Apr 13

Apr 13 Breaking into UX Research: Ideas from our UX Community

Published on April 7, 2020 on LinkedIn

Last week, I posted a series of questions which elicited a variety of perspectives on breaking into the field of UX Research (UXR). Topics included gaining UXR experience, building a portfolio, and general advice to new researchers. These responses contained a wealth of ideas from members of our UX community at different stages in their careers.

I've consolidated and categorized those unattributed, verbatim comments in this article. Consider this article to be a collection of experiences and perspectives from real people in our UX community; not necessarily a guide. My hope is that this information can provide new researchers some direction toward launching their UXR careers.

Gaining UXR Experience through Projects
Building your Portfolios
A Call for Mentors
Networking (i.e., Relationship Building)
Showcasing Other Skills
Resources

Gaining UXR Experience through Projects

Self-initiated Projects

While working on self-initiated projects can be an easy-ish way to build your portfolio, they may not all represent the complexity and interdependencies of real research projects with real people. However, they are a starting place if you have limited experience.

"In my personal opinion, I find it helpful to go through the apps on my phone. I'll find some pros, cons, and make a mock study. I'll do a redesign with a prototype, and ask my friends and family to do usability testing over a few rounds. A story line, a thorough explanation for my decisions above others, and an explanation of "actionability" are some components I consider. I’ve seen that just highlighting these components and basic techniques can go a really long way."
"I would recommend applying research methodologies to a public issue or create your own project and do the research as if it were a real project. Sure some tools and methods would be difficult to use and some data unavailable. But there is still a lot you can do. You can find a tool or a service and assess it with users. Do user interviews, card sorting... "
"Why not start with something currently of interest to people like how to distract kids at home or limit physical social interactions.."
"I'm a bit of a special case as I do UR in the games industry so a lot of things were different for me than traditional UX research. I had a "portfolio" of sorts, but since most of the work I had done was all under NDA, I ended up just writing "analysis" articles on a blog detailing aspects of games to showcase my critical thinking abilities."

And also consider...

"I'd argue that going through the motions on an existing app you find and doing mock work isn't going to put you out of your comfort zone or really confront you with the realism that research projects naturally present. If the Australian govt had a dollar for every time Spotify has been redesigned we'd have the JobKeeper payments sorted in advance!"

Volunteer / Design Challenges

There are several volunteer opportunities forming in response to COVID-19. Organizations are asking specifically for design and research skills. Some design challenges may allow you to assemble your own team, which opens up the opportunity for mentorship and cross-functional collaboration (e.g., with designers, engineers). Opportunities linked below.

"Initially it was mainly projects from my masters program, either through classes or my capstone project which was an internship with a small company. It was hard to build up from that because my first projects out of school were small contracts where I didn't save my screens or had to sign an nda. The turning point was discovering a design challenge through an IDEO.org online class where I was able to do fieldwork in my community and analyze data to come up with results. I continue to try to improve my portfolio and have learned that beyond just displaying it online, it's important to be able to talk about your process and examples from portfolio during a job interview."
"This is the way I did it, your results might vary: I would find a cause that I loved and believed in (homelessness, anti-poverty, anti-domestic violence, environment, animals, etc) If their site could be research/designed better I would connect with the director of fundraising or Executive director or someone on the board. (Super easy) I would tell them that if they would allow me to redo their page, I could drive donations up due to ease of use (no one says no to that). Then bargain by saying that you are proud to volunteer your services, provided that good/bad/indifferent, you can use their name/your design for your design portfolio, and use their name/contact for references for "real" work. Get a rep and a following, then start intro'ing an hourly rate. "Hey, I'll do a simple redesign for free...fancier, and we'll need to talk about you hiring me on a small contract." 80% of the time, it worked all the time. And then I ran my own nonprofit as well...so you're getting my advice from both chairs."
"Looks like a lot of people are interested in providing UX services but no one has volunteered places that might need services. It might be unrealistic to have a place that is willing to pay and provide clearly structured project. I suggest we start with doing usability assessments on random sites without asking their permission. I get asked to do expert reviews on websites during interviews and it's sometimes hard to do that on the spot. Maybe the mentor could lead us through a group exercise in webinar or zoom call for first step to get us warmed up. We can also do remote testing on site without having to ask the site's permission. Ideally we could get a sponsor from place like usertesting.com or userzoom to provide us with accounts but maybe we could organize our own remote tests from contacts over zoom. Finally there are design challenges out there that have provided inspiration for doing more parts of UX research. Right now one that is trending, though non-paid and probably not structured is https://helpwithcovid.com/."

