Sr. Design Researcher, Mobile Design

Job Description

About the team:

GM’s Human Interface Design Studio is hiring a Senior Design Researcher to Partner with our mobile design team to proactively determine research needs and prioritize work that informs the understanding of user needs and provides tactical design insights. As part of our team, you’ll collaborate with design, product, engineering, brand, and marketing teams to craft well designed research initiatives to inspire and inform user centered designs.

What You’ll Do

As a Senior Design Researcher, you will conduct research to help support our strategic vision. While working with cross-functional teams, you will develop a shared plan to address research goals. This includes close collaboration with partners, facilitating conversations, secondary research, and generative and evaluative research using both qualitative and quantitative methods. You will use your great strengths in storytelling to share your research point of view in a compelling, convincing manner to the broader team. 

Key Characteristics

• A demonstrated track record owning and leading design research, working cross-functionally and thinking strategically to inform research for one or more broad or complex product areas.
• A strong working knowledge and extensive experience of multiple generative and evaluative research methods, how to apply them in a fast-moving organization, and experience mentoring or coaching other researchers on the use of these methods.
• The ability to translate insight into action. You help teams understand customer needs, attitudes, and behaviors through thoughtful and actionable research. Your work informs both strategic and tactical efforts.
• Knowledge of the product design process and experience collaborating with other researchers, designers, content strategists, product managers, and engineers to help transform complex problems into easy-to-use products. You recommend how to best address our research goals and questions, so your partners don’t have to.
• The ability to translate research findings into product priorities and strategic narratives, new business opportunities, within and across different projects.
• Adaptability and a growth-mindset, seeking out and welcoming feedback from senior leaders and managers.
• Ability to produce great work in short timeframes, multi-task across different projects and platforms and adapt to the ever-changing priorities of the business.

Responsibilities

• Design and field mixed methods research studies including live studies, un-moderated studies, field studies, participatory design, heuristic evaluations, and remote usability testing to inform and inspire product and design decisions.
• Assist the mobile team in proactively determining research needs, working closely with the team to prioritize work that will help to support them team.
• Enhance your work by actively seeking out research and metrics from internal and external sources to provide comprehensive recommendations that inform design and business strategy.
• Collaborate seamlessly and flexibly with cross-functional partners to drive best-in-class thinking from all parts of the organization.
• Work quickly and efficiently without sacrificing quality and knowing how to adapt to the ever-changing priorities of the web and app experiences.
• Work on multiple projects concurrently in a very fast paced environment, ensuring that quality deliverables are achieved on time.
• Stay up-to-date with the latest industry news and developments.
• Contribute to the continued evolution of the team’s workflows and processes to further improve quality and performance.
• Have exceptional communication & presentation skills, both written and verbal.

Qualifications

• 5 or more years executing user research to inform interactive product design required.
• Strong portfolio with work samples showcasing expertise in user research required.
• Excellent written, visual, and verbal communication skills.

• Knowledge of design thinking methods.
• Familiarity with common design user experience research tools (e.g., dScout, Optimal Workshop, Qualtrics, User Testing, and Figma).
• Familiarity with data science practices and working closely with data scientists/analysts in the design space (A/B testing, data analysis, etc.).
• Proficient in multiple user re