User Experience Researcher With Gender Focus Viamo

• Viamo’s 3 year grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) falls squarely in two of the three Bodies of Work within the BMGFs Gender Equality Division's Digital Connectivity Learning Agenda: (1) Action-oriented User Research; and (2) Gender-Intentional Tool and Platform Development.
• Viamo has access to a unique and growing data set to uncover key preferences and experiences for how women and girls engage with mobile and digital to improve their health and livelihoods. Viamo is also a powerful platform already leveraged by many international development and global health organizations and improvements on the platform will provide a unique opportunity to scale to millions of women and girls.
• BMGF’s funding comes from three program strategy teams; the Gender Equality Team, Family Planning and Neglected Tropical Diseases. These teams are aiming to leverage Viamo Platform’s unique ability to reach the ‘under-connected’ or otherwise difficult to reach populations - including women and girls - through their mobile device, in their own language, and irrespective of their literacy levels.
• Viamo will conduct quantitative analysis of our current users and qualitative field research of our current and potential users and to develop a strategy that identifies women’s and girls' needs and barriers for activation and behavior change. Based on the research findings, Viamo will conduct UX experiments on the Platform in three countries: Mali, Nigeria and Uganda.

Key Responsibilities
Gender-focused responsibilities for the Gates Investment:

• By analysis of the Platform and supporting qualitative field research, with a gender lens, review and study the contexts in which we are operating, the unique obstacles and barriers for women and girls to digital connectivity and suggest ways in which the Platform could better reach, serve, and engage with women and girls so that their engagements on the Platform are meaningful and could lead to real life outcomes for women and girls.
• Develop a research-driven gender strategy that identifies women’s and girls' needs and barriers for activation and behavior change, enablers to digital connectivity and participation on the Platform throughout the stages from becoming aware of the Platform to becoming an avid user
• Suggest quantitative data exploration related to understanding the behavior of women and girls on the Platform and help interpret the data applying the gender expertise
• Support research partners within the project to develop indicators for measuring outcomes to women’s and girl’s lives as a result of meaningful engagement with the Platform and support this research
• Propose UX and content improvements to support meaningful engagement of the Platform by women and girls.

General Responsibilities:

• Collaborate with user experience researchers on multi-country research activities
• Help design and execute research plans, and create the guides & tools necessary for the researcher activities
• Independently plan and conduct qualitative mixed-methods research activities in regards to the Platform, e.g. travel to meet users, run co-design workshops, conduct user research and usability tests
• Ensure all qualitative research is tagged & analyzed in Dovetail, Viamo’s Research Repository
• Synthesize research findings and create high quality, relevant, revealing, and inspiring artifacts (personas, journey maps, presentations, written reports, etc.)
• Translate user insights into actions and recommendations to help shape directions of our Platform
• Communicate research insights and artifacts to a diverse audience and represent the Platform user perspective based on research findings
• Facilitate workshops to brainstorm ideas & design solutions based on the research findings
• Train & support in-country Viamo staff that have little UX research experience to help conduct research

Team and Reporting Structure:

• Reports to Head of UX Research

Requirements

• At least 5+ years of experience as a user experience researcher in an applied research setting applying various user experience research methods and techniques (e.g. usability studies, field research)
• Relevant experience in conducting research, developing strategies demonstrating analytical ability, analyzing qualitative data and preparing sets of recommendations
• Experience in qualitative and quantitative gender related research and analysis, including extensive experience in dealing with gender equality issues
• Knowledge of current thinking and development in the field of gender equality, women’s empowerment and digital connectivity
• Experience in user experience research of a mobile IVR-based Platform
• Experience in synthesizing and sharing research findings
• Knowledge of effective advocacy and communication techniques for advancing gender equality (achieving buy-in and ownership)
• Business fluency in English if based in Nigeria or Uganda or French if based in Mali and of at command of least one local language
• Experience living and working in Africa, preferably in Nigeria, Mali and Uganda

Desirable:

• Experience with Dovetail or similar research repositories
• Master's Degree in Anthropology, Human Factors, Psychology, HCI/Computer Science, a related field, or equivalent practical experience
• Experience building the capacity of others to conduct user experience research
• Ability to speak several local languages and French