How I translated my PhD skills to UXR

Who is this article helpful for? If you are a current PhD student/recent PhD graduate in the Social Sciences and are curious about careers in UX Research post graduation, this article might be a good read.

Whether you are a PhD graduate or still navigating graduate school, you may be starting to think about what’s next. We are often programmed to believe that our paths beyond graduation are linear– more than often, academic. Recently, PhDs in the Social Sciences have begun exploring careers beyond the academic realm into UX and other research positions in the industry. Early on in my PhD journey, I realized that my interests lay beyond academia, and decided to pursue UX research opportunities. As a result, I ended up completing two UX research internships during the final two years of graduate school that eventually lead to a full-time job opportunity.

A question that often arises when academic/PhD researchers are making the “jump” to industry is how they can translate these skills. The truth is that we amass a multitude of skills in 4+ years of doctoral education, but don’t necessarily know how to adapt them. I have compiled a list of five (and one bonus) translatable skills that helped me make the transition to UX research. Though most skills have a direct equivalent in the industry, I also added a not-so-direct application of each skill, and what you can do to position yourself for success in your UXR job search.

1. Research Methods

Direct: Whether qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods, you can always use your academic research experience as an asset. Surveys, contextual/in-depth interviews, focus groups, ethnographic research methods, observational sessions, and even experimental design directly translate to methods used in the industry.

Not so direct: Methods like card sorting, usability testing, concept tests, participatory design exercises, A/B testing are specific to the industry. Prior to my internship search, I had no experience with these methods. I gathered a theoretical understanding of each of these methods and their applications using books as well as online resources. This helped me gain talking points during an interview for a UXR position.

Books I used:

• Universal Methods of Design: 100 Ways to Research Complex Problems, Develop Innovative Ideas, and Design Effective Solutions
• Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
• Designing for the Digital Age: How to Create Human-Centered Products and Services How to Create Human-centered Products and Services

Online resources:

• Interaction Design Foundation
• LinkedIn Learning

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with any of the resources mentioned in this article.

2. Research experience

Direct: As a PhD, you may have experience spearheading research projects, vis-a-vis executing an entire research project from start to finish. You may have been involved in conceptualizing the idea for a project, constructing hypotheses/research questions, and collecting, analyzing and presenting the data. Involvement in a research project end-to-end is an essential skill as a UXR.

Not so direct: While you may spend weeks (sometimes months) conducting literature reviews for an academic project, you might spend less time reading literature (re: referring to prior research in the domain usually within your place of work) and synthesizing as a UXR.

3. Collaboration and Communication

Direct: Academic research is often a collaborative venture- whether it be your advisor/professors, peers, post-docs, research assistants, inter-departmental collaborations, research grants, and many more. Collaboration, and more often how we communicate with our collaborators is an essential part of UXR stakeholder management.

Not so direct: As UXRs, we work with stakeholders (peers) from different disciplines like Design, Product, Engineering, Content and more. Stakeholders may or may not be familiar with research/academic jargon. On the job, I learned how to use lingo that resonates with the lowest common denominator. Here are some examples that worked for me:

• Research proposal: Research plan
• Literature review: Prior/previous research
• Results: Findings/Impacts
• Research participants: Users/Customers
• Research presentation: Read-out

4. Presentation skills

Direct: We spend significant time in graduate school presenting our work at conferences and other venues, often within a strict time limit. Tailoring presentations to suit the needs of an audience is a useful skill when doing a research read-out as a UXR. You may also find yourself doing multiple read-outs geared towards different audiences (primary stakeholders, extended stakeholders, management/leadership, other research team members).

Not so direct: At an academic conference, you might generally present your work in the order: introduction, supporting literature, hypotheses, research questions, methods, results and conclusions. UXR readouts are structured differently; a slide or two discussing the background for the project and what methods were used, deep dive into results and insights, supporting clips from research sessions (if running a qualitative study), and appendices (detailing methods, sample etc). UXR readouts tend to place emphasis on visuals, employing data visualizations, not limited to graphs, charts, word clouds.

BONUS: I tend to add a tl;dr slide at the beginning of the research readout. This is a one-pager that summarizes the entire project. In my experience, this can increase visibility on a project, especially with respect to stakeholders with limited time.

5. Research constraints

Direct: In academic research, we are accustomed to operating under resource constraints, while allocating resources towards different aspects of the project like participant recruitment, data collection and analysis software, data transcription. This applies to industry research as well, where researchers are given a budget upfront that they need to ‘work around.’

Not so direct: Unlike academia, where research projects tend to run across months and years, UXR operates on shorter timelines in most cases. A typical UXR project may have a turnaround time of 2–10 weeks. As a newbie in UXR, the fast-paced nature of the projects can be a bit of a ‘culture shock’ when coming from academia! On the plus side, you get to see your projects to completion faster.

Bonus: Leadership skills

While in graduate school, I took up leadership positions in graduate student organizations across the university. This helped me gain essential skills like people management, leadership, multitasking, and juggling multiple priorities (research, teaching, coursework and extra-curricular). Leveraging these skills during the interview process was beneficial.

These are but a handful of experiences that I personally found useful when transitioning from academia to UXR. In reality, there are many more skills (Ex. publishing, peer reviewing, teaching) that you can leverage as well. As a recent PhD graduate/current PhD student, the possibilities are endless. When preparing for the job search, think about the various experiences in graduate school and their direct (or indirect equivalent) in the industry. Remember, your PhD is an asset, and don’t be afraid to show this to the world!

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in this article are solely mine, and do not reflect the opinions of my employer.

Additional references

What I wish I knew when transitioning from academic research to UX research

Becoming a UX researcher out of grad school? Your advantages and disadvantages