Main Responsibilities and Required Skills for User Researcher
A User Researcher is a professional who is responsible for conducting research to gain insights into how users interact with a product or service. They plan and implement user research strategies and methodologies and synthesize research to identify product use cases and user types. In this blog post we describe the primary responsibilities and the most in-demand hard and soft skills for User Researchers.
Get market insights and compare skills for other jobs here.
Main Responsibilities of User Researcher
The following list describes the typical responsibilities of a User Researcher:
Adhere to
Adhere to our compliance practices for user and data protection.
Advocate
Advocate for effective solutions and best practices to improve collaboration.
Advocate for user-centred design.
Advocate research findings to diverse audiences through written and oral presentations.
Advocates for meaningful use even when it might not be popular.
Align
Align the company around their overarching vision.
Analyze
Analyze data and findings, provide insights, and reports for both short term and long-term goals.
Analyze large data sets of player behavior.
Ask
Ask questions, gather data, and analyse data.
Assure
Assure the quality of decisions within their team.
Build
Build great relationships with your team and stakeholders.
Build relationships with the UX team, and make connections with the other teams at Smart.
Champion
Champion and integrate research best-practices at the product, cross-department and company levels.
Champion end-users and usability at all stages of iterative design.
Check out
Check out what some of our past participants have done during their time at PD.
Coach
Coach, support and develop the growth of individuals in the engineering team.
Coach the team in improving estimations and agile processes.
Collaborate with
Collaborate with Product and Design to write meaningful research questions.
Collaborate with Product + Design to define problem areas and potential projects.
Collaborate with product teams to remediate issues identified from research.
Collaborate with stakeholders to manage environment demand, capacity and costs.
Communicate
Communicate findings in a clear, concise and objective manner.
Communicate insights and opportunities to business and feature teams.
Communicate insights and recommendations across the company, to inform roadmaps and guide strategy.
Communicate often and build strong client relationships.
Communicate relevant, actionable insights to your squad and other stakeholders.
Conduct
Conduct a wide variety of mixed-method research, from interviews to large-scale surveys.
Conduct heuristic or expert evaluations of competitor titles.
Conduct heuristic reviews and competitive analyses.
Conduct interviews, surveys, user testing - whatever gets us closest to our users' needs.
Conduct on-site, remote, and in-field studies with buyers, sellers and prospective customers.
Conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis of testing results using standard methodologies.
Conduct regular post implementation reviews and root cause analysis.
Contribute to
Contribute the business planning process.
Contribute to a design studio culture at Made Tech and client offices.
Contribute to a meaningful product that helps people improve their lives.
Contribute to the team's strategy for learning about user motivations and workflows.
Craft
Craft and deliver clearly written reports with actionable recommendations to stakeholders.
Create
Create and deliver test result reports including statistical analysis.
Create detailed plans to conduct research using relevant methods (depending on the problem).
Create test plans for straight-forward and complex projects.
Cultivate
Cultivate long-term strategic & collaborative relationships with key stakeholders.
Define
Define and execute an environment policy and subsequent strategies and standards.
Define and measure UX approaches , metrics , and work with core stakeholders on research planning.
Define and own the product development process together with the Head of Technology.
Define the long-term Product vision and strategy.
Define, track and report key user experience metrics.
Design
Design and carry out user research activities and engage end users in the design process.
Develop
Develop and share expertise related to how people create, share, manage.
Develop and share expertise related to how people prepare and model data for self-service analytics.
Develop a testing strategy to identify how to get optimum email results.
Develop a user research agenda for your areas and shape the prioritization of research.
Develop recommendations based on test results.
Develop relationships with customers and end-users for research activities.
Develop usability test plans and conduct user research activities, especially interviews.
Develop user research capability and assure good user research practice.
Drive
Drive opportunities for moderated and unmoderated user testing.
Drive the software architecture across the department.
Empower
Empower product teams by involving them in research and bringing closer to a customer.
Enable
Enable evidence-based Product and Design decisions.
Engage
Engage and include team members in your process of user research.
Engage closely with the client and Scrum teams to review current design processes and methods.
Engage with agile, multidisciplinary teams with a user-centred design process.
Ensure
Ensure a focus on content as a key part of the overall user experience.
Ensure sound release, configuration and data management.
Ensure that teams take a user-centred, evidence-based approach to product design and delivery.
Ensure the availability and fitness of environments to support the change programme.
Establish
Establish research and usability metrics strategies for project teams.
Establish user research as part of the product teams.
Evaluate
Evaluate and integrate feedback from stakeholders to create moderators guides for testing.
Evolve
Evolve the discipline, build tools and processes that will enable us to scale our growing business.
Execute
Execute user research for assigned projects.
Facilitate
Facilitate semi-weekly office hours, ad hoc coaching and workshops, and other special projects.
Fill out
Fill out the short application form below and we'll be in touch.
Find
Find and attract User Research talent.
Help
Help codify user workflows and conduct heuristic evaluations.
Help define Made Tech design principles through delivering good public services.
Help establish a user research practice which involves the whole UX team, and the Product team.
Help improve our visualization abilities and study report templates.
Help shape the product experience by uncovering user insights that ensure our teams.
Help the Postman organization understand what users value most in products and services.
Help the team to build empathy for the service users.
Help to formulate research documentation to better understand user behavior.
Help to identify knowledge gaps and risky assumptions and lead the research to validate them.
Highlight
Highlight the best methods based on achieving research goals.
Identify
Identify best research methods based on research goals, timeline and resourcing.
Identify key reasons and process behind our customer switching from competitors to us.
Identify knowledge gaps, develop research plans, and deliver high quality research outcomes.
Implement
Implement an overall research strategy that aligns with the business goals and needs.
