Alex Mack
Alex Mack's blog posts
Introducing the Research Thinking Field Guide
Fundamentally, research is about helping people make better decisions, and it should be an integral part of how any team develops products and services.
A remote-first guide to remote culture
As more organizations consider remote work, it's important to understand what it entails and how to ensure all team members feel supported. In this piece, we share a few practices we've found success with.
The right benchmarks
While government websites don’t need to match or outpace commercial websites on design novelty or retention metrics, they should aim to outperform on ensuring users accomplish their goals easily and efficiently.
What research can do: A maturity model for government agencies
Maturing a process is not easy, even if there is interest. It’s incumbent on human-centered design practitioners to recognize where an agency is with their practice, so they can identify how to help them grow.
The impact of internal incentives on product outcomes
Agencies that take the time to set outcome-based North Stars, align their internal incentives to reward outcomes, and empower their product owners are better prepared to build excellent products for the public.
How bad incentives can lead projects astray, and how to set things straight
While there is a great deal written about how perverse incentives can lead to unintended outcomes, we wanted to focus on how using the right incentives can drive the right behaviors — both at the individual and organizational levels.
How to create an inclusive user research environment
As researchers, we’re on the front lines of understanding the people who use our services, and that means we need to be inclusive in how we conduct our research.
The 21st Century IDEA Act Playbook Part 4: Prioritize modernization with user research
The 21st Century IDEA Act mandates that every agency prioritize public services that need modernization. The best way for agencies to prioritize their services is to thoroughly research how users interact with those services.
A case for incremental change and accessibility
As we consider accessibility, we also need to keep in mind the impact of disruptions, particularly for audiences who rely on predictability and for whom recreating their accommodations can be a painful process.
Qualitative and quantitative research
Most of our work is focused on qualitative studies, and we find that there is often a lack of clarity among our stakeholders on the benefits of qualitative versus quantitative data.