UX Researcher

Overview

Responsibilities:

• Prioritize, plan, balance, manage, and execute prioritized work, making progress independently to achieve well-defined research objectives.
• Identify the most appropriate method(s) to conduct research (e.g., determine when to rely on secondary research versus when to conduct new research) and deliver high-quality insights that have a positive impact on user and business needs.
• Independently make decisions that improve quality and/or consistency of the research.
• Challenge
  • Address medium complexity research and/or user problems by executing a mix of tactical and strategic research or address medium complexity data infrastructure by implementing measurement, leveraging established research methods and tools to rigorously test, measure, evaluate the end user experience.
  • Proactively identify, define, and communicate problems within the project or user experience, and deliver research insights and recommendations to address them.
  • Recognize when the solution being proposed is not ideal and communicate with team leads to identify alternative solutions.
• Influence
  • Develop relationships with one or more team(s) and contribute to cross-project collaborations by proactively identifying user needs, constraints and opportunities.
  • Lead all aspects of the research process, from planning to execution to communication of the results.
  • Ensure strategic and tactical research findings and user insights are of high-quality and have a demonstrable influence on the team, product, service, or ecosystem.
  • Leverage and improve upon team research practices and processes as needed.Expertise
  • Utilize working knowledge of research methodologies, principles, tools, analysis, measurement, and problem framing techniques.
  • Demonstrate proficient understanding of research contributions on product value, user needs, business goals, and brand equity.
  • Act as a resource for own team to understand user needs, constraints, measurement, and opportunities to adapt (or correct) the user experience as needed, generate insights and actionable recommendations that identify and address problems with the user experience.

Overall Responsibilities:

• Advocate for the users
  • Build consensus within one or more projects/teams and gain support for research-based, user-centric solutions. Communicate research insights and recommendations to stakeholders and work to apply and integrate into product and planning.
• Executive research (UX Research)
  • Contribute to developing a holistic research program by planning, designing, and engaging in strategic and tactical research that informs the product/service/business while increasing knowledge about the users needs, pain points, values, opportunities, and motivations. Identify and adapt to evolving user needs by evolving or adapting the research approach for a medium to large project or program. Execute analyzes for medium sized research projects or programs.
• Planning and prioritization (UX research)
  • Plan and prioritize research across projects in alignment with larger project goals, and communicate priorities to team members. Collaborate with partners ??to identify opportunities to expand responsibilities within the immediate product team. Anticipate and remove roadblocks with the potential to impede progress, with minimal guidance from senior team members or managers.
• Research for impact
  • Conduct moderately scoped research to identify user needs and business opportunities that further product and business goals by demonstrating understanding and empathy of the user and the business. Perform research that increases user empathy and informs user-centric thinking with cross-functional partners.
• Synthesizing and communicating research
  • Guide product direction through research by analyzing, consolidating, or synthesizing what is known about user, product, service, or business needs, with minimal guidance. Create and communicate research findings, insights, and recommendations demonstrating a solid understanding of the user and business, partnering with cross-functional stakeholders to extend the impact and visibility of the research.
• Understand all possible users
  • With minimal guidance identify ideas to improve products and services through research-driven insights and recommendations. Utilize user-centric thinking to unblock and inspire partners and collaboratively solve moderately scoped constraints in strategy, product or technology.
• Understand the business (product, service, ecosystem)
  • Help identify, create, and effectively use key insights and metrics to evaluate product or service impact. Utilize understanding of the business goals, product ecosystem, and user trends to guide research-driven, user-centric thinking and decision-making.

Top 3 Daily Responsibilities:

• Independently complete end-to-end studies that are integrated into an overarching project or program.
• Design and conduct a mix of tactical and strategic research across all stages of the product development lifecycle.
• Execute qualitative and/or quantitative research and/or implement measurement for projects and programs, demonstrating effective problem framing and appropriate research method selection with moderate to minimal supervision, seeking and integrating feedback from more senior peers.

Mandatory Skills/Qualifications: 

• Ethical UX research
  • Ability to prioritize the needs of people in order to conduct ethical user research to drive the design or adaptation of user interfaces, products, services, or platforms, especially if ethical conflicts of interest arise. A focus on planning and conducting research that prioritizes ethics from a user’s perspective.
• Human/user behavior
  • Ability to think holistically about strategic value for users based in understanding their motivations, needs, pain points, and values. This includes knowledge of human capabilities, including principles of human cognition and information processing, emotion and sentiment, decision-making and behavior, and how these translate into use, user, and usage fundamentals, usability principles and design best practices.
• Interactive technology
  • Knowledge of how people use and interact with technology in order to influence the design, evaluation, and iterative improvement of interactive hardware and software systems.
• Product development lifecycle
  • Knowledge of the overall process for developing products. This includes knowledge of the roles and responsibilities of engineering and other functions, major phases, checkpoints, and deliverables. This also includes the ability to identify common issues and considerations for delivering a product.
• Research processes
  • Knowledge of the full research lifecycle from planning, to execution, to communicating insights, to impacting product and business direction or strategy.
• UX research methodology
  • Knowledge of principles and methods for defining and measuring UX, and the ability to adapt UX research methods to the appropriate user interface and platform.
• UX storytelling
  • Ability to influence and inspire an audience by crafting stories using data that elicit user or stakeholder empathy or create buy-in. Ability to effectively communicate and illustrate research insights and recommendations by constructing narratives based on appropriately represented data.
• UX systems thinking
  • Ability to analyze situations or problems at the system level or from a broader perspective (including technical and/or organizational). This includes the ability to consider how factors or components in a system interrelate, work over time within the context of larger systems, conduct or direct research, and communicate insights to improve the user experience of those systems, ecosystems, or platforms.
• Education or previous experience conducting user research (qualitative interviews, literature reviews, surveys, competitive analysis)
• Strong interviewing skills and interview script development
• Presentation skills to different audiences
• Experience with fast paced / iterative research
• Experience with surveys / coding open ended responses

Skills:

• In depth interviews – Planning, moderating, analyzing, reporting findings and advocating for the user
• Usability testing – Planning, moderating, analyzing, reporting findings and advocating for the user
• Concept testing – Planning, moderating, analyzing, reporting findings and advocating for the user
• Surveys – Planning, question design, analyzing (descriptive stats), reporting findings and advocating for the user

Non-Essential Skills/Qualifications:

• Strong project / program management experience

The target hiring compensation range for this role is the equivalent of $50.15 – $55.72 an hour. Compensation is based on several factors including, but not limited to education, relevant work experience, relevant certifications, and location.
Additional benefits offered may include; medical health insurance and dental insurance, life insurance, and eligibility to participate in 401k plan with company match.