Yikes, now I have a job!
No matter your background starting a new UX research job can feel a bit like jumping into the deep end. There are some familiar challenges that a lot of us faced. Even experienced researchers can stumble navigating new organizations and contexts when they first arrive. Here are some tips to keep in mind as you settle into a new job:
Forming Research Questions
Different stakeholders will have varying levels of familiarity with user researchers. Some might have never worked with a researcher before, which is a great opportunity to shape your ideal working relationship! But, how do you translate stakeholders’ vague questions into research questions? Oftentimes a stakeholder will come to you with a business goal and not necessarily a research question. For instance, she might say “How do we get more users to sign up?” Don’t be afraid to ask questions! It’s your job to elicit underlying assumptions and hypotheses. You may ask “Why do you think they’re not signing up now?” Maybe her hypothesis is that new users don’t understand the value proposition on the homepage. Then your research questions begin to become more focused.
As you develop more subject-matter expertise, you’ll not only be taking inbound research requests, but proposing your own hypotheses and identifying more big picture research questions you want to tackle.
Including Stakeholders
When in doubt, be inclusive! Invite cross-functional partners to your research sessions and include them in the study design well before that. Make sure to include their questions and address their hesitations. The more involved they are in the process, the more bought into the findings they’ll be. Tomer Sharon’s Book, It’s Our Research, covers this topic really well. Sometimes it’s hard to get folks to attend research sessions, so don’t be afraid to be a little pushy and ping people directly to come and observe. In person is best! Give them a job to do, like taking notes and tell them you’re relying on them to take good notes.
Insights and Recommendations
Insights should go a layer deeper and always answer “so what?” Don’t just say what happened in a research study, but connect how a finding starts answering your bigger research questions. Rachel Hinman from Adaptive Path has a great framework: What we Saw/Heard → What it means → Why it matters.
A good research recommendation should be actionable, timely, and clear. Don’t get overly prescriptive on how to solve a problem identified in research, but instead highlight what end the solution should achieve. For example, “help users feel more trust by being more transparent” doesn’t dictate what design to implement, but gets at the goal of the recommendation.
Communicating Findings
Just as important as the research itself, communicating your findings is an essential skill. There are many ways to share: in-person meetings, emails, workshops, brainstorms, etc. Deciding on which mode to choose (or combination) depends on your audience, your turnaround time, and the importance of the study. In general, we err on the side of in-person when possible so that you can better include storytelling and also adapt to your audience’s questions in real time. But always follow up with an email or document / deck that details all of your findings and has the proper documentation.
One of the most important things to keep in mind when sharing out findings and recommendations is to know your audience. What will compel this audience to believe that your findings are important and they should take action based on them? You may want to team up with a partner from data science to include the quantitative side of the story — this will also help convince those who are skeptical of qualitative research. If your audience is more influenced by designs/visuals, partner with your designer to show how an insight led to a design idea.
Hold brainstorms or workshops when you want to include the whole team in creating solutions based on the research. This will help in getting everyone to feel bought in to any product decisions. These are also great to do for product roadmap planning to ensure that new product ideas are rooted in research.
In general, don’t be afraid to over-communicate and take up space. Stakeholders need the information you have and it’s your job to share your wealth of insights and context with everyone!
This article was written by Laith Ulaby and Grace Vorreuter as part of a series on getting started in UX. If you would like to see the rest of the articles click here.
