UX Research Career Starter Guide
Launching a career in UX Research can seem fairly ambiguous and intimidating for most people. Being that UX as a field is so multidisciplinary, there is no singular path or definitive guideline for becoming a UX Research professional. Unlike other tech roles in fields like software engineering and data science, UX Research isn’t something one can learn from books and courses in isolation. Although books and lecture material can give a person a solid foundation of theory, learning by doing and receiving senior mentorship is the best way to hone your skills and mature.
In this article, we’ll take a deep dive in unpacking actionable steps you can take to build your career in user centricity. If you’re looking to launch a career in UX Research now is a great time. There is a wealth of high quality material out there and many great organisations looking to hire intelligent, motivated people. With that said, there are also some landmines to watch out for when getting started. Some of the topics this article will touch on are issues most folks don’t know about when first starting out. In many ways, this is the article I wish someone wrote when I was first getting up and running. And with so much great content for learning and upskilling, as well as the rising number of companies hungry for user research talent, it’s a great time to be working within the field of user experience. But before we jump into advice and content for getting you started, I’d like to briefly share my story of how I began my career in UX Research and some insights I found along the way that are more than likely relevant if you are looking to get going in a career in user-centricity.
I’ll never forget the day I was introduced to the field of user experience research. It was September 2007 and the first-ever iPhone had recently been released. I was soon to turn 16 at the time and was about to enter my Junior year of high school. An acquaintance of my father dropped by the house one afternoon and during their conversation, the topic of the new iPhone was brought up. He started talking about how the iPhone was going to change everything and that Apple was making a smart investment by focusing on user experience.
I didn’t know what he meant by “user experience” but it sounded interesting and I was intrigued. My dad’s friend had been working as a usability consultant since the early 90s and held a highly credentialed background in ergonomics and human-computer interaction and had worked with top Fortune 500 tech companies throughout his high profile career. After having a lengthy chat with him and picking his brain I was hooked. He opened a door into tech for me which I didn’t even know existed. Since that day I’ve never seen human interaction with software and services the same.
My path to working professionally in the field of user research has been fairly traditional since then. I enrolled in a Human-Computer Interaction program in university, worked UX internships and co-ops, and received mentorship along the way eventually leveling up to working full-time over the years and having the privilege of working on interesting projects with mature, well-resourced teams. I don’t say this to be boastful; I share my story because many great people working in UX professionally don’t always start on a structured path.
Some people don’t find out about UX as a field until they’re done college. Some people execute a career pivot into UX after working unfulfilling unrelated jobs, some people start their careers in academic research and look to jump ship to work in user research for large tech companies, some people are completely self-taught and kick ass at what they do. Over the years I’ve come to realize that almost everyone working in this field has a different story of how they got started.
People eager to jump-start a career in UX Research may not have the time or financial resources for a related university degree or an expensive and sometimes risky time-boxed bootcamp. However, there are ways to get on the career ladder, but it might take a considerable amount of hustle, determination, and a certain amount of self awareness when it comes to marketing yourself on the job market. Although I came from a fairly traditional background into industry, I’ve seen people manage to land fulfilling and well paying UX Research roles despite coming from untraditional backgrounds.
This article will break down methods that may be useful for people looking to work in UX Research but are not sure where to start. Circumstances and context are different for everybody, but I hope these tips help you in building a career you’ll find rewarding.
Building the right foundation
As with any profession, you’ll need to build a solid foundation of knowledge before jumping into real-world problem-solving. If you’re not in the position to make the time and monetary commitment to formally go back to school, the best way to learn the fundamentals of UX Research is from MooCs (Massive Open Online Courses)(in which some of these links may contain affiliates), online video lectures, senior mentorship, and books.
But before you hunker down into learning new material, you’ll probably want to know if UX Research is the right career path for you and what duties and day-to-day activities a user researcher deals with. In this video series from Khan Academy, User Experience Researcher Aidan Bryant of Google breaks down her overall responsibilities, gives insight on salary expectations, and unpacks the steps she took to land a UX role at Google.
