User Researcher

iO Associates have partnered with a leading digital agency and we are now looking to support their most recent project win within the UK Government.

To start with, they're looking to bring an experienced User Researcher onboard to kick things off at the discovery stage.

Essential Skills & Experience

• • Leading on the research approach for projects, understanding strategic priorities and identifying knowledge gaps. Selecting the most appropriate methods and considering constraints around time, budget and recruitment
  • Conducting research within a fast-paced, agile delivery environment, as part of a multidisciplinary team working with designers, business analysts and product managers (among other roles)
  • Conducting research to inform the design of digital products or services
  • Facilitating discovery research with users and stakeholders, using methods such as interviews, surveys and observation
  • Facilitating evaluative research to assess the suitability and usability of proposed solutions, using methods such as usability testing and diary studies
  • Passionate about ensuring your research approach is inclusive, recruiting diverse participants and taking into account the needs of people with low digital skills and disabilities when planning and facilitating research
  • Ensuring your research is ethical and respects users' privacy, adhering to GDPR
  • Analysing findings from a wide range of research activity, synthesising large amounts of potentially conflicting information to produce clear and actionable insights for the team
  • Producing high quality outputs to help communicate your research findings, such as (but not limited to) personas, user needs, journey maps and findings reports
  • Excellent communication skills, sharing insights and rationale with all levels of stakeholders in a clear, compelling and engaging manner, advocating for user needs and the value of user-centred design
  • An understanding of the Government Service Standard and how to apply the principles in your role
  • Confident in managing the expectations of multiple stakeholders of varying seniority levels, and using your influencing skills to achieve the best outcomes for users and the business
  • Mentoring, coaching and upskilling team members and clients in user research methods and ways of working
  • Comfortable working remotely, and willing to travel to client sites when needed

Desirable Skills & Experience

• • Experience of working on complex government services, delivering to the Government or NHS Service Standards (ideally including representing User Research at Government service assessments)
  • Experience of working in and navigating multi-stakeholder environments
  • Experience of working as the sole User Researcher on a multidisciplinary team, owning the entire end-to-end research process
  • Experience of working in a holistic service design environment, conducting research with both external users and internal staff/stakeholders to inform the design of an end-to-end service
  • Experience or skills in other areas of user-centred design, such as UX, Service Design or Content Design, in order to support the wider team where needed
  • Experience of planning and facilitating workshops with stakeholders or users to gather information, align teams and move projects forward

Let me know if this looks like the role for you by applying or send over your up-to-date CV over to me at o.gerrard-