Volunteer Opportunities + Design Challenges (as of April 7, 2020)

Academic Programs + UX Classes

Formal academic programs (e.g., masters + PhD programs) have helped some people build a research skill foundation and develop a portfolio. The key for some people was translating their research skills into UX-friendly language. Others have supplemented with UX-specific bootcamps, certifications, and classes.

"For me, it would be taking a class! For me, it was a big help to take a UX class while in school and use the projects from the class on my resume and a portfolio (thanks Paul!). Even if you are not in school, I see UX academies like GA or Academy Xi that provide structured help. I think they can be a good help with building a portfolio."
"I'm an academic researcher so I use my applied research to publish academic articles. I focus on applied unmoderated UX methods, so I'm always striving to develop new measurements. I use that for my portfolio. I mainly work on SEO, e-commerce, and media sites. So my research is in exploring behavior and decisions given all available options. I've also started utilizing data analytics and data science in UX methods."
"I was lucky to get a formal masters education which helped me work on bunch of projects , I got a better understanding of various research methods and knowing when to apply what, to draw insights from the research."
"I have mostly a background in academic research so it's been a challenge to present deliverables on my online portfolio. My solution has been to share my findings through scientific posters and making a clear connection as to whom these findings impact as stakeholders (even if the study was not entirely done for them)."
"I’m about 3 weeks away from getting my UX certificate and working on my artifacts now. I’m going to add the work I’ve done in class and also include 2 projects that I want to work on."
"I got my start from an internship and doing my Master's in HCI at Carnegie Mellon. I think it's important to read some classics by Nielsen Norman, Karen Holtzblatt, and others as well as other academic research. This helps to explain why UX Methods work when advocating for your ideas. A portfolio is essential and should include a couple case studies that show the deep thought and end results."
"I meet the inclusion criteria [for jobs] but honestly don't have good job hunting tips. I left my PhD and the first job I applied to I got. It technically wasn't in "UXR" but survey creation for staff and customers. I was lucky that my boss saw an opportunity to use my +10 years of qualitative research experience from academia to do qualitative UXR techniques like contextual inquiry and ethnography. I think the most helpful work and education experiences I have are that I'm used to doing mixed methods, I'm used to being the methodological expert, I'm used to learning new research context (specialized in community aging but did work with community youth, hospitalized elders, physicians/allied health, etc.) and I'm used to having to convince people of my usefulness, particularly around the usefulness of qualitative research and findings."
"I didn't have an educational background in UX at all but my experience in grad school helped me translate my research skills into UX research. Being able to connect the dots during the transition helped me in talking about my personal story during interviews. I'll be happy to offer my story in detail if needed! :) Hope this helps!"

Startup / Company Projects

Some people have had luck freelancing. It's important to note that these opportunities often lack proper mentorship, scaffolding, and scoping (discussed later). Admittedly, no one shared how they approached organizations and negotiated the work - TBD!

"Worked with smaller companies for a while before i got my first big contract. Just looked back at all the tasks I did and saw how they fit into the UXR role. Then updated it to show bigger problems i worked on."
"There are heaps of startups of companies out there that are trying to do good in the world and need help building a roadmap. They don't have a budget to pay a consultancy to do it, so there's your opportunity to really get something done to be proud of. Half of the challenge is understanding the problems a business faces and how the recommendations and insights you can find are useful and usable for them."
"My own story is a little non-traditional. After a being a tenured professor I decided to make the jump from teaching and publishing in human factors to working in the tech industry. I got my break into tech with starting out as a consultant for Dell (moonlighting while still being a faculty member). I proved my value on some key initiatives for Dell and thereafter landed a full time position at the company. Portfolios are critical in my opinion. Being able to showcase a few projects that can demonstrate how you problem solve, collaborate, tell a story, and have significant business impact is essential."

A business opportunity that emerged...