Another good starting point to give you a flavor of user experience as a field and profession is The UX Careers Handbook by Cory Lebson.
In his book Cory offers an insider’s look at how to be a successful User Experience professional from comprehensive career pathways to learning, personal branding, networking skills, building of resumes and portfolios, and actually landing a UX job. This book goes in-depth to explain what it takes to get into and succeed in a UX career, be it as a designer, information architect, strategist, user researcher, or in a variety of other UX career specialities. It gives a wealth of resources designed to help readers develop and take control of their UX career success including perspectives and advice from experts in the field. I would highly recommend this book for folks interested in finding out what UX is all about or to people just starting out in a junior position but are struggling to find their speciality. I’ve recommended this book to many folks just starting out. It is an invaluable resource for gaining a more in-depth understanding of UX as a field and understanding different specialisms.
Here is some other high quality content from industry experts to help you in shaping your understanding of UX Research:
Educational Resources
MooCs (Massive Open Online Courses)
Most people looking to start a career in UX Research often want to know where they can gain access to high quality information taught by industry professionals and receive a recognized credential for their time and effort. Going to college, and in many cases going back to college for a UX related degree isn’t a realistic option for many folks due to tuition being prohibitively expensive, the long-time commitment involved, and/or family matters that need to be attended to. In which case MooCs are usually the best option.
In recent years, more and more top ranked accredited institutions have been creating educational online UX programs with a high degree of rigour and care. Institutions such as University of Michigan, University of California San Diego, California Institute of the Arts and others have been making a concentrated effort to make content more open and affordable. I’ve previously written in detail about the many options available free or affordably online for people looking to build their foundation of knowledge in UX. But it’s worth touching on some of the highest quality courses in this article. Of the determined people I know of who have made the commitment to give their best effort in courses such as these, almost all of them have landed well-paying, rewarding UX jobs.
My friend Ellina Mortis, Senior UX Architect at Sky Betting and Gaming, previously made a career pivot into UX after finding out about user experience as a field while working in the fashion industry. Although she held a somewhat relevant educational background in Intercultural Communications from a top ranked university, that alone wasn’t enough to get her on the career ladder in UX. After taking the Interaction Design Specialization program from UCSD and a few courses from the User Experience Research and Design Specialization from University of Michigan, she was able to compete and standout in the job market and land a legitimate UX role, eventually working her way up to the Senior position she is in today.
She has this to say about her experiences with UX MooCs:
“Online Coursera courses and books have been really helpful. I loved that I control the pace of learning, since I like things quite fast-paced. The courses are provided by world class institutions, so I felt that information was trustworthy and the community was friendly and engaged.”
Here are some great online learning options that are well worth your time if you are just getting started or even looking to up-skill.
Interaction Design Specialization from University of California San Diego
This specialisation offers an engaging and immersive 8 course module consisting of:
· An introduction to Human-Centred Design
· Introduction to design principles
· Social computing
· Input and interaction
· User experience: research & prototyping
· Information design
· Designing, running and analysing experiments
· Design capstone project (details).
Although the approximated time to complete is cited at 11 months, the course is self-paced, so there is no reason a diligent, motivated person wouldn’t be able to finish it in 3–5 months (my friend Ellina finished it in 3.5 months over one Summer)
This program currently has a 4.3/5 rating on Class Central and is heavily cited on various UX community spaces such as UX Mastery Forum and the user experience sub Reddit as one of the best introductory courses to user research and UX in general on the web. Having had the pleasure of taking this program when I was finishing my undergraduate HCI studies, I can’t recommend it enough. Professor Scott Klemmer eloquently and passionately weaves the theory and application of interaction design, cognitive psychology, user interface design and human-computer interaction seamlessly throughout all 8 courses, setting a foundation of knowledge for any aspiring UX Research professional.
Participants will learn about need-finding and observation techniques, how to carry out rapid prototyping, principles for effective interface design, and strategies for evaluating interfaces. A mixture of quizzes and peer-reviewed assignments help reinforce learning as well as introduces learners to hands-on practice.
This course also offers office hours and a Slack group for support and discussion.
