Natalie Crook

"I feel that I can relate to each of the personality types I was given and each of them add to a certain point of the work I currently do.Coordinator: I can definitely relate to this personality type as I am an avid organiser! I love to have my calendar planned each day and always have a list of things I need to do! I have found that this skill is helpful in bringing people together and pushing forward to make sure work is done to a good quality and on time!Investigator: To be a user researcher you need to be curious and good at solving problems, being able to investigate a user need and work with a team to come up with different design executions to see which one works best.Trainer: It is one of my main jobs to understand problems, help solve them and then explain them to other people in a way that makes sense to them. We have to understand that we all work in different ways and I think this personality type is one that I connect with the most in my day to day role."

"The main things I do are usability testing, using eye tracking technology or quantitative surveys to get feedback on designs, working with designers and developer to solve problems and come up with new ideas of how to do things and making sure the feedback from our users is heard within the business.A starting salary for a junior user research ranges from £19,000-25,000 depending on experience. Although this is a well paid industry and salaries increase significantly with experience."

"My career as a User Researcher stemmed from a computing course that I did while at secondary school (although I didn't know it at the time). Since then I have worked in lots of different roles from waitressing whilst at college to being a sales assistant whilst in my first year at university. Although, I would say it was my job as a Residential Advisor that really helped me gain the people skills that I use in my day to day life now. Whilst working as a residential advisor I was taught about mental health awareness and how to listen to people in order to help and support them.I started my degree on a web development course and although I loved studying coding it wasn't for me. Luckily for me I was introduced to UX (User experience) and realised that I could still have a key role within the design and development of products and websites while using the skills I had picked up throughout my life and use them to help people as listening and empathising are two of the many skills you need as a user researcher."

"During my spare time I love to travel to new places. I love researching to find unique and interesting places to visit, whether that be in the UK or abroad."

"I spend my day working with designers and developers. It's my job to talk to the users of our website and listen to their feedback to make sure our website and the products we build meet their needs.I use research tools like eye tracking glasses, which help me see where users are looking on the screen to help us build better user interfaces or research tools like UserZoom that allow me to get quick feedback from users so we can learn from them and make changes if needed.Recently I have been working on a project to make it easier for people to understand whether the car they are looking to buy is good value for money. This is something that is really important to car buyers and we wanted to make it as easy as possible for them to make a decision of which car to buy."

"After secondary school I went to college and studied BTEC ICT and received a Triple Distinction. I chose to do a BTEC as I was never very good at exams.After college I went and studied a Bachelor of Science Degree in Digital Media & Communications from Manchester Metropolitan University and received a 2:1 I started off my degree in Web Development and switched to Digital Media once I found my passion for UX."