ACM Interactions

The UX research profession (also called user research or design research) has experienced growth in India over the last couple of decades. Several organizations, such as product, sector-based, and consulting companies, now hire UX researchers. 

Product companies have several sub-types, such as hardware, infrastructure, internet, physical, digital, and phygital (a mix of physical and digital). Sector-based service companies include insurance, banking, healthcare, telecom, retail, e-commerce, and education. Consulting companies and agencies have different sub-types, such as IT, software, finance, auditing, management, human resource, content creation, digital marketing and advertising.

UX researchers can also work for the public sector (government or semi-government departments), non-profit organizations, and start their own design and research companies. Next to these companies, another layer includes various types of product/service offerings: business to business (B2B), business to customer (B2C), business to business to business (B2B2B), and business to business to customer (B2B2C).

The above-mentioned types of companies require UX researchers to focus on relevant areas. For example, product companies need researchers to have in-depth knowledge about the product ecosystem and industry domain. They hire for craft-based specialist roles, such as UX researchers, UX designers, visual designers, content designers, and UX engineers. The sector-based service companies require potential employees to have in-depth knowledge about specific sectors. These companies may need both specialist and generalist roles. Consulting companies/agencies are focused on clients from a variety of sectors, needing UX professionals to wear multiple hats and therefore recruiting for more generalist UX roles that combine the responsibilities of a UX researcher, designer, and visual designer. 

In some companies, UX research practice is an independent organization reporting directly to the chief design officer; in others, the practice is called Research & Insights and includes market research; elsewhere, it is a sub-group of the design organization; lastly, it can also be is a sub-group of product management or marketing function.

UX researchers conduct different types of research, such as generative, strategic, tactical and operational research. They apply several methods: primary (involving user interaction) and secondary research, qualitative and quantitative research, go-to-market research, and sales-related research, such as discovering, learning, trying, and buying (product or service). 

UX researchers extensively collaborate and act as a bridge with cross-functional stakeholders, such as design, product management, engineering, sales, marketing, customer success management, pre-sales, client partner, vendor and design operations and research operations teams. This kind of collaboration is a critical and integral part of UX researchers’ work.

UX researchers can have an individual contributor or a management career path. In some software product companies, the individual contributor path is well defined, effectively practiced, and rewarded with promotion that reaches up to the VP level. If a UX researcher doesn’t want to become a manager, he or she can opt for an IC path. In the initial few years of the career, the paths are similar for both tracks. In the early to mid-phase of their career path, researchers need to decide between the two.

The UX research IC path aspirants need to adopt several skills, such as qualitative and quantitative research method skills, strategic foresight, cross-functional collaboration, interpersonal skills, ability to interact with diverse people, business acumen, understanding of the end-to-end UX process in alignment with the product development life cycle, internal and external eminence, mentoring skills, stakeholder management, statistics, knowledge of the latest UX research tools, UX research best practices, and industry trends.

The UX research management path aspirants need to adopt skills (in addition to the high-level IC specific skills) such as people management, practice management, project/program management, recruitment strategies, research impact tracking techniques, coaching, mentoring, skill development, change management, research operations, culture building, vendor management, OKR definition, and performance evaluation process.

The UX research profession, while rapidly growing in India, has some challenges to address, including a lack of specialized and full-time research education, limited research electives in design and psychology programs, unclear definitions of research roles and limited career growth frameworks in corporate companies, low research awareness within organizations, and the absence of clearly defined ways to translate research insights into measurable business benefits. Additionally, UX research executive leadership is missing in some companies and recruiting the right users for research is sometimes difficult, especially in cases of complex enterprise user profiles. 

These challenges also create more opportunities to foster growth and development of the UX research profession. Several initiatives are aiming to include UX research specialization and electives in academia. One option could be to train traditional psychology students to become industry-ready UX researchers. Another possibility could be to define a master’s in design specialization in UX research, which could also be optimized as a one-year diploma and a six-month certificate. Several UX research leaders are currently working to define research roles and career growth frameworks similar to the UX design and visual design professions. 

Measuring the business impact of UX research (and design) is a critical need that ensures relevance and growth in today’s rapidly changing industry. UX’s return on investment is the most debated topic in the community. There are many ways to measure the business impact of UX research, such as the number of research insights converted to Aha! epics and eventually to features, time saved per user per use case and eventually converted to cost savings, the number of errors prevented and reduced, and the number of new customer sign-ups. 

In some companies, UX research executive leadership is missing due to a lack of awareness. The UX research professionals need to evangelize their craft, stay relevant, and align their priorities with the company’s business objectives. Such evangelism needs to be practiced at all levels of the organization so that cross-functional stakeholders understand the value UX research function can add to the organization.

Recruiting relevant users to conduct research is one of the major hurdles faced by the UX research professionals, especially in the case of very complex enterprise personas. Leveraging the right tools, local recruitment agencies, and innovative customer engagement programs can help solve these issues. The research operations team (ResearchOps) and design operations team (DesignOps) are two integral components of an efficient and seamless UX delivery. These sub-functions are growing in India, and several program management experts are building their careers around these streams.

Several global Fortune 500 companies are expanding and growing their customer base in the APAC region, as an emerging market, after their phenomenal successes in the North America and Europe markets. This is where India-based UX researchers can play a very important role in understanding regional users and customers to expand the business. India’s time zone allows synchronous user research and effective customer engagements in the APAC region.

I’d like to conclude this article with a message to India-based UX researchers: Let’s build, grow, and nurture our profession in India.

Nikhil Welankar