If you’re reading this article, either you are already a UX researcher or a person looking forward to becoming one; and in that case, you understand this niche much better than I do. However, if you are someone exploring the field of user experience research, and aren’t so sure what it is, here is a quick introduction.
The initial thought that comes to intellect when we hear the term user research or UX research is the usability test – the examination to corroborate that the product design is easy to use. While usability tests are an essential component of user experience research, it does not entirely comprise it. User experience research is a broad domain, the primary purpose of which is to keep tabs on what people do, why they do it when they do it, and how they do it. And that is why user experience researchers use their skills at work to help and favor customers and businesses.
Coming to the main reason for writing this article: having so many ‘better’ professions in the technical industry, why choose to become a researcher/design researcher for customer experience? In actuality, user research is captivating, unpredictable, remunerating, and a lot more fun domain than you assume it to be. The reason why it is so unpopular in the market despite having immense importance is the non-existence of awareness among the ordinary population and the deficit of discussion about it on more public platforms.
Reasons To Become A UX Researcher
Despite the bachelors’/masters degrees taking so long, here are the reasons why you should not shy away from becoming a user experience researcher.
Studying And Understanding User Behaviour
The name of the profession – user experience research – itself suggests that the center of all the activities is the user. He is the core of why and how a user researcher creates functionality. As a UX researcher, you get the opportunity to plunge yourself into the habits and patterns of human behavior by learning and practicing user experience and user interface design.
If you count yourself one of those curious cats that keep on wondering what people do and why then this is a great career choice.
The UX researchers, in their daily work, create designs focused on the requirements of the user, monitoring the conduct of the target audience. You may find the psychological aspects to be a fascinating component of the designer’s everyday workflow because you might sometimes not get the results that you were expecting.
To put it in a better way, user experience researchers peek into other people’s lives to leave a tangible impact on the users’ lives.
Synergy Between Logic And Creativity
Most tech professions are usually technical – which means you have to do the routine work like writing codes; however, a UX researcher has specialized knowledge in recommending a product along with a hefty share of creativity.
It is an interaction of numerous domains. Due to this reason, the researchers are not just technical people but also scientific professionals. User research cannot possibly be the only base for UX research. In order to create anything, the researchers are required to work closely with a team of other professionals.
The work of customer experience researchers depends upon how well these people do their respective work. If you are a person who enjoys communicating with various professionals, this job might catch your interest.
No Requirement Of Programming
Although it is essential to understand how the product is useful, as a UX researcher, it is not very necessary to have excellent programming skills. Having a basic knowledge of HTML or JS may be enough for you to navigate better the errors of web design that are under development. However, you would do just fine if you do not have even the basic knowledge for the programming languages for applications viz., Java, Objective-C, Swift, etc.
Customer experience researcher may be just the right job for you If you don’t want to dive into or are afraid of learning programming languages.
Many researchers who are in this field for years have still not faced any critical problems due to a lack of knowledge in/of any particular programming language. Moreover, no human can know all the languages needed to create a product and be a researcher simultaneously. It is much better to be able to perform one good job, with perfection, rather than knowing it all; as the saying goes, It’s not fruitful to be the Jack of all but master of none.
Sometimes, You An Opportunity Get To Save Lives
Yes, it is indeed true. It might come across as a bold announcement to make; however, there are numerous examples of customer research that have saved lives and instances where the bugs in usability have killed humans due to a bit of delay in their discovery/research.
Let’s take the case of the current scenario, where the entire world is in dire need of vaccines/medicines that help cure the Coronavirus. UX researchers simplify the complexity of the workflows that a front-line warrior might need to grasp instantly and intuitively. A customer experience researcher’s contribution in the field of healthcare is that they lower the necessity for interpretation, minimizing the chances of human error to assist the staff in making better decisions.
