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Consumer Researcher

About the Role

We are looking for a passionate user experience researcher who can take on a semi-embedded role with one our studios. By semi-embedded we mean that 3-4 days a week you will work side by side with studio leads, producers, designers, engineers, artists and product managers informing game feature roadmaps, usability and the overall player experience. You will go deep on one to two products as the sole researcher on those products while also affecting the entire Glu portfolio through cross-product research projects in collaboration with a central user research team.

Ideally, you will have a variety of mixed-methods approaches in your toolkit. Most importantly, you are excited to dig in to the audiences, affordances and economies of the mobile free to play market.

What you will do in this role:

• Report applicable insights to game development teams that inform product decisions and game designs
• Play the games in development and contribute to design discussions and feedback sessions
• Collect and report on qualitative or quantitative data from playtests, diary studies, surveys or data from other games user research methods
• Analyze large data sets of player behavior
• Lead the full life-cycle of research projects from study design to data reporting to following up with teams on how they are acting on the insights
• Moderate playtest sessions, conduct focus groups and manage diary studies
• Write and code efficient surveys that tap in to both the Glu audience and outside audiences
• Be willing to set up equipment for studies (web cam, streaming media, audio, installing builds on devices)
• Keep track of budgets and product roadmaps alongside studio leads
• Conduct heuristic or expert evaluations of competitor titles
• Communicate with various Glu departments, such as legal, customer service, user acquisition, and analytics for the purpose of research

What you need for this role:

• 2+ years' experience leading user experience research projects in the gaming or mobile app space, or equivalent relevant experience
• BA, BS, MS, MBA, MFA or PhD in Computer Science, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, HCI, Human Factors, Design, Media Studies, Interactive Design, Game Design, Symbolic Systems, Entertainment Technology, Digital Culture or related field
• Ability to visualize data in unique ways, present evidence and make recommendations to development teams (i.e. PowerPoint, Keynote or other infographic tool)
• Strong data manipulation skills (i.e. Excel, R, SPSS)
• Have interest in games, game design and free to play economies for a wide variety of genres including fashion, time management, FPS and sports
• Passion for helping teams create the best possible player experiences by informing great design with great data
• Interest in exploring cutting edge methodologies or applying research methodologies from other fields to the evaluation of games
• Bonus background in one of the above: statistics, market research, quantitative research methods, design strategy, prototype testing, product validation
• Bonus skillsets: Tableau, R, SQL, light scripting
• Experience as a leader on multiple user research, game design theory, human factors, psychology, or participatory design project in an academic or industry setting.