Hi Rachel! Thanks for sitting down with us – first question… what do you do for work?

I’m a Senior User Research Consultant. I’ve been doing this role for about 3.5 years.

In a nutshell, user researchers plan, design and carry out research with users that help our teams get a deep understanding of the people that use digital services. We typically work in agile product teams, so I work alongside colleagues in delivery, product, interaction design, content design, business analysis and engineering and data.

Sounds very varied! So what does a typical day look like for you and what’s your favourite thing about the job?

Whilst there isn’t really a typical day, often I will be writing up notes from research sessions, doing analysis and synthesis of user interviews, planning research sessions or trying to recruit users. As a team we plan work to ensure research is feeding into design and product activities so we’re building things that work for people.

My favourite part is probably analysis - I love being able to draw out themes and interesting insights from a jumble of research feedback. Making sense of problems and why people behave in certain ways can be very satisfying.

How did you get started in your role?

I studied Psychology and Criminology at university and when I graduated I started working in community substance misuse services - providing support to people with drug and alcohol issues in the criminal justice system. I stayed in this area of work for around a decade - moving into roles such as volunteer coordinator, trainer, team leader and safeguarding lead.

However, the charity sector is massively underfunded and can be quite draining - I wanted to do something useful and worthwhile but knew I needed to move sectors.

My partner is a software developer and he told me about what User Researchers did. I started studying and reading up in my own time (including doing a few courses) and eventually I left the third sector and started as a contractor.

I did find it difficult to get roles to start with - because I didn’t have the job title “Researcher” anywhere on my CV, I had to work extra hard to convince employers I had transferable skills from my other jobs - such as empathy, problem solving, organisation, presentation skills.

I applied for a number of roles but never got past the sifting stage because I wasn’t currently working in this area. I also got unhelpful guidance from a few other people - including being told I should study for an Anthropology Masters or move to London (neither of which was affordable or realistic!). This really dented my confidence for a while but I soon found out that neither of those things were necessary and it was almost a form of gate-keeping.

I’ve been permanently employed at a consultancy for the past 2.5 years which has given me a good breadth of experience in different government projects. I’ve also met and worked with researchers from all different backgrounds, experiences, educational levels which has shown me there isn’t “one way” to do things.

Wow – well done for overcoming those earlier challenges in your career, and congratulations on how far you’ve come! Looking ahead, where would you like to be in five years time with your career?

Ooh big questions! It would be really interesting to be able to help a company develop a user research team from scratch - so many places are relying on guesswork to decide what features to build or how digital services should work for users. I think that would be a fun challenge to set that up somewhere that hasn’t previously tried it.

What would be your tech career advice to others?

I think for me, I didn’t consider myself as someone who worked in “tech” - especially as research is so much about talking with people and listening to them. I’m not a developer or an engineer. However, I do help digital teams build digital services. I work with technical teams. Research is not just a “soft skill” - it requires a lot of analytical thinking, data awareness, problem solving, stakeholder engagement.

Love it! And final question – what books/resources can you recommend to others?

I really enjoy the content that Nikki Anderson puts out - I’ve been to a couple of her webinars which have been really useful, and she posts a lot of helpful content about research on her linked in. It’s a good example of not-gatekeeping and sharing knowledge with others who are interested in what you do.

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Rachel is a Senior User Research Consultant at Hippo Digital – where we’ll be hosting our March event! Find out more here