User Research: What Accurx’s values mean for our team
How 5 values define our research practice, from Lead User Researcher Hazel Ho
I’ve been part of the user research world for six years now, and have worked in lots of different settings, from in the public sector and at a global food delivery business to at a book company raising awareness around diversity for children.
Through each of these roles, I’ve seen how research methodologies tend to be very similar from industry to industry. I’ve also seen how different sectors pose their own unique challenges (here are a few we’ve encountered around healthcare at Accurx!).
In my experience as a user researcher, the greatest thing that has made me feel fulfilled in my role comes back to one key thing: the values and culture of my employer. All this affects how research is run at Accurx. Wondering how? Read on and find out!
How Accurx’s 5 values define our research practice:
1. On a mission:
Everything we do should contribute to making patients healthier, staff happier and health systems more efficient.
What this means as a user researcher:
Accurx is on a mission to fix communication in healthcare. To do that, we need to understand the real-life experiences of healthcare workers and patients inside-out. Product decisions come directly from our users, which means that user research sits at the heart of product teams. Whether it’s generative or evaluative research, we immerse ourselves in our users’ needs and issues before making any decisions.
That being said, user researchers aren’t the only ones who are getting to know our users! Everyone at Accurx, from new starters to our co-founders, take part in user support shifts and visit GP practices and hospitals on a regular basis. As a user researcher, having the whole company get to know our users is invaluable, as it eliminates a huge hurdle one often faces in this role — getting people to buy into user research!
You can read more about how everyone in the company gets to know our users here (spoiler: understanding user input isn’t just the user researcher’s job!).
2. Always collaborating:
We optimise for team success over individual success. Everyone’s problems are my problems.
What this means as a user researcher:
Each product team at Accurx aims to have an embedded researcher within it. Although the user researcher is primarily responsible for informing the research strategy and deciding on appropriate methodologies, we always work in close collaboration with the team.
How so? We don’t work in a siloed structure whereby each person only actions their own specific tasks. Instead, you’ll often find Product Managers, Designers, Ops, and Developers sitting in and taking notes during research calls. Likewise, you’ll also find that researchers are very much a part of the product strategy.
Although Product Managers are ultimately responsible for making product decisions, input from us researchers is highly valued. To make these decisions effectively, the team work together closely to define user needs, possible risks, and product priorities.
3. Kaizen (aka always improving):
We’re always iterating to make things better: culture, processes, and products. When things don’t work out as planned, we learn from this.
What this means as a user researcher: As well as sitting within a dedicated product team, user researchers together form the research team itself, where we’ll have weekly User Research Guild meetings to discuss what we’re working on and how we can improve Accurx’s research function. The goal of this is simple — so we can keep improving, scope out what we need to work on and find new ways to make Accurx products better.
It’s also a forum to discuss any areas for personal improvements. We all mess up — it’s bound to happen! What’s important is learning from this so we can turn mistakes and errors into a learning experience. Embodying Accurx’s value of kaizen gives us the confidence to grow, challenge ourselves, and try out new things in the future.
4. Responsible ownership:
We take pride in our work, individually and as a team, and act responsibly, even when nobody is watching.
What this means as a user researcher:
As both an individual and as a team, we’re given great autonomy in making decisions. Given people need different levels of support, there’s no one-size-fits-all here. But if you enjoy having real autonomy in your work, you’ll thrive at Accurx and find that colleagues and the leadership team trust you to take responsible decisions, and own them.
Some people may prefer to be directed and work within a defined process, but things run differently at Accurx in that you are responsible for deciding next steps and why you’ve made those decisions. For a researcher, this means it’s up to you define your product team’s research strategy and make a call on what methodology to use. That’s not to say you can’t ask for feedback and opinions (there will always be someone available to mentor or coach you!), but it will be up to you to make that first move.
5. Balance:
We know that we do our best work when we’re healthy and happy outside of work.
What this means as a user researcher:
No one likes feeling burnt out. This can happen at high growth startup companies, where things move quickly and the pressure can feel intense! It’s no different at Accurx, but the company puts a lot of stock in having a healthy work-life balance. How do we do this? All sorts of ways!
We have company wide team dinners at the end of every cycle (every two months), team socials every cycle, and annual summer retreats. We also have clubs of all kinds, such as #poker-club #climbing-club #theatre-club #dnd-club #dimsum-club #karaoke-club #chess-club #winetasting-club #fight-club. These are all company sponsored clubs, which give everyone a chance to meet and connect with colleagues in a non-work context.
Important note — we recognise that not everyone wants to, or is able to, find social time after work hours. That’s why we’ve also implemented ‘Society Friday’ when we spend the last Friday of every month participating in club activities. This often leads to building better working relationships, which, as a user researcher, is really important when it comes to working with stakeholders.
The working relationships we have at Accurx are a huge part of why we enjoy coming into work every day and definitely contribute to how well we support one another.
Interested in joining the User Research team?
Hopefully this has given you a glimpse of what life as a User Researcher is like at Accurx and how the company’s values underpin our work! Think you could see yourself as part of the team? We’ve got a range of user research positions available and would love to see your application or answer any additional questions you may have.
We’re very transparent about our ways of working and you can find out more details in our Employee Handbook!
Interested in finding out about how other teams operate? Here’s a read on life via a product manager’s lens!
