Inside Facit Digital – or: What it means to work as a Senior Consultant

From now on employees of Facit Digital will be introduced under the heading "Inside Facit Digital" at regular intervals. In the interview they describe how they came to Facit Digital, what they deal with on a daily basis and what is special for them about their work in user experience research. Making a start: 

Florian Völkl, Senior Consultant

1. what exactly is your job as a research consultant about?

As a consultant I am responsible for the implementation of our client projects. As a rule, I supervise the projects from start to finish. This starts with the preparation and calculation of offers and ends with a presentation of the study results. In between: project management, test design, defining target group criteria, interviewing respondents, evaluating the survey and creating an appealing report - of course always in close cooperation with the client and together with colleagues from our team.

2. what are you currently working on, for example?

I have just completed a project for a client from the financial sector who is planning a new app. We were consulted here at an early "development stage" and tested a first, still quite rudimentary prototype with our test persons.

The exciting thing was to uncover fundamental problems and usage hurdles already at this stage and to advise the customer accordingly for further development. The customer was happy because he got a first impression of the target group's opinion long before the release and knows where the most serious "construction sites" are. For example, it became clear to him not to pursue a feature that is very difficult to program - this was not well received by our test users. I'm already looking forward to the new version of the app, which we will be testing again in the next few weeks.

3 What do you like most about your job as a research consultant at Facit Digital?

To stay with the example just mentioned: The project ended with a workshop with the client. We discussed the findings from the tests, whereby we traditionally take on the role of the "advocate of the users", and together we looked for strategies and ideas for further development. We went back and forth quite intensively, but in the end we came up with a concept that convinced everyone that both business interests were protected and the requirements for a great user experience were met. Working closely with the customer and exchanging controversial ideas on a level of trust are always great experiences - and produce the best output.

In general, the variety in my job is a big plus. Even within each project, there are a wide variety of tasks, but you also have to deal with new customers from a wide range of industries and, accordingly, with new topics and questions. And because we deal with digital products and services, you're always on the ball when it comes to current developments and trends - it never gets boring.

4. have you always wanted to become a UX Consultant?

During my studies I quickly realized that I would like to work in market research. Admittedly, it wasn't planned to work as a UX Consultant, dealing with digital products and user research. But it was not by chance, because I've always been very interested in everything to do with the Internet and smartphones, and if family and friends have something to explain about it, I'm always the first person to contact.

5. what did you do before you joined Facit Digital?

I worked in classical market research for a few years and dealt with consumer goods. This involved frozen pizza, crisps, chocolate, cheese, whiskey and toilet paper, as well as product range optimization or taste and packaging tests. These were exciting projects, and the fact that products were often left over after the tests and distributed among employees was of course not uninteresting either.

6. how did it come about that you applied to Facit Digital?

It was simply time for a new professional challenge. I wanted to stay in market research, but at the same time I wanted to "plough" new topics and methods. I then came across a job advertisement from Facit Digital and I thought that at that moment it might be just the right thing for me. That's what happened.

7. Is this how you imagined your everyday life before you started working here?

As I had already worked in a market research institute before and had also carried out ad hoc projects, I could well imagine it. I was positively surprised by the good atmosphere and the flat hierarchies both here at Facit Digital