Alumni Spotlight: Jessica Tan, MS

Class of 2016 - Developer Experience Researcher at Google

After I graduated from the MS program, I transitioned to a User Experience (UX) Research Assistant role, contracting for Google. During that time, I supported Senior UX Researchers in their day-to-day activities, which