This is mainly just to rant but it might be fun to hear others experiences.

In today’s market where volatile doesn’t quite sum it up as throughly, I have a wonderfully awful experience with a recruiter recently.

I applied for a well known position and went through the whole gambit of interviews from the director to the individual team members. Had a great experience and I was suggested for a role that was not the one I had applied for, which was fine, the team was great, the support from the company was seemingly there and they had already done a lot of the work in validating the need for a UXR team, etc.

So the recruiter lets me know that they want to offer me for an alternative positive and I say that I would love to hear more about the offer and that I wanted to gain a bit more information about the pay. Which is where I went wrong apparently.

The recruit said great and that they would reach out to the hiring manager by the end of the day since it’s a fast moving position and that they’ll get back to me the next day in the morning. I wait, and wait, and wait. Over a week of waiting and I had emailed the recruiter thrice to check back in on what was happening, zero reply, totally ghosted. Finally, I just call the number that he called me from since I am particularly frustrated and just want an answer (particularly since this would have involved a lot of secondary life decisions that also needed planning based on a potential new role). For context, this must have been on a Thursday and the last time I talked to the recruiter where they extended a verbal offer was the Monday of the previous week.

They pick up and this was their answer:
“You told me you didn’t want it since it wasn’t the position you interviewed for….. also the pay was different and you said that would be an issue…… I didn’t talk to the hiring manager until later in the week and then I told them you weren’t interest based on our talk….. I can’t change that since I told them you weren’t interested, and they have since reached out to someone else….”

I managed to keep my cool since the team is likely hiring next year and I will reapply but what a pos move.

Anyways, rant over. Dealing with recruiters recently and I can say I would rather deal with AI since at least that might get my reply to crucial information genuine and AI has been at least fast about booking interviews without delay.

Hi everyone, I'm a psychology student heading into my 2nd year of a 3-year degree, so I don't have much time left to decide my path. I'm considering UX as a direction for my career.
A bit of background, I have a technical high school diploma in IT, so I have programming basics and I genuinely loved building websites back then. I also really love psychology. What I'm trying to figure out is how close UX Research actually is to psychology, and whether it's a realistic path.

I'd especially appreciate honest input on a few things:
- How is the job market right now? Is it still worth getting into, or is it oversaturated at the junior level?
- How much of the day-to-day work actually uses psychology skills (interviews, behavior, research methods) vs. design/prototyping?
- Is it realistic to have a stable full-time job in this field AND build a freelance/independent side of it later?
- For someone with my mixed profile (psychology + some coding/web), what should I focus on to be competitive?

I feel a bit lost, so any opinions, advice, or honest comments are very welcome. Thanks in advance :)

Anyone know of any groups for disabled UX researchers or designers?

This might be better answered by the ReOps folks out there, but I'm wondering where to take my career. I've been in ReOps for ~10 years and being behind the scenes is definitely my calling. I support both UXR and Market Research and I'd like to think my role is pretty mature - I'm not focused on day-to-day recruiment or support, but rather creating/managing tool stacks, managing budgets, a big dollop of knowledge management, navigating legal, procurement and finance, etc.

What I don't have is very much direct experience with running research itself, nor managing stakeholders (my stakeholders are my research team). No direct PM experience, but that's due to lack of demand in my role rather than desire. But I'm a great communicator and bridge builder, and know enough about all the different methodologies. Got an MBA in Marketing if that matters. A whole ton of AI-focus, especially in understanding the vendor landscape.

Casual job searches for ReOps seems much more focused on day-to-day, but I don't quite feel that's the value I can offer (and quite frankly, a salary commiserate with that value).

What might be some adjacent job titles or roles that I could be thinking about? And what hard skills should I work on to achieve those roles? Would companies ever consider a research leader without direct research experience? Thanks in advance!

P.S. Forgive me if this posts seems to lack humbleness, but I wanted to present it meaningfully.

Curious how research teams here handle incentives across different countries.

Using the US rate and just converting the currency feels way too simplistic. Cost of living, seniority, how niche the audience is, payment methodss and even expectations around incentives can be completely different depending on the market.

What are you currently paying for a 30 or 60 minute session, and in which country?

Especially curious about APAC and LATAM.

Hey, I was always research focused during my career and have a social sciences background. I want to move to pure UX Research.

Do you have any advice for UX Researcher portfolio? Should I keep only lo-fi designs here and focus more on research?