If you’re just getting started and looking for a CV boost in the form of a legitimate UX credential as well as a capstone project you can showcase to potential employers via a portfolio case study, I highly recommend this specialisation.
On a personal level I really enjoy Coursera as a learning platform, whenever I want to learn about something new, like a new programming language, design thinking strategy, or even the science of well-being (amazing course), I know I’m going to be given access to incredibly high-quality content and an engaged, caring community.
University of Michigan User Experience Research and Design Specialization
In this User Experience Research and Design Specialization on Cousera (previously offered on EdX) students will be taught how to integrate UX Research and UX Design to create great products through understanding user needs, rapidly generating prototypes, and evaluating design concepts. Learners will gain hands-on experience with taking a product from initial concept, through user research, ideation and refinement, formal analysis, prototyping, and user testing, applying perspectives and methods to ensure a great user experience at every step.
This program consists of 9 courses
· Introduction to User Experience
· Principles for Designing for Humans
· Evaluating Designs for Humans
· UX Design from Concept to wireframe
· UX Design: From Wireframe to Prototype
· Understanding User Needs
· UX Research Surveys
· UX Research at scale: analytics and online experiments
· UX (user experience) Capstone project
Similar to the UCSD Interaction Design Specialization, this course yields a legitimate credential from one of the most respected higher educational institutions in America (Go Blue!) and culminates with a capstone project which you’ll be able to use as a portfolio piece.
The production quality and depth of the material offered in this program is very impressive to say the least. The frequent quizzes and assignments go a long way in helping learners reinforce material discussed. I have no doubt this program will continue to gain popularity thanks to its incredibly polished content and brand name institution credibility.
UX/UI Design Specialization From CalArts
This UX/UI Design Specialization from California Institute of the Arts will give learners the foundation they need if they are looking to launch a more visual design-focused role within the field of user experience.
Although I am firmly against using UX and UI interchangeably, this program offers a design-centric approach to user interface and experience design, and offers practical, skill-based instruction centered around a visual communications perspective, rather than on one focused on marketing or programming alone. In this sequence of four courses, you will summarise and demonstrate all stages of the UI & UX development process, from user research to defining a project’s strategy, scope, and information architecture, to developing sitemaps and wireframes. Students will learn current best practices and conventions in UX design and apply them to create effective and compelling screen-based experiences for websites or apps. Skills and knowledge you will learn in this Specialization are applicable to a wide variety of careers, from marketing to web design to human-computer interaction.
Learners enrolled in this UI/UX Design Specialization are also eligible for an extended free trial (1 month) of a full product suite of UX tools from Optimal Workshop.
This offering consists of 4 courses:
- Visual Elements of User Interface Design
- UX Design Fundamentals
- Web Design: Strategy and Information Architecture
- Web Design: Wireframes to Prototypes
Although this specialization is fairly new, it seems like a great starting point for anyone looking to become a more visual-based UX professional.
Springboard UI/UX Design Bootcamp
In this self-paced, online course consisting of 9 units students will learn the basics of human-centered design and receive constrictive feedback from mentors who are industry professionals. Although this program may not be cheap for some (cited by coursereport at $8,200 USD) students will receive access to high quality content as well as career support and personal 1-on-1 feedback from senior professionals.
The Springboard UI/UX curriculum consists of the following 9 units:
- Design Thinking
- Conducting, synthesizing & presenting user research
- Ideating and Designing
- UI design, heuristics and interaction design principles
- UI practice exercises
- Sketching and wireframing
- Style guides, design elements and prototyping
- Design sprints
- Working with developers and stakeholders
User Experience Design Techdegree (Treehouse)
Treehouse has recently launched a new UX TechDegree. This track teaches the basic skills needed for a role as a UX designer, including user research, wireframing, prototyping, information architecture, and conducting user tests and analyzing feedback.
Although this 32 hour long course will probably not be enough to land a fulltime position, it can be a good starting point for folks looking to familiarise themselves with the basics in a fun and engaging way. At $25 USD a month for a basic plan (and $49 USD for a pro plan) you’ll get access to this course along with other great tech content. Also, if you are looking to learn to code and build interesting projects from scratch, be it in programming languages such as Python, JavaScript, or Java, Treehouse is an amazing place to learn almost everything about design and coding in a fun and engaging way with an amazing support community.
