Manager, UX Research in Crawley

The Manager, UX Research leads Elekta’s UX Research team globally and oversees user research and user testing for Elekta’s hardware and software products, ensuring that they are easy and safe to use. They are also responsible for leading and managing usability activities within the regulatory submission and approval processes.

Reporting to the Head of UX & Design (UX&D), they will collaborate closely with the other UX&D Managers (UX Strategy & Design, Industrial Design, UX Development) and leaders in other departments: Product Management, Engineering, etc. They will influence the business to adopt best practices in User-Centred Design (UCD), assess the business impact of these activities, and communicate their team’s value in the process.

Responsibilities:

• Line-manage a team of individual UX Researchers, responsible for hiring, performance management, career development and motivating the team towards excellent performance.
• Understand Elekta’s Products and their contexts, so as to be able to prioritise the resourcing of their team to the most important products/projects, creating the greatest possible UX/product quality and measurable business impact.
• Develop and maintain a network of Elekta stakeholders; in particular, leaders in the Product and Engineering divisions. Understand the needs of these stakeholders, agree with them the scope of work, and ensure they are kept up-to-date with progress.
• Support the Head of UX&D in evangelising the benefits of User-Centred Design across the Elekta business, including collating and communicating a set of compelling case studies where UCD has made a measurable business impact.
• Maintain a good understanding of the other UX&D domains (UX Strategy & Design, Industrial Design, UX Development), so as to be able to ‘sell’ the wider team’s skills and contributions.

Technical:

• Oversee the processes and methods of UX research and user/usability testing, aiming for an iterative UCD approach for all products, which incorporates the needs and wants of users at all stages.
• Push for early discovery research activities (e.g. interviews, observation, contextual research) to be carried out on all significant new or revised products, agreeing pragmatic compromises with Product and Engineering leads where necessary.
• Lead the Usability Engineering process for regulated medical devices. Ensure that the necessary formative and summative usability testing activities are performed and correctly documented. Work with Product and Regulatory teams to support regulatory submissions/approvals.
• Oversee the collection and usage of user insights during phased launch activities (e.g. alpha, beta, pilot, early adopter, commercial launch, post-launch) such that feedback is continually incorporated and leads to product UX improvements.
• Measure Product UX quality in a consistent way across the various research and usability testing activities, so as to track quality improvements over time, compare products, compare with competitors, etc.
• Seek to get the greatest possible value from existing/secondary user research and market research studies, analysing their insights and making recommendations for product UX improvements.
• Balance those research/testing activities that can be performed by the internal team vs. those where support from 3rd party agencies is necessary. Maintain a roster of suitably-qualified user research agencies and initiate work and manage them appropriately.
• Keep up with the state-of-the-art in the UCD of regulated medical devices.

What you’ll bring:

• Master’s degree in User Experience, Human Factors, Human-Computer Interaction, Experimental Psychology or a similar relevant subject.
• Comprehensive knowledge base acquired from 8+ years’ experience as a (Senior/Lead) UX Researcher in a domain of complex products and services.
• 2+ years’ experience in managing a UX team, including all people management responsibilities. Experience guiding and mentoring UX professionals across functions to drive best practice.
• Good knowledge of the processes and regulations around Usability Engineering for regulated medical devices. Experience leading such work, including usability testing and completing the documentation required for regulatory submissions/approvals.
• A track record of influential leadership, management of senior stakeholders and driving cross-functional agreement on user-centred design.
• A track record of case studies (personal and/or from a managed team) where user-centred design has had a significant and measurable business impact.
• Skilled storyteller in user-centred design, able to present complex information in a digestible format at all levels of the business.

This is an office based role (4 days a week from our Crawley Hub). Up to 25 paid vacation days.