What I wish I knew, when transitioning from academic research to UX research
When I decided, after my PhD, to transition into UX research, I thought it would be easy. Most of the UX researcher jobs asked for a PhD and I was told by numerous people that my PhD and even my Masters would count as years of experience. Both were heavily research based, seeing me design and analyze complex surveys, construct psychometric measures, conduct interviews, design and analyze diary studies, conduct focus groups and so on. But I found it very hard to get interest until I learned a few home truths. In this post, I will list things that helped me break into UX research and do well. I hope it helps you in some way.
To get up to speed with UX, I did a UX Design Immersive bootcamp with General Assembly. While this, to me at least, was invaluable education/work experience, I understand that not everyone can afford this type of course. I started with evening workshops (often free or very low cost) that General Assembly offers. These workshops can be a good way to learn about UX design principles, interaction and visual design, product lifecycles, agile and lean approaches (which many teams are part of). They are also often taught by the industry professionals, so be on the lookout for these courses. As a UX researcher, you will be working not only with designers, but with PMs and developers, so an understanding of tools, processes and language they use will serve you well in interviews. But there are other good workshops you can attend and plenty of good videos online.
Different methods and outputs
Research methods
One big thing I assumed when entering the UX was that, as a researcher with many years of research experience, I would be able to just start working in the UX and that my skills are transferable. To a degree, this was true. Good understanding of research methods and rigor that comes with academic research definitely helps, as badly executed research can introduce bias and hurt your product. But UX research is slightly different. There are methods and ways of doing research in the UX that are not present in academic research, which you will need to know about and know when to use them. Familiarizing yourself with these methods and when they are used and why, what outputs they create and how to read the data will be valuable.
· Card sorts (open and closed)
· Tree tests
· A/B tests
· Preference tests
· 5 second tests
· Heatmaps and one click tests
· Benchmark studies
· Usability studies
· Concept testing
· Affinity mapping
You will need to know how to plan and conduct usability tests, writing tasks, scenarios and choosing the right metrics to collect. Additionally, you will need to know how to structure hypotheses and research questions, in a way that is specific to different types of customers:
· Hypotheses
Sometimes research is done to validate or invalidate hypotheses and you will be tracking how many have been validated.
· Problem statements and research questions
These are a great start when thinking about what you need to find out and what problems there may be and how to find out about them.
These are not exhaustive — use them as a guide and my first point of call for any UX research related knowledge is NN group. You can also learn more about hypotheses and how to structure them for problems, features etc., by reading this book.
Metrics and measurements
In UX research, metrics and measurements matter a lot. They are a useful way of tracking progress and improvements as well as retention, satisfaction or anything else your company might decide is a good indicator of how the company or a product is doing.
You will need to know which metrics to choose for which study and why they matter. Depending on your team, you may have to know how to interpret metrics that are automatically collected, typically with some sort of analytics software (clicks and number of clicks, drop off etc.). Usually these metrics are often what drives research, they can be a good way to see when something is happening that should not be happening.
Some of the metrics that can be collected in a usability study are (this list is not exhaustive):
· Time on task
· Task success
· SEQ scores
· SUS scores
· Product reactions
· Satisfaction
· NPS scores
Some of these metrics will be more suitable for customers, who have been using the product for a while, while others can be used in the usability sessions with participants. Additionally, things you observe in the sessions can be turned into metrics (e.g., a number of times certain pain point was observed or mentioned across participants, number of hypotheses validated etc.).
There are also times when you will have to be creative. Sometimes I had to come up with my own methods or metrics (see here), creating a measure that assesses value or quality, depending on the product or what I actually want to measure or know. In UX, often you have to do your own thing to account for what you need to find out, and since products differ, there may not always be a perfect measure out there yet. Be creative but remember to always have a good justification for why you are choosing a certain measure.
Artifacts
Artifacts are very important in UX research. These are things that emerge from your research, depending on what type of research, and the purpose of the study. Often, you will have to condense a lot of research into interesting things to show to your stakeholders. Academic research focuses on writing articles and lengthy reports, often in a standardized way, but as a UX researcher, you will need to be more creative and present your research in a fun, visual and impactful ways.
