User Experience Researcher

Background

No restraints. No limitations. We don’t simply push boundaries. We completely rethink them. McLaren Automotive exists to create breath-taking performance road cars.

With innovation at the core of all we do, every challenge starts with the same question. How can we do it better? This restless spirit runs right through McLaren Automotive. And the search for perfection is evident in everything we do.

Purpose of Role

As User Experience Researcher, will ensure that UX decisions are based on a solid understanding of user needs. You will work at all stages of product develop from concept through to sign off. By developing and executing a robust research approach, you will provide the UX team with relevant insights, help UX Designers to refine concepts and ultimately assess complete features as ready to go to customers.

About the User Experience Team

The UX team at McLaren Automotive makes the world's best supercars even better, by making them easy, safe and enjoyable to use. We help develop every car made by McLaren - defining all physical and digital interactions between user and vehicle.

Principal Accountabilities

• Be the source of truth for User Insights
  • Co-ordinate flow of user insights to/from other parts of the business (After Sales, Product Strategy).
  • Maintain and source knowledge about key user behaviours and requirements across markets
  • Develop and maintain User Personas that bring insights to life and lend focus to UX development
  • Regularly review user behaviour provided by onboard and offboard analytics
• Develop and execute a set of appropriate UX research methodologies, for:
  • Digital and physical interactions
  • Scenarios of varying fidelity (including desk-based paper prototypes, basic interactions in ergo bucks, early prototypes in VR or static simulators, or fully functional prototypes in dynamic simulation or mule vehicles)
  • Early concepts where a design direction needs exploring or validating
  • Solutions in delivery where refinement is required
  • Complete solutions where final scoring and sign off is required
• Co-ordinate UX benchmarking approach
  • Planning benchmarking requirements
  • Developing a scalable approach to benchmarking
  • Co-ordinating activity with other departments
  • Maintaining a catalogue of benchmarking insights
• Manage UX analytics
  • Provide analytics requirements during software specification
  • Interrogate usage analytics to inform feature development
  • Deliver regular usage insights to relevant stakeholders
• Manage UX Design Validation Planning (DVP)
  • Maintain UX DVP requirements
  • Co-ordinate planning of required logistics
  • Submit DVP reports and manage rescheduling as required
• Manage UX attribute targets and scoring
  • Identify and implement opportunities for objective attribute assessment
  • Maintain subjective attribute assessment categories and rating scales to ensure ongoing relevance
  • Influence set targets based on evolving user requirements and competitive benchmarking
  • Co-ordinate attribute assessment activity, including reporting of all assessments and findings
  • Manage progress of attribute sign off – tracking scores over regular assessment events
  • Plan and support UX involvement in Drive Event activity (including objectives, content, timing, format)
  • Maintain attribute sign-off status for reporting into development gateways

Knowledge, Skills and Experience

Essential:

• A structured approach to analytical thinking and problem solving
• User Research and Usability Testing – designing and delivering appropriate studies that meet objectives. Including both qualitative and quantitative and subjective and objective studies.
• Facilitation, moderation, and interviewing – the ability to extract meaningful insights from users in a balanced way
• Eye-tracking – experience using eye-tracking research to quantify typically-qualitative or subjective research (including all aspects of delivering an eye-tracking project from setup to reporting)
• Reporting – the ability to make the complex simple, distilling insights in an easily shared, consumed and credible format
• Value-focused – the ability to derive substantiated insights that provide meaningful input to feature owners
• Benchmarking – the ability to evaluate similar products in a structures way so as to identify meaningful points of difference in a repeatable way
• Organization – able to maintain plans and communicate status at any time with confidence, thus driving projects to completion
• MS Office Suite competence to support creation of templates, data capture, data formatting and reporting.
• Familiarity with automotive UX design constraints – to help ensure research insights are focused towards our context
• Effective communication skills across all company levels and global suppliers

Desirable:

• A degree in engineering, psychology, product design or other relevant discipline
• Experience working for an automotive OEM directly or via a supplier
• Knowledge of accessibility principles and or driver distraction principles

Personal Attributes

• Self-motivated, proactive, and tenacious
• Adaptable, quick thinking, decisive, showing strong initiative and self-determination
• Able to work both as a supportive team member and as a driven individual with minimal supervision
• Promotes cross functional team working and collaboration between departments to support delivery of challenging projects
• Conscientious, with a proven eye for detail (quality, reliability and safety) with dedication to deliver best in class products
• Excellent personal workload management and manpower planning.
• Excellent communication skills to enable cross-functional working, able to define the requirement and breakdown complex problems
• Enthusiasm to embrace change and support creation of new processes as necessary
• Willing to own and push the boundaries of their core responsibilities
• A proven finisher with tenacity to drive tasks to completion
• Willing to travel and work flexible hours when required
• Passion for the automotive industry and technology would be advantageous
• A full UK vehicle driving license
• Excited to build on the McLaren legacy