Any advice welcomed

Thanks

Hi everyone! I’m currently trying to figure out whether which masters program I should pursue and which one would make the most sense for my career goals.

I’m 24 and currently work at a cruise line corporation as a Digital Media Specialist in Miami. Before this, I had an internship at Warner Bros, that eventually turned into a part-time Creative Operations Coordinator position.I graduated from the University of Miami in 2025 with a B.S.C. in Interactive Media & Game Design, with a focus user experiences and design.

I actually really enjoy my current digital media job, but I’m coming up on my one-year mark and would like to eventually transition into UX Research or UX/Product Design job, and on the hunt for another job before I get my masters. I’m particularly interested in getting more involved with UX research, HCI, user behavior, and designing digital experiences based on research.
I’m currently considering a few master’s programs:

1) University of Miami — M.S. in Experience & Information Design https://com.miami.edu/experience-and-information-design-ms/

2) Georgia Tech — M.S. in Human-Computer Interaction

3) Carnegie Mellon — M.HCI

I have a pretty unique opportunity with UMiami because I’ve gotten close with the head of the Experience & Information Design program throughout my undergrad. She has offered to help curate my curriculum around my career goals and potentially act as a mentor throughout the program. I really value that opportunity, especially because I could potentially continue working while completing the degree if I wanted.

However, I’m very interested in Georgia Tech because of its HCI reputation and corporate tech opportunities. I don’t love Atlanta though but trying to keep an open mind. I’ve also considered CMU, but I’m unsure whether it would be somewhat of a reach for me academically/experience-wise and whether the program would be too intensive, I also don’t love pitt but also keeping an open mind haha!

For anyone who has attended these programs, works in UX Research/Product Design, or has made a similar transition:

What program would you recommend

I’d especially love to hear from people who have experience with UMiami E&ID, Georgia Tech HCI, or CMU MHCI, or anyone who transitioned from a digital/creative background into UX research or product design.

Thank you so much!

I’m based in the US and work in financial services. We currently use a testing platform for recruitment and occasionally use a third-party vendor.

We’re trying to figure out a better way to reach our actual customers, especially when we need participants who own specific products or have had specific experiences.

For anyone doing UXR in regulated industries (e.g. banking, healthcare, life insurance), what does your process look like for recruiting and compensating your own customers? Do you handle it internally, use a third-party platform/vendor, or something else?

Been chewing on this for a few months and i honestly can't tell if i'm seeing a quality problem or a control problem

Context: we are 3 researchers covering 8 squads. For years we ran almost all interviews ourselves, squads sat in and sometimes helped draft guides. This year we flipped it so each squad runs their own first pass interviews and we support on framing and synthesis for the bigger bets.

On paper it is working

- Volume is way up. We went from maybe 6 to 8 interviews a week total to 20+

- Pms are actually talking to users without needing a calendar fight with us

- Some of the findings are really good. One squad spotted a confusing permissions flow that had never come up in our more structured studies, and usage of that feature jumped 18% after their change

But when i sit in on these sessions, i wince a lot. Leading questions. Zero probing. People skipping consent scripts. They treat the guide like a checklist. my reflex is to say this is bad research.

the part i do not trust in myself is whether i am reacting to actual rigor issues, or whether i am just annoyed that the research is no longer centered on the questions i care about. the pms are getting answers that are very relevant to their decisions, even if the method is messy.

for those of you who have pushed research into squads, how do you personally tell the difference between this is methodologically shaky and this is fine, it just does not orbit me anymore? what do you use as a sanity check on your own ego there?

I’ve been exploring how AI might support the process between user research and design decisions, particularly where researchers need to synthesize evidence from multiple sources and turn it into actionable insights.

One direction I’ve been experimenting with combines three types of input:

Multi-source perspectives

Bringing together real user feedback, AI-simulated perspectives, and researchers’ own materials to examine the same product experience from different angles.

Behavioral insights

Looking beyond surface-level summaries to identify recurring behavioral patterns, unmet needs, trust concerns, and decision-making barriers in user feedback.

Design reasoning

Connecting user evidence and behavioral patterns with UX principles to make the reasoning from research findings to design decisions more explicit.

While experimenting with this workflow, I’ve also started questioning where AI should and shouldn’t be involved. For example, AI-generated perspectives can help researchers explore alternative interpretations, but they clearly shouldn’t be treated as substitutes for evidence from real users.

