From Research to Design – The Journey of a “Noob” Designer 

(Part 1 of 2 - Research)

Part 2 of 2 - Design Journey

In this first part of my case study, I documented my research process for my capstone project (A-I) – a platform providing mentorship for PhDs and postdocs transitioning from [A]cademia into [I]ndustry.

How it all started

“Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”
-Randy Pausch

This famous quote by the late Professor Randy Pausch has been my phone’s wallpaper since 2016. Like everyone, we deal with setbacks all the time. And truly, sometimes experience is all you’re left with, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much you want something.

As a PhD who had spent the past six years in graduate school, I have always thought of myself as an intelligent and capable researcher and writer. However, reality hits hard when I applied to over 150 jobs in the past six months, and only getting three call-backs and one final-round interview. And when that rejection came, I couldn’t help but asked myself, “why wouldn’t anyone give me a chance, what am I doing wrong?”

“As a UX Researcher and Designer, I want to use experiences, stories, and design to inspire and make a difference. But I don’t want to address just any challenge. I want to design something deeply personal, something that will impact the people around me.”
-Jeffrey, Lead Researcher and Designer

Now, what appears to be the problem?

PhDs and postdocs planning to transition from academia to industry often face a lot of questions, stereotypes, skepticisms, uncertainties, and emotions.

With these frustrations in mind, I asked these questions:

1. How can I improve the experience of PhDs and postdocs transitioning into the industry?

2. What is missing from their experience?

3. Is there something that everyone is telling me?

Empathy: Using Secondary Research to Understand the Problem

Secondary Research

First, I used secondary research to better understand the problem space (i.e., to learn more about the emotions, motivations, and frustrations) among PhDs and postdocs trying to land an industry job. PhDs and postdocs transitioning from academia to industry often face these challenges:

1. PhDs and postdocs are often overwhelmed with questions, uncertainties, and emotions.

2. In graduate school, PhDs are often told right from the beginning by their advisors and peers that academia is the only way to go.

3. PhDs and postdocs look at industry jobs but find it hard to reorient their focus after years of academic research.

4. PhDs and postdocs rarely know what industry jobs suit their interests and skillsets, vice versa.

5. PhDs and postdocs are repeatedly told to “go network, and you’ll find something.” However, PhDs and postdocs do not network enough, nor do they think they have the skills and networking opportunities.

“Given this project is personally relevant and important to me, I had to ensure that I do not insert my own emotions and assumptions into the research and let the research and users speak for themselves.”
-Jeffrey, Lead Researcher and Designer

Usability Heuristics

Given that the problem I set out to solve in my capstone project was to improve the experience for PhDs and postdocs planning to transition from academia to industry, I then conducted a heuristic analysis to evaluate three relevant and popular websites: Cheeky Scientist, The Professor is In, and Next Scientist.

Existing resources aimed at improving the transitioning experience often have these limitations:

1. Information is all over, overwhelming even. Competitor sites were swamped with information, supposedly with limited consideration of UI/UX issues. These sites look and feel more like a sales site (vs. a self-help resource).

2. Lack of consensus on critical challenges faced by PhDs and postdocs. Competitor sites covered a myriad of information. However, there aren’t any consensus or “areas of focus” with the critical challenges faced by PhDs and postdocs.

3. Lack of opportunities for 1:1 interaction, mentorship, or guidance. Based on the interview findings, participants highly value opportunities for mentorship and guidance.

“Usability heuristics helped me develop a user’s perspective about what works and what doesn’t when using my competitor’s product.”
-Jeffrey, Lead Researcher and Designer

Empathy: Using Primary Research to Understand My Users

Diary Study

For landing an industry job, everyone’s experience, challenges, and triumph are unique and precious. To get a more accurate picture of participants’ experiences and to inspire questions during interviews, I conducted seven diary studies to get participants to reflect on their experiences during the transition. Based on the diary study, PhDs and postdocs transitioning from academia into the industry often face these challenges:

1. Time-sensitive work limits the amount of time dedicated to job search.

2. PhDs and postdocs do not know what kinds of skillsets/experiences are relevant for industry jobs.

3. Job boards and emails provide many irrelevant jobs.

4. PhDs and postdocs often get rejected from jobs without knowing why.

As my next step (i.e., interview), I chose to focus on the first three challenges as reported by most participants. I’m assuming that other PhDs and postdocs often experienced these three challenges as well. 

“Findings from the diary studies did not just inspire my interview questions, it allowed me to truly empathize with my participants and to share their frustrations, hopes, and dreams. “
-Jeffrey, Lead Researcher and Designer

Interviews

I then conducted seven interviews with participants from my diary studies to approach the design process with a better understanding of my users’ behaviors, pain points, needs, and goals. As someone who’s rather familiar with UX research methods, I was surprised at how “confused” I was after completing the interviews.

“There were so many problems to tackle. Everything felt important. It wasn’t immediately clear what needed to happen next.”
-Jeffrey, Lead Researcher and Designer

Empathy: Making Sense of My Research

Thankfully, I was able to use four methods of synthesis to make sense of my research data (1) surveys, (2) affinity diagram, personas, (3) empathy map, and (4) personas.

Surveys

To get a better sense of the “magnitude” of these problems, I designed a five-question survey to understand how each challenge was rated relative to each other. Based on the survey:  “Not knowing what kinds of skillsets or experiences are relevant for industry jobs” is a significant challenge experienced by all participants.

“It is important to use different techniques to triangulate your research findings but within the time and resource constraints of the project. Revise your research plan as new findings come up.”
-Jeffrey, Lead Researcher and Designer

Empathy Mapping

I used empathy maps to organize insights, observations, and quotes from my interviews to better understand my user’s pain points, goals, feelings, thoughts, and behaviors and to help bridge the gap between the personas’ (below) thinking and feeling habits. Based on the visual representation of the empathy map, relative to postdocs, PhDs engage in more “strategies” and “activities” to facilitate their transition. PhDs also network more.

Affinity Diagram: Sorting and Classifying Insights

Based on the visual representation of the affinity diagram (in pink), all participants want mentorship and guidance. Mentorship and guidance are never viewed in a negative light.

“Due to the extra guidance I get, that PhD students don’t normally get… My mentor and minor advisor John is the best thing that happened to me.”
-Bernardo, PhD in Civil Engineering

Personas: Who am I designing for?

Based on the data I collected, I created representations of four major user types. The personas did not depict specific people but synthesized versions of the observations and analysis of my survey and interview participants.

Defining the problem

I started the project with a broad goal of improving the experiences of PhDs and postdocs planning to transition to industry. While the user research pointed to three key areas of opportunities (1) the lack of mentorship and guidance, (2) the lack networking opportunities, and (3) the lack of relevant skillsets and experiences), I chose to tackle this “how might we” statement: How might we provide opportunities for mentorship and guidance to PhDs and postdocs transitioning into the industry?

“I feel tired. I want a life… I am sure there will be many people behind me who will face the same problem. I was lucky to find someone who spent hours and hours guiding and motivating me.”
-Lauretta, PhD in Biological Sciences

This choice was in no way arbitrary. Based on the affinity diagram, all participants want and always viewed mentorship and guidance in a positive light. Also, based on the competitor analysis, while there were good resources on mentorships, there aren’t any platforms that could connect PhDs and postdocs to mentors from the industry.

“There are always many challenges to address. Pick the most viable one.”
-Jeffrey, Lead Researcher and Designer

Next: Part 2 of 2 - Design journey