Digital Accessibility: Enabling Participation in the Information Society
Accessibility matters. Unfortunately, accessibility for many teams and practitioners is viewed as a ‘nice to have’ rather than a necessity. Don’t be a person who doesn’t advocate for accessibility and inclusive design for users with disabilities and/or impairment.
In this free course from FutureLearn in partnership with University of Southampton, you will get an introductory understanding of how people with sensory, physical and cognitive impairments may be disabled by barriers encountered when using digital technologies. The course will highlight how the use of accessible and inclusive design can help overcome many of these difficulties.
This course consists of 9 main topics:
- What is digital accessibility?
- Digital accessibility and business
- Relationship between ‘usability’, ‘accessibility’ and ‘user experience’
- Challenges and barriers met by disabled people
- Video and audio barriers and subtitles, captioning and audio description
- Desktop, laptop, mobile and self-service terminal accessibility
- Creating, checking and evaluating document, web and self-service terminal accessibility
- Input and output devices e.g. screen reader, Braille, switch access technologies
- Digital and web accessibility guidelines, standards and principles of Universal Design
For more insight into researching and designing for accessibility, check out this article from Gov.UK
For more affordable and free online UX educational offerings, check out the link below which will take you to an article I wrote a few years ago discussing several other UX related MooCs
Books
There is no shortage of UX-related books on the market. With the sheer volume of books, blog posts, marketing material, and video content out there it can sometimes feel overwhelming to try to cut though the noise and find high quality reading material suited to exactly what you are trying to learn.
Here are some UX Research-related books that I personally enjoyed and that have come highly recommended by Senior User Researchers in my network.
User Research: A Practical Guide to Designing Better Products and Services
This book is a practical guide that shows readers how to use the vast array of methods available. Covering all the key research methods including face-to-face user testing, card sorting, surveys and A/B testing, the book gives experts insight into the nuances, advantages and disadvantages of the various approaches, while providing guidance on how to interpret, analyse and share the data once it has been obtained.
Think Like a UX Researcher
With Think like a UX Researcher you’ll discover how to plan and conduct UX research, analyze data, persuade teams to take action on the results and build a career in user research. The book will help you take a more strategic view of product design so you can focus on optimizing the user’s experience. UX Researchers, Designers, Project Managers, Scrum Masters, Business Analysts and Marketing Managers will find tools, inspiration and ideas to rejuvenate their thinking, inspire their teams and improve their craft.
Observing the User Experience
Observing the User Experience: A Practitioner’s Guide to User Research aims to bridge the gap between what digital companies think they know about their users and the actual user experience. Individuals engaged in digital product and service development often fail to conduct user research. The book presents concepts and techniques to provide an understanding of how people experience products and services. The techniques are drawn from the worlds of human-computer interaction, marketing, and social sciences.
Remote Research
Remote research allows you to recruit subjects quickly, cheaply, and immediately, and give you the opportunity to observe users as they behave naturally in their own environment. In Remote Research, Nate Bolt and Tony Tulathimutte teach you how to design and conduct remote research studies, top to bottom, with little more than a phone and a laptop.
Doorbells Danger and Dead Batteries
User research war stories are personal accounts of the challenges researchers encounter out in the field, where mishaps are inevitable, yet incredibly instructive. Doorbells, Danger, and Dead Batteries is a diverse compilation of war stories that range from comically bizarre to astonishingly tragic, tied together with valuable lessons from expert user researcher Steve Portigal.
Human-Computer Interaction: An Empirical Research Perspective
Human-Computer Interaction: An Empirical Research Perspective is the definitive guide to empirical research in HCI. The book begins with foundational topics including historical context, the human factor, interaction elements, and the fundamentals of science and research. From there, you’ll progress to learning about the methods for conducting an experiment to evaluate a new computer interface or interaction technique. There are detailed discussions and how-to analyses on models of interaction, focusing on descriptive models and predictive models. Writing and publishing a research paper is explored with helpful tips for success. Throughout the book, you’ll find hands-on exercises, checklists, and real-world examples. This is your must-have, comprehensive guide to empirical and experimental research in HCI-an essential addition to your HCI library.