Adds Value To The Organization And Has Great Opportunities
User studies demonstrate that the modifications made by the UX researchers in design magnify the user experience, creating more sales, thereby making the work process easier with more customers covered. Yuliya Nikolova, in her article titled ‘The business value of UX Research‘, says that user research has an unseen ROI. She claims that if the prospective advantage of a modification that the research proposed is difficult to project, the potential expense of creating a junky product can be calculated in a matter of minutes. She further gave the example that the number of days the engineers require to develop a digital product will always transcend the number of days required to conduct the UX Research.
Apart from that, the opportunities coming up for UX researchers are endless. Up until now, the programmers received the privilege of being a preference for the offers of becoming a co-founder. These days, however, the same opportunity is open for UX researchers.
Being a creative director, you are likely to have absolute freedom of decision-making in startups.
Part Of A Great Community
In the domains where the competition is cut-throat, it is very common to witness a silo mentality among individuals with the same professions. However, in the community of UX researchers, there is an abundance of people who are willing to share their significant expertise and experience as mentors.
Hossein Raspberry – a UX Researcher at medium – suggests that as a UX researcher, one should reach out to those who inspire you. Reading their books or thesis online is a considerable way to do the same. He advises the new researchers not to look forward to any help if they don’t know enough about your idol and are just randomly contacting them.
He further compares the straightforward question – ‘do you want to be my mentor?’ to the situation where you ask a total stranger if they want to be your friend. And he concludes by educating that you shouldn’t push for too much of someone’s time. Following these tips makes it easier for people to help you.
Everyday Brings Something New
User experience researching is a growing discipline. It is ever-changing and constantly advancing as technology progresses. The UX researchers get to use and adapt various research techniques throughout the project depending on the deadlines, budgets, and now even the pandemic.
Like programmers or designers and other jobs in the tech sector, UX researchers experience a whole lot of changes in their careers. These changes can be big or small. These factors influence the day-to-day work of a researcher. UX researchers are great adapters, and they learn to adjust to every circumstance they encounter.
If you have the trait of flexibility, you can become a successful UX researcher.
High Remuneration
Despite remote or office work done by the UX researchers, they have a pretty high level of earnings. The average salary of a UX researcher in the US is approximately $71,325 at the entry-level! That is without taking into consideration work location.
It indeed depends on the organization and its location, and the know-how of the person. Many companies pay their UX researchers up to $110k, excluding the benefits.
Makes AI Smarter
Rober M. Schumacher; in an article titled ‘Artificial Intelligence, Supervised Learning and User Experience’; explains that a humongous majority of data banks are associated with human behavior. Consequently, it becomes a necessity to comprehend the actions captured by such data.
He says that while initially, the enormity of the obligatory data required for machine learning praxis may seem to consist of non-UX techniques, numerous scientists, analysts, and researchers have overcome this challenge by employing quantitative methods of obtaining data. However, a significant drawback of these techniques was high data fragility. He, along with his team, discovered that user experience has a unique position that enables it to cumulate and code these data segments via research modi operandi and expertise in comprehending and coding human behavior.
User experience researchers can confirm that Artificial Intelligence bias is minimum by carrying out user research. The observations made from user research bespoke the human experience and offer well-grounded, fine data that is ideal for being a substructure of any AI application. Understanding just this much can reduce the product-team members’ bias and make sure that they pick out the correct training data especially for the machine learning algorithms.
Moreover, User experience researchers can aid the businesses in knowing the behaviors of the internal customers (employees) by using AI to feed on the information – their details, trends in leaves, trends in their moods, etc. – from the human resource software used in the organization.
Besides, If You’re Interested In Becoming A User Experience Researcher, Why Do You Need Any Other Reason? Just Go For It!
Winding It Up
No job is superior to any other – it is a fact. Everyone has their individual choice when it comes to deciding what they want to do. Feeling good about what you do is the first factor in determining what work you want to do and eventually deriving satisfaction from that work. Selecting a job that makes you happy and lets you feel that you have the best job in the world is definitely the right job irrespective of what it is.
Having said that, if you are looking forward to becoming a UX researcher, I hope these points may help you understand the nature of UX researcher’s work a little better.
