Do y’ll automate tasks, if so what are those? If yll use it for data analytics what type of analytics?has anyone used it for summarizing or creating themes from interview data?

I've been looking into CX research and how it relates to UXR. I get that CX is basically UX but "more broad", but I can't wrap my head around what their day-to-day and tasks might look like. I've been trying to find some resources online, but the UXR community is waay larger than CXR, which is also kind of curious to me.

Does anyone have experience working in this field or any thoughts they'd like to share?

Basically, I really don't get what this job is about.

Hi guys, soon I'm starting out my first UXR role in a BFSI (Banking, Financial Sector and Insurance) focused design consultancy.

I've been told we rely more on data provided by our clients and secondary research. I wanted to ask the community if there are any important resources such as cases studies, UXR repositories or tools that I can reference and leverage to stand out in my role.

I've been a UX Designer for a while now and trying to transition into UXR. I'm excited and want to give myself all the chances to excel at my role.

Any information that you would share will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

I am looking for sales engineer/solution architect/customer engineer. Basically, people who help sales teams get all the technical details of the product, build proposals and present them to customers.

Hey all,

I’m getting my resume ready because my company is “restructuring”. I’ve had my role change multiple times throughout my tenure but no official title changes. I’m trying to figure out the best way to express this on my resume.

When I first started at my company I was more of a community manager and assistant researcher. I started out managing our participant community, helping it grow, recruiting for other researchers, and helping with research studies by taking additional notes.

After a couple of months we hired another person that took over my initial tasks and I took overflow projects for a busy and quickly developing customer facing product and also took on my own customer facing product.

As development for one of those products wrapped up I took on a back of the house area with 2 more products while continuing to help with the previous customer facing area.

Now I’m taking over all the back of the house research. This is 3 different areas of the company with at least 7 different products.

So about every 6 months my role changed but over this time I still have the entry level researcher title.

How would you express this change in responsibility on a resume? Would you add in titles like “community manager”, “researcher cher for ‘x’ area” or would you do something else?

And what the heck level role should I look for next? (This is coming from a large company for 2 years of ux research and I have 10 previous years of experience in academia as a researcher) *edited to add years

Hey! I’m a postgraduate student on a 1 year Human-Computer Interaction masters programme.

Speaking to alumni ux researchers of my course, they seem to unanimously agree that I should be focussing on exercising and justifying ux research methods within the project.

Those on my course who want to be ux designers are focussing on designing and evaluating their own physical or digital prototypes.

I am more interested in ‘exploring’ the experience of something perhaps already existing and really pin down the psychological elements of a users interaction. I have heard that a big part of grad interviews involve showcasing the usage and justification of user research methods.

What topics/ideas/advice would you suggest to maximise and leverage my dissertation for grad ux research interviews after the degree?

My interests are in the realm of gaming, film and tv but I’m not stringent on these being the topic of the project.

I've met several UXRs or market researchers, and all but one self-identified as extroverts. One of them even said they considered a career in sales (!!)

I realize there is a broader debate around UX itself for this area.

There are also analogies in other IT fields. For example on the tech side programming is often geared towards introverts, though sales engineers and implementation consultants tend to be more outgoing.

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What programming languages should I learn to do any data analysis be it survey, multi-variate statistics (regression, cluster analysis, factor analysis), web site analytics and more? What’s in demand now that AI taking over? I want to get trained that is more in demand and timeless (hopefully)! Thanks

basically title, i'm thinking of getting a data science minor and I am going to major in HCDE at uw(a ux design and research major). Trying to plan out what classes I am going to take and wondering if I should be taking some other classes not in my major that would be helpful for UXR.

My research team is currently hiring a senior UXR and I would love to learn any best practices/processes you follow or keep in mind of when recruiting candidates. Given it's a senior role, we are looking for someone with:

1. Strong fundamental research skills (particularly qual)
2. Can confidently work with stakeholders and manage expectations
3. Has comfort working in a complex domain (ie: fintech) + an environment with low uxr maturity
4. Is excited about the prospect of shaping the research culture at the organizational level.

Alternatively, I would also like to hear from those who are currently interviewing for roles - what could be done to make this process feel more fair? What improvements would you like to see in the way a prospective employer communicates with you and gives you the chance to showcase your skills?

(Please don't message me for referrals. Thanks!)