This is Service Design Doing
This is the first comprehensive book on how to actually do service design to improve the quality and the interaction between service providers and customers. You’ll learn specific facilitation guidelines on how to run workshops, perform all of the main service design methods, implement concepts in reality, and embed service design successfully in an organization.
Great customer experience needs a common language across disciplines to break down silos within an organization. This book provides a consistent model for accomplishing this and offers hands-on descriptions of every single step, tool, and method used. You’ll be able to focus on your customers and iteratively improve their experience.
Sketching User Experiences
Sketching User Experiences approaches design and design thinking as something distinct that needs to be better understood―by both designers and the people with whom they need to work― in order to achieve success with new products and systems. So while the focus is on design, the approach is holistic. Hence, the book speaks to designers, usability specialists, the HCI community, product managers, and business executives. There is an emphasis on balancing the back-end concern with usability and engineering excellence (getting the design right) with an up-front investment in sketching and ideation (getting the right design). Overall, the objective is to build the notion of informed design: molding emerging technology into a form that serves our society and reflects its values.
If you’re looking to explore more options, Google’s Simon Pan put together this amazing reading list a few years ago breaking down some classics. This is a great article well worth checking out
Bootcamps
There has been growing levels of controversy surrounding UX bootcamps in recent years. As more and more people aim to launch a career in UX, a high volume of bootcamps have sprung up in the process. One of the main controversies surrounding bootcamps is that many are for-profit, unaccredited, and incredibly time-boxed. Many industry veterans have voiced concerns regarding the accelerated nature of these courses (some often being only 8–10 weeks in length) in that students can’t possibly learn the depth and rigor of UX as a profession in such a short amount of time and realistically be able to make a smooth transition to working professionally.
Another topic of scrutiny is the deceptive marketing material many bootcamps use to entice people into signing up, citing high industry salaries that are more reflective of senior talent that come from relevant backgrounds, as well as citing job placement rates that include very short-term contracting gigs rather than meaningful full time employment.
If you’re seriously contemplating enrolling in a UX bootcamp your best course of action is to carry out in-depth due diligence. Go on LinkedIn and go to local UX meetups and speak to recent grads in order to get some unfiltered, candid feedback. A growing number of people are graduating from bootcamps only to find their certificates don’t hold much (if any) weight in the job market and their group work portfolio case studies are very similar to other grads who are also competing for a limited number of entry-level positions.
In my opinion bootcamps can be a great career accelerant for some folks and a massive waste of time and money for others. The people who I’ve seen have the most success with bootcamps were people going through these programs in the early 2010s when there were a limited number of bootcamps in the market place. Also, people coming from a somewhat related background tend to make a smoother transition from learning to working in industry from what I’ve seen. People coming from a related UX background (i.e. Library Sciences, Cognitive Psychology, Ethnography, HCI, Computer Science, Sociology) and use bootcamp learning as a complementary piece to the foundation they already have are usually the folks who have the most success from my anecdotal experience over the years.
If you have your heart set on enrolling in a UX bootcamp the best advice I would give is to carry out ruthless due diligence, aggressively seek mentorship, continue learning outside of the classroom environment, and have the realistic expectation that there is a good chance a bootcamp alone may not be enough to land a junior UX role.
With all that said, there are newer educational models out there that are working on bridging the gap between formal degree programs, MooCs, and accelerated bootcamps. Such as Center Centre
Co-founded by Jared Spool and Leslie Jensen-Inman, Center Centre offers a one-of-a-kind, built-from-scratch curriculum which prepares well-rounded junior user experience (UX) designers that companies need. Located in downtown Chattanooga, TN, they are a bricks-and-mortar school offering a two-year, full-time program in user experience design — the first and only of its kind.
