A week in the life of a UX Researcher
The Atypical Week of a Researcher.
I am constantly getting asked about what a typical day is like as a user researcher. And, to be honest, my answer is always “it depends.” I wanted to answer this question the best I could, so I decided to outline a week of my life as a user researcher. To be clear, not every week is like this, and they can vary from this.
Monday
8:30 — Leave for work and practice some German on the train
9:00 — Arrive at work and grab a tea
9:15 — Check and respond to any emails, such as recruiting participants confirming, and slack messages from team members.
9:30 — Squad meeting number one. We meet to discuss what is being worked on and anything that is coming up. The squad lets me know what research they will need in the upcoming weeks.
10:30 — Squad meeting number two. We meet to discuss what is being worked on and anything that is coming up. The squad lets me know what research they will need in the upcoming weeks.
11:30 — I create research plans for any upcoming research needed, and share it with the relevant squad so they are able to comment on the document, and add anything else they are interested in learning about.
12:30 — Lunch
1:00 — Squad meeting number three. We meet to discuss what is being worked on and anything that is coming up. The squad lets me know what research they will need in the upcoming weeks.
2:00 — Based on the needs from the squads, I will pull a customer list of our email subscribers and reach out to them, one-by-one, to see if they are interested in participating in a user research session.
3:00 — Generative research session with a customer
4:00 — Research synthesis for the generative research session, in which I review the session, record detailed notes and create a research summary to send to the relevant squads
6:00 — Check my email to respond to and schedule any new participant sessions.
6:30 — Leave work to go home.
Tuesday
8:30 — Leave for work and practice some German on the train
9:00 — Arrive at work and grab a tea
9:15 — Check and respond to any emails, such as recruiting participants confirming, and slack messages from team members.
9:30 — Answer any questions from the squad about the previous research sessions
10:30 — Half-day research synthesis session with a squad: we have finished speaking to seven participants for a usability test we have been working on for the past two weeks. In order to make sure we are all on the same page with next steps, we sit in a room together to discuss the different results, and decide on an outcome. I facilitate the workshop, bringing the team through the research insights, and helping them sort through the results with an affinity diagraming exercise, and HMW statements
4:00 — Generative research session
5:00 — Research synthesis for the generative research session, in which I review the session, record detailed notes and create a research summary to send to the relevant squads
6:30 — Quickly check email and leave work to go home
Wednesday
8:30 — Leave for work and practice some German on the train
9:00 — Arrive at work and grab a tea
9:15 — Check and respond to any emails, such as recruiting participants confirming, and slack messages from team members.
9:30 — Answer any questions from the squad about the previous research sessions
10:30 — Present the research findings and next steps to upper-management
11:30 — Chase the squads who haven’t responded to research needs to make sure they tell me what research is coming up, so I have enough time to recruit (it takes me about one week to manually recruit enough participants)
12:30 — Lunch
1:00 — Recruit more participants to make sure we have a backlog for any “surprise” projects
2:30 — Usability test with external participant
3:30 — Synthesize the usability test results
4:30 — Prioritization brainstorm: sit with one of my squad teams to prioritize upcoming ideas for the backlog
6:45 — Quickly check email and leave work to go home.
Thursday
8:30 — Leave for work and practice some German on the train
9:00 — Arrive at work and grab a tea
9:15 — Check and respond to any emails, such as recruiting participants confirming, and slack messages from team members.
9:30 — Office hours: I am free for any squad who needs questions answered, or wants me to help with research planning
11:30 — Team meeting
12:30 — Lunch & Learn: What is User Research — I help educate the company and any new hires on what user research is, and how they can get involved
1:30 — Internal usability tests on a concept we will test
3:00 — Budget proposal: I propose next year’s annual budget for research to upper-management
3:30 — Generative research session
4:30 — Research synthesis for the generative research session, in which I review the session, record detailed notes and create a research summary to send to the relevant squads
6:45 — Send a few more recruiting emails and leave work to go home.
Friday
8:30 — Leave for work and practice some German on the train
9:00 — Arrive at work and grab a tea
9:15 — Check and respond to any emails, such as recruiting participants confirming, and slack messages from team members.
10:30 — Full-day workshop on generative research sessions. During this workshop, all the squads get together to discuss the previously done 10 generative research sessions. I facilitate the workshop in order to help people more deeply understand our users, and also to help each squad prioritize their work. We make sense of the research through affinity diagraming, how might we statements and empathy maps. I follow-up with the designers in order to start building/iterating on personas and customer journey maps.
6:30 — Leave work to go home and enjoy the weekend.
All of this is based on a random sampling of a week to try to encapsulate what a user researcher does on a weekly basis. It doesn’t always look like this, and sometimes I have 2–3 generative research sessions a day, or even 5 internal usability testing sessions!