Hi, I'm sorry if I'm not posting this in the right thread (i.e. if I should be posting it in the weekly sticky thread—let me know and I change it!), but I've gotten into the third round of a UX Research internship at a tech distribution company that will require me to do a whiteboard exercise. I was quite shocked to learn how much this internship position requires, especially given the pay rate is actually far below the market average especially in California, but I still think it'd be an amazing opportunity! For context, I'm an undergrad but I've been involved in the UXR space in a more non-profit and volunteer capacity for about a year and I have about two years of research experience combining my UXR experience with my research in academia. I'm definitely more of a qualitative researcher, but I do have some quant skills with statistical analysis through R (but haven't used it in my UX research). A bit more about the job description is that it requires competencies in user research methods like usability testing, interviews, surveys and contextual inquiries—all of which I have had experience with except for surveys (but I'm reading up on it, just haven't put it into practice). I also really would love to do well because they said a Master's is preferred, so that means I'm probably in the same round as those with more academic experience as me. I've heard this isn't as much of a factor once I've already made it through the initial rounds, so hopefully me being an undergrad doesn't detract from my potential merit in their eyes, but I'm hoping because of how much they're making the interns go through, it may lead to job retention? (hopefully with more pay 😪)

The first round was a recruiter screen, second was a case study walkthrough/presentation with the lead UXR, and this round is going to be a 1 hour and 30 minute video interview in 2 main parts:

1. 30 minutes: white board a research plan based on a prompt with the lead UXR there (I assume to answer my contextualizing questions)
2. 1 hour: present the research plan to the team and answer questions from the team

While I've been trying to find resources, it's a bit tricky for me to navigate because all of the video examples tend to be for UX design rather than UX researchers. I'd love to hear any of your advice for this process! I appreciate any time you'd be able to give, especially because I'm really daunted by this interview format. Also, does anyone happen to know if I'd be allowed to use a FigJam board with notes and content already on it? Or do they expect me to go in with a blank board? (sorry if that's more context dependent, I only have about 2 days so otherwise I would ask more questions to the recruiter and lead). Right now, this is how I hope to approach it based on what I could find online, so if anyone would be willing and able to give feedback on my current idea, I'd also really appreciate it!

1. Clarifying questions and assumptions (collecting meta data via AonaTalks' advice)
2. Research objectives: define problem, understand user pain points
3. Business impact
4. Research methods and why: qual/quant, behavioral/attiduinal, generative/exploratory/iterative/evaluative
5. Affirm why research methods and metrics to recruit
6. Limitations
7. Sample questions or tasks
8. Data analysis techniques
9. Potential expected outputs (deliverables)
10. Next steps

Any advice for how to present it at the end? Sorry this was so incredibly long, but thank you so so much in advance!

Hi, I‘m looking for some tips or practical information on running remote user testing / usability testing in VR. Has anyone on here done these studies?

I‘ve found some papers on the topic (here and here) and some sort of software running in unity which can help running these studies. But there seems to be very little practical info on this kind of topic.

Would be interested to hear your opinion on this and any additional sources and information.

Hi,

I am discovering a user journey that involves with various software (Excel, Tableau), and a terminal screen. I have already done user sessions and created a user journey map but I need go in-depth.

I need to understand and discovery every single step.

One method I was thinking, asking users to teach me the process end to end.

What are your views and what type of research approach I should be taking?

Thanks :)

Hello! I'm in my 3rd year as a UXR and come from a (somewhat) non-traditional background -- I have a psych degree, but essentially worked/shadowed my way into becoming a UXR at my previous company. I was caught in tech layoffs in 2022, and have since found another UXR job at a much smaller company. Happy to be employed, but am not at my ideal workplace.

In looking for other roles, I'm noticing that my main disqualifications are time in role (many looking for 5+ years, which is fine!) and degree/experience with various methodologies. I'm quite experienced with moderated interviews, prototype testing, card sorting, and field visits.

However, I know I have blind spots and am honestly kind of starting to feel some imposter syndrome as I advance in my career. I am at a company now that's quite small and I no longer have access to my tenured peers that I did at my previous, huge company.

I'm curious to hear thoughts on 1) if there is value in pursuing academic education at this point in my career, wether via auditing or working toward a masters, etc and 2) if there are any resources you all have enjoyed that you feel have contributed toward your growth.

​

Thanks!

Hey y'all. I'm interviewing for a quant UXR post that will require some SQL and R coding. There will be a coding test. There are a lot of SQL resources, but I'm not sure what to expect for R (and honestly, it's not my strength -- my "home" language is one that people don't use in industry too much, so I'd like to cram). Do people have any examples? I've heard it tends to be things like data cleaning, etc. I REALLY would like this gig!

No matter where I look, I see different answers for what constitutes a research question and a research objective. Is there any consensus? I have been interpreting it as:

Research questions are broad and high level. Some examples:

1. What is [insert product]'s value proposition?
2. What design requirements are needed for [current/new product]?

And there are specific research objectives tied to the research question:

1. Understand the pain points across the E2E journey of [the product].
2. Find usability issues in [current product].

I still feel like I'm missing something. Anyone here able to provide clarity?