Here is Jared Spool discussing the need for such an institution:
Formal Degrees
If you do have the time and monetary resources to attend a traditional UX-related undergraduate or master’s program it will most likely prove a worthwhile investment. Although MooCs and online material can give you a solid foundation, traditional in-person degrees from competitive institutions can open the doors to industry career fairs, interaction with world class academic minds, internship placements, and tailored career coaching services. Not to mention the friendship and comradery that comes with campus life. Many top programs such as Carnegie Mellon HCI, Georgia Tech HCI, and City, University London Human Computer Interaction Design have a steady pipeline of graduates going on to work at top companies such as Uber, Robinhood, Atlassian, Microsoft, and Google. While the time commitment and price tag may be steep, programs such as these will more than likely prove to be a worthwhile investment given the depth of knowledge you’ll be coming out with, not to mention the alumni network support, and the added ‘prestige’ factor of attending and graduating from a top institution.
Here is Emily Underwood discussing her experience having gone through the Human-Computer Interaction Design MSc at City, University London
These are just a few examples of traditional formal degrees. A complete breakdown of all HCI and UX related degrees would require a whole in-depth article.
If you are thinking of going the traditional route this amazing list from UX Mastery breaks down UX related undergraduate and post-graduate programs from every nation.
Here is a video breakdown of the HCI masters program at Georgia Tech
If you are looking for access to high quality content from one of the above mentioned programs but are not in the position to attend, don’t be discouraged. Georgia Tech has made a graduate level Human-Computer Interaction course (offered as OMS CS6750) open online for free on Udacity.
Gaining real world experience
After putting a concentrated effort into foundational knowledge, one of the best ways to continue leveling up on your journey in becoming a UX professional is to gain some hands on experience. This is where most people hit a snag. When people get to the point of feeling confident enough to make the jump from learning theory to working in the real world, they don’t have portfolio case studies that carry enough depth or real world impact, nor the work experience to gain the attention of a legitimate employer to the point of a job offer. Accredited UX Certificates and capstone projects can help in contributing to a well-rounded CV and portfolio, but at the end of the day real world projects with real world impact that involved real users is the life blood of a good portfolio and is one of the main things employers look for in a candidate (along with a track record of legitimate experience). Many people hungry for real world experience often feel frustrated that they are not being given a chance to apply their skillset and knowledge in a real world context.
If you’re finding that you’re not able to immediately make the jump from learning to working professionally you may want to look into some of the following paths in order to gain experience and real world portfolio artefacts.
Look Into a Local Tech Incubator
Tech Incubators (not to be confused with Tech Accelerators) are places where eager entrepreneurs with young companies go to work on their products, work towards gaining traction and product market fit, as well as collaborate with other entrepreneurs and seek raising capital for their business. By nature, majority of early stage companies in incubators won’t have many resources to work with. In my experience, many companies in incubation stage don’t have much of an outward facing lens on the world or any form of dedicated user research to funnel back that would inform design/product iteration in an evidence based way. A surprising amount of incubation stage companies and young start-ups in general don’t actually understand the value of user research and are toiling away in isolation. This is prime grounds for an aspiring UX professional to gain hands-on experience, make a meaningful impact at a company, gain real-world portfolio artefacts, and make contacts within the tech community.
Research tech accelerators in your area and track down a company that you find interesting and that aligns with your values. Reach out and offer your skills, even if it’s for 10 hours a week, you’ll be gaining legitimate real work experience you’ll be able to put on a CV not to mention the skills you’ll be acquiring working in a fast-pace startup environment. Because incubation stage companies are lean by nature, you most likely won’t have the funds for more robust research methods that would come with the things like having a dedicated research lab or expensive analytics software at your disposal. With that said, there is no reason you can’t use lean methodologies for problem solving. Lean UX by Jeff Gothelf, UX for Lean Startups by Laura Klein, and User Experience Team of One by Leah Buley are all essential reads if your will be working in an environment with little to no dedicated user research budget.
