  The rapid move to remote work due to COVID-19 social distancing policies has
slowed or stopped most in-person qualitative user research activities. The
limitation on in-person activities has pushed many user researchers to consider
how they can continue their research remotely and presents an opportunity for
user research teams to (re)design their research processes for remote work. In
this position statement, I outline prior work in remote qualitative user
research methods and discuss how this work can help us to (re)design new tools,
methods, and frameworks that can enable remote work. I then propose a set of
research questions that can further our knowledge and abilities to conduct
effective remote user research. With creative development, we can create remote
research methods that afford new ways of understanding user experience today
and build more environmentally conscious and accessible research practices for
a future where remote user research is much more common.
