DESIGN RESEARCHER SKILLS, EXPERIENCE, AND JOB REQUIREMENTS

Published: Oct 21, 2024 - The Design Researcher brings expertise in both formative and summative research methodologies, driving innovation through human-centered design. Skilled in conducting usability studies, workshops, and interviews to gather insights, while proficient in creating personas, user journeys, and experience maps. Combines a deep understanding of research methods with strong presentation and facilitation skills to influence product development and market growth.

Essential Hard and Soft Skills for a Standout Design Researcher Resume
  • Usability Testing
  • Data Analysis
  • Survey Design
  • Formative and Summative Research Methods
  • Rapid Prototyping
  • Persona Creation
  • Experience Mapping
  • Service Blueprinting
  • Statistical Analysis
  • Research Tools Proficiency
  • Communication
  • Problem-Solving
  • Critical Thinking
  • Adaptability
  • Collaboration
  • Presentation Skills
  • Stakeholder Management
  • Creativity
  • Time Management
  • Empathy

Summary of Design Researcher Knowledge and Qualifications on Resume

1. BA in Advertising with 3 Years of Experience

  • Experience conducting user research, preferably in the technology industry.
  • Experience with a broad range of research methodologies 
  • Experience generating research plans.
  • Experience effectively presenting to partners from different disciplines
  • Ability to effectively communicate rich customer data and articulate the implications of research findings in clear and compelling ways.
  • Strong oral and written communication skills.
  • Strong research skills and have a large toolkit of research practices and methods.  
  • Know how to deliver meaningful insights for a specific product, and how those insights can apply to other contexts.  
  • Self-motivated and desire to work both independently and within a team.
  • Ability to work within tight timelines and have excellent project management skills.
  • Have a desire to work independently and have the ability to coordinate work on muliple features/releases.

2. BA in Psychology with 5 Years of Experience

  • Work experience conducting research, with expertise in formative and summative methodology
  • Proven ability to critique, analyze, and elevate strategies and ideas
  • Strong presentation and facilitation skills with the ability to command a room
  • Experience defining usability performance metrics and conducting live or remote usability studies (e.g., Userzoom or Usertesting.com)
  • Experience conducting semi-structured interviews, stakeholder and user workshops, and contextual field visits in one-on-one and group settings
  • A deep understanding of the strengths and shortcomings of different research methods, including when and how to apply them during the product development process
  • Proficient in creating personas, design principles, experience maps, ecosystem maps, user journeys, service blueprints, and rapid prototyping methods
  • Conversant in the principles and practices of human-centered design and design thinking
  • Passion for driving market growth through innovation, technology, and design
  • Experience with a broad range of challenges in experience design, from whitespace opportunity definition to downstream realization

3. BA in Industrial Design with 4 Years of Experience

  • A strong working knowledge and extensive experience with both generative and evaluative research methods, and how to apply them in a fast-moving organization.
  • Ability to translate insight into action. 
  • Knowledge of the product design process and experience collaborating with other researchers, designers, content strategists, product managers, and engineers to help transform complex problems into easy-to-use products. 
  • Ability to work without close supervision but seek out and welcome feedback from senior leaders and managers.
  • Ability to produce great work in short timeframe and adapt to the ever-changing priorities of the business.
  • A self-starter mindset who is well organized and always looking to improve things
  • Experience conducting user research with a strong knowledge of research methods, experimental design, and statistical analysis.
  • Proven record of having an impact on products with research activities.
  • Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements

4. BA in Human-Computer Interaction with 7 Years of Experience

  • Experience as a Qualitative Researcher.
  • Fluent in English C1 minimum. Other languages are desirable.
  • Strong knowledge and experience in designing and conducting ethnographic research, driving, and applying user-centered design processes. 
  • Comfortable working collaboratively with users, clients, and cross-functional team members.
  • Understanding of areas of specialization within the greater design landscape, including but not limited to Design Research, Visual Design, and Content Design
  • Willingness to broaden own skillset into adjacent specializations while refining mastery of primary skillset.
  • Familiar with the creation of research samples, recruiting screeners, stimulus, and protocols for a variety of research activities, visual presentations, and user journeys among other research deliverables.
  • Comfortable with fast-paced research, including more strategic and tactical projects.
  • Understanding of a variety of research activities such as Usability testing, online diaries, observation, shadowing, in-depth interviews, mini-groups, and focus groups, among others.
  • Ability to learn new software quickly, experience with Microsoft Office, Adobe Creative Suite, Google Drive.

