Why UX Research is Important And How to Find a Career in it

In modern software, UI/UX (user interface/user experience) design is one of the most fundamental roles on the team. With a focus on principled design, based on real world scenarios and a pragmatic approach, good UI/UX seeks to minimise friction on the part of the user, making applications easier to navigate and work with.

But where do UI/UX design principles come from? Who does the research? And how do they decide what good design really looks like?

Today we want to shift the spotlight and talk about the work of UX researchers – both what they do and how you can become one.

What Does a UX Researcher Do?

When thinking about UX research we have to start by setting aside the visual elements like colours, typography, and layout. Instead, UX is focused on human behavior. While a UI designer cares about how an app looks, a UX designer cares only about how it feels.

UX researchers spend their time gathering and analysing human data to be translated into actionable product decisions. They run usability tests, conduct interviews, and distribute behaviour surveys, collecting countless metrics by which to determine the success/failure of a design.

Why UX Research is Important

Good UX isn’t guesswork. In fact, it’s about as far from guesswork as you can get. 

When people think about design they often think of it as a creative field – one where personal taste has a huge influence. This is true to an extent, but the best designers always ground their work in practical results. In fact, the best designs are never found on a first attempt but after multiple rounds of feedback and iteration based on strict user testing.

It’s easy for a designer to feel that their system is intuitive. They designed it. They thought through the logic of it. Not only is it biased towards their sense of intuition but they also lack the perspective of a complete outsider, ignorant to the inner workings of the system.

The best designers know this, so they don’t just follow their gut. They base their work in research, both before and after the app is built.

To use a concrete example, designers often have to make choices about whether to display a button with text or an icon. Sometimes they’ll use a combination of the two. On PC they might use an icon but then provide a tooltip when you hover over it.

But how can they know which is better? Or when to choose one over the other.

Well, thanks to UX researchers we know that it’s very situational. Some icons, such as the floppy disk representing save, are broadly universal. We’ve all seen it before and it doesn’t need explaining. Unfamiliar icons, on the other hand, are very difficult to parse for new users. Their meaning is often abstract and hard to interpret.

On the other hand, icons save space and once learned can make for a much easier experience, especially on mobile apps where space is crucial.

All told, it’s a complex and multi-layed decision but the full context helps designers choose what will work best depending on their goals.

Is UX Research a Good Career?

If you’re looking for a tech career that pays exceptionally well without requiring you to write thousands of lines of code every day, then entering this field is an excellent choice.

A typical UX researcher starts in the $65-90K range while mid level roles can easily exceed $100K. As for senior researchers at major enterprise software firms, you’re often looking at more than twice that much.

Beyond the financial security, this is also a very fulfilling job for those who are curious about human psychology. It’s a very direct form of problem solving that can have broad reaching implications. While people might not notice small UX tweaks they definitely feel them. We all have to interact with software and good UX turns that process from a chore into a pleasure.