Working in an R&D organization, as a UX designer
This post is a personal opinion on my experience of working in an R&D organization.
Some Background
I used to work for a company where it was well known for its speed in releasing new features and apps. And after a few years I moved to the research and development unit owned by the parent company.
I initially joined the R&D company with the expectations of working on similar products in an environment that allotted more time and resources to a better user experience.
My assumptions seemed true initially. The company was investing its resources in upcoming technology and research. But as my time there progressed, I started feeling frustrated at the pace of things and noticed the clear differences from my past job, especially in terms of the capacities of the company to design and create products.
Although the problems I experienced may be specific to the company I was working for, I felt that they could be something more inherent and deeply rooted in R&D ogranizations and I wanted to organize my thoughts here in this post.
A caveat while reading this is that I am not an engineer and this is my personal opinion based on my experiences of working in a specific R&D company.
What I’ve Noticed So Far (in less than a year)
R&D is a slow and arduous process
If you remember from High School, the level of effort and time required for getting an A+ from an A is drastically higher than any other grade level increase.
I think it’s similar in R&D. To create something that is non-existent, untested and cutting edge, the level of resources and time needed is higher than creating a portfolio of light games or utility apps.
R&D is not only dependent on able engineers and researchers but also on the flow of investment in the industry, technological advancement in the field and the availability of suppliers for the individual solutions necessary for the next phase of progress. This difficulty makes the pipeline slower than organizations that create services on a fully developed and standardized platform (i.e. mobile apps).
The slow nature of some of these projects was frustrating for me, especially with service design experience, as I can only wait until the details of a piece of technology are defined. Even after designing various scenarios and conducting different user research, actual development and implementation as a product is another hurdle in itself.
Dependent on buyers to see the light of day
Many R&D organizations are essentially B2B companies, selling technological solutions to companies with products in the market. Consequently, many of the projects you may be working on are dependent on buyers to result in any form of user interaction.
Most of the time, the user-side implementation and designs are handled by the buyer according to their individual needs. The only form of design that can be performed within such an R&D organization is to create a design guideline for the buyers or to help ideate interesting use cases.
Due to this reason, many projects don’t really need to be designed for continued use by real end-users. There may be cases where a seemingly finished product is designed, however, the purpose is more to help buyers envision the technology’s potential or use it as a reference. As a result, if you are a designer who wants to create something with real interaction with users, it may not be a good fit to work for an R&D organization.
Supportive marketing role of designers
As described above, there is a high chance for designers to have no product to actually design, and if that’s the case, sometimes they end up having to support the organization by creating marketing content to help potential clients envision the application of the technology. Such marketing content may include videos, demo apps, and various visual presentations.
Although it‘s unfortunate that you may have to spend your time designing marketing material, it’s also one of the only sure ways to create something that gains any exposure to the public.
Focus on technological advancement
For an R&D company composed of engineers and researchers with a strong academic background, I think it’s common for the organization to be focused more on research than creating a product with market success.
Unlike my experiences with my past employer, in my current organization, many people never think about the market demand or competitiveness of a project they are working on. Even if the costs of the solution are unreasonably high or is unfeasible, research is continued for the sake of technological advancement. Even if the progress made is incremental and slow, that in itself is of major importance and value.
I am not saying that an organization focusing on its intended role to do research and develop cutting edge technology is wrong, but that maybe it could be smarter from a market standpoint. And personally for me, aligning to the objectives and goals of researchers was a difficult process, especially with my background in service planning and design. (Although the point above may seem obvious, I didn’t know it before I joined the company)
Important Branding Effect
I often heard people half jokingly say that the role of the company was to make the parent company seem more technologically advanced. I don’t think anybody can deny that branding effect, especially when various stakeholders and people in the public do get excited by the company’s projects.
However, this effect can become a problem when creating the wow factor becomes the objective of a project. It can lead to decisions that lower the priority of addressing fundamental user needs or creating effective solutions and instead focus on creating something exciting.
Although I am not in the position to determine whether our company is going down that path, I sense a lot of people’s skepticism around the company’s core purpose in perspective of its ownership by the parent company.
In Summary
- R&D is a Slow and Arduous Process
Very long wait before being able to consider design - Dependent on Buyers to See Light of Day
Limited control on end-user design and release - Supportive Role of Designers
May end up creating marketing content if there is no product to design - Focus on Technological Advancement
Focus is often not on user experience, design or money - Important Branding Effect
The wow-factor is sometimes a higher priority
My Plans for the Time Being
I initially joined the company after I was offered a position to work in the UX team to create a service for public use with the company’s resources and technology. And I was extremely excited by the opportunity to work in a new organization that spent more time on creating better user experiences and solutions.
However, after half a year, I started growing impatient at the pace of things and the surprisingly limited interaction with users. It was also difficult for me to work in an R&D organization, as not everybody was on board with creating a user service. And finally a lot of organizational and strategic changes were made during my time in the company that made the role of UX designers less relevant.
With all of the issues above, I planned to move back to my former employer, regardless of the strenuous working environment, because I wanted to work on something that had interaction with real users and a focus on UX design.
However, I ended up cancelling my plans last minute because I realized that there were still many things that I could only learn and gain from the current environment I was in (it’s not all bad, it definitely has its benefits).
So for now, I’m trying to find a more fundamental way in which I can contribute to my current project. And I am also trying to become a more patient UX designer and focus on developing my skills in user research and research based design.
Best of luck, to me and whoever else is reading this.