· Personas
· User scenarios and use cases
· Customer value plans
· Mind maps to show themes emerging from your research
· Flow models
· User journeys
· Video clips or screenshots to show what the participant did in the study
· Participants’ quotes
· Charts, graphs and tables to visualize your data (especially survey data)
· Low-fi wireframes, mock ups or storyboards to use in the usability session or to illustrate participants’ ideas to stakeholders
Here is an example of the storyboard I used in concept testing. I love making them, despite my lack of artistic talent :)
Artifacts are very important in UX research. When you construct your portfolio, make sure you have good artifacts to show your audience. If you have a lot of survey data and numbers, think of creative ways you can represent that data more visually. Here is an example of how to visualize survey data (the example shown is made up).
Here is an example of a mind map — this is a good way to segment and represent survey or interview data more visually, especially when you have a lot of data that you want to show in detail.
Outputs
Outputs are also very important. In UX research, depending on the company you work for, your output may be any of the things below, or any combination (sometimes you will be asked to produce more than one output).
· Rainbow spreadsheet
Spreadsheet tracking task completion, time on task and key insights and observations
· Research results decks
Presentation which can be used for presenting as well as sharing your results with a wider team, or made into a pfd and used as a guide.
· Research report or white paper
There are few pieces of advice I will give you about different outputs.
Decks
More often than not, in UX, you will be producing a deck with results, which you will share not only with your stakeholders (designers or PMs requesting your research) but also across your organization. Your deck has to be engaging and you have to be prepared to present it in detail, or as an overview of the main findings in 8–10 minutes. So always be prepared to have an executive summary that can be used as a short overview.
Executive summary should have;
· Context
Quick overview of what led to the study, any background to the problem, which led the team to want to investigate more
· Key insights and recommendations
What were the key things you learned and what needs to be done about it
· Few slides with impactful charts or tables that illustrate the key insights
· Next steps
What should be done next, including any additional research
The rest of your deck should have detailed results with charts, tables and screenshots to show where participants clicked, linking any video reels/clips to illustrate the insights you came across. Use participants’ quotes too. This helps designers and PMs see what is happening. Don’t be afraid to use colors and contrasting backgrounds to make certain elements pop and spread your findings across many slides, instead of squeezing them on a few slides, using small font and lots of writing. I would highly recommend finding a workshop or a video on how to make an engaging presentation as this matters. You need to be able to tell a story. Most academics stick to white slides with a lot of writing — this may count against you in the UX, as storytelling, visual aspects and aesthetics are very important.
Research report
Research report will be like your deck, but more in depth. It should have a quick summary of key insights and recommendations and detailed results. You should still use your artifacts and visuals (graphs, charts, tables, screenshots etc.) to break up the writing and make it more engaging.
Rainbow spreadsheet
Rainbow spreadsheet is a quick way to track your tasks, hypotheses or observations. This article gives you a good overview on rainbow spreadsheets.
Screeners
As an academic I never had to think about screeners, as I would often beg participants to volunteer to participate in my studies. Screeners are very important in UX research because you will always be screening for the right participants, typically those who use similar products to the one you are testing, or who have certain qualities (e.g., years of experience in the field or specific experience, job role etc.). Writing a good screener is like art. If your screener is too easy to pass (asking yes or no questions that participants can easily guess the answer to), you will end up with participants that don’t mimic potential customers and this can severely impact the quality of the research results and the success of the product. Here is a good guide on how to write screeners.
How to get noticed and get better
Strong portfolio
UX field is full of talented and imaginative people and your portfolio is a way of showing prospective employers that you can compete in this world. Make sure your portfolio is publicly accessible, such as on the website or make a PDF of some of your case studies and attach along with your resume when applying for the job. Since this is not always an option, my advice would be to have a good portfolio available on your website. Take time to research portfolios of other UX designers and researchers. Your studies or case studies should have certain information:
· Context or a problem, including research questions, hypotheses and so on
· The team, your role and approximate timeline
· Key insights and outcomes
· Impact it had
This can include changes made to design, or if you don’t have product examples, who benefited from the research and if it got published.
· Reflexions and next steps
Note anything you would have done differently or any roadblocks and how you handled them, and what you see as next steps after this research.
Also, make a presentation deck for portfolio review. It is better to have a deck for this than rely on your website. Some companies will provide you with their specs on what is required, but typically, you would be presenting one to two studies you did and you will have 30 or 40 minutes to do so. How you structure the deck depends on the audience. When presenting to just researchers, they typically want to see you justify your sample sizes or how you chose the methods. When the audience is more varied, focus will be more on storytelling, problems, outcomes. Always ask for guidance before portfolio review.
