Design Research & Experience Strategist

INFOSYS NOVA HOLDINGS LLC•Cincinnati, OH

About The Position

We are seeking a Design Research & Experience Strategist to lead and grow our research practice while expanding the role of research across product, service, brand, consumer, medical, and digital experience opportunities. The ideal candidate is a self-starter who can identify opportunities, build structure where ambiguity exists, and translate user understanding into actionable strategies that inform design, innovation, and business decisions.

Requirements

7+ years of experience in design research, experience strategy, service design, innovation strategy, or related fields.
Strong knowledge of qualitative research methods including contextual inquiry, ethnography, interviews, journey mapping, and concept evaluation.
Demonstrated ability to translate research insights into actionable strategies, frameworks, and design principles.
Experience managing, mentoring, or guiding researchers and cross-functional teams.
Strong facilitation skills including client workshops and stakeholder alignment sessions.
Excellent communication, storytelling, and presentation skills.
Background in consulting, agency, product development, healthcare, consumer product, or innovation environments.
Self-starter with strong ownership and initiative
Strategic thinker who can connect user insight to business value
Collaborative leader who can integrate multiple disciplines
Clear communicator and compelling storyteller
Low ego, high standards

Nice To Haves

Experience in medical device, healthcare, consumer product, digital product, or brand strategy.
Familiarity with human factors, usability engineering, or regulated product development.
Experience partnering with Industrial Design, Human Factors, UX/UI, Graphic Design, and Engineering teams.
Ability to support business development through proposals, scoping, and client conversations.
Experience building or evolving a design research practice.
Comfort working across both strategic front-end ambiguity and tactical evaluative research.

Responsibilities

Lead design research initiatives including front-end discovery, contextual inquiry, ethnography, stakeholder interviews, concept evaluation, journey mapping, and opportunity framing.
Develop research plans tailored to business questions, project phases, user populations, and client objectives.
Establish and maintain research standards, templates, and best practices to ensure quality and consistency.
Mentor researchers and cross-functional team members in research planning, fieldwork, synthesis, and insight communication.
Translate research findings into strategic frameworks, experience principles, service concepts, product direction, and innovation roadmaps.
Facilitate workshops that align stakeholders, define priorities, and move teams toward actionable outcomes.
Identify opportunities to expand research into broader strategy engagements including service design, brand experience, and front-end innovation.
Build flexible project teams integrating Design Research, Industrial Design, Human Factors, UX/UI, Graphic Design, and Engineering.
Train and guide team members to support research activities such as observation, synthesis, journey mapping, and insight translation.
Foster a collaborative research culture that values rigor without creating silos.
Partner with leadership to shape research and strategy offerings that respond to client needs and market opportunities.
Support proposal development, project scoping, and client presentations.
Help define and package offerings around design research, experience strategy, service design, and innovation strategy.