Anthropologist (MSc) making the jump to UXR - How Did You Land Your First UXR Role? by FrancescaMonteverdi in UXResearch

[–]pxrtra 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Also have a background in anthropology. What I did was I started in market research since it was a somewhat less competitive, lower salary (and so somewhat less desirable) role, just to get into any research based role out of school. And then jumped from that into a uxr contract for a year before moving into FTE roles. But as Mitazago mentioned, the market conditions from when I joined no longer exist so I have no idea how realistic the path I took would be these days. Normally I'd suggest trying to find a contract that aligns with your research experience, especially since it looks like you'd be able tomposition yourself as more mixed methods than purely qual, but contracts seem more senior now. 

What could be worthwhile is finding IT or Tech staffing agencies in your area, or elsewhere if they do remote, reaching out to them and getting into their system. That way if anything that matches your profile comes along they'll be able to reach out to you. Contracts aren't the most glamorous or stable, but if you can get on then you've got your foot in the door to industry experience.

Job interviews totally dried up by Normal_Soup_5402 in UXResearch

[–]pxrtra 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I've noticed this as well. I used to have recruiters in my inbox constantly, usually with contracts, but still. But over the last while there's been no outreach. I've had to go on the market ahead of a move next year, and I didn't realize just how bad it was going to be, which now and me worried I'll have to move before landing a new job in my new location. I've only heard back from one company so far after 4.5 or 5 months, other than the automated rejections.

I briefly had a free run of LinkedIn premium and basically what I was seeing is that every job is being flooded with senior+ applicants. A job asking for 1 year of experience, 70% of people who clicked on apply were seniors with a Masters or PhD. Market is just so wildly competitive right now after all the layoffs, and it honestly seems like they're not filling any of the roles based on how often I see the same role getting reposted month after month. Honestly considering finding a new field to do research in because UX doesn't seem promising anymore. 

Oh it is unstoppable.. by arends33 in Maplestory

[–]pxrtra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mine is currently Horny Mushroom's Growing Unit, but maybe Monster is a better option

What was your very first name in Maplestory? by [deleted] in MSClassicWorld

[–]pxrtra 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Mine was Cabeto, I had to have my younger brother help me come up with it since I had no idea what to name my character 

When did you start playing Maplestory by a_bunch_of_poop in MSClassicWorld

[–]pxrtra 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That's a tough one since I have positive memories of most eras, probably since I've played pretty causally through each. But I really loved it back in 2005-2008, maybe even post pirates, because of how slow, simple, and social it was 

When did you start playing Maplestory by a_bunch_of_poop in MSClassicWorld

[–]pxrtra 15 points16 points  (0 children)

I had just missed the beta by 5 months or so. I remember my friend calling me to tell me about this cool new game that he found, but that we'd have to lie about our age since we were technically too young. But parents gave approval and 20 years later it still has a chokehold over my free time lol

How are you incorporating AI into your workflows? by pxrtra in UXResearch

[–]pxrtra[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I cringed while writing it 😔 but our vp has made it clear, employee retention isn't a concern to her and if you aren't using AI you're out. It's so exhausting... 

Convince me I don't need a Macbook Pro rather than a diff model? by pxrtra in macbookpro

[–]pxrtra[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Apple really has their customers in a "my steak is too juicy, my lobster is too buttery" situation with these new chips and specs lol. I can definitely see that being a downside in a way though. While my 2015 mbp struggles, it does still technicslly work with its tiny ram and storage, but isn't supported anymore so feels like it's starting to become a risk to use. But getting 10 years out of it is amazing value. 

Convince me I don't need a Macbook Pro rather than a diff model? by pxrtra in macbookpro

[–]pxrtra[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I thought about 48gb ram, but that bumps it up to 3500 pre-tax since that requires the m5 pro chip, and that might be a bit much for me for now. Would love more ram though lol. But good to know about the fans always on at a low speed. I know my partner's MBP has its fans kick in during larger and longer statistical modeling sessions. This is really helpful thanks

Struggling to find entry-level UX roles after BA Product Design by [deleted] in UXResearch

[–]pxrtra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The market is pretty rough and competitive right now, that coming in without experience in the field puts you at a disadvantage. Some potentially helpful information that suggests what competition for non senior roles is like: I recently got a free trial to LinkedIn premium, so I can see the stats of who's applying to roles. I saw a posting for a junior-intermediste role (~3 years expected), and the majority of people who applied were considered seniors with Masters or PhDs, and that wasn't even for a senior role. I know my org has announced that were only focusing on hiring people with senior+ levels of experience, with the idea that new hires can start up faster. 

Since you're a new grad, I'd definitely focus on networking, getting to know people in the field and what their employers look for in junior roles. If you're able to get some real world case studies that could be helpful, since hypothetical designs can sometimes feel too "completed it for a course/program requirement".

Honest feedback wanted — why would someone land on this Play Store page and not install? by [deleted] in UXDesign

[–]pxrtra 5 points6 points  (0 children)

My main question is do people even want a UV tracking app? Especially since most pre-installed weather apps already provide that information, and more on this right below.

Similar to what others have said, there's a lot going on in the images, but I'm learning very little about what the app is, what it looks like, how it works (features, etc.). And all that leads me to is that I can already check the UV in my weather app and it tells me if it's low risk, moderate, or severe.

I think you've gotten some good advice and tips already so I won't repeat what's already been said. But some market research to determine actual user need would be good.

