Ask HN: What do start-ups look for in a UX Researcher?

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1 points by vikasvadlapatla 5487 days ago

Hi, I am a User Experience Researcher in the job hunt right now. I am not a UX Designer - which most start-ups demand. I don't code, I can get by with Illustrator and Photoshop stuff but I am definitely not an expert.

But here is what I can do really well - I observe, understand and analyze the things that the users care about and help designers build those things. In brief, conducting usability tests, coming up with workflows, testing scenarios and have a major say in the design and look are some of the things I do best. And these are some of the things that most UX Researchers do.

Do start-ups look for someone with this expertise? Or do they prefer someone who is a jack of all master of none?

1 comments

pbreit 5486 days ago

I think unfortunately that is a bit too narrow for most startups. I'm not sure if the "master of none" comment was meant to be pejorative but you have to understand that startups have to execute on a wide variety of tasks with limited resources. That doesn't leave much room for non-essential specialization.

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vikasvadlapatla 5485 days ago

I definitely didn't mean it in a pejorative way. I guess my question was, even though the whole concept of Lean Start-ups has gathered pace, why aren't UX folks recruited? Because essentially, both are working towards the same goal - Customer Centric iterative development.

I definitely don't think the role of a UX Researcher is a "non-essential specialization", but it is being overlooked.

This blog post emphasizes my point even more (http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/02/24/designing-appropr...)

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