Jeff, I've been with my studio for the past 6 months and it has been a fulfilling start to my career. We are a small and young consultancy of only 15 people (but growing). While it's true that larger companies will have the capacity to create specific roles, smaller companies will have such positions too - albeit you have the right experience and skills. Even more interestingly is that with smaller companies, you will also have the opportunity to flex between roles and gain experience in both camps (design and research).
From my impression, the number of years listed in any job description is merely to ensure those applying have adequate experience in the field. As others have mentioned, it is more than just knowing different methods and the strengths/limitations of each method. It's also about how you apply the method and how comfortable you are doing so knowing there will be hiccups along the way. Recovering from the challenges in engaging participants in more than just a simple questionnaire is truly exhausting and requires time and practice to get good at. That's why people skills are so critical. Your role is based on gaining insights about people's behaviors, their aspirations/ motivations as well as probing them on their rituals within their little universe. Many times, people find themselves in UX as a result of the companies position in the industry. However, most people by education and practice are anthropologists, psychologists, cognitive science or computer science people. Some blend of that type of research interested in software/technology will find themselves in roles called "UX Researcher" or "User Researcher." However that's all up for discussion. There must be research projects ongoing in the University that are run by your professors. Talk to professors and find local special interest groups in your community. Get involved with informal projects or start one and get others to join in on your initiative. Or you might consider submitting papers to national conferences. That might help set you up in establishing research goals and reporting on the outcome based on a real world problem. Otherwise, just read more books =). Right now I'm reading "Doing Anthropology in Consumer Research." Look to books that revolve around cognition and anthropology. Not just for the methods, but the kinds of insights they draw from the type of ethnography they employed. One that comes to my head is reading "Cognition in the Wild." You can also follow blogs too by practitioners in areas of interest. Are you more into social media and social interactions? or are you more into ubiquitous computing? there are different places you can go for that type of thing. What I found most helpful is creating a portfolio. This is a practice that shouldn't be only done by designers, but for everyone. It's a way to frame your own story of the projects you've worked on, the role you played, and the outcomes of the challenges you or your team took on. That is one way you can "show" how well of a research you really are. Finally, just reach out to researchers in large or small companies. I was interning at Microsoft once in a completely different field (support in IT) and I spent half my time interviewing with their UX community. They are all smart people who have come from many different backgrounds. Just an hour of their time can help ground you in how to assess what needs to be done to position yourself appropriately. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me. Also, if you're graduating soon, I can connect you with our studio on potential job opportunities. Good luck! Kevin On Feb 11, 2008, at 5:27 PM, Jeff Hendy wrote: > I'm currently in grad school studying HCI, and I have several > questions regarding interaction research. I don't know if this is > exactly the right place to be asking, but any help would be greatly > appreciated. > > 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 > field or is it usually just considered to be a subset of interaction > design? Is there any chance of a career in this area other than in > huge companies? > > 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. For IxD, the obvious > choice is to design websites for your friends and family, but nothing > is popping into my mind on the research side. I could create personas > for mythical projects and run usability tests on existing programs, > but these exercises would be purely for practice and not result in > anything useful. Is there anything more practical that I should be > doing with my free time? > > 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? > > Research job interviews... > For anybody who has recently gotten a job in this area or hires people > in this area, what's the general structure of a job interview? How do > you differentiate between people who "know about" ethnography, > personas, heuristic evaluations, etc and people who are actually good > at doing these things? When I was interviewing for developer > positions, it was easy: people would ask me programming questions and > I would write code to solve them. However, I really have no idea what > to expect now. Any pointers? > > Cheers, > Jeff > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... 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