Another challenge is explainability. If an AI system produces an “insight,” researchers should be able to trace where it came from, what evidence supports it, and how it led to a particular design recommendation.

This has made me increasingly interested in a broader question:

Where do you think AI is actually useful in the research-to-design process, and where would you not trust it?

I’d be especially interested in hearing how researchers currently use AI for synthesis, coding, evaluation, or translating findings into design decisions.

Hi,

I would love and appreciate any feedback on my resume. I am currently trying to apply for a Senior UXR position. I realize there are various opinions about metrics-driven resumes but I feel most comfortable with the approach I have taken. My goal is for my resume to illustrate my growth as a UXR that switched career paths.

Many thanks in advance!

Okay, we all know this market is a f*cking sh*t show, and there are barely any jobs, but to add insult to injury, the salaries for the very few UXR roles posted now are SO low, especially in NYC and the SF Bay Area.

Like, WTF are the rest of us who don't have a job and are still trying to maintain this field for a bit supposed to do? Most of these gigs are 50%+ less than my last role.

For example, The New York Times (I know, not a tech company, but still) recently posted a Senior or Staff UXR role for $110K... In NYC. I'm sorry, but that is f*cked. And listen, when I first moved to NYC, I didn't work in UX, I worked in marketing, and made less than $100K – is it possible? Yes, but you also need to have 3 roommates, live in a sh*thole shoebox walk-up, and never eat out... which is what I did. But that job was also easy, and UXR isn't...and I have other family financial responsibilities now.

I'd also be happy to move to another state for a lower salary, but remote jobs are basically mythical – I've had a 0% response rate to the 200+ remote jobs I've applied to over 6 months.

Are you all seeing this? People who have jobs or still work at Google/Meta/Netflix... you don't count here; you're in quite a bubble.

Has anyone found good results using an LLM specifically for user research? I'm a product manager for a 0-1 product and don't have easy access to users. I currently use claude, chatGPT, & just started using cursor. Just looking for new ideas to improve the prodcut.

Ok, so this question comes up a lot or a form of.

But I’m looking at what options beyond working with sales and support.

This question is hypothetical, but it the end user was in accounting (small medium businesses) for example, how feasible are things like

- offering small discount for them to offer onboarding feedback

-arrange with a long standing client to allow time with a new recruit run research
Q
- or any other suggestions that work well?

Also examples of good working relationships with sales and support. I hear lots of stories of friction between them and UXR when it comes to speaking with customers.

Does anyone know of active Slack or WhatsApp communities for qualitative researchers?

I'm looking for spaces where people doing interviews, focus groups, ethnographic work, and other qual research hang out to trade notes on methodology, tools, recruiting, and general shop talk. Open to niche/smaller groups as well as bigger ones, just want to find where the good conversations are actually happening.

If you're part of one (or run one), I'd love an invite. Drop a comment or DM me.

For example, currently I am not using the scale to test the perceived usability of a new system, but instead I am making a survey about the perceived usability of a section of gameplay. It isn't something I asked users to play through, my assumption is users play this game often in their own time.

Could I change working from "using the system" to "playing through that section" in order to:

• Make the scale present tense instead of past tense
• Make the scale more specific to what the user is doing (playing a game of using a digital system)
• Use language the users would use, as people might not refer to this gameplay section as a system

I am curious about your thoughts! Thank you for any help you can give!

Problem

Recently, in reddit, I've began to realize, at least at the moment, downvotes almost exclusive to suppress differing opinions, not necessarily bad, or wildly inaccurate false statements.

Scenario

I'm creating a project about arts in general, where the general goal is to have an healthy self-moderating community, with reviews, etc. so I always had downvotes as a default mechanism to ensure the self-moderation by the community, now I'm not so sure.

As a counter point, other social-ish media without downvotes get even worse quality of user comments.

I'm also a bit worried about just "funny-posting" which causes some communities to create a large gap of inside jokes towards outsiders as a sort of gatekeeping that adds no real value, and said inside jokes are repeated ad nauseum, even Letterboxd suffers from this.

I do apologize if this is the incorrect sub to question this, I'm having trouble picking the correct mechanism, as I am the sole developer, with 0 UX experience, and can't arbitrarily moderate quality of, the hopefully large, user content.

Ux/ui design/ research is the job I wanted to shoot for but now everyone is telling me that its a lost cause and not to do it. I dont know what to do.

At first I wanted to get a psychology degree and apply it to ux/ui but I mainly wanted a degree that I could apply to other fields of ux/ui didnt work out.

