User experience analyst

Description

User experience analysts assess client interaction and experience and analyse users’ behaviours, attitudes, and emotions about the usage of a particular product, system or service. They make proposals for the improvement of the interface and usability of products, systems or services. In doing so, they take into consideration the practical, experiential, affective, meaningful and valuable aspects of human€“computer interaction and product ownership, as well as the person’s perceptions of system aspects such as utility, ease of use and efficiency, and user experience dynamics.

Other titles

The following job titles also refer to user experience analyst:

user experience officer
usability analyst
user experience analysts

Minimum qualifications

Bachelor’s degree is generally required to work as user experience analyst. However, this requirement may differ in some countries.

ISCO skill level

ISCO skill level is defined as a function of the complexity and range of tasks and duties to be performed in an occupation. It is measured on a scale from 1 to 4, with 1 the lowest level and 4 the highest, by considering:

  • the nature of the work performed in an occupation in relation to the characteristic tasks and duties
  • the level of formal education required for competent performance of the tasks and duties involved and
  • the amount of informal on-the-job training and/or previous experience in a related occupation required for competent performance of these tasks and duties.

User experience analyst is a Skill level 4 occupation.

User experience analyst career path

Similar occupations

These occupations, although different, require a lot of knowledge and skills similar to user experience analyst.

ICT usability tester
ICT accessibility tester
digital games tester
ICT research consultant
computer scientist

Long term prospects

These occupations require some skills and knowledge of user experience analyst. They also require other skills and knowledge, but at a higher ISCO skill level, meaning these occupations are accessible from a position of user experience analyst with a significant experience and/or extensive training.

Essential knowledge and skills

Essential knowledge

This knowledge should be acquired through learning to fulfill the role of user experience analyst.

Cognitive psychology: The human mental processes such as attention, memory, language use, perception, problem solving, creativity and thinking.
Behavioural science: The investigation and analysis of subject behaviour through regulated and lifelike observations and disciplined scientific experiments.
Human-computer interaction: The study of the behaviour and interaction between digital devices and human beings.
Application usability: The process through which the learnability, efficiency, usefulness and ease of use of a software application can be defined and measured.
Software interaction design: The methodologies for designing interaction between users and a software product or service to satisfy the needs and preferences of most of the people who will interface with the product and to simplify the communication between product and user such as Goal-oriented design.

Essential skills and competences

These skills are necessary for the role of user experience analyst.

Provide technical documentation: Prepare documentation for existing and upcoming products or services, describing their functionality and composition in such a way that it is understandable for a wide audience without technical background and compliant with defined requirements and standards. Keep documentation up to date.
Use experience map: Examine all the interactions and touchpoints people have with a product, brand or service. Determine key variables such as duration and frequency of every touchpoint.
Create prototype of user experience solutions: Design and prepare mock-ups, prototypes and flows in order to test User Experience (UX) solutions or to collect feedback from users, customers, partners or stakeholders.
Assess users’ interaction with ict applications: Evaluate how users interact with ICT applications in order to analyse their behaviour, draw conclusions (for instance about their motives, expectations and goals) and improve applications’ functionalities.
Conduct quantitative research: Execute a systematic empirical investigation of observable phenomena via statistical, mathematical or computational techniques.
Conduct research interview: Use professional researching and interviewing methods and techniques to gather relevant data, facts or information, to gain new insights and to fully comprehend the message of the interviewee.
Measure customer feedback: Evaluate customer’s comments in order to find out whether customers feel satisfied or dissatisfied with the product or service.
Execute ict user research activities: Perform research tasks such as recruitment of participants, scheduling of tasks, collecting of empirical data, data analysis and production of materials in order to assess the interaction of users with an ICT system, program or application.
Analyse business requirements: Study clients’ needs and expectations for a product or service in order to identify and resolve inconsistencies and possible disagreements of involved stakeholders.
Measure software usability: Check the convenience of the software product for the end user. Identify user problems and make adjustments to improve usability practice. Collect input data on how users evaluate software products.
Report analysis results: Produce research documents or give presentations to report the results of a conducted research and analysis project, indicating the analysis procedures and methods which led to the results, as well as potential interpretations of the results.
Conduct qualitative research: Gather relevant information by applying systematic methods, such as interviews, focus groups, text analysis, observations and case studies.