"I'd love to see a team of new researchers start a service for analyzing open ended feedback. There is a ton of feedback collected in forms, support tickets, surveys and more that never gets read due to lack of time (and it's just so manual to do!), but could be very useful if tagged, analyzed, and understood. And this could all be done remotely. I’m actually thinking a small group of new researchers should launch a simple website and start offering the service. If you aren’t working now and need portfolio pieces offer up a low cost package and sell it. I bet there are plenty of CS, marketing and research teams who have data that they just can’t get to but they are collecting it for a reason. Heck I bet outsourcing some buckets of data and getting a monthly report would be a good business. At cox we paid several vendors to analyze what was coming thru and what it means. Yes, we could have done it ourselves but we had no time or enough staff so paying a couple hundred bucks a month was a no brained. I am wrapping up a project today that the research question was totally answered by one field that every person who cancels their subscription has to fill out. That field had never been looked at. Years of data and no easy way to understand it because some users may call something one thing and another something else. Machines aren’t good at understanding all the meanings or contexts."
"Also, if they're good at quant - some kind of data collection through responses that would synth with the hours of qualitative being done. Doesn't even have to be fancy: 32% of users interviewed stated in different interviews their frustration that ice cream melts on a hot day." Boom. Then I can go through and mark where this is said for archiving. Or - we could have them transcribe, or recruit off screeners; the other two "hard" parts of UXR that would be a HUGE help in getting research off the ground."

Non-profit Projects

Some people have volunteered to work directly with non-profit organizations that they are passionate about. People shared the importance of tying the impact of their research to specific objectives of the organization (e.g., increasing fundraising). Similarly these opportunities often lack proper mentorship, scaffolding, and scoping.

"The best place to start is with non-profit organizations that they would be interested in helping. For instance, if you care about animal welfare, get in touch with organizations that focus on conservation, rescues and rehabilitation, or similar initiatives according to where your personal interests lie. Nonprofits need the most help in the area of UX research, especially assistance, in order to proliferate their message to gain more funding to do their work at more meaningful scale. If you’re just starting out, find a nonprofit, contact someone on their team, explain your interest and proposition that you want to help their research, give them your plan of action (example increase funding via research) and ask if they’d be willing to give you a contracted time, say 3 months, to show what you can do. Measure their baseline, implement your strategy, and see what results you bring. If you meet your goal, they might consider hiring you, enabling you to do more of the work you love. If they like your work, but a full time position isn’t in their budget, put this project in your portfolio and reach out to other nonprofits and explain the impact you made :)"
"I worked some UX research into a project I volunteered to do for a non-profit. It really is a win-win situation for those trying to gain experience and organizations that don’t typically have UX research capabilities."
"This is the way I did it, your results might vary: I would find a cause that I loved and believed in (homelessness, anti-poverty, anti-domestic violence, environment, animals, etc) If their site could be research/designed better I would connect with the director of fundraising or Executive director or someone on the board. (Super easy) I would tell them that if they would allow me to redo their page, I could drive donations up due to ease of use (no one says no to that). Then bargain by saying that you are proud to volunteer your services, provided that good/bad/indifferent, you can use their name/your design for your design portfolio, and use their name/contact for references for "real" work. Get a rep and a following, then start intro'ing an hourly rate. "Hey, I'll do a simple redesign for free...fancier, and we'll need to talk about you hiring me on a small contract." 80% of the time, it worked all the time. And then I ran my own nonprofit as well...so you're getting my advice from both chairs."

Building your Portfolio

Simply put, a UXR portfolio is a group of research case studies. You might consider including the following elements in each case study: problem definition, why problem matters, research question(s), method(s) + rationale, constraints, team you collaborated with, participants, analysis approach, insights, impact (i.e., what decisions did you influence), and what you learned about yourself in this process, and what you might have done differently. Make it simple, readable, and scannable. Avoid sharing confidential information. Take a user centered design approach to constructing your case studies.

UXR Portfolio? 😕

"I feel it's easy to show the process but difficult to show research results or methods in a research portfolio. There are a lot of examples for UX design portfolios but not for research portfolios and it's hard to distinguish both. I am not very sure what are the expectations of an out of school researcher portfolio, and what makes a researcher stand out from a designer, but would love to hear feedback."
"My 'portfolio' was just a few word documents with illustrated case studies. I did send it to the hiring manager after my interview but I’m not sure if they looked at it, I had offered and they didn’t ask. I talked about my case studies in my interview, I think that mattered more, having these stories prepped in my mind. The process is what’s important in case studies and portfolio. My case studies also demonstrated that I understood and had the soft skills to be a researcher."

