Senior User Researcher

About the role 

We have an exciting opportunity for a Senior User Researcher to join us and develop their skills across our user-centred products, projects and delivery teams.

User Researchers help our university build a deep understanding of our users so we can design and deliver the services they need.  

You’ll be joining an award-winning team dedicated to developing and maintaining user-centred product and services. This will help meet the needs of many of our user groups - from applying to a course, to finding research collaborations and much more.    

Your responsibilities   

You’ll need to:    

• carry out a range of user research activities, and deliver clear and actionable findings 
• collaborate with colleagues to build up a rich picture of our users 
• work closely with user researchers, content designers, product managers, other UX and technical disciplines and university functions to turn user research findings into stories and actions that lead to valuable product and service features  
• communicate user research findings to the team(s) and the wider organisation in order to influence decision-making 
• foster a culture of team involvement in user research, team analysis, design rationale and decision-making based on user needs 

Your skills and experience  

You’ll need to be able to demonstrate the following skills and experience. It’s okay if you don’t have everything in this list. We’re looking for people who are a good fit and willing to learn.

• demonstrable experience of advocating for user research and championing a focus on all users  
• ability to prioritise and define approaches to understand the user story, guiding others in doing so 
• strong understanding of strengths and limitations of different research methods, and the ability to support and guide others in using new methods, where appropriate  
• experience of helping teams adopt a wide range of user research methods, analysis and synthesis techniques and approaches to presenting and sharing findings 
• a strong understanding of the difference between user needs and desires of the user 
• experience of mentoring and upskilling junior researchers

This is an exciting time for the University of Southampton and we would love you to join us!    

The University of Southampton promotes a healthy work life balance with generous holiday allowance, flexi-time and flexible working. For more information on our benefits, please visit the HR pages. To read more about the team and its ethos, visit our recruitment pages.  

How to apply   

Submit the following documents through our online application form:  

• CV 
• statement of suitability/covering letter (2 pages maximum) explaining how you consider your personal skills, qualities and experience relevant for this role   

Please note this advert may be closed prior to the published closing date should a satisfactory number of applications be received.   

If you want to talk first, contact:

John Paternoster, Head of User Experience and Research at J.Paternoster@soton.ac.uk

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