Design Researcher (Individual Contributor)

Design Researcher (Individual contributor)

In a nutshell:
IDEO London is in search of qualitative and mixed-method design researchers with experience across different types of projects, including generative ‘opportunity finding’ and iterative loops of prototyping and user feedback. As an IDEO Design Researcher, you will work on multidisciplinary teams and use research findings to inform and inspire strategic decisions and design solutions for a variety of client organisations. You’ll translate research insights into powerful stories that shift hearts and minds and directly influence the final design.

About IDEO London:
We're a global design consultancy where curiosity, empathy, and solving complex challenges drive us. For over 40 years, we've partnered with clients to innovate in healthcare, mobility, education, retail, and beyond. Here, every challenge is a chance to grow, connect, and create impact.

Why is this role important for IDEO’s work?
Our design work is based on insight generated by project teams, and Design Researchers lead the approach. Design Research at IDEO inspires design in a wide range of disciplines, and inspires clients to create human-centred impact. It’s at the core of IDEO’s work.

Once here you will:

• Collaborate with a multidisciplinary team, clients, and specialist partners on diverse challenges
• Design, scope, and run research that helps us tackle our design challenge
• Facilitate synthesis, generating insights and opportunities for design
• Creatively articulate the insights and stories behind our design concepts
• Build alignment with people who may have different perspectives, needs for research, and information processing styles
• Translate research insights into actionable design direction
• Participate in all design consultancy phases, from research to strategy and prototyping
• Have opportunities for travel, collaboration, and research across Europe and beyond.
• Actively participate in IDEO's London hub, and contribute to building community and expertise around your design craft across the studio.

We’re looking for someone with:

• 3-5 years of research experience culminating in your confidence and ability to lead research (including scoping) within a multidisciplinary team
• Demonstrated inspiration by people: the ability and passion to uncover both explicit and tacit needs, dig into motivations, and be able to synthesise, recognize patterns, and make sense of complex inputs to deliver directional insight
• Demonstrated ability to translate and apply insights to inform creative design solutions and/or strategic decision-making
• Innate curiosity, and a passion for telling compelling human stories.
• Ability and comfort to adapt or pivot when an approach needs to change
• Experience working in several sectors, industries, or a complex multi-stakeholder context
• Experience running research in different markets and languages
• Experience managing participant recruitment or recruiting directly yourself

If you are aqualitativeresearcher:

• Experience drawing from a wide variety of qualitative research methodologies, such as: conducting one-on-one interviews, ethnographic-style fieldwork, moderating group conversations, running live prototyping sessions, facilitating co-design workshops, engaging participants remotely and via unmoderated platforms

If you are amixed methodsresearcher:

• Ability to design, build and analyse surveys and tell stories about the data
• Experience of testing value proposition/concept/prototype desirability and viability
• Confidence using core qualitative methods (e.g. depth interviews) and tools
• Ability to analyse secondary data sets from diverse sources
• Experience of collaborating with quantitative specialists or experts (e.g. data scientists)

It’s a bonus if you:

• Have experience in inclusive design, participatory methods or working with marginalised groups and communities
• Can develop frameworks and visually express insights
• Have experience bringing new products, services or experiences to launch
• Are fluent in 2+ languages
• Have leveraged AI tools & emerging tech in the research process
• Are confident to facilitate workshops

What does IDEO offer you?

• Innovation and creativity:Dive into a variety of projects from creating breakthrough products and solutions, to designing new customer experiences, to building innovation capabilities – working alongside talented individuals across disciplines.
• Learning and growth:Whether it's leading projects, enhancing your design and research skills, or exploring new technologies, we're here to support your journey.
• Community and well-being:Collaboration and community are central to what we do. We foster moments for creativity, connection, and reflection, respecting the need for work-life balance.
• Projects with purpose:We partner with clients to use design as a means of realising their purpose and making a positive impact. We work ‘upstream,’ from defining the problem, designing possible solutions, and exploringwhat,whyandhowthey might be brought to life.
• Compensation:£50,000-£60,000 GBP
• Location:This position is based out of our London studio with a hybrid working model.

Please note that the successful candidate must be based in the UK and have the unrestricted right to work in the UK. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer sponsorship for this role. IDEO proudly supports flexible work.

Commitment to Diversity:
At IDEO, we are committed to the work of advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion within our organisation and in the world. Our purpose of having disproportionate, world-changing impact through design is directly connected to our ability to bring many different perspectives to the table. This applies to our candidates, the people we hire, the clients and customers we serve, and the communities we learn from in our research.

Application requirements and instructions:

• CV:please highlight experiences related to the ‘We’re looking for someone with’ and ‘It’s a bonus if you’ sections above
• Cover letter:please share why you are interested in this role and how it aligns with how you are looking to grow in your career.
• Work examples(confidentiality permitting): please include two projects you’ve worked on in a research capacity. Please use this as a way to showcase your communication skills. In your work examples, focus on:
  • The challenge you were trying to solve
  • The industry you were working in
  • Your specific role on the project
  • The research approach and methods you used
  • Some of your key learnings, or insights
  • The impact of your research findings on design or business strategies

We know that many of you are coming from fields outside of design – for example you may have a background in anthropology, sociology, psychology, journalism, community organising, user research, market research etc. We think of design very broadly! So, include examples of products, services, programs, businesses, organisations, or other experiences to which your research has contributed.

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