On 2/11/08, Jeff Hendy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Research as a career... > The big software companies: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, etc all list > positions with job titles such as "interaction researcher" or "user > experience researcher." Is this typical at smaller companies and > design firms as well, or is the research handled by the same people > who do the design? More generally, is IX/UX research really it's own
It depends on the company, but most often you'll only see this at large companies. In fact, this pigeonholing is one reason I much prefer working at small ones as I like to do it all. That said, I have noticed that a lot of product design firms separate their research roles from their design roles. Most of these shops are fairly small. How to prepare... > How can I "practice" UX research on my own? I've done plenty in > course projects, but from my experience, that's usually not enough for > employers. They want to see somebody who's taken the initiative to > apply their skills beyond what's been required. What those hiring for this role are interested in is your approach and your people skills. They want to know how you would go about researching a question or project given a certain set of parameters. For example, if I were working with a content-oriented site, I might propose a card sort as part of the research plan, but for a functionality-oriented site I might be more interested in doing contextual inquiries. Regarding people skills, these are things you should be able to speak to. When we're interviewing, observing, etc., we very consciously behave in certain neutral ways. More experienced practitioners, I've found, are assumed to have these skills, but in your situation you may need to speak to how you behave in interviews. It occurs to me that it may be a good idea for you to make a video of yourself conducting an interview or some other form of face-to-face research. Research resources... > What websites and communities deal with UX research? I've found > plenty of places dealing with usability, but that's only a small part > of UX research. Is there anything dealing with this area as a whole, > or do I need to be looking at usability sites and the relevant > portions of design sites? I'd suggest looking for "user experience" or "experience design" or whatever variation on del.icio.us. There are a lot of great resources on the subject. This list being one. : ) Good luck! Fred ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
