Tomer Sharon is a thought leader in the field of user experience (UX) design and research. He is currently VP, Head of UX at WeWork (the prolific co-working company with 100s of locations worldwide), where he leads a team that designs work and living spaces, communities, and services around the world. Prior to WeWork, Tomer was Sr. User Experience Researcher at Google. Tomer is the author of two books, “Validating Product Ideas Through Lean User Research” (2016), and “It’s Our Research: Getting stakeholder buy-in for user experience research projects” (2012), both of which have increased the adoption of user experience research among product teams globally.
Many large organizations conduct a ton of research with users yet have bad research memory, research happens in silos, and results are shared through long, fluffy reports. Research is mostly forgotten and ignored and roadmap decisions are made purely based on passion, rather than true human needs. In this fireside chat, Tomer introduces Polaris, a system that changes all of that by redefining the atomic unit of a research insight. Polaris introduces the concept of a research nugget, a combination of an observation, evidence, and a set of tags that represent a taxonomy of things WeWork is interested in. Every WeWork employee can access Polaris and watch a playlist as members talk about a topic of interest. Tomer showcases how he led the development and launch of Polaris at WeWork, what were the considerations for creating it, how it has been used, and lessons he has learned during the process.
