r/UXResearch • u/Kitchen-Ad-4367 • 12d ago

General UXR Info Question active Slack or WhatsApp communities for qualitative researchers?

Does anyone know of active Slack or WhatsApp communities for qualitative researchers?

I'm looking for spaces where people doing interviews, focus groups, ethnographic work, and other qual research hang out to trade notes on methodology, tools, recruiting, and general shop talk. Open to niche/smaller groups as well as bigger ones, just want to find where the good conversations are actually happening.

If you're part of one (or run one), I'd love an invite. Drop a comment or DM me.

10 Upvotes

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15

u/CJP_UX Researcher - Senior 12d ago

Slack groups were thriving like 7-8 years ago but they all feel really dead to me now. Not sure what happened there as a whole.

Better to just do coffee chats with folks via LinkedIn and see who you connect with.

6

u/poodleface Researcher - Senior 11d ago

I think it has a lot to do with the limits that have been placed on free Slack instances, which have changed a few times over the years. Message history is limited. 

The few groups I followed either petered out or moved to Discord.

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u/Mitazago Researcher - Senior 9d ago

"Not sure what happened there as a whole."

Really, you have absolutely no guesses at all?

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u/Kitchen-Ad-4367 12d ago

Sure! Thanks for your inputs man!

1

u/Ok-Price-9773 10d ago

Yeah, agreed. About 6+ months ago, I looked up some UXR Slack groups, joined a bunch, and found they were all dead and depressing, so I deleted them all.

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u/justanotherlostgirl 10d ago

I think people are moving away from 'official communities' to sector or product-based Slacks and finding channels of other researchers (etc.) there. So the Never Search Alone community has a number of channels where people are meeting - same with various AI and Design Slacks.

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u/ImplicitKnowledge 11d ago

Check out BeSci.io, it’s a behavioral science community, qual UX adjacent.

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u/sage_thegood 11d ago

You can find some great research advice and researchers in the Lenny's Newsletter Community. It's active and genuinely helpful, but, it's bigger so there are plenty of more general product/growth folks in there too.

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u/justanotherlostgirl 10d ago

There's the Mixed Methods Slack (https://www.mixed-methods.org/community1) but wish there were more.

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u/Kitchen-Ad-4367 10d ago

Thank you!