5. BA in Sociology with 10 Years of Experience

  • Experience in Design Research or a human behavior related field such as Psychology, Cognitive Science, Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science or similar fields requiring research
  • Working Knowledge of “Futuring” methodology
  • Working knowledge of all aspects of research, including recruiting processes, scheduling and logistics, protocol development, analysis and framework development, video compilations and research deliverables
  • Qualitative research experience that may include interviewing, moderating, ethnographic research, contextual interviews, UX/UI research, field studies
  • Quantitative research experience that may include survey research, synthesizing/analyzing large-scale data, natural language processing corpora or other large text, or experimental design
  • Familiarity with online research tools
  • Ability to communicate with clients and partners about research methodology
  • Comfortable and enthusiastic about working in a complex product space.  
  • Proven record of having an impact on products with user research and design activities.

6. BA in Advertising with 5 Years of Experience

  • Deep knowledge and experience within Human-Computer Interaction or a similar discipline.
  • Strong communications skills: written, oral, and graphical.
  • Strong project management skills with ability to balance tasks spanning multiple studies.
  • Knowledge of inferential statistics and familiarity with statistical analysis software (e.g., R, SAS, SPSS) 
  • Strong preference for graduate degree in relevant area (as specified above)
  • Research experience (including academic experience)
  • Experience launching world-class UX solutions for the web and mobile
  • Experience with qualitative and quantitative UX research techniques such as surveys, interviews, usability tests, tree tests and card sorting
  • Ability to present work to peers across disciplines.
  • Experience with large scale cross-org outreach, teaching, and training.
  • Passion for learning new technologies and understanding the needs of diverse users.

7. BA in Psychology with 5 Years of Experience

  • Experience conceptualizing and managing research projects qualitatively and quantitatively from start to finish.
  • Working knowledge of all aspects of research: recruiting processes, scheduling and logistics, protocol development, analysis and framework development, video compilations, research deliverables.
  • Qualitative research experience may include interviewing, moderating, ethnographic research, contextual interviews, UX/UI research, field studies
  • Quantitative research experience may include survey research, synthesizing/analyzing large-scale data, natural language processing corpora or other large text, or experimental design
  • Ability to learn new software quickly, experience with Microsoft Office and Microsoft Excel
  • Familiarity with online research tools
  • Familiarity with R, Python, STATA, SPSS, or any other tool for data analysis.
  • Ability to communicate with clients and partners about research methodology

8. BA in Industrial Design with 4 Years of Experience

  • Experience partnering with data or analytics teams
  • Experience working in healthcare and/or mental health
  • Experience collecting, analyzing, and summarizing academic research
  • Experience conducting competitive intelligence research
  • Experience using quantitative data to generate segmentation models or personas
  • Experience analyzing large-scale data, such as NPS surveys or customer verbatims
  • Passion for social impact, healthcare, collaboration and learning
  • Exemplary oral and written communication skills. Strong presentation and facilitation skills, suitable for executive leadership level
  • Excellent time management, organizational and prioritization skills and ability to balance multiple priorities
  • Ability to provide portfolio for review
  • Proven track record of driving change in a large, complex matrixed environment even amid ambiguous circumstances
  • Willingness to invest time to understand target markets, and consumers, and demonstrate a willingness to change course
  • Experience working with Sketch, Miro, Figma and InVision

9. BA in Human-Computer Interaction with 4 Years of Experience

  • Experience in an applied user research setting
  • Practical experience in deploying qualitative research methods throughout the product development lifecycle, from conceptualization to launch
  • Ability to solve complex problems and support the team in delivery of insights
  • Strong communication skills, experienced influencer, storyteller, and advocate for user research
  • Demonstrated strong collaboration skills with a variety of stakeholders
  • eCommerce/global research experience desired
  • Experience in conducting research projects for B2B and B2C
  • Strong presentation and storytelling abilities
  • Experience collaborating in multifunctional teams as the research lead
  • Confidence leading research and analysis in English and German
  • Highly developed research skills and proven track record of translating findings into actionable insights for product/service/business design, demonstrated in portfolio of recent work
  • Professional design research experience 