You may not have a lot of UX studies to show if you are just breaking into the UX field but you can present your PhD or Masters studies or research in a way that looks more UX like. Here is an example how I presented my PhD work in a way that is more aligned with UX portfolio, but you also may want to come up with your own way, depending on your research. Create visuals to break up the writing, use quotes in an interesting way, using color and different font size.
Learn how to beat Applicant Tracking Software (ATS) systems
When I first started my job search, I did not have an understanding of ATS systems, which are used by most companies. I had no idea how they work, and how my resume comes across when analyzed by an ATS system. It was in the workshop by Jobscan.co that I learned what I was doing wrong. First, I used one of those pretty templates for my resume — this in itself can be problematic for an ATS, rendering your resume unreadable. It will get rejected. Then there are keywords. If you don’t have the right keywords, your resume may not score well and will never be seen by a recruiter, if there are many applicants whose resumes score better. Something as simple as wording your education in a way that ATS system doesn’t recognize, means that you may get rejected based on lack of education or experience you have. Familiarize yourself with how ATS systems work and how your resume performs against them (see Jobscan.co).
Learn from others
Network and ask UX researchers for advice. This one was hard for me as I got dodged by many people that would initially promise to go for a coffee and chat with me. This can be very discouraging. People are busy, so make most of networking events you end up going to. I know this is hard right now so you may need to be inventive.
· Connect on LinkedIn with people you meet in workshops (always drop them a note as to why you want to connect, this is not only polite, it will maximize the response — remember, they don’t know you yet)
· Join different groups on LinkedIn and Meet Ups, as they often organize virtual events and talks
· When you get to speak to someone at a meet up, such as an experienced UX researcher or a designer who is giving a talk, ask if you can connect on LinkedIn — that way you can see what they share, and this is often a good way to see what you should be learning about or if anyone is hiring
· Use any interview as a learning opportunity and ask the researchers interviewing you questions that can help you grow
In the early days of my job search, I got a lot of value from asking researchers that would interview me, these types of questions: What advice would you give to someone like me, breaking into UX research? Or once, after I was given a hypothetical situation and asked how I would handle it, I asked a researcher interviewing me, when I got to ask questions: How would you approach the problem you asked me to solve earlier? Or, what tools do you like to use and why? I got some invaluable UX research advice this way, which I followed. I would research the tools they told me about, and use them to see how they work.
Advice I got served me well in my career and also helped me answer interview questions better in the future interviews. You can always ask about company culture or the team in later interviews. But often you need to pass that first, technical interview, where you will have to show that you can think like a UX researcher.
Don’t get discouraged when it gets hard. It will get hard.
Often, and this may depend on the area where you live, employers can be a bit hesitant hiring novices. When someone with a lot of experience gets hired, a hiring manager can be relatively sure they will be able to do a job straight away because they did it before. Taking on someone with an unconventional experience is more risky. This is why most jobs require years of experience and it can be very hard to break into the field. I found that while my PhD opened doors to interviews, and I would even perform well, I would always miss out on the opportunity to someone with UX experience. No matter how much big companies state they want to give opportunities to people from different backgrounds, sadly I did not find this to be the case. Most play it safe by asking for at least 2 or 3 years of product related experience.
And while some tech giants value academic researchers, it may not always end with a job offer. I passed an onsite interview with Facebook but failed to be matched to a team and without that, you don’t get an offer. I found that, when interviewing for a position with various teams, hiring managers were looking for people with UX experience and were underwhelmed with my limited experience. I heard similar stories from a friend who interviewed with Google. While they passed the onsite and made the cut, none of the teams were looking for someone with no product experience and they failed to get an offer, despite their extensive research experience.
But all is not lost. Contract roles usually carry less scrutiny, because they are not permanent and can be a good way in. To break into the industry, take any roles you can to get the experience that will make your resume stand out and give you juicy projects for your portfolio. Connect with great recruiters and treat them well, they will advocate for you to hiring managers and can really help you get that first job. If you can’t find contract roles, approach start ups or small companies and ask to help them with research for free. This can give you meaningful things to put in your portfolio but also to talk about in interviews, and will ultimately help you stand out. The more variety you can show, the better. I ended up doing this and not only created a long lasting relationship with the company, and got great endorsements on LinkedIn, but also ended up publishing a research paper based on this research as well as being mentioned in a company white paper as a lead researcher. These are all things you can use to your advantage on your resume and for your portfolio, to show impact. Good luck
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