Then I was recommended cog sci. Very fascinating field! Then I was told its only worth it if I do a masters/phd....

Im so lost and have no idea what to do.

En el último tiempo he estado investigando bastantes respecto a la investigación de experiencia de usuario y afortunadamente aún soy joven y estoy en tercer semestre de la carrera , qué consejos prácticos me darían ustedes estudiantes o estudiantes de otras carreras parecidas para enfocarme completamente a la investigación de experiencia de usuario claro la carrera que estudio es con un enfoque clínico educativo pero ciertamente he sabido encontrar recursos para complementar mis estudios

Cuénteme sus experiencias sus transiciones cuénteme cómo es encontrar trabajo por primera vez o qué tiempo llevan trabajar en eso , me encantaría escuchar sus testimonios !

Hi all! I am creating a questionnaire measuring the speed at which information is presented. I am using a 5-point Likert type scale. The scale includes the following:

• Much too slow
• Slightly too slow
• About right / Appropriate speed
• Slightly too fast
• Much too fast

My thought is the ratings should be:

• Much too slow - 1
• Slightly too slow - 2
• Much too fast - 3
• Slightly too fast - 4
• About right / Appropriate speed - 5

Because the goal is to have the speed of lecturing be "appropriate speed" and anything else is not the desired goal. I know that about right normally falls into the neutral position, but in this case it would be the goal. How would you set up the scoring/ratings for this scale?

What platforms, services, or agencies exist that run competitive or just standard usability benchmarking? I’m working as a team of one UXer at the moment and am stretched for time and would love to be able to contract out or pay for a one-time benchmark study measuring usability of a product and how that compares to 1-3 direct competitors.

I’m at a bit of a career crossroads and would really appreciate some perspective from people working in UX/HCI, particularly those who have made a significant career pivot.

My background is in biochemistry, and I’ve spent the last few years working in life-science/biotech roles, including research and laboratory-based work. More recently, I’ve moved into customer success at a software company that develops software for the life sciences. Customer success is not where I see my long term development. I’m based in Europe. I’m 27.

Interestingly, I’m now seeing a potential path into UI/UX within my company, particularly because I have the scientific domain knowledge. I’m considering starting to study HCI alongside working part-time as I have a place on a masters program already, with the longer-term idea of moving into UX/product design within scientific software.

On paper, this seems like a really interesting combination: life sciences + software + HCI/UX. I could potentially work in a fairly specialised niche where my existing scientific background is actually useful rather than starting completely from scratch.

But I’m having a lot of anxiety about the long-term career implications of making such a big pivot.

I’m essentially deciding between three broad directions:
Continue further into science — potentially returning to a lab/research role or doing a scientific PhD which has a 50/50 lab/computational focus.

Stay in scientific software, potentially moving from customer success into a UX/UI or product-focused role, therefore committing more fully to HCI/UX, with the goal of building a career in UX/product design, ideally within life sciences or scientific software.

The thing I’m struggling with is that I’m not sure whether I’m looking at a genuinely promising niche or convincing myself that this career path could work out.

I also worry about the opportunity cost. I have a fairly solid baseline scientific background already, whereas moving into UX would mean investing time studying and money (going part time to keep studying for 2 years) into a new field where I’d initially have much less experience. At the same time, I’m not sure I actually want to spend the next 10–20 years doing traditional scientific/laboratory work.

For people working in UX/HCI:
Does this sound like a sensible career pivot? How valuable is domain expertise in a field like life sciences when moving into UX/product design?

And for anyone who has moved from science into UX/product/software (or vice versa), how has the career progression and job security compared with what you expected?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from people who work in healthcare, biotech, scientific software, medical technology, or other specialised technical domains, rather than generic UX advice.

I realise nobody can predict where the job market will be in 10 years — I’m more interested in whether this combination of skills is something you’d consider a strong long-term career direction, or whether you’d recommend keeping the door open to a more traditional scientific career.

I’ve been doing research on other roles that a UXR can pivot into within tech and wouldn’t require a ton of retraining/education. I’m curious if anyone else has made the pivot to one of these roles or is also considering it?

- Presales (this seems like half discovery research)
- CS (still talking to customers but doing a bit more problem solving)
- PM (probably the most natural pivot but the hardest to break into)
- Product Ops
- Product Strategy

As much as I would love to be a UXR forever I think it important to be realistic about the current job market.