I’m firming against the idea of ‘working for free’ and companies that bend the rules when it comes to hiring interns and students should be scrutinised and held to a higher standard. Giving your time to a small company going through a tech incubator is more ‘sweat equity’ than working for free, due to the fact you are gaining portfolio artefacts and real world work experience at a real company. From this lens it’s a ‘win-win’ situation, the company is receiving critical UX talent (even if on a very junior level) that will help their company, and you will be levelling and gaining experience on your way to a paying UX role.
Volunteer your time for a local business or charitable organisation
Another great way to gain some real world experience while doing some good in the world is to volunteer your time by working on a project for a local charitable organisation or a local business that aligns with your values.
Small charities and businesses often don’t have time or money to invest in things like a polished digital footprint and user centered service design. Places like these a often ripe for opportunity in terms of making a positive impact when applying your skillset. Reach out and see if stakeholders are open to bringing you onboard to work on a research and redesign project in exchange for you collecting research artefacts and openly sharing a case study to potential employers.
If you do a great job in the process, stakeholders can give you great recommendations and even introduce you to a person that may be able to give you your big break.
Collaborate on a project from the ground up
Another route for gaining real world hands-on experience is starting a new project with friends or people in your local tech community. Perhaps you know aspiring developers, data scientists, and graphic designers who, despite their hunger and talent, need more real world work experience before making the jump to a paid position professionally. In this circumstance, it might be of value to start working on a project, building out a product road map that includes research, design, development, monetisation, marketing, etc and document and collect work artefacts along the way for a portfolio case study.
If you work together in a collaborative, agile manner and build something that solves a real world problem you may even be able to monetize your product or service and make a side income while you continue building out your portfolio and look for your first UX Research role. Perhaps you’re projects gains substantial traction and your team can start a new company from the ground up.
If you decide to take on a plan of action such as this, remember to document your research process with users and how you used qualitative and quantitative research methods to make product iterations and what the impact of your efforts were. One of the biggest things hiring managers look for in your research process is what your initial hypothesis was and if you used the appropriate research method for the appropriate context and how you used those findings to drive iteration as a team and what the outcome was. Great companies focus on quality and outcome. Lousy companies focus on quick output.
Receiving mentorship
The best place to receive senior mentorship is on the job, working on projects with high functioning, multidisciplinary well resourced teams. With that said, if you aren’t finding yourself in the position to immediately make the jump from learning to finding employment at a mature company, or if your only employment option is in a low maturity work environment, online resources might help you in gaining mentorship. Many of these online communities regularly have job posts as well as areas for senior-level feedback. Some great online UX research related communities include:
Reddit Userexpereince Subreddit
/r/userexperience is an active and friendly subreddit where people regularly share industry insights, advice, as well as ask questions regarding career development.
MixedMethods
Mixed Methods is a community interested in the hows and whys of user experience research. Through interviews with industry experts and hands-on trial and error, we indulge and celebrate curiosity. Expect to test assumptions, examine methods, and engage in some old fashion experiments.
UXStackExchange
Stack Exchange network consists of 174 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.
SIGCHI
SIGCHI is the premier international society for professionals, academics and students who are interested in human-technology and human-computer interaction (HCI).
Candles
Candles is an active community aimed more for junior UX professionals to network, share advice, and get feedback from senior practitioner.
ResearchOps
Building your portfolio
There has been some debate as to whether or not user researchers should have an online portfolio or not. I’m in the pro-portfolio camp for user research professionals. Not only is having a central hub with polished case studies good for showing hiring managers projects you’ve worked on, its also a good opportunity to show who you are as a person rather than just a having a CV and LinkedIn alone.
Rather than talk at length of what a good user research portfolio might look like and why it is important to have one, I’ll turn it over to these 2 great article by David Travis:
Here is a great video from London-based UX professional Robert Smith on how to write an effective UX case study:
A great resource for inspiration is Bestfolios. They are the largest curation of best UX research and designer portfolios, resumes, case studies and design resources. They regularly spotlight portfolios from top industry professionals as well as students from elite university programs
In an article for CareerFoundry, Senior UX Recruiter Tom Cotterill has this to say about UX portfolios: “Your portfolio should show cultural suitability for the company where you are applying. Don’t be afraid to add a touch of character or your own style to your portfolio. It’s your chance to wow the hiring manager and demonstrate that you stand out from the crowd.” He goes on to say “A good portfolio indicates, in short, that this person has taken time to represent themselves in the best possible light, and they’re clued up enough to showcase their most relevant work in an aesthetic and logical way.”