10. BA in Sociology with 6 Years of Experience

  • Lateral problem-solving skills. 
  • Able to identify possible solutions that are outside of the obvious design space.
  • Must understand Microsoft’s products and services organizations and roles and balance this knowledge with the outside-in customer views to design a brilliant customer experience that can be reasonably delivered at scale.
  • Ability to clearly and succulently present concepts and explain findings to stakeholders.
  • Must be willing to innovate with other Microsoft Customer Experience and Design teams- hungry to learn from others and share with others.
  • Demonstrated understanding of a wide variety of research methods
  • Hands-on experience with: lab-based user testing, remote testing, paper prototype testing, iterative prototype testing, concept testing, field research, international research, and survey design.
  • Strong grasp of quantitative data analysis and statistics.
  • Behavioral data-collection and analysis skills
  • Excellent communication, presentation, interpersonal and analytical skills
  • Ability to communicate complex concepts clearly and persuasively across different audiences and varying levels of the organization
  • Experience with a broad range of research methodologies (qualitative and quantitative techniques) and understand the right balance between the two.

11. BA in Advertising with 3 Years of Experience

  • Experience in designing and executing qualitative and quantitative research studies including moderation, analysis and final report presentation to stakeholders
  • Experience running research program, defining and measuring the business value gained with the program and presenting to stakeholders for buy-in
  • Experience integrating user research into an agile product development process
  • Experience setting up user research findings repository and dashboard
  • Vendor administration experience including budget and scope negotiation, facilitating the contracts and procurement, overseeing the delivery
  • Knowledge of working with or supporting research/insights function (Qualitative and Quantitative Research Knowledge)
  • Experience in writing project briefs and scopes of work, estimating & sizing work effort as part of agile cadence and managing research resources
  • Knowledge of using research tools such as Lookback, Optimal Workshop, Eye Tracker and video recording equipment for both desktop and mobile testing (moderated and unmoderated/remote testing)
  • Able to work with lean and agile workflows and implementing process improvements

12. BA in Psychology with 5 Years of Experience

  • Experience in qualitative research and consultant experience combined 
  • Experience in qualitative research experience culminating in a sound 
  • Ability to lead a team, scope a research process, lead fieldwork and conduct interviews and user feedback sessions with working prototypes.
  • Experience leading highly collaborative teams in human-centered design.
  • Qualitative research experience culminating in a sound ability to lead a team, scope a research process, lead fieldwork and conduct interviews and user feedback sessions with working prototypes
  • Experience in using design thinking principles or methods in a formal, in-person setting.
  • Experience working with engineering and design teams.
  • Experience in designing and/or facilitating group collaboration workshops.

13. BA in Industrial Design with 4 Years of Experience

  • Understand human relations, behaviors, and needs
  • Know how to cultivate internal knowledge about unfamiliar or emerging markets, and are a natural at communicating these opportunities to (potential) clients.
  • Experience within the (digital humanities/design) research field: able to formulate research questions that help you benchmark the state of the art in relevant markets and technologies
  • Strong concept development: combining a hands-on design approach with a research mentality, and generating relevant and innovative (visual) design concepts based on insights
  • Experience with working collaboratively across interdisciplinary teams, especially technologically advanced ones
  • Strong and elegant (English) communication skills
  • Experience analyzing qualitative data
  • Proficiency with statistical programs
  • Experience developing user/customer personas and writing scenarios
  • Build strong relationships with other employees to ensure synergy and visibility, and to provide input on roadmap and strategy to improve the overall end experience
Relevant Information
Design and Development Engineer Skills, Experience, and Job Requirements
Design Architect Skills, Experience, and Job Requirements
Design Associate Skills, Experience, and Job Requirements
Design Assurance Engineer Skills, Experience, and Job Requirements