[By Jessie Ferguson]
After spending eight years as a User Research specialist, earlier this year I decided to embark on a new challenge: stepping into a Head of User Centred Design role at esynergy.
Throughout my last four months of working with esynergy, I’ve had the privilege of connecting with new professionals in my field, and reconnecting with others I’ve worked with in years gone by. During a number of these interactions, I’ve noticed shock and intrigue at the career path I’ve chosen:
“Would love to know how you transitioned to Head of UCD from UR!”
“That’s a big step up from UR!”
Whilst these comments have been made in good spirits, they’ve led me to consider why this career path could seem like a bigger jump than, for example, a Service Designer becoming a Head of UCD. In this blog, I’ll unpack the pros and cons of moving from a UCD specialist to cross-UCD leadership role, and why I think User Researchers are prime candidates to lead UCD professions.
On being ‘T-shaped’
Although I call myself a User Research specialist, I do so because UR is a) my strongest profession, which I’m most trained and experienced in, and b) the discipline I’m most used to being tied to on paper. The truth is, I see User Researchers (and all UCD roles) to be ‘T-shaped’ by nature: needing to understand business politics, the art of the possible in software engineering, the end-to-end and front-to-back context of a service… the list goes on.
Having worked in UCD squads for the best part of a decade now, I’ve been exposed to the ins and outs of each UCD discipline: the almost daily struggle of content designers explaining that it’s not just writing words, the in-depth discussions of Interaction Designers explaining why no, that can’t just be a series of open text boxes and the incredible (and frankly mind-blowing) work of Service Designers considering every touch point between a user and a service, whether that be online or offline. Although this exposure helped me get a good grounding in each individual discipline, I’d be lying if I said it set the full foundation for a Head of UCD role. So, what did I do about it?
Identifying the gaps
As I started to think about my career progression and considered my options, I knew that becoming a Head of UCD was a path I was really interested in. I started to reflect on the aspects of my previous roles that felt cross-cutting, and the aspects I’d never really touched. The UK Government DDAT framework was a great starting point for this, and I was able to use it to create a RAG status of what I felt I could and couldn’t do. I knew that, realistically, I wasn’t going to become a lead-level Designer overnight, nor was I about to become the world’s answer to all Content woes, but I identified the areas where I could make tangible progress to make myself the most suitable candidate possible.
I started by taking the well-trodden path of branching into Service Design, where I was able to use my core UR skills of problem definition and leading with empathy – along with my passion for finding the right outcomes for users – to transition from being the person that finds out what’s wrong, to being the person that suggests ways to fix the problem. I found this move particularly liberating, and I’m really grateful for the wonderful team that took a chance on me and let me make that leap.
I also started to experiment with the aspects of UCD that scared me the most – one of which being the creation of wireframes (seriously – how fiddly is that process?!). I set myself up with a Figma account and spent more hours than I’d care to admit refining prototypes using the GOVUK Design System, all the while remembering the countless designs I’d tested, feedback I’d seen shared in Service Assessments and wisdom that multiple incredible Interaction Designers had shared with me over the years. I designed a service for GOV.UK, which is now live(!) and very quickly learnt what did and didn’t work for its users.
Overall, this process helped me to validate that a cross-UCD role was the move I wanted to make, have more confidence in my abilities, and more transparency in the skills I still need to learn.
Reminding myself of what I bring to the table… and what I don’t *need* to bring to the table, too
As part of the process of RAG rating my skills, I was pleasantly surprised to see that several User Research skills are cross-cutting by nature. As I’d progressed into leadership roles throughout my User Research career, I’d naturally honed my skills in coaching, scoping UCD projects, identifying and managing UCD risks and working to support junior colleagues in a range of roles. These all set a solid foundation for stepping into a Head of UCD position, and coming to that realisation gave me the confidence I needed to start seriously considering applying for roles.
As a User Researcher, I like to reassure participants that I’m not an expert in their field or in their experience – I’m an expert at learning about it, and sharing those learnings to get to the right outcomes. I realised that this was a skill I could transfer to a role as Head of UCD – I didn’t need to be the person with all of the answers, I needed to be the person that knew when they didn’t have them, and could help join the dots to find them.
I’ve also learnt, through coaching training with the wonderful Rosie Nice (and years of trial and error!) that simply giving someone a solution isn’t always the best approach. Sure, it gets the job done quickly – but only in the way you’d personally attack the problem. What it doesn’t do is encourage diversity of thought, or personal development for those asking questions of you. I realised that I didn’t need to be a lead-level practitioner in every UCD discipline to be the right person for the job, but that I did need to be a leader who owned what they didn’t know, knew how to build solid networks of trusted, specialist advisors, and had the appetite to continue refining their practice and learning new skills.
In summary: what makes someone a suitable candidate for a Head of UCD role?
I don’t think there’s a hard and fast rule to this one, and through my years of working alongside brilliant UCD practitioners, I can absolutely see that there’s a seat at the ‘Head of UCD’ table for all flavours of practitioner. It really is the soft skills in leadership and an overarching understanding of the individual disciplines and nuances within them that makes someone a great fit. I do, however, now have a mental ‘crib sheet’ for the skills I think a candidate needs to possess in order to have a good crack at the role, so without further ado:
- Willingness to own what you don’t know, and a drive to plug those gaps
- Deep understanding of what makes a service or organisation work effectively and, crucially, what could stop it from working
- Ability to identify who the right people for the job are, even if it’s not you
- Helping organisations to adopt UCD ways of working and thinking
- A strong focus on inclusivity and an ability to work well with diverse groups of people
Although the list of technical skills is undoubtedly longer, the list of soft skills above…
They sound a lot like a User Researcher to me
