🤓UX Researcher Role

The user researcher helps explore user and business problems to innovate with user-centered design processes.

Observer, Apprentice, and Lead Handbooks

📔pageTech Fleet Handbooks

Description

The UX researcher is the investigator who builds empathy for the user on the team. They explore the current world state, the problems people experience, and the behavior of users to analyze the best way forward for the product team. Each sprint, the research team should deliver iterative research results for the team to digest and move forward.

Common Job Titles

UX Researcher

Product Designer

UX Strategist

You might be a UX Researcher if

  1. You like to understand the human condition

  2. You like researching what people need / desire and crafting experiences around it

  3. You like talking to people

  4. You like telling others' stories from their perspective

  5. You like investigative research

  6. You like building and running experiments

  7. You like data analysis

  8. You like validating the work that's being delivered on the team

Cross-functional aspects

  1. With the Client - perform research to collect insights from the client; present research results

  2. With the Project Lead - consult about the direction of the project's plans; get support

  3. With the Product Strategy - consult about the priority of research action items in the roadmap; deliver and communicate insights from research for product strategy to implement

  4. With Design - deliver and communicate insights from research for design deliverables

  5. With Development - deliver and communicate insights from research for dev awareness

Lead Responsibilities

  • Explore the product vision with the client to form research goals for the project and lead the efforts to carry them out

  • Help the client form assumptions about their audience and product

  • Provide feedback and coaching to apprentices in all activities

  • Mentor apprentice UX researchers on the project in the following ways:

    • Picking the correct research methods

    • Creating research experiments for a variety of methods

    • Moderating and participating in research sessions

    • Moderating and facilitating research results workshops

    • Perform research and analyze the results with the team to determine next steps

  • Build and run experiments for a variety of methods, including but not limited to:

    • Interviews

    • Ethnography

    • Prototype tests

    • Market/competitor research

    • Audience demographics research

    • Identify and suggest other qualitative methods as you see fit

    • Participating in research sessions

    • Participating in research results workshops

  • Working with the client to refine the vision of the product based on user needs and UX best practices

  • Collaborate with the UX design team to create UX artifacts based on research results

  • Lead the strategic direction of user research and identify opportunities for research throughout the project

  • Build research plans of different varieties based on the research topic

  • Communicate the results of research in an informative and persuasive way

  • Help the client and project team build empathy for users through research; ability to make strategic recommendations to the client and project group on the future directions of the project based on research results

  • Consult the UX design group to incorporate research insights into the prototype and product vision recommendations

Apprentice Responsibilities

  • Work under the direction of the project lead and UX research lead

  • Explore the product vision with the client to form research goals for the project and carry them out with the UX research lead

  • Help the client form assumptions about their audience and product

  • Work with the UX research lead to build and run experiments for a variety of methods, including but not limited to:

    • Interviews

    • Ethnography

    • Prototype tests

    • Market/competitor research

    • Audience demographics research

    • Identify and suggest other qualitative methods as you see fit

    • Participating in research sessions

    • Participating in research results workshops

  • Perform research and analyze the results with the team to determine the next steps on the project

  • Working with the client to refine the vision of the product based on user needs and UX best practices

  • Collaborate with the UX design team to create UX artifacts based on research results

  • Document research methods, test details, and research results

  • Help the UX designer create UX artifacts to communicate the current state, user needs, and the vision of the future state

  • Communicate the results of research in an informative and persuasive way

  • Consult the UX design group to incorporate research insights into the prototype and product vision recommendations

Role Expectations

  • Ability to create direction in uncertainty and explore business problems without direct guidance

  • Interest in Lean UX methods and the capability to make suggestions on UX methods

  • Deep understanding of UX and psychology, with an ability to apply it to project work

  • Working cross-functionally between all teams

  • Excellent communication skills

  • Be the “voice of the customer” and “customer expert” for the group along with all teams, the person who grows their subject matter expertise in the product industry and user groups involved

  • Take ownership of the UX Research activities within the project group

Common Deliverables

  1. User personas

  2. User journey maps

  3. Storyboards

  4. Information architecture

  5. Interaction design

  6. Affinity diagrams

  7. Research plans

  8. Presented research results

  9. Surveys

  10. Card sorts

  11. Interview questions

  12. Empathy maps

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