Being a UX Research graduate at Compare the Market
At Compare the Market, graduates on our two-year digital programme can spend six months working within the Customer Experience team, experiencing Optimisation, UX Design and UX Research.
Our recent grads tell you what they’ve learnt about UX Research while working on a variety of projects.
A bit about our grads…
Rosie
I joined CX in March 2020 after a six-month rotation working in SEO and was assigned to the Core Experience mob. Core Experience look after all things Sign In, My Account and other non-journey pages, so I’ve enjoyed being involved in diverse projects such as Meerkat Music or the site’s main navigation structure.
Omar
CX was my second rotation as part of the Digital Graduate Programme. I’ve been working in what we call the KatCar mob, which looks after the Car, Van, Motorbike and Pet price comparison journeys. Working with the UX research team and liaising with the UX Designers as well as the Product managers, I have conducted exploratory research, as well as testing the live journey and prototypes ahead of A/B testing.
Sarah
I joined Customer Experience in March 2019 and was lucky enough to have two rotations in the team, one of which was fully focused on UX Research. I worked predominantly in the Breadth mob, supporting digital and energy products. I loved that there were lots of exciting projects that needed lots of customer research.
From September 2020 I will be joining the team full time as their first ever Junior UX Researcher!
Research methods we’ve learnt
Omar
With the second graduate rotations coinciding with everyone working from home, UX research has been done remotely using the platform Userzoom. This platform allows use of several research methods.
I’ve conducted several Usability studies, allowing us to target specific participants and setting them tasks to complete while thinking out loud — noting behaviours and points of struggle to support design iterations.
These kinds of studies are typically sent to a small number of people and help us quickly identify and solve customer pain points.
I’ve built surveys with larger sample sizes to gain more attitudinal data - great if you need to validate a hypothesis for a focussed part of the journey.
Rosie
Like Omar, all my studies have been remote. I was impressed with Userzoom’s ability to facilitate virtual card sorts — ideal for finding out how users categorise and group products and features. There are two types of card sorts we use — closed and open. The latter is useful when working on new product ranges, as participants are free to create any number of groupings and name them using customer not business language. A closed card sort comes into play once we know the categories and want to refine which items fit within.
Sarah
I was lucky to have my UX rotation pre-covid (September 19-March 2020) so as well as remote Userzoom studies, I was able to carry out interviews in person using our in-house usability lab. The lab is complete with one-way mirrors for teams across the business to observe, so it’s great for increasing the impact of our research within the team and across the wider business.
I had the opportunity to support and run moderated usability research for a redesigned product journey. The objective was to find usability issues and my insights were used to inform design iterations ahead of live site testing.
I facilitated discovery interviews with a previously identified customer segment we needed a better understanding of. The main objectives was to understand the key pain points for these customers and areas of possible opportunity for Compare the Market.
What advice we’d give
Rosie
Knowing Design and Optimisation will help shape your UX Research ideas. Say yes to any opportunities that give insight into what your colleagues from other disciplines do.
Omar
Passion for listening to and understanding the user is key. This, in combination with a collaborative mindset, is the first step to becoming a great UX Researcher.
Sarah
I would say just try and get involved in as many projects/opportunities as you can, as each will be different and have new things you can learn with different methods involved.
