UX Researcher

Position Description

Responsibilities

The UX Researcher conducts and oversees studies that inform the development of a product or service. The UX Researcher ensures compliance with digital accessibility regulations and requirements by performing the following duties and responsibilities:

• Develops innovative research and collaborative/co-design methods and tools that support the practice of equitable and inclusive design. Adapts in-person and remote methods to be more equitable and accessible.
• Scopes roadmaps that consider the broad impacts of a product or service.
• Incorporates accessibility, equity, and human factors guidelines within design recommendations. Conducts additional research that goes beyond existing guidelines and regulations, informing new standards and novel experiences.
• Partners with colleagues and team members to prioritize accessibility and equity in the design process.

Qualifications

Required

Applicants for the UX Researcher role are required to have these qualifications:

• Experience with collaborative/co-design approaches that prioritize the preferences, aspirations, and lived experiences of people with disabilities.
• Strong understanding of Disability history and intersectionality.
• Strong understanding of equity and inclusion in product design.
• Knowledge of digital accessibility standards, guidelines, and regulations (e.g., Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, VPAT, EN 301 549, ETSI TR 102 612, Human Factors data sources)

Preferred

Applicants with the following qualifications will be preferred:

• Experience translating accessibility & equity-related insights into actionable change.
• Experience with a range of multi-modal interaction methods (speech, touch, motion, etc.)

Interview Questions

Screening

• Experience with collaborative-based/co-design approaches that prioritize the preferences, aspirations, and lived experiences of people with disabilities.
  • Could you share a project where you integrated principles of equitable and inclusive design? How did you approach it? Who did you collaborate with?
  • What are some important considerations when designing equitable, inclusive, and accessible studies?
• Strong understanding of Disability history and intersectionality.
  • What can contribute to an equitable and inclusive experience? Can you provide an example? (Does not need to be web related)
    • Follow-up: What is the difference between equity and inclusion?
  • Could you share an instance when you considered intersectionality in your work? How did you approach it?
    • Follow-up: How did you ensure that the insights appropriately represented each experience?
    • Follow-up: Are there any methodological or process improvements you would have liked to have made?
• Strong understanding of equity and inclusion in product design.
  • What are some common questions you receive from colleagues about equitable and/or inclusive research? What job roles do you typically collaborate with?
  • How do you see accessibility fitting into your role in your current organization?
• Knowledge of digital accessibility standards, guidelines, and regulations (e.g., Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, VPAT, EN 301 549, ETSI TR 102 612, Human Factors data sources)
  • How do existing regulations, standards, and guidelines play a role in your approach to research? Can you share an example?

Interview Committee

Required

• Strong understanding of Disability history and intersectionality.
  • Design a study for a video conferencing captioning tool.
    • Who would you recruit? How many people would you recruit?
    • Why not another method? (e.g., usability study, heuristic evaluation, etc.)
    • How would you account for differences in your study plan or reporting?
    • How would you know when the project was done?
  • Suppose you collect survey data with Likert-scale satisfaction (strongly agree to strongly disagree) measures on how inclusive a company culture is. You find that 95% of employees are satisfied with how inclusive the company culture is. What data reporting techniques would you employ to highlight the 5% of individuals who are dissatisfied or strongly dissatisfied?
• Strong understanding of equity, inclusion, and collaborative/co-design approaches to product design.
  • Who benefits from accessibility?
  • Explain a time when you had to persuade stakeholders to focus on or prioritize accessibility. How did you make your case?
  • Could you share an instance when you initiated a research question or co-design project that was not brought by a stakeholder?
• Knowledge of digital accessibility standards, guidelines, and regulations (e.g., Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, VPAT, EN 301 549, ETSI TR 102 612, Human Factors data sources)
  • Imagine you are working on a security app that allows people to view their camera recordings. Upon launching the app, a carousel is presented that auto plays 30 second previews of the most recent recordings. What steps would you take to assess the usability of this new feature?
  • Suppose your product team needs to run a usability study within the next 2 weeks and recruiting people with disabilities is taking a long time. What are some adjustments you could make to ensure that you are still representing the perspectives of people with disabilities?
    • Why not (insert another sampling method or accessibility standard)?
    • (If mentions WCAG): What are the differences between A, AA, and AAA compliance?

Preferred

• Experience translating accessibility & equity-related insights into actionable change.
  • Walk us through a project where you improved the accessibility of a product. What specifically did you change? Who did you partner with most closely to build and launch it (or not launch it, if applicable).
  • What is the biggest challenge you face, as a researcher, when developing accessible products?
• Experience with a range of multi-modal interaction methods (speech, touch, motion, etc.)
  • What educational resources would you recommend to a UX researcher who is working across various modes of interaction, such as speech, touch, and motion input?
  • Imagine a PM who is developing a training course product asks you, “what do we need to keep in mind when adding instructor videos to the product?” How would you respond?
    • To drill down farther, how would someone who is deaf-blind interact with a video?
• Describe two types of assistive technology and how you have used them in your work.

Translations

A list of translations will be provided here when received by language. Please submit through GitHub.