UX researcher office gifts worth keeping

How to support the growth and retention of UX researchers

As a UX researcher over the past four years at Google, I’ve gotten a lot of questions from designers, product managers, engineers, and executives about how they can best work with me to respect my time and use my full range of skills. I’ve sometimes even gotten the question, “what exactly does a UX researcher do?”

I always welcome these questions because after all, the job role is new to many companies and it’s important to know how to work with UX researchers on a product team. UX researchers have the most impact when we’re embedded on teams working collaboratively with business and technical roles. Our job is to identify user needs and behaviors to inform what product features to build and how to build them for consumers.

During a memorable office event on Google Play, I spent an hour with my team of designers and engineers playing a game where we discussed gifts we’d like to receive from each other to support our work. The rules of the game were that the gifts had to be work-related, such as being more present in meetings (sadly no chocolate).

As I reflect back on my experiences at Google, I’ve developed a wishlist of “gifts” I’d like to receive from executives and cross-functional peers, along with a list of gifts I can give them to support my work as a UX researcher.

Gifts I’d like to receive from my cross-functional peers:

• Take action on research findings that don’t just validate existing ideas, but that also change the product direction.
• Help UX researchers track the impact of their work to highlight their value by tying research to product metrics and decisions.
• Include UX researchers in decision-making and roadmap planning meetings to build more user-centered products.
• Actively participate throughout all phases of the research to take action on findings quickly and collaborate on next steps.
• Support research that’s both tactical and foundational to influence the product at all stages of development.

Gifts I’d like to receive from executives:

• Hold the company accountable for making user-centered decisions (e.g., embed user-centered goals in the company values and quarterly product objectives).
• Hire UX executives who will advocate for the needs of the UX team and influence company decisions.
• Compensate and promote UX professionals at the same pace as other job roles on a product team.
• Devote budget to the UX research team for headcount and research studies (e.g., participant recruiting, third-party tools, field research expenses).

Gifts I’ll give others as a UX researcher:

• Educate stakeholders about the types of studies we run and how to effectively work with us to maximize the impact of our work.
• Set expectations for what a reasonable amount of work looks like and prioritize projects to produce quality work.
• Be upfront when research isn’t needed on a project to allow the team to move forward in the product development lifecycle (e.g., research may not be needed because the designs use an established UX pattern or there’s sufficient past research).

UX research can add enormous value to a product development team when they have strong collaboration and buy-in from their peers and company executives. I hope to continue to grow my wishlist and add to the list of gifts I’ll give others as a UX researcher. How do you build a healthy team culture for UX researchers at your company?

Acknowledgements: Jennifer Simpson, Kendall Youngstrom, Kristine Le, Jonatan Littke