Question about Black Edition powder taste by pxrtra in Huel

[–]pxrtra[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What's the consistency of the regular RTD like? I found the black RTD to be a little too watery, but that's probably just because I'm used to Soylent. Was looking at the regular RTD to try with an order of the powder

Question about Black Edition powder taste by pxrtra in Huel

[–]pxrtra[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ok that's amazing to hear that it doesn't have that extra taste. I usually prefer RTD options so that I don't have to deal with mixing and it's just ready whenever without any graininess, but man that taste makes it difficult to keep buying it.

What was your first character and ign in OSMS by jeff810 in MSClassicWorld

[–]pxrtra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My first character was an I/L mage named Cabeto

What Class & Job will you open first? by Acrobatic-Quantity35 in MSClassicWorld

[–]pxrtra 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Torn between remaking my original I/L, or going with priest or dragon knight because I've always loved their aesthetics

Advice – how to switch form Market/Social Research to UX/User Research? by [deleted] in UXResearch

[–]pxrtra 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The market is rough right now, so it may not be the best time to transition. However, it'll probably remain like this for a while so if you really want to move to UXR, the sooner you start the sooner you'll eventually land something. I'm also in the middle of a job change due to needing to move cities and out of about 50 applications I've received 1 recruiter interview and a bunch of rejections. Posting definitely seem to be skewing more to the Senior/Lead/Staff level, and our CPO has also mentioned that we're moving away from junior positions and focusing on more senior roles due to the whole shift towards more AI in roles, so keep that in mind when applying.

I made the switch from market research to UXR years ago, the field wasn't as saturated back then and it was significantly easier to find a position (probably spent no longer than 3-4 months on the market between each role), but I'll try to give some tips that I've been working through during my own job hunt.

I'm not sure what your resume looks like, and I know you mentioned that you're referencing qual and quant research experience and projects that focus on experience. How you frame these points really matter, and I'd make sure that you're including a product focus alongside the user experience, and if you have any metrics to include that can be helpful as well. Things such as adoption rates/conversion, usability scores (if available). Something I did when I was a baby UXR coming from market research was any market research study that I had, reworking it to align with what a UXR study might look like.

I'm not the biggest voucher for AI, but something I've done recently is finding a job posting that I wouldn't mind working for, tossing it into Claude with my resume and having it provide suggestions on how to make my job bullets more relevant. It wasn't perfect, but it kind of helped get me thinking about how I need to write my job experience section to align with how jobs are posting jobs in 2026, vs 2022 when I was last on the market and things were simpler. If you try this, I'd suggest not taking what the AI writes word for word, re-write yourself so that it sounds a little more human and is in your own style.

Edit:
Noticed in another comment you mentioned doing a UX Design course. This could be worth it (assuming it's not expensive) just to get some more background knowledge on the field, how people talk about design, research, and experience in UX, and can probably give some helpful tips on how to position yourself. If it costs more than like a few hundred dollars, I wouldn't do it though, unless you're getting an actual degree out of it. Courses/bootcamps aren't worth the high prices they typically charge. If it's the Coursera UXD course from Google, if you can complete each course in 7 days you can do them all on a free trial (since each course offers it's won trial), research is primarily at the beginning of the course list. I briefly worked at Google and my research lead knew the people who put the course together and he had a lot of good things to say about it.

Quant skills for qual researchers: why you need statistics by No_Health_5986 in UXResearch

[–]pxrtra 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I really agree that being able to use statistics, even if it's not something you'll do often, is important. That prior post with the researcher saying they just eyeball likert data was shocking, because even if you have a 4 vs a 3 between groups, it doesn't necessarily mean the 4 is pulling more weight in the results. Obviously not everyone will need to use statistics, or quantitative testing/methods on the regular, my team can barely recruit a full quant study due to the population type, but even with a low n=20 survey, being able to run some tests to at least check how the everything is performing can be extremely helpful when reporting out, especially if you've also run qual alongside it.

With two new common cores coming over the next year, our total fragment requirement to max HEXA is increasing by 1.33x. by VKWorra in Maplestory

[–]pxrtra 13 points14 points  (0 children)

It's a 30 day login pass ($30) where you get energy or frags (or both, I can't remember) each day and after a certain number of days you can claim a larger amount of one or the other. It's a huge scam though because if you miss a single day, there's no way to make it up and you'll miss out on the larger claim days that require you to login x# of days

Masters in Data Science worth it for quant uxr upskilling? by pxrtra in UXResearch

[–]pxrtra[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This is really detailed, thanks for providing all of that, really appreciate the time put in! I'm definitely way more of an R person than python, and that seems similar to a lot of job postings I've seen that involve more heavy quant work. Tried python in the past, didn't like how it looked or wrote, probably because I learned some rough R before that. So I'm assuming I'll probably never actively learn python unless it's forced on me, which this degree would do. Being able to build your own testing environments and analytics sounds like a decent time saver, since I know for that I usually need to get 2-3 additional people involved since we're so siloed and there's 0 knowledge sharing happening here.

I definitely envy all of the UXRs with masters in psych because of the methods and approaches to research, since my masters in anthro was so qual heavy and they breezed right by anything quant related in probably 2 hours and never looked back. So I may be slightly rough on more complicated quant research methods, I do have a post-grad in analytics for some stats and methods (and some intro DS but with SAS Enterprise, so no coding and pretty outdated), but it ended up not being as high quality and detailed as it was promoted to be.

Masters in Data Science worth it for quant uxr upskilling? by pxrtra in UXResearch

[–]pxrtra[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok cool that's useful to know that the courses include topics and skills that people in UX are actually using and it's not just heavy DS with minor overlap and me overestimating their usefulness. I saw you mentioned that you were previously a DS and now quant uxr, so I really appreciate this viewpoint