User Researcher

The Open University; Milton Keynes; On-site; GBP 35,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

An established institution is seeking a User Researcher to join their Digital Services team. This role focuses on enhancing user experiences by conducting user research and collaborating with multi-disciplinary teams. You will play a vital role in understanding user needs and ensuring that services are designed with the user in mind. The ideal candidate will have a strong commitment to inclusive research and a passion for continuous improvement. Join a forward-thinking organization dedicated to making education accessible to all, where your insights will directly impact the development of innovative services.

Qualifications

• Experience in user research and engaging stakeholders.
• Ability to analyze and synthesize qualitative and quantitative data.

Responsibilities

• Collaborate with teams to improve service outcomes through user research.
• Design and conduct user research activities to inform product development.

Skills

User Research Advocacy

User-Centred Design

Data Analysis

Moderation Skills

Inclusive Research

Agile Methodologies

Communication Skills

Collaboration

Education

Degree in a relevant field

Job description

We believe that where you start in life, shouldn’t limit where you go.

The Open University is a unique institution created 50 years ago to open up education for all. We are open to anyone, anywhere, changing millions of lives across the world and always looking for new ways to help people succeed. Our pioneering use of innovative methods, such as our BBC partnership, means we reach more people than any other university.

We work across all four nations of the UK and we are the most popular choice for online, distance, flexible study

About the role

This role sits within Digital Services which is aligned with the Digital, Data and Design Profession which provides for communities of practice which supports professional development.The initial focus of this role will be to support the Student Services Portfolio whose ambition it is to ensure services and products are highly customer-centric and designed with the user (whether student or colleague) in mind ensuring best possible outcomes.

As a User Researcher you will work in a multi-disciplinary service team and be responsible for helping your team develop a deep understanding of the people who use the end-to-end service. Your findings will allow teams to design, build and develop better, more joined up services more quickly and at lower cost and risk. You’ll be helping to embed user centred research principles and processes to inform the development of new products and the continual improvement of existing products.

Key responsibilities

As a User Researcher at the Open University, you will:

• Collaborate in a multi-disciplinary service team to reduce complexity and improve service outcomes, leading on planning, designing, and preparing a range of user research activities to support team understanding of users, the service and how it should be designed.
• Lead on the design of user-centred research activities, selecting the most appropriate research methods and ensuring all activities are inclusive.
• Run a wide range of user research activities including recruitment of participants, preparation of data collection methods, moderation of research sessions.
• Analyse research data and trends to synthesise clear and actionable findings, including working closely with analytics colleagues to create a rich picture of user behaviour.
• Communicate user research findings to help the team and wider organisation develop a deep understanding of users and their needs.
• Work closely or consult with other user researchers, product managers, designers, developers, and operations teams to turn user research findings into stories and actions that lead to valuable product features, development, and service touchpoints.
• Be an active member and ambassador of the Open University’s User Centred Design Communities of Practice, contributing to our collective knowledge and skills, sharing best practice, and joining up to make the understanding of our users and design of our services more consistent.
• Understand the needs of a range of users, ensure their requirements are considered during user research activities, and design inclusive research sessions open to all users.
• Understand and apply data protection, security, and ethics requirements for handling user information in research.
• Keep up to date in developments in user centred design, user research, trends, and technologies, and share with the wider user research team to build a deep understanding and appreciation of best practice in this field.
• Line manage other team members as needed, supporting their professional development, providing pastoral care and supporting them to do their best work within their teams.

Skills and experience

The ideal candidate will:

• Have experience of advocating for user research and engaging non-specialist colleagues and stakeholders
• Have the ability to understand the problems a team is trying to solve, and align user research activities to inform decision making and action
• Have experience of a range of user research methods, analysis techniques, and approaches to sharing findings
• Have the ability to moderate user research activities, ensuring participants feel at ease, keeping on track and keeping to time.
• Have the ability to analyse, synthesise and communicate quantitative and qualitative data, and present clear and actionable findings
• Have a commitment to inclusive research, and experience of researching with and advocating for a wide range of users
• Have an understanding of research ethics, data protection, and security, and how to keep participants, teams and yourself safe in research
• Have experience working at pace in an agile environment
• Have experience of collaborating with other disciplines, and engaging others with the research process
• Show commitment to continuous personal development of the knowledge and skills related to user research for services
• Show commitment to equality and diversity, which is key to fulfilling the University’s mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas.
• Welcome the constructive criticism of their work and be able to constructively review the work of others
• Be interested in representing user research at internal and external events
• Have an ability to use own initiative within a team, to prioritise tasks according to deadlines.
• Demonstrate an understanding of accessibility principles, and how accessibility aligns with UX design principles.

The Open University is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion which is reflected in our mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. We aim to foster a diverse and inclusive environment so that all in our OU community can reach their potential. We recognise that different people bring different perspectives, ideas, knowledge, and culture, and that this difference brings great strength. We strive to recruit, retain and develop the careers of a diverse pool of students and staff, and particularly encourage applications from all underrepresented groups. We also aspire to make The Open University a supportive workplace for all through our policies, services and staff networks.