Senior UX Researcher

Senior UX Researcher - Content Acquisition

We’re looking for a user experience researcher to join our growing global UXD practice at

Springer Nature and work closely with our UX Leads and Research team to help grow and strengthen our UX research capability across our digital products. The job can be based in Lisbon or Berlin and you’ll work with colleagues around the world.

Visit sndigital.springernature.com to learn more about who we are and what we do.

Overview

You are a Senior User Researcher with multiple years of experience in qualitative research, but with an interest and some experience in quantitative research and data analysis. You are genuinely interested in developing your research skills and you have experience in researching the different stages of product development.

The Springer Nature digital department works in a domain model. Domains group products and projects related to similar user and business needs (e.g. ‘content consumption’, ‘content acquisition’). 

You will support the Editorial Experience team within the Content Acquisition domain, where we help scientists submit and publish their research and support peer reviewers and editors evaluate what constitutes solid science. This team is part of a large programme of work that is responsible for building a new editorial management system for the research and editorial community. 

Team Vision

The team aims to provide an experience that facilitates a fast, simple and informed completion of the process for publishing scientific research. 

Why this matters

Peer review is the backbone of the scientific process. Without it, it’s impossible to understand which research matters. The existing systems that manage the submission and peer review of research manuscripts are no longer fit for purpose. Manuscripts take too long to go through the process, and researchers worry their work is not recognised by not publishing their paper on time. #LI-CO1

How the team works

The cross-functional team evolves and continuously improves, both individually and collectively. Whilst being agile helps to structure our work, we look to focus on the right problems in the right way. We have room to experiment but also take pride in understanding business needs and deliver on them. But we need help! 

What you’ll be doing

Within 3 months

In collaboration with the UX Leads and with the Head of Research you will have the opportunity to tackle and shape the user research and data analysis strategies for this programme. Within 3 months you will have a deep understanding of the different users and their behaviours with our products and services. Moreover, you will identify what is lacking and areas that require improvement from a research point of view.

You will:

• Summarise the research findings from research that has already been been carried out across Content Acquisition and update all of the product teams
• Working with the UX lead for the programme, gather learnings and insights from past research processes and identify the best approach to UX research across the programme so it is as impactful as it can be
• Work with the teams and with UX Lead for Content Acquisition to begin delivering actionable insights from in depth research alongside ‘just enough’ learning that push product development forward based on product goals and user needs.
• Contribute to the sharing and  dissemination of the insights gathered from all the research carried out so far.
• Work with UX Designers for the different areas of the domain  to understand the needs and maturity of specific products
• Be able to support qualitative research with quantitative data e.g. from analytics, surveys and other data sources.
• Start the creation of a framework for research within the domain, in collaboration with the domain UX Lead, that will allow us to be more strategic about the research we do and more effective in our activities across the domain.
• Support the execution of currently planned research activities for the different teams
• Become engaged and proactive in domain-wide UX activities.

Within 6 months

You will have a strong understanding of our users and their behaviours, and the gaps in our knowledge. You will work closely with the UX Domain lead and collaborate with teams that can support you to gather and share the data analysis you require. You will try to engage all of the teams in the research activities promoting a user centred philosophy within domains and the whole department. Also, you will keep all the different teams up-to-date about the research going on.

You will:

• Take ownership of planning and execution of research activities deemed as priority both for individual teams and across the Content Acquisition domain.
• Utilise both existing and ongoing research to build a sound knowledge of our users, as well as identifying knowledge gaps, and help inform the domain UX Lead and Head of Research of priorities that should be considered for the research plan. Map these priorities to outcomes and improvements for the domain programme of work.
• Start engaging other functions within teams (particularly QAs) in the teams to participate in usability sessions, and start putting together a plan to teach them how to run those sessions themselves.
• Working with your UX Lead, Research Lead and Cross-domain Researcher to produce clear, actionable insights based on triangulated qualitative and quantitative collection methods for new and on-going research.
• Identify the most efficient way to share findings/knowledge within the teams and develop good working relationships with other research departments in the company (i.e. market research, customer service, analytics)
• Support the domain UX lead to establish UX KPIs for the domain and begin to shape and effective and feasible way to support evaluating the effectiveness of the user experience in the short and longer term

Within 12 months and beyond

You will:

• Find ways to improve the research activities in order to have a more efficient approach to research. You will be the main contact when speaking about research in Content Acquisition, but you will also be able to work with other domains when needed
• Mentor, or coach, UX and UI designers, and potentially other team roles such as Business Analysts and QAs, in research practices, involving them, where appropriate, in wider user research activities
• Proactively promote your role within Content Acquisition and the other domains through your work and demonstrating the value of user research in both tactical and strategic product and roadmap decisions.
• Have supported the UX domain lead, shape a culture of sharing actionable and prioritised findings within the project, programme, and design teams to make it accessible and relevant for all.
• Be familiar with common research tools for UX (online data collection for diary, survey, analytics, recruitment, etc.) 
• Work in collaboration with Research teams to support set up of processes, tools, methods and mindsets needed to run research efficiently
• Work with the Research Team to support the growing interest in research and sustainability of the research practice.
• Support the Research team to build up relationships with researchers through e.g. conferences, research labs and universities in UK and overseas as appropriate.

Daily Life

You will need to be autonomous and proactive: you’ll self-organise and prioritise research tasks  for the programme based on the needs and deadlines of the teams and domain as a whole.

You will:

• Prioritise research activities for the programme and work with relevant product teams where applicable
• Work with UX Designers and Product Managers on product teams to translate teams’ questions into research activities
• Recruit, organise, plan, and run workshops, studies and research activities
• Apply relevant research methods depending on the project schedules and deadlines
• Build up and run research activities (i.e. surveys, interviews, remote interviews, etc)
• Build in time to learn new techniques and evaluative methods.
• Motivate and involve the team members in research and analysis activities 
• Share findings within the project, programme, and design team
• Keep teams and communities up-to-date on the research activities within the domain e.g. through Hive, regular stand-ups with the Research team and sharebacks
• Collaborate with other departments to validate design hypotheses about user behaviours and attitudes
• Do design work in collaboration with the teams as necessary and makes sense

At Springer Nature, we value the diversity of our teams and work to build an inclusive culture, where people are treated fairly and can bring their differences to work and thrive. We empower our colleagues and value their diverse perspectives as we strive to attract, nurture and develop the very best talent.

Springer Nature was awarded Diversity Team of the Year at the 2022 British Diversity Awards. Find out more about our DEI work here.

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