Senior UX Researcher

Caterpillar•Chicago, IL

3d•Onsite

About The Position

As a Senior UX Researcher, this position will drive the complete research process and collaborate closely with cross-functional counterparts in Product Management, Design, Web Development, Marketing, and Engineering to influence key strategy and execution decisions. The research will be instrumental in defining next-generation products, spearheading a customer-centered decision-making process, and develop the most useful and usable product and service experiences for a global audience. This position will conduct independent research, analyze real user behavior, and work with User Interface Designers, Product Managers, and Engineers to improve and develop our product and service features. The work spans across all products and services, and this position is encouraged to identify new opportunities for user experience improvements. The position will strive to connect users with Caterpillar products and services, making that connection intuitive and accessible.

Requirements

A bachelor’s degree in Market Research, Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology, Cognitive Science, Information Science, or related field, or equivalent practical experience is required.
Requires relevant work experience, including experience integrating user research into product and service designs and design practices.
A strong portfolio demonstrating past work experience, deliverables, and the ability to extract actionable insights from qualitative data.

Nice To Haves

A balanced understanding of strategy, research, and interaction is a must for the role.
Must be able to thrive in a fast-paced, collaborative, team-oriented, cross-functional environment.
Experience conducting customer research in an applied setting.
Strong command of quantitative, behavioral analysis and statistics.
Experience using standard market research tools.
Strong in both physical and digital customer research.
Excellent working knowledge of statistics and the principles of experiment design is desired.
Excellent interpersonal, communication, and collaboration skills.
Ability to create compelling presentations and confidently convey insights and design solutions through storytelling across all levels.
Familiarity with quantitative methods is preferred.
Flexibility/adaptability (ability to change direction based upon team and stakeholder consensus).

Responsibilities

Partner with design, product/services, and marketing colleagues to understand business needs and design appropriate research studies to generate focused insights.
Design and conduct user research studies, including surveys, in-depth interviews, field studies, focus groups, and concept/prototype testing.
Foster collaboration with designers, product and service managers, marketers, and sales to translate insights into actionable recommendations that inform execution.
Work in partnership with other researchers and organizations (e.g., data analytics) to create comprehensive and coordinated research strategies that triangulate data from different sources/methods to develop recommendations.
Cleverly deliver research findings with strong recommendations.
Collect and analyze user behavior through server logs, online experiments (A/B testing), benchmark studies, lab studies, surveys, etc., to understand how users experience online searches.
Work with designers, product and service managers, engineers, and research managers to prioritize research opportunities in a fast-paced, rapidly changing environment.
Identify and prioritize research questions based on analysis of existing product and service designs, business needs, project goals, and risks.
Communicate results and opportunities in clear, concise, and compelling ways to all levels of management.
Drive impact, as measured by changes to the product and service design and development roadmap.