Implement tools to observe user behavior and interaction remotely.
Increase
Increase empathy across the organisation based on consumer insights.
Influence
Influence the culture, practices and goals of the User Research team.
Infuse
Infuse existing primary and secondary knowledge.
Innovate
Innovate and develop new approaches to measure user's experiences.
Introduce
Introduce new research methodologies for generating user insights when appropriate.
Investigate
Investigate and report on new methods, run brown bags and trainings with the larger team.
Keep
Keep teams connected to our end users by maintaining and growing our customer panel.
Keep track of budgets and product roadmaps alongside studio leads.
Lead
Lead and manage a team whilst remaining hands-on with technology.
Learn
Learn about the investment industry and know your product area inside and out.
Maintain
Maintain accurate and auditable documentation of all environments and changes to them.
Maintain our player database, while working with the UR Manager to communicate future playtests.
Manage
Manage agencies and external suppliers to deliver work within agreed budgets within their project.
Manage the path to live across all environments.
Manage third-party research vendors as necessary.
Mentor
Mentor / manage more junior researchers in the team.
Moderate
Moderate playtest sessions, conduct focus groups and manage diary studies.
Own
Own, develop and deliver the product roadmap, in partnership with the Head of Technology.
Participate in
Participate in client meetings providing engineering feedback.
Participate in the new business process to develop client proposals and presentations.
Participate in your product squad's daily sprint meetings.
Perform
Perform quick but thorough data analysis in order to create actionable findings.
Perform usability studies with consumers.
Plan
Plan and implement user research strategies and methodologies.
Plan and prepare multiple research activities to support the Product and Marketing teams.
Present
Present findings to the rest of the team in interesting, creative ways.
Present regularly on research findings and progress across teams in the organization.
Prioritize
Prioritize projects with the User Research team and contribute to research roadmap development.
Promote
Promote and evangelize design and research across the company.
Promote an environment that supports diversity and reflects the Alpha brand.
Prototype
Prototype and MVP outputs include dashboards.
Provide
Provide and discuss research results directly with the development teams and other stakeholders.
Provide backlog management, iteration planning, and elaboration of the user stories.
Provide environment and risk related metrics as and when required.
Provide strategic and tactical insights that inform design and development.
Ready
Ready to master complex information and to simplify it so that everyone can understand.
Recruit
Recruit, retain and develop top talent within the product and development team.
Recruit, schedule, and plan other logistics for internal users to participate in research studies.
Research
Research insights are essential in helping us do that.
Revise
Revise, adjust and improves plans based on feedback, research findings and external requirements.
Run
Run workshops both internally and to client stakeholders.
Run workshops e.g. customer journey mapping, design sprints, ideation sessions etc..
Run workshops with project teams and other experts to expand on your research.
Run workshops with your team and with stakeholders.
Share
Share tangible findings and prioritized recommendations with the teams on a regular basis.
Socialize
Socialize research as a practice throughout the company.
Source
Source participants for user testing and handle logistics and schedules around live testing.
Store
Store colleagues and customers their journeys and ensuring we're solving genuine user problems.
Strategic
Strategic product vision focusing on the "why” of the product and what to build next.
Suggest
Suggest and pilot internal work process efficiencies that the team can align to.
Support
Support the development of design skills in the Club.
Support usability evaluation sessions in different environments or remotely.
Synthesize
Synthesize research to identify product use cases and user types.
Take
Take part occasionally in the hiring of designers and researchers.
Trust
Trust them to whisk you to your destination in comfort and safety.
Turn
Turn open questions and ambiguities into meaningful and actionable insights.
Turn research data into clear findings that inform decisions.
Uncover
Uncover the needs of our customers by immersing yourself in the pensions industry.
Understand
Understand and take responsibility for your part in our success.
Understand, support and participate in Communities of Practice.
Understand the diversity of users of government services.
Understand the social and technological context for government services.
Understand the strategic objectives of your client and how the insights will help them.
Understand user centred design principles and practices.
Understand what's technically possible, and how business rules work with customer experience.
Use
Use appropriate research methods to deliver relevant and actionable learnings.
Use of assistive technologies (such as screen reader, voice recognition etc).
Utilize
Utilize / Draw from personas to carry out research and heuristic analysis.
Validate
Validate or disprove assumptions that define the company's product strategy.
Work with
Work closely with analytics and consumer insights teams to tell a cohesive story about our users.
Work in an Agile environment and support the product strategy.
Work independently and / or with stakeholders to create participant recruiting screeners.
Work independently on research plans and validate problems with data.
Work to a high level of ethical and professional standards.
Work to develop key insights along the product lifecycle.
Work within a high performing multi-discipline team.
Work with multiple development teams and stakeholders from various disciplines.
Work with our Design / UX team to express the user experience as wireframes.
Work with Product Management to decide customer KPIs as our measurement of success.
Work with team members to translate research findings into user stories and personas.
Work with the wider organisation to help set the strategic direction for the user research workflow.
Write
Write and code efficient surveys that tap in to both the inside and outside audiences.
Write and create in-depth user personas, telling the story of the user needs when purchasing a car.
Most In-demand Hard Skills
The following list describes the most required technical skills of a User Researcher:
Design
HCI
Human-Computer Interaction
Human Factors
Analysis
Interviews
Sociology
User
Agile
Cognitive
Experimental Psychology
Personas
Products
Most In-demand Soft Skills
The following list describes the most required soft skills of a User Researcher:
Written and oral communication skills
Interpersonal skills
Analytical ability
Presentation
Problem-solving attitude
Attention to detail
Collaborative
Leadership
Self-starter
Organizational capacity
Critical thinker
Work collaboratively in a team environment
Act autonomously
Adaptable to changes
Clearly explain the insights
