Lead User Researcher

Summary

A lead user researcher is an expert practitioner, leading and aligning user research activities across several teams. At this role level, you will:

ensure that teams take a user-centred, evidence-based approach to service design and delivery

develop and assure good user research practice

Work Activity Components

Title Details
Contribute, plan and drive user research (Level 5) Plans and drives the user research activities providing expert advice and guidance to support adoption of agreed approaches.
Collect, analyse and share (Level 5) User research Leads the collection and analysis of data related to people's behaviours, needs and opinions.
Involve, synthesise and inform (Level 5) User research Synthesises findings, develops insights and presents findings to inform decision making and drive actions.
Collaboration (Level 5) User research Provides advice to design teams on how to improve services so they are accessible to everyone.

Behavioural Skills

Title Details
Information Acquisition Identifying gaps in the available information required to understand a problem or situation and devising a means of resolving them.
Commercial Orientation Understanding commercial considerations and ensuring alignment with them when making decisions or recommending actions.
Attention to Detail Applying specific quality standards to all tasks undertaken to ensure that deliverables are accurate and complete.
Interacting with People Establishing relationships, contributing to an open culture and maintaining contacts with people from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines. Effective, approachable and sensitive communicator in different communities and cultures. Ability to adapt style and approach to meet the needs of different audiences.
Teamwork Working collaboratively with others to achieve a common goal.

Technical Skills

Title Details Depth
Systems Ergonomics and Iterative Design Iterative methods and techniques to allocate and optimise the division of functions between the human, machine and organisational elements of IT systems and the functions themselves in terms of ergonomic impact. Systematic and iterative design of the physical and cognitive interfaces to create an effective user experience in a software system, product or service with attention paid to variety of locations and access devices employed by users. Proficient in

Other Skills

Title Details Depth
Presentation Techniques Methods and techniques for delivering effective and accessible presentations, either face-to-face or online within various contexts and to a variety of audiences. Familiar with

Training

Title Details
Information and Data Modelling Tools and techniques used to investigate, analyse and model the structure, relationships and use of data and information within an organisation.
Human Factors Techniques Methods and techniques for understanding human needs and limitations and for designing usable, accessible and ergonomically sound systems. Examples: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) approaches and iterative design methods and accessibility. Recognising ever evolving user expectations for use of a variety of access devices and locations and opportunities for environmental savings e.g. reducing office space, travel, etc.
Usability Evaluation Techniques Methods and techniques for the assessment of IT product usability, accessibility and health and safety throughout the lifecycle of development projects.
Security Awareness Tools and techniques to help users and employees understand the role they play in helping to combat information security breaches and for IT and security professionals to prevent and mitigate risk.

Professional Development Activity (PDA)

Title Details PDA Group
Deputising Standing in for supervisor or manager on a temporary basis during periods of absence. Broadening Activities
Job Shadowing and Special Assignments Undertaking temporary periods or secondments in other roles, particularly those that offer a new perspective on own function or exposure to other environments and cultures. Broadening Activities
Mentoring Acting as a mentor, advising those for whom there is no direct responsibility, on matters to do with their job role, career and professional development. Broadening Activities
Gaining Knowledge of Broader IT Issues Increasing and maintaining currency of knowledge of broader IT issues through reading, attending and participating in seminars or conferences, special studies, temporary assignments etc. Increasing Knowledge
Gaining Strategic Knowledge of Employing Organisation Developing a comprehensive understanding of the business environment in which the employing organisation operates and its position, policies and direction in relation to health and care, country and global issues. Increasing Knowledge
Participation in Professional Body Affairs Taking an active part in professional body affairs at branch, specialist group, committee or board level. Participation in Professional Activities
Negotiating and Influencing Undertaking learning and practice of negotiating with and influencing others. Developing Professional Skills
Management Development Undertaking learning and best practice of the skills appropriate to managing all or part of an organisation, including business and financial management, benefits management, people management, management of change and strategic planning. This will require both on and off the job learning and may include participation in an appropriate development programme such as MBA or DMS (Diploma in Management Studies). Developing Professional Skills

Qualification Components

Title Awarding Bodies
FEDIP Advanced Practitioner The Federation for Informatics Professionals
CDPA - Certified Digital Persuasion Analyst Human Factors International

Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework Skills

Skill Level

Agile research practices

Agile delivery involves encouraging teams to build incrementally, test and iterate their work based on regular feedback and other useful data.

Practitioner Agile research practices

You can:

  • advocate for agile working
  • adapt how you design and conduct research to respond to the complexity of the product environment
  • understand the strategic decisions the team needs to make so you can design appropriate research
  • influence decisions about priorities and agile processes in the team

Analysis and synthesis

Analysis and insight involves examining, interpreting and analysing data to help make informed decisions.

Expert Analysis and synthesis

You can: help an organisation to adopt a wide range of analysis and synthesis techniques, and to continually assure, improve and innovate their practices to generate clear and valuable findings

Inclusive research

Incident management involves coordinating the response to incident reports, ensuring effective prioritisation, investigation and resolution.

Practitioner Inclusive research

You can: help teams understand the diversity of users of government services effectively include all kinds of users in appropriate research activities advocate inclusive practices and help teams design and deliver accessible services that work for all users

Research management, leadership and assurance

Leadership and guidance involves providing effective leadership and management through team motivation, decision making, risk management, mediation and professional development

Expert Research management, leadership and assurance

You can:

  • establish and align user research programmes and teams to meet organisational goals
  • synthesise findings from research programmes, producing strategic insights to inform the organisation’s roadmap
  • set and assure good practice user research standards for the organisation, including ethics and safeguarding
  • assure user research quality across the organisation

Stakeholder relationship management

Stakeholder relationship management involves managing stakeholder requirements and communications throughout a project, while remaining focused on the user needs.

Expert Stakeholder relationship management

You can:

  • direct the strategy towards stakeholder relationships
  • set stakeholder objectives and recommend that they’re met
  • influence important senior stakeholders and provide mediation

User research methods

User research involves methods to identify user needs and understand how users interact with a product or service.

Expert User research methods

You can:

  • help an organisation adopt a wide range of user research methods
  • lead a community of practice to help an organisation continually assure, improve and innovate their user research

User-centred practice and advocacy

User focus involves understanding the user needs to develop a detailed understanding of the problems that need to be solved.

Practitioner User-centred practice and advocacy

You can:

  • evaluate and choose approaches for building your team’s understanding of the user
  • advocate for user research with sceptical colleagues and stakeholders
  • help inexperienced teams to adopt user-centred practices
  • identify the most important challenges and opportunities for your team's service development
  • align research plans to address team priorities

The Professional Body Responsible for this job family is BCS. This job role profile was created in collaboration with BCS, using Role Model Plus.

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