nicholas Carr argues that the proliferation of sophisticated AI-generated deepfakes presents a profound threat that extends beyond simple deception to the erosion of societal trust in reality itself. He details how these easily created and untraceable "lies" risk fostering widespread cynicism, where mythmaking and emotionally compelling narratives could supplant verifiable truth. Carr uses examples ranging from historical photo manipulations (like Abraham Lincoln's portrait) to modern deepfakes involving celebrities (Tom Cruise, Taylor Swift) and political scenarios (like the Chicago mayoral election or an RNC ad) to illustrate how this trend could lead to a world where objective truths lose power, ultimately benefiting authoritarian tendencies.
🔗 Designing for Serial Task Switching: Megan Chan in Designing for Serial Task Switching explains that serial task switching, the rapid shift of attention between tasks, is a natural user behavior that, unlike true multitasking (which is largely a myth for similar cognitive tasks), leads to errors, low productivity, and stress. She outlines interface patterns and design guidelines to support this reality, such as multi-view interfaces (split-screen, picture-in-picture), allowing tasks to run in parallel, features for refusing interruptions (Do Not Disturb), and robust error prevention/recovery. Examples cited include Google Workspace's sidebars, Zoom's detachable panels, MacOS's Focus Mode, and Gmail's Undo Send feature, all aimed at reducing friction and cognitive load for users who frequently switch contexts.
🎙️ Podcast Pick
💼 Job Picks
Are you a hiring manager looking to share research opportunities with a global network of over 2,000 researchers in more than 60 countries? We'd love to hear from you! Just drop us an email ✉️.
UK & Europe
User Researcher 🇬🇧 UK
Senior UX Researcher 🇳🇱 NL
Senior UX Researcher 🇪🇸 ES
North America
Researcher, Rapid Research 🇺🇸 U.S.
Sr. UX Researcher 🇺🇸 U.S.
Oceania
UX Researcher 🇦🇺 AU
Senior UX Researcher 🇦🇺 AU
Latin America
Asia
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👋 About us
We’re People of Research & Research Lunch Club - a global hybrid community uniting researchers across the industries, from UX Research to Behavioural Science. We connect, collab and grow. People of Research was created by @faysel.
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