I utterly love interviewing people. I adore hearing people speak about their experiences. But having just finished a usability testing day (8 sessions 30 mins one an hour) I’m again reminded there’s one big challenge in this profession I’ve never worked out how to dodge: the empathy drain.

For me, after I’ve interviewed, I feel like the physical and mental incarnation of TV static (for those old enough to remember that). I’m not even plain exhausted, it’s some funky mix of exhaustion and hyperawareness. And I’m never quite sure what to do about it. I find I’m awful company for a while, demotivated/low willpower, and utterly scatterbrained.

Things that appeal to me when in this mood but don’t seem to help are screen time, junk food. Things that I try to choose instead is going for a run and then to bed, but that relies on depleted willpower so I have to be really tough on myself to make it happen. It feels like neither approach is effective.

I’m proud to have earned a reputation as an excellent interviewer and listener, so I’m ok with taking a hit to be great at what I do, but I feel like I need to find a better way to process the fallout afterwards. I’m trying to find better ways of dealing with feelings of overload in many elements of my life, and this situation, since it’s work driven, tends to occur once every 4 weeks for me so it’s a high priority to sort out.

How do you folks deal with empathy drain or exhaustion / overwhelm after interviews and fieldwork? Any tips or ideas, particularly from fellow introverts who dial up the energy on the day and then need to retreat?

I know there are a million posts about this currently on the sub about people looking to leave UX Research but I thought I need specific advice that is a bit more relevant to me.

I graduated with a BSc in Psychology and MSc in HCI. I have worked for a couple months in a consultancy with very little UX maturity. I'm also autistic and have realised only recently how much it drains me to talk to people all day and manage stakeholders etc. I also don't enjoy working on multiple things at a time and have a hard time concentrating and adjusting to completely new projects. I've realised a little bit too late that I enjoy very repetitive tasks that I have specialised knowledge in and UX research in a lot of ways requires a lot of adaptability that I don't possess. I don' really know what to do, should I try and stick it out for a few months to see if I adapt? I would ideally pivot to a computer programmer role, but I know that field is quite oversaturated at the moment too. I also am not the greatest with numbers and algorithms that I think would be required for a role like this. In an ideal world, I would like a role that requires minimal meetings, work that I can get on with on my own that isn't reliant on others, requires high attention to detail and is repetitive to some extent. Any advice on what type of roles I should look to pivot to?

I moved to Chicago recently and am looking to connect with other folks in the UXR space (Candidly, I’m also looking for a new job.), but am having trouble finding any active community in the city.

I have checked MeetUp, but it looks like none of the groups are active.

Hi everyone,

I would like to hear your honest opinion about the amount of workload that falls within my role.

I am part of a team of 3 plus manager in consulting. I am a mid-level since September last year (promoted from Junior). Basic JD requirement is that each of us has to carry forward 2 research projects per month.

Research projects involve sandard UXR steps such as study design, recruitment, data collection, analysis, reporting, and presenting results to a client. I handle basic quant analysis and qual data analysis (several hours of recording say average 28 per project) independently.

However, we also use Figma to hand-craft reports, sometimes with pre-existing artifacts, sometimes from scratch. I am pretty good using figma, but it’s very time consuming and cognitively intense to find ad-hoc data visualization solutions.

Now, we also have to support CS by being part of upsell calls / research calls, ideally twice a week. We are also supposed to reach out to former clients who used our research service for potential upselling.

We also do a lot of client management, e.g. understanding and reformulating research needs and questions, chasing, establishing timelines, etc. In calls or via written communication.

Beside all of this, everything client-related needs to be documented, either a call or the current step in research process (JIRA). This requires substantial documentation.

There are also less time consuming but recurrent ad-hoc requests from internal stakeholders. Easy to handle but prone to disrupt the work flow, especially during studies.

All of this being considered, I am doing fine, but I was wondering whether this is normal for a UXR role. I have raised some complaints about the workload but realized I don't really have any measure of comparison, being my first role as UXR.

Thoughts? Do you feel this is a reasonable or unreasonable amount of tasks for a UXR role?

Thanks a lot!

How long was your break, and why did you decide you needed to take a break? What was it like trying to come back into UXR again after your break?

Couldn’t find this topic when searching this sub, so I thought it’d be good to start this conversation since I’m sure many of us will be considering a break at some point in our future.

Do you or your organisation follow a process of including NDAs or some kind of Gdpr document to say that your information is safe with us?

-If your organisation does then what are the reasons?

