The next level in a UX Researcher’s career
By: Evie Cheng
Tags: UX Research, User Experience, Career Advice, Growth, User Research

As we get more responsibilities and take ownership of our work as a User Experience Researcher, we start to think beyond execution to deal with vagueness and ambiguity. It is a challenging (sometimes painful) but necessary journey to level up in our career. To be a better UX researcher, and a researcher people enjoy working with, do we need to be the expert in a particular research method, an industry, or a population? Or is it something else?

As I gain more experience, I have reached an exciting point with more clarity and self-awareness. There is still so much more to learn, as it should always be. This article aims to be more of a self-reflection and summary of key learnings and struggles I have along the way. I hope these things that keep pushing me forward would be helpful for you also, and open up more discussions.

Here’s what I learned — What makes a great UX researcher?

Solid knowledge in research methods

An experienced UX researcher has a robust and expanding research toolkit with methods to uncover different types of questions. This could be a generalized set of mixed methods, or a specialty in an area that you are working on. For example, suppose you are working on a service that is built for the scientific community; What methods are most effective for this population? Or, suppose you are designing a product for visually impaired users; What are some key things to consider when conducting research with this group of users? Ownership in users’ perspectives

This learning was not as intuitive to me at the beginning because advocating for, representing, and even owning a group of people’s voices sounded like a huge responsibility. However, this is especially important if you are in a relatively small UX team. You play a key role in bridging the gap between what your team knows about users, and what they should know. This means having more conversations with stakeholders, creating easily accessible research results, being available to answer any questions the team has about users, and being flexible to come up with concrete plans to reduce uncertainties. Translating research to something your team can take on

Every team is different. There is no best way to communicate or present research results, only the better way that your team is most comfortable with and can act on more easily. Earlier in my career, I worked on the consulting side where professional-looking slides and presentations are the first priority. As I switched to in-house product teams, I have learned that a solid and straightforward answer that comes in time is all that matters. This could be a short email with the top three findings of the day, a short document with a table of findings and recommendations, or simply a two-minute video clip that hits the most important question. Asking the fundamental questions

An experienced UX researcher asks important and the most challenging questions, thinking beyond assignments and requirements. What questions do we have? Do we have a common understanding of what we are trying to learn? What decisions do we need to make, and who is the decision-maker? What do we know now? What assumptions do we have? Clarifying these questions upfront sets up an aligned expectations of your research and thus helps you come up with a robust plan on the types of data you are collecting, and the best approaches to go for. Excellent time management and prioritization skills

As we demonstrate the value of UX research, we get more attention and thus more research needs and requests. This is an excellent sign that you are doing a great job and having an impact in your organization. However, with limited research capacity, you need to handle research needs and push back wisely. When is this going to be built? Are there other priorities on your plate? How much capacity do you have? What are you trying to learn, and do you really need that much amount of data to reduce uncertainty? What is the most effective approach to work this out? Mapping out roadmap and strategy

We really level up when we start to think about and even have a say in strategy. In addition to doing your own work, you need to figure out what needs to be done to level up UX research in your organization moving forward. What types of research would be important for your team based on business goals and product roadmap? What could you and your team do differently? What is the UX research roadmap you vision? What additional resources do you need to make that happen?

Feeling uncomfortable is a healthy sign that you are trying something different and growing as a professional and as a person. When you feel stuck and do not know what to do, you are definitely not alone. Ask for your colleagues’ feedback or thoughts, get advice and guidance from mentors or connections (There are more and more great mentorship programs out there, and people are so willing to help each other out than you might think), and of course, read.

The following books and resources have been incredibly helpful for me in reflecting where I am at in my career, and coming up with tangible goals and actions to move forward with:

Books

It’s Our Research: Getting Stakeholder Buy-in for User Experience Research Projects by Tomer Sharon:

This is a practical guidebook for UX researchers; I found the chapter about tracking research impact especially helpful as it talks about signs that indicate how well research is being used in your organization, and how to systematically track it.

This is a practical guidebook for UX researchers; I found the chapter about tracking research impact especially helpful as it talks about signs that indicate how well research is being used in your organization, and how to systematically track it. How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business by Douglas Hubbard:

This book introduces an universal approach to measure anything that is relevant and critical to organizational decisions. For example, brand value, quality, preference, productivity, and so on. It helps me to rethink my research approaches by clearly defining how decisions would be impacted, the value of additional information, and how to collect the data that I need. A highly recommended book for mixed-method researchers!

Framework

Research Skills Framework by the ResearchOps Community:

I find this activity really helpful and easy to complete; It helps to quickly map out your own strengths and weaknesses in research skills, and identify gaps to work on next within 10–15 minutes.

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