For a more deep dive look on how construct a UX portfolio, it may be worth checking out this forthcoming book by Ian Fenn titled ‘Designing a UX Portfolio. You can read some of the ‘raw and unedited’ passages from this book here.
Watching out for Fake UX Jobs
I’ve written an article on the topic of fake UX jobs, so I won’t go into too much depth regarding this issue in this article. If you’d like to read more about it click the link below:
As user centricity has become more widely recognized as a good business practice, many companies try to hire and integrate the role into their business without actually having the necessary resources, managerial understanding, or company culture to properly facilitate the position… and some companies are just inappropriately using “UX” as a marketing vehicle in an attempt to appear more modern and make some quick cash. In any case you’ll want to avoid these companies like the plague. Its a shame this needs to be said but charlatan companies are out there and you need to be aware of the signs of a low maturity firm. In the early stages of your career it is best you join a mature company with an established team of industry professionals and a wider culture of user-centered evidence based decision making.
Jessica Ivins wrote a great article on the importance of joining a mature company in the early stages of your career. Team and culture should be the main focus. You want to be a part of the best one possible.
Hunting for a job and finding a mature firm
Mature companies shine bright and attract talent in high volumes. If you’re fairly junior and just starting out it is critical you get exposure to legitimate senior mentorship, different user research methodologies in different contexts, as well as an overall well resourced research process in which you won’t be stonewalled by design-by-committee or idiot managers viewing user research as an impediment to quick output.
Firms with established and mature research and design culture attract top talent. Places like Dropbox, Uber, GDS, Google, Atlassian, Spotify, and AirBnB are some obvious example of high functioning work environments that take a user centered, evidence-driven process seriously. This amazing article from Sara Belt and Peter Gilks of Spotify gives a glimpse of what it is like to work in an agile, multidisciplinary team that takes scientific rigor in user research seriously.
This great article by Ryan Scott (Experience Designer at AirBnB) details questions you should ask during your interview process to get a feel for the legitimacy of the role and the overall UX research culture of the company you are interviewing with.
Although there will always be large brandname firms that are “no brainers” when it comes to the legitimacy of their maturity level, there are lots of other great companies that may not be household names or as visible in the tech community. A good tactic for gauging the maturity level of a firm is to go on LinkedIn and look at the backgrounds of the people working at the company. A good signal is if employees have legitimate track record of user research experience as well as relevant educational backgrounds. Also, during the interview process ask to see or discuss case studies/artefacts on the organization’s research process throughout a project lifecycle and what methods were used to validate or invalidate initial hypothesis. This is a great way of to gauge the maturity stage of the firm.
Another great tactic is using informational interviews to your advantage during a job search. Informational interviews can be pretty powerful in terms of getting candid feedback in a less formal setting with people working at great companies. Going on LinkedIn or Twitter and asking to grab lunch/coffee with a UX employee at a great company is a solid way to get an idea of the maturity level of their UX operation, not to mention getting a better insight of the type of person they are looking to join their team.
Paying it forward & final thoughts
I hope these tips and resources play a part in you getting onto the ladder of working professionally in user experience research and building a career you enjoy and are proud of. Once you find yourself progressing upward at a great place of work where you’re able to work on interesting projects with a great team, pay it forward. As you move forward in your career and continue up-skilling, gaining mentorship and years of work experience, give time and help others looking to jump start their career in user research but need a helping hand.
“Once you’ve found success, your next goal should be helping others do the same.” — Kelsey Hightower
Create content, be open to a phone chat or meeting over coffee, recommend resources, and give talks about your area of expertise. In many fields, once people get to a level of seniority where they are in-demand and comfortable, they often forget what it was like to just start out. Don’t be a person who pulls the ladder up behind them.
Stay humble, be helpful, and never stop learning.
Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow. — Anthony J. D’Angelo
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