User Experience Researcher

Job Description

The User Experience (UX) Researcher within Technology-enhanced Learning and Online Strategies (TLOS) works in the domains of user research, evaluation, and service design. This role seeks evidence-based insights that help shape Virginia Tech’s digital learning environment to best support instructors’ success and improve learning outcomes for Virginia Tech students. The UX Researcher achieves these goals by translating findings from user research into data-based insights and actionable recommendations across TLOS’s four mission-focused areas: instructional tools and environments, faculty digital fluency, accessible technologies and universal design for learning (UDL), and course and program design. Complementing their focus on research, the UX Researcher helps gauge impact by assisting with the design and data collection for evaluations of teaching and learning technologies, services, and programs. This role also facilitates design of new services and improvement of existing services to advance teaching and learning using service design principles and methods.

As a member of the Digital Learning Innovation group, the UX Researcher strives for a balanced, holistic view informed by a deep understanding of faculty, student, and employee needs combined with knowledge of institutional priorities, organizational capabilities, emerging tools and technologies, and Virginia Tech’s digital learning ecosystem. Synthesizing these multiple dimensions into evidence-based insights, the UX Researcher develops practical recommendations that guide strategic decision-making.

Core Responsibilities:
- Lead user research initiatives from design through delivery—including study design, participant recruitment, data collection, analysis, and synthesis into actionable recommendations that inform decision making and improve services.
- Create and maintain user experience artifacts, such as personas and journey maps that accurately represent stakeholder perceptions and experiences with digital teaching and learning tools.
- Partner with TLOS teams and instructional faculty to design and implement evaluations for services, technology pilots, and programs, providing both evaluation guidance and hands-on assistance with data collection.
- Translate findings from user research or evaluations into clear communications through reports, presentations, and visual materials that highlight user needs and drive decision-making.
- Apply service design principles and methods to improve new and existing services, providing both facilitation, consultation, and methodology expertise.

Required Qualifications

- Bachelor’s degree in a discipline that draws on qualitative research methods, data analysis, technical communication, user experience research, or related analytics and research skills, plus working experience applying some of these skills.
- Demonstrated success designing, recruiting for, and conducting user research to answer a research question or inform a decision.
- Substantial experience carrying out qualitative research interviews, focus groups, surveys, and other qualitative research methods.
- Experience with quantitative or mixed-methods research and analysis.
- Demonstrated experience communicating user research findings and recommendations to stakeholders.
- Experience creating visualizations of user processes, workflows, or journey steps.
- Demonstrated success in effective stakeholder engagement, including facilitating team and/or user group sessions to brainstorm, ideate, or explore solutions.

Preferred Qualifications

- Master’s degree in a relevant field.
- Experience applying UX research or service design in higher education or educational technology contexts.
- Experience designing and conducting evaluations for services, projects, or programs.
- Strong understanding of service design principles or experience with service design methods.
- Professional training or certification in UX research, service design, or design thinking.
- Experience with learning management systems, especially Canvas, and other academic technology platforms.

Overtime Status

Exempt: Not eligible for overtime

Appointment Type

Regular

Salary Information

$70,000 - $85,000

Hours per week

40

Review Date

November 28, 2025

Additional Information

The successful candidate will be required to have a criminal conviction check.

About Virginia Tech

Dedicated to its motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve), Virginia Tech pushes the boundaries of knowledge by taking a hands-on, transdisciplinary approach to preparing scholars to be leaders and problem-solvers. A comprehensive land-grant institution that enhances the quality of life in Virginia and throughout the world, Virginia Tech is an dedicated to knowledge, discovery, and creativity. The university offers more than 280 majors to a diverse enrollment of more than 36,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students in eight , a , a college, , and . The university has a significant presence across Virginia, including Blacksburg, the greater Washington, D.C. area, the Health Sciences and Technology Campus in Roanoke, sites in Newport News and Richmond, and numerous and . A leading global research institution, Virginia Tech conducts more than $650 million in research annually.

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