-If your organisation doesn’t then what are the reasons?

My company is asking me to stop signing NDAs but I want to be clear with my process by creating some document that participants are willingly giving the information. Any ideas on how I can structure it?

Hi there, I often need to send out surveys to users in two locales. Locale A always has great response rates. For example, I received 600+ responses from 3000 surveys sent. But for locale B, I got much lower responses. For example, the same survey was sent to 400 customers but only 30 responded.

My question is, given the small number of responses, can I even use the results? It's got some good nuggets of qualitative info. Locale B also has strategic importance to my employer.

Thanks,

Hi there!

I've seen some UXR contracts that are only 1 month long, requiring the contractor to design, recruit, test, present ideas, and participate in design sprints. I wanted to know from researchers who have been in the job long enough if that's feasible.

These jobs also mention other types of user research besides user testing, all to be done in the same time frame.

Hello,

I'm looking for career advice.

Let me tell you a bit about my situation. I've been unemployed for the past 6 months. I have a BSc in Cognitive Neuroscience and an MSc in HCI. I've worked as a UX researcher for 2 year in academia and 1 year in a startup before I was let go. Since then, I've really struggled to find a UX research job, and I'm now considering pivoting my career.I've been looking into different fields, including marketing. As I have previous experience in a startup, where I helped the marketing team create campaigns, and I also own a small e-commerce business where I handle the marketing myself, I realize that I might enjoy a role in this field. I'm also considering data science, as I have experience with statistics and it is very in demand right now. I'm keen in doing a bootcamp in DS, even though I'm not sure how I can stand out compared to people who have a degree in data science.

I'm mostly looking for a career that is remote friendly as I have 2 kids, and this will give me better flexibility with parenting.

In summary, I'm an unemployed UX researcher looking to pivot my career. If you have any advice or other career roles to suggest, please do, as I'm really struggling at the moment. PS. I'm based in the UK.

Thank you for you time.

I'm currently conducting a survey to understand job applicants with the goal of using AI technology to help them save time from applying to multiple jobs. Creating efficient survey questions isn't exactly my strong suite and I was wondering if it would be possible to receive feedback on choices of questions and the design.

Link to survey questions: https://docs.google.com/document/d/17LSmeq8n6qYEfP5aEKtfccWkmnCj7q3hKcfN-yhtSjI/edit?usp=sharing

Let me know what you think. Thank you in advance!

I am a cofounder of a small software development company. We have developed a metaverse product. As longtime Slack users, we recently adapted the product and built a Slack app as we were doing all our stand-ups in the metaverse. Any suggestions on what the best way is to get people to install on Slack, use it and provide feedback on the app prior to a submission to the Slack App directory? Would really appreciate some advice here. We have tried direct contacts that use Slack but unfortunately we don’t know enough people using Slack

I need some help sending a response (without being pissed off)

As some background :

• I work for a high-street bank
• We log in and work via citrix for security reasons and various bits of our Chrome web browser are locked down (i.e. can't get on certain websites, or use plugins)
• I did some user research and recorded the sessions on Zoom, and need to download them.

Anyway....

I asked in two different team chats if anyone had done this before, i.e. downloading videos from zoom, as it's not as easy as one might think. Looks like you can only do it with a plugin or hacking using your chrome browser and the inspection tool.

Alas what has annoyed me is the Head of User Research has done the following :

• Hi [name] how are you settling in?
• Love that your in our retail chat, but can you Google things before asking questions?
• i.e. QQ : does anyone know how to download Zoom recordings to [our local banking environment]?

I find this to be really unhelpful because :

• I'm facing a not so simple issue to fix, sounds simple I know but it shouldn't

• I'm using my initiative to be a "team" or "collaborate."

• This may surprise people but I did actually "google" how to download recordings on YouTube too.

• I have 14 years of experience and being told to "google it" I find is unhelpful, unprofessional, and all-round awful leadership.

• You can even be new to UX, and you'd be put off with "google it."

Anyway, it was gone 5pm when they sent it. I'm not replying to it. I will speak with one of my colleagues about it tomorrow.

This sort of stuff is not the thing you should ever write to someone via instant messenger as all the tone of voice is lost.

Any ideas of a good response (happy to hear jokes too)?

I probably just want to confront her one to one and face to face, "that reply was really unhelpful, not welcoming, collaborative or any kind of good team building etc."

I look forward to the replies

This is the place to ask questions about:

• Getting started in UXR
• Interviewing
• Career advice
• Career progression
• Schools, bootcamps, certificates, etc

Don't forget to check out the Getting Started Guide and do a search to see if your question has already been asked.

Please avoid any off-topic self-promotion in this thread. Thanks!