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Amber Dean

from working at McDonald's to Lead UX Researcher
I ensure software products meet users needs and optimise their experience
Industry
Technology and Digital
Company
Skedulo
Job Level
Senior
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Ask me about

  • Why technology needs people
  • What I did when I was unsure about my career after school
  • The field of user experience design and research

About me

  • International Experience

After leaving school with a vague ambition to work with people, I began a Bachelor of Arts but found it too broad. Transitioning to a more specialised Bachelor of Behavioural Science, I found my passion in organizational psychology and social science research. While at uni, I saw a casual “Research Assistant” role advertised in market research, knowing nothing about market research but knowing I had research skills, I applied, and got the job. After uni, despite aiming for organizational psychology roles, my research skills were in high demand in market research so stayed in this industry, working my way up to Account Director.

In my late-20s, I wanted to travel and work overseas, and landed a role in a Global Market research company in Brussels, Belgium. Managing information across Europe sparked my interest in Information Science, leading me to pursue a Graduate Diploma in this area. Learning concepts like “User Experience”, “Information Architecture”, and “Usability”, I returned to Australia eager to apply my newfound knowledge. Transitioning into the tech industry, I connected with a company specializing in this field, embarking on a journey to ensure websites and software solutions deliver optimal experiences for users. Since then, I’ve worked in a range of user experience research roles within agency, in-house and product companies.

About my role

  • Analytical
  • Creative
  • Flexible
  • Focused
  • Passionate

A User Experience Researcher is responsible for ensuring end users of a software are represented in the product design and development process in order to provide an optimal solution for them. They work alongside Product, Design and Technology roles to ensure customer-centric, evidence-based decisions are made throughout the process.

The following duties are common:

- Conducting interviews with users to understand their needs and pain points;

- Conducting surveys to assess customer satisfaction and gather customer feedback at scale;

- Usability testing of design prototypes or early stage product builds to ensure the software is usable;

- Interpreting analytics data and other types of data to inform product design and development decisions;

- Producing visual artefacts for Product & Design to help inform the overall Product strategy, such as user personas, journey maps, customer workflows.

Students Book Here

Education

  • Bachelor of Psychology (Honours in Organisational Psychology)
  • Graduate Certificate in Marketing
  • Graduate Diploma of Applied Science (Library and Information Management)

Subjects

  • Art
  • Biology
  • Chemistry
  • English
  • General Mathematics (Maths A)
  • History
  • Legal Studies
  • Music
  • Performing Arts
  • Science

Hobbies

  • Camping
  • Gardening
  • Reading
  • Seeing family and friends
  • Travel

Pets

  • 1 Dog

15 year old me!!

“You’ve got this! Stay in your own lane, focus on your skills & strengths, be resourceful, stop doubting yourself … and you will shine.”

My career journey

Curious to know how I got here? Here’s a snapshot of my career pathway.
  1. Didn't know what I wanted to do
  2. Pivoted my study to Bachelor of Behavioural Science
  3. First job in Market Research
  4. Worked overseas and studied Information Science
  5. Transitioned career to User Experience Researcher

My employer

In today’s world, deskless workers outnumber desk-based workers four-to-one. Skedulo creates cloud-based software to allow any company in any industry to schedule, manage, engage, and analyze their deskless workforce.