Press Tab to Move to Skip to Content Link
Job Location: Milton Keynes, Remote/Hybrid
Department: Learning Experience & Technology
Closing Date: 9 May 2025
Weekly Working Hours: 37
Contract Type: Permanent
Fixed Term Contract: End Date: Not Applicable
Welsh Language: Not Applicable
Job Description:
About the Role
We believe that where you start in life, shouldn’t limit where you go.
The Open University is a unique institution created 50 years ago to open up education for all. We are open to anyone, anywhere, changing millions of lives across the world and always looking for new ways to help people succeed. Our pioneering use of innovative methods, such as our BBC partnership, means we reach more people than any other university.
We work across all four nations of the UK and we are the most popular choice for online, distance, flexible study
About the role
This role sits within Digital Services which is aligned with the Digital, Data and Design Profession. The focus of this role will be to support the Digital Services Design team whose ambition it is to ensure services and products are highly customer-centric and designed with the user (whether student or colleague) in mind ensuring best possible outcomes.
As a User Researcher you will work within the user research profession and be responsible for helping develop a deep understanding of the people who use end-to-end services. Your findings will allow teams to design, build and develop better, more joined up services more quickly and at lower cost and risk. You’ll be helping to embed user-centred research principles and processes to inform the development of new products and the continual improvement of existing products.
Key Responsibilities
As a User Researcher at the Open University, you will:
* Collaborate, often in multi-disciplinary service teams, to reduce complexity and improve service outcomes, leading on planning, designing, and preparing a range of user research activities to support team understanding of users, the service and how it should be designed.
* Lead on the design of user-centred research activities, selecting the most appropriate research methods and ensuring all activities are inclusive.
* Run a wide range of user research activities including recruitment of participants, preparation of data collection methods, moderation of research sessions.
* Analyse research data and trends to synthesise clear and actionable findings, including working closely with analytics colleagues to create a rich picture of user behaviour.
* Communicate user research findings to help the team and wider organisation develop a deep understanding of users and their needs.
* Work closely or consult with other user researchers, product managers, designers, developers, and operations teams to turn user research findings into stories and actions that lead to valuable product features, development, and service touchpoints.
* Be an active member and ambassador of the Open University’s User Centred Design Communities of Practice, contributing to our collective knowledge and skills, sharing best practice, and joining up to make the understanding of our users and design of our services more consistent.
* Understand the needs of a range of users, ensure their requirements are considered during user research activities, and design inclusive research sessions open to all users.
* Understand and apply data protection, security, and ethics requirements for handling user information in research.
* Keep up to date in developments in user centred design, user research, trends, and technologies, and share with the wider user research team to build a deep understanding and appreciation of best practice in this field.
* Line manage other team members as needed, supporting their professional development, providing pastoral care and supporting them to do their best work within their teams.
Skills and Experience
The ideal candidate will:
* Have experience of advocating for user research and engaging non-specialist colleagues and stakeholders
* Have the ability to understand the problems a team is trying to solve, and align user research activities to inform decision making and action
* Have experience of a range of user research methods, analysis techniques, and approaches to sharing findings
* Have the ability to moderate user research activities, ensuring participants feel at ease, keeping on track and keeping to time.
* Have the ability to analyse, synthesise and communicate quantitative and qualitative data, and present clear and actionable findings
* Have a commitment to inclusive research, and experience of researching with and advocating for a wide range of users
* Have an understanding of research ethics, data protection, and security, and how to keep participants, teams and yourself safe in research
* Have experience working at pace in an agile environment
* Have experience of collaborating with other disciplines, and engaging others with the research process
* Show commitment to continuous personal development of the knowledge and skills related to user research for services
* Show commitment to equality and diversity, which is key to fulfilling the University’s mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas.
* Welcome the constructive criticism of their work and be able to constructively review the work of others
* Be interested in representing user research at internal and external events
* Have an ability to use own initiative within a team, to prioritise tasks according to deadlines.
* Demonstrate an understanding of accessibility principles, and how accessibility aligns with UX design principles.
Essential Requirements
As part of the application process, you will be expected to submit your CV and a Supporting Statement (maximum of 1000 words) that demonstrates how you meet the criteria listed above.
Flexible working
We are open to discussions about flexible working. Whether it’s a part time, compressed hours or another working arrangement. Please reach out to us to discuss what works best for you.
It is anticipated that a hybrid working pattern can be adopted for this role, where the successful candidate can work from home and the office. However, as this role is contractually aligned to our Milton Keynes office it is expected that some attendance in the office will be required when necessary and in response to business needs. We anticipate this being once or twice a month on average.
*Early Close:We may choose to close the application date early if we reach a high number of applications. However, if you would still like to apply before the deadline originally advertised do not hesitate to contact us and we can discuss this with the Chair of the panel.
If you have any queries or questions about the recruitment process, or regarding your application,please contact:Careers@open.ac.uk .
Looking for Associate Lecturer (AL) roles?
Please use our AL home page to find AL vacancies.
The Open University is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion which is reflected in our mission to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. We aim to foster a diverse and inclusive environment so that all in our OU community can reach their potential. We recognise that different people bring different perspectives, ideas, knowledge, and culture, and that this difference brings great strength.We strive to recruit, retain and develop the careers of a diverse pool of students and staff, and particularly encourage applications from all underrepresented groups. We also aspire to make The Open University a supportive workplace for all through our policies, services and staff networks.
#J-18808-Ljbffr