UX Research Resources for Beginners: A Curated List

Simon Taylor, Staff UX Researcher at YouTube

Last update: 8/9/23

ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT

This document is primarily designed for beginners to the UX Research field, with a particular focus on people transitioning from other professions (e.g. academia) or graduate work. Despite the focus on beginners, I hope UXR veterans may also find useful resources here.

Despite its length, this overview is not designed to be exhaustive. You will find other lists with more resources. Rather, these are sources that I’ve personally found helpful, inspiring, thought- provoking, or confounding across my 5+ years as a UXR professional.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Learning: What to Read, Hear, and Watch

2. Doing: Practical Resources and Advice
3. Working: Landing a UX Research Job
4. About Me

1. LEARNING: WHAT TO READ, HEAR, AND WATCH

Books

• Userpalooza
• UX Research: Practical Techniques for Designing Better Products
• The Science and Art of Listening
• Listening to People
• The Art of Innovation
• Mixed Methods
• Ethnographic Thinking: From Method to Mindset (the book to read on ethnography)
• Think Like A UX Researcher (expensive, unfortunately)
• Envisioning Information (Edward Tufte is the guru for learning how to think visually)
• The Black Experience in Design
• Rocking Qualitative Social Science
• Just Enough Research (I haven’t read it myself, but comes highly recommended)

Podcasts & Videos

• Awkward Silences (especially the episode linked here)
• Dollars to Donuts
• UXR Conversations
• NN/g
• UX Cake
• Anthro to UX
• 99% Invisible (Not strictly UXR related, but an excellent show that will help beginners get into the mindset of think with and through products and their design)
• Aona Talks
• Delta CX’s Micro Lessons

Websites & Online Groups

• Ph.D. to UXR (not exclusively for Ph.D.s, though not for undergrads)
• UX Weekly
• UX Research Collective
• UX Beginner (leans design)
• Interaction Design Foundation (leans more design than strictly UXR)
• UX / HCI Researchers
• People of Color in Tech (POCIT)
• The Black UX Collective
• Ladies That UX
• TechLadies
• Accessibility User Research Collective
• UX Booth

Company Blogs

• Meta Research Medium Page
• Spotify
• IBM
• Google
• Uber

Newsletters

• Sarah Doody’s UX Newsletter
• Userweekly

2. DOING: PRACTICAL RESOURCES AND ADVICE

General

• NN Group (this page is especially helpful: read it again and again until you know it all)
• Comparing UX Research Methods
• AnswerLab Insights
• Apple & Banana
• Research Resources
• DScout’s People Nerds

Tools

• UXR Tools Map (incredibly helpful and beautifully designed; this is your one-stop shop for figuring out which tool to use for what research task)
• Participant Incentive Calculator
• 91 Best User Research Tools of 2023

Planning

• How to Create a UX Research Plan
• How to Create a Practical User Research Plan

Execution / Methodologies

• Co-Creation with Users
• Asking The Right Questions During User Research
• 12 Tips For Moderating Like a Pro
• What Makes a Good UX Faciliator?
• Making Remote Interviews Feel Less Remote (authored by me, but don’t hold that against it)
• How to do a Competitive Analysis
• Dealing with Difficult Research Participants
• Running and moderating usability studies
• Remote Usability Tests
• Diary Studies

Notes & Analysis

• Research Note Taking

Reporting

• Structuring a UX Research Report

Accessibility & Inclusivity in Research

• Accessibility Resources
• Accessibility in UXR
• Inclusive Research
• Being Black in UX Research
• Racism and UX Research
• Black People Have Always Been UX Designers (design-centric, but a must read)
• Black Women in UX
• A Journey into Afrocentric UX
• A Comprehensive Guide to Accessible UXR (highly recommended)
• Accessible UXR: Recruiting and Researching Participants with Disabilities
• Beyond Accessibility: Treating Users with Disabilities as People

Simon’s Templates

• Research Brief
• Conversation Guide (e.g. for IDIs)

3. WORKING: LANDING A UX RESEARCH JOB

Transitioning Into A UX Research Career

• UXR Job Market Advice for Academics
• Beginner’s Guide to Getting Started in UXR (hugely comprehensive)
• From Tenure to Tech
• Making the Move from Research Consulting to UXR
• From Nonprofit to UXR
• Making the Move from Government to UXR

UX Research Job Sites

• UXInsight
• Early State Design Jobs
• User Interviews
• UXPA International
• EPIC (primarily for ethnographers)
• GitHub (leans toward designers)
• UX Jobs Board (leans toward designers)

Volunteering Opportunities

Volunteering, especially with civic tech organizations, is a great way to gain experience as a UX Researcher, especially for those without experience conducting research with human subjects.

• Hack For LA
• Code for America (umbrella organization for individual Code brigades)
• Hack Oregon
• UX Rescue
• Civic Software Foundation
• US Digital Response
• Democracy Lab
• Taproot Foundation
• Citizens Lab
• Catchafire

The Interview Process

• Creating a UXR Case Study
• Common Interview Questions (my list synthesized from various sources and my own experience)
• Maze Question Bank (similar to above)

UX Research Portfolio Advice

• Karina Hickey’s UX Australia talk
• Heather Sterman
• Paige Nuzzolillo on Delta Dental (really thorough case study)
• Top 10 Recommendations for UXR Portfolios
• How to Build a UXR Portfolio (great advice from CareerFoundry – but please note that their goal is to sell courses)
• Ultimate Guide to Building a UXR Portfolio

Compensation

• Levels.fyi
• Demystifying Tech Compensation: A Short Introduction for Career Switchers (a doc I wrote to help people understand the various components of comp in tech)
• UXR Salary Report
• 81cents (focused on helping women negotiate their compensation)
• She Negotiates (similar to above)

4. ABOUT ME

Hi, I’m Simon. Since August 2022, I’ve been Staff UX Researcher at Google (YouTube). Before this, I was Senior Experience Researcher on Twitter’s Pathfinding Strategy team. I also spent three years at Meta conducting foundational research on short-form video and AR/VR. I got my industry start at the boutique strategy consultancy ReD Associates, where I helped clients better understand their customers and business.

Before moving into industry, I was an academic. I earned my Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, where I wrote my dissertation on the history of anxiety. After Columbia, I was also Collegiate Assistant Professor of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago and co-chair of the Society of Fellows.

Outside of work, you’ll find me with my wife and young son in beautiful North Carolina. I collect vinyl, read voraciously, and cheer for mediocre English sports teams.

You can follow me on LinkedIn.