Non-UX Projects

"A researcher gained their 'first experience' by making their academic research more applied, formalizing hands-on experience in other fields, or more often doing both. I think there are a lot of opportunities to show their passion without jumping into the NDA rabbit hole. Doesn’t matter where their experience came from, a researcher should be genuinely interested in (and constantly thinking of) 1-2 emerging themes. To name a few: automation, sustainability, accessibility."
"For me I had to focus on connecting the dots between UXR & my past experience, and demonstrate that I knew enough about UXR to connect those dots. I also was able to work on a few UXR projects as a consultant and that definitely helped me in the interview process."
"I also came from a non-UX background so I found it useful to structure my portfolio around past projects to highlight my UX-related skills (eg, study design, qualitative research, analysis). I found using weebly really user-friendly and easy with templates. I’ve been working on a Interaction Design certificate so also plan on updating my portfolio with work from those classes!"
"As a masters student, my biggest problem is finding the right size project. A report can easily be 100 pages which of course is not suitable for a portfolio. The real challenge is to extract the most important into 1-5 pages. Is there a golden standard for, what and how much of a project that should be included in a portfolio?"

Structure + Characteristics

"Have a solid understanding of UX research methods and be able to articulate what you did, why you did it, what you learned, and how it informed your next steps - definitely articulating this on a portfolio as well."
"My approach is to make it scannable, short&sweet, and tell the story of the impact my research had."
"Figuring out how to provide detail without giving too much information is a balance, at least it was for me. It is a mix of class projects and other freelance projects."
"I transitioned from an anthro PhD a couple years ago. I agree totally with the comments about networking, and being able to talk through the thinking behind your process, usually in relation to a portfolio or case studies presented at an interview. For me personally, learning how to talk about my process was challenging, because it wasn't something I had been expected to do in academia. Listening to webinars and podcasts and paying attention to how other UXRs articulated the business challenge, how they used research to address it, and what the outcomes were was really helpful for me in learning how to talk about my own experience in interviews."

Sharing Confidential Information

"I've been finding a challenge is that almost all of my previous research projects are under NDA at my former employer, so I can't really share them... What makes it challenging is the job application forms that require a link to a portfolio (talk about poor UX)"
"As someone who has interviewed researchers, I agree that you should not share sensitive or confidential information - and no one wants you to! Fortunately, there are ways that you can talk about your approach to a research projects that do not disclose confidential information. In these cases, the topic/product/features do not matter as much as you demonstrating your skills as a researcher."
"Share your portfolio with password protected case study."
"My strategy has been to talk a high level about the problem, methods, insights and outcomes, without going into specifics about the client or specific solution we created."
"I think it’s really hard to talk about specific research problems due to NDA. It’s easier to talk generally and more about process. I don’t mention anything in my portfolio about specific feature builds or why we built those features. Unfortunately, this ends up sometimes coming off as more of a research ops discussion."

Portfolio Examples

A Call for Mentors

What stood out to me the most was the unmet need of UXR mentorship within our community - both within companies and independently. UXR is a craft - and many of us learn best through apprenticeship. HMW create more apprenticeship opportunities within and outside of formal employment? We need more mentors. The end.

"On my side, I would like to ask them (people who struggle) to look for mentor or someone that already in the Industry to help. Well I find that the skills needed in Industry are not just things that we can learn overnight by reading medium and doing research project on their own without getting any feedback from professional won't significantly help them to get the job. ... I am also in the middle of helping someone to learn UX, I try to be his mentor and I ask them to do a research project and then give some case study and let them think of me as their stakeholder, and during the process I will always review and provide feedback on their progress. I am not sure this gonna help them to get the job, but thing that I can promise I can make them closer to the level that required by the job."
"Also, is this work mission critical to the company? If so, let's not have Juniors guessing at how to do things (if they're that Junior). Pair them with a senior or higher who can mentor/coach and review their work. There are relatively few Junior jobs because most companies have mission critical work they want done by someone who knows what they're doing and can hit the ground running. My opinion is that we shouldn't send newbies out to freelance (even for free) without UX experts reviewing their work, checking for depth and quality, and helping them learn."
"There's 'access to a mentor' and there's 'someone is reviewing your work at every step and helping you improve it.' Like will someone review your research questions before you conduct research? I'm not against what he's saying. I'm just saying that by my standards, I don't want to see light mentoring. We already saw that failing in boot camps. I want to see people deeply coached and cared about individually."
"For ages, at every enterprise I've worked in, I've expressed the need to have a "UX Finishing School" for interns/bootcampers hungry to get into working UX and working hard. Enterprise is so short-sighted (and a lot of other UXRs are too) that somehow those that warm the seat now are immortal, that no one can take our place, but that position is quite incorrect. I don't have a job - but I'd be down to mentor anyone in UXR (and do presently - just through instruction and helping folks find a job ) until such time as I have some real projects to offer them. Most enterprises have these strict selection systems around interns though, which I've never agreed with."
"I also think that UX is not something you can just 'school' your way into - that it is more blue collar and nuanced than that - one must apprentice under a master, before practicing on their own - the old school way of learning a trade (this is also, actually, my argument against bootcamps)"

Networking (i.e., Relationship Building)

Think of "networking" as being "relationship building." It is far more important to make a meaningful human connection with fewer people than shallow connections with more people. Who knows, you might meet your next manager this way. Someone in these comments did.

"Something that was extremely beneficial to any career is NETWORKING. Simply searching "Job Title" and "Company/Industry" will bring up people, and if you are even remotely connected to them, just reach out and send them a message saying you want to have a chat about their work experience, and how they've managed to land their job. Not only do you get to learn more about their experience, but now you are connected to their network, meaning you can continue this networking "train" and find out who's who in the industry. Simply being connected to people gives you exposure, which is the most important thing."
"Network network network. I can't stress enough how much being open to connecting with others will help you."
"I started working to transition into the field, and networked entirely remotely to move to a new city, a little over a year ago. Networking is what got me my first full time role. not networking with companies with open positions, it was just networking with interesting researchers where I wanted to live and asking them to connect me with other researchers and then later on someone who knew and liked me from networking decided to reach out to me and refer me to an open position. That personal touch helped the company take a chance on someone with less direct UXR experience, because they had someone on the team who felt I’d be a great fit. Relationships with recruiters didn’t personally help me."
"After doing my PhD I landed a job in consulting (in a research capacity) for two years thanks to networking which then led to a job as a UX Researcher. The advice I would give someone trying to break in is to network, network, network and then to apply to jobs relentlessly. Each interview and application helps to refine the CV, and the story you tell at interviews. I’d also tell people to be kind and patient with themselves, breaking into UX is hard and there is no “set” pathway."
"What contributed to getting my first job? I think I'd have to say a combination of networking, having a really inquisitive mind throughout my undergrad and just learning as much as I can and of course a little bit of luck haha."
"So I never had a portfolio, I had health science academic published papers. I never worked with a recruiter. Finding overlapping connections is important (turns out I went to uni with one of my interviewers). As for what I'd do differently, probably nothing? I feel like things like aligned really nicely for me. If I had to look longer I probably would have better advice."

Showcasing Other Skills

We are all multi-talented creatures. We have interests and skills outside of research. For example, many researchers are building their design or development skills. Others have project management or creative storytelling superpowers. Own it! Be clear about your core competency (e.g., research, design) in your resume and in your self-narrative - AND share that you have so much more to offer.

"People are very specialized right now. When I interviewed for the company I signed with, I interviewed for an internship position. One of the reasons why they ended up creating a new more advanced position for me was because I showed them that even though I focus on UX research, I at least have a great understanding of design, engineering, product management, and how they all mesh. I was asked to do a research project for my interview. I did the research project, but I also did their design and product management portions. I didn't do the engineering portion, but I told them how I would conduct it. They asked me if I would be interested in trying and juggling those things as a researcher, and because I can and I have interest, I was set apart from my competitors."

To Sum it Up

Stick with it. Finding your first UXR job takes grit. Yes, it can terrible and downright disappointing. Please remember that you have support from people like me and many others in our UX community.

"Also, another tip: don’t get discouraged! Not every company wants to hire and train a newer researcher, unfortunately. It’s about finding the right fit and a place where you can learn and grow too."

Resources

Comments? Questions?

Love this article? Hate it? Even worse, feel indifferent about it? Have a question? Let me know. Leave a comment or send me a message. ❤️

As a research leader and coach, Paul works behind the scenes to support the growth of UX researchers.

Apr 13 Breaking into UX Research: Ideas from our UX Community

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