When Liam suggested that I write a blog post to introduce myself, my initial instinct was to talk at length about my love of video games and my collection of Dr. Martens boots. Then I had a bit of a rethink, and decided that the following was probably more what he had in mind.
I’m Charlotte, and I joined Lagom at the start of the year as a user researcher. I recently completed my PhD in human factors and ergonomics. My research involved developing evidence-based personas to support the design of built environments for people living with dementia.
Since I started, I’ve found that research at Lagom is quite a contrast to research in academia. While my PhD involved a few distinct studies, everything was part of a larger, longer term piece of research. The work I’m doing now is much more fast paced and varied, and it’s a change that I’m really enjoying.
I thought it might be quite challenging settling into my new job given that everybody works remotely. But it hasn’t really felt that remote – when we’re not using Whereby for video calls, we’re all using Slack to keep each other posted with what’s going on. In a weird way, I actually feel more a part of the team than I have in previous jobs where I’ve worked in an open plan office with 10 other people. It does of course help that my colleagues have all been very welcoming over the last few weeks (and very patient when I ask lots of questions).
I’m really looking forward to the next few weeks as I get stuck into some more user research. I imagine it won’t be too long until I’m posting more things on the blog about what I’ve been getting up to.