Optional knowledge and skills

Optional knowledge

This knowledge is sometimes, but not always, required for the role of user experience analyst. However, mastering this knowledge allows you to have more opportunities for career development.

Agile project management: The agile project management approach is a methodology for planning, managing and overseeing of ICT resources in order to meet specific goals and using project management ICT tools.
Web analytics: The characteristics, tools and techniques for measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of web data to get information on the users’ behaviour and to improve the performance of a website.
Mdx: The computer language MDX is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the software company Microsoft.
Visual presentation techniques: The visual representation and interaction techniques, such as histograms, scatter plots, surface plots, tree maps and parallel coordinate plots, that can be used to present abstract numerical and non-numerical data, in order to reinforce the human understanding of this information.
Xquery: The computer language XQuery is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the international standards organisation World Wide Web Consortium.
Sparql: The computer language SPARQL is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the international standards organisation World Wide Web Consortium.
World wide web consortium standards: The standards, technical specifications and guidelines developed by the international organisation World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) which allow the design and development of web applications.
Resource description framework query language: The query languages such as SPARQL which are used to retrieve and manipulate data stored in Resource Description Framework format (RDF).
Query languages: The field of standardised computer languages for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information.
Ldap: The computer language LDAP is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information.
Ict project management methodologies: The methodologies or models for planning, managing and overseeing of ICT resources in order to meet specific goals, such methodologies are Waterfall, Incremental, V-Model, Scrum or Agile and using project management ICT tools.
Linq: The computer language LINQ is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the software company Microsoft.
Online moderation techniques: The strategies and methods used to interact online and moderate online users and groups.
Ict system user requirements: The process intended to match user and organisation’s needs with system components and services, by taking into consideration the available technologies and the techniques required to elicit and specify requirements, interrogating users to establish symptoms of problem and analysing symptoms.
Process-based management: The process-based management approach is a methodology for planning, managing and overseeing of ICT resources in order to meet specific goals and using project management ICT tools.
Lean project management: The lean project management approach is a methodology for planning, managing and overseeing of ICT resources in order to meet specific goals and using project management ICT tools.
N1ql: The computer language N1QL is a query language for retrieval of information from a database and of documents containing the needed information. It is developed by the software company Couchbase.
Software metrics: The metrics that measure a characteristic of the software system in order to determine the development of the software and evaluate it.

Optional skills and competences

These skills and competences are sometimes, but not always, required for the role of user experience analyst. However, mastering these skills and competences allows you to have more opportunities for career development.

Use access control software: Utilise software to define the roles and manage user authentication, privileges and access rights to ICT systems, data and services.
Forecast future ict network needs: Identify current data traffic and estimate how growth will affect the ICT network.
Manage localisation: Modify content or a product for the transference from one locale to another through the use of content translation or localisation service providers.
Test system accessibility for users with special needs: Examine whether software interface complies with standards and regulations so that the system can be used by people with special needs.
Define technical requirements: Specify technical properties of goods, materials, methods, processes, services, systems, software and functionalities by identifying and responding to the particular needs that are to be satisfied according to customer requirements.
Identify ict user needs: Determine the needs and requirements of ICT users of a specific system by applying analytical methods, such as target group analysis.
Create website wireframe: Develop an image or set of images that display the functional elements of a website or page, typically used for planning a website’s functionality and structure.
Perform market research: Gather, assess and represent data about target market and customers in order to facilitate strategic development and feasibility studies. Identify market trends.

ISCO group and title

2511 – Systems analysts

 

 


 

 

References
  1. User experience analyst – ESCO
Last updated on August 8, 2022