Director, User Experience Research

San Francisco, CA

Introduction

Our Client in San Francisco seeks a passionate, team-oriented Director of User Experience Research to join its Customer Experience organization to play a key leadership role in overseeing all user research for their website, mobile app and retail stores.  The Director of User Research will be responsible for leading user research for key initiatives across business units, and will manage a team of User Researchers that inform user experience design decisions to realize their strategic vision.  The Director of User Research will apply their strong understanding of customer needs with an equally deep understanding of business goals to champion solutions that deliver value to their business and customers.  The Director of User Research will manage our on-site testing lab as well as 3rd party vendors and contracts.  Candidates should have a minimum of 10 years of experience researching across digital channels, including at least 5 years leading and managing research teams.  Strong candidates should possess a proven track record of leading and developing world class user research teams in a fast paced collaborative team environment, working and influencing in a cross-functional context, and advocating research and data to inform the design of the experience.  The Director of User Experience Research will draw on experience to build relationships and maximize the output of the team. The candidate is responsible to perform other duties as assigned.

This position reports to the Vice President of User Experience Design.

responsibilities

Strategic Management

  •  Leads strategic user research across channels (Website, mobile app and retail stores).

  • Partners with product management and technology, and develops strategic user research for assigned domains (business units) that aligns to Their overall strategic vision for assigned domains.

  • Partners with product management and defines user success metrics for assigned domains, including business goals and user needs for assigned domains.  Partners with product management and customer data teams (e.g. consumer insights, analytics, etc.) to discover unmet user needs and defines strategic user success metrics for assigned domains.  Partners with user experience design team to incorporate user research into user experience designs.

  • Evangelizes strategic user research and the importance of user research across the company, and acts as spokesperson and representative to senior management and outside departments, advocating for user research involvement across all customer touch points.

  • Serve as a subject matter expert and thought leader on user research across the company as well as the broader research community (e.g. presenting at conferences, writing articles, teaching, etc.).

 

Execution Management

  • Leads user research activities for projects across channels.

  • Oversees the user research performed by the user research team and ensures user research findings are shared with user experience design teams.  Partners with the user experience design team to ensure user research is incorporated into user experience designs and that user needs (as measured by user success metrics) are met.

  • Partners with executives, product management, technology, customer data teams (e.g. consumer insights, analytics, etc.) to define user success metrics for projects within assigned domains.

  • Partners with product management and technology, and ensures that user research is delivered on time, on strategy, and on budget.

  • Develops and refines user research processes that best support strategic alignment, speed, and efficiency of operationalizing user research for projects and the overall UX department. 

People Management

  •  Leads and manages a team of user researchers.

  • Hires and retains top talent.  Responsible for performance management of team members.

  • Responsible for staffing resources for projects and ensures project deadlines are met by team members.

  • Ensures that the user research team’s skills and staffing assignments are strategically aligned to project needs.

  • Manages consultants and vendor relationships as needed.

  • Develops the skills of user research team members to support business needs and individual career aspirations.  Develops talent through coaching and mentoring, and provides support and guidance to user research team. 

  • Ensures team is trained on the clients processes, methodologies, standards, and engagement models.

  • Regular, dependable attendance & punctuality.

requirements

Education/Experience:

  •  Bachelors degree in Human Factors, HCI, Cognitive or Experimental Psychology, Sociology, or related field. Masters degree preferred.

  • Minimum 10 years user research in all areas of user research (design research, market research, quantitative research) across consumer mobile applications, websites, or retail stores with at least 5 years managing a user research team.

  • Deep knowledge of implementing a variety of research methods (e.g. guerilla testing, rapid ethnography, contextual. Inquiry, focus groups, surveys, online remote testing, lab observation/logging tools such as Morae, concept testing, usability testing, A/B or multivariate experimentation testing, etc.).

  • Must have a strong research portfolio that clearly demonstrates using a variety of research methods to drive decision making in an organization.

Communication Skills:

  • Strong verbal and written communicator with all levels of business leaders; ability to influence and cultivate strong relationships with key business stakeholders and executives in the organization. 

  • Ability to communicate and influence product management and user experience designers to incorporate user research findings into product designs.

Mathematical Skills:

  • Basic math functions such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and analytical skills. 

Reasoning Ability:

  • Must be able to work independently with minimal supervision and make sound decisions.

Other Skills:

  • Strong thought leadership and user research skills, including research experience across different methods, with both qualitative and quantitative methodologies.

  • Expert project management and prioritization skills; ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously, at various stages of their development; ability to effectively delegate responsibilities and tasks to staff researchers.

  • Excellent people management skills, including the ability to attract and retain world class talent, as well as the ability to align resources to business needs while supporting the career development of staff members.

  • Ability to inspire, develop, and coach team members.

  • Exceptional negotiation skills across a variety of audiences; can successfully advocate both business-facing and IT technology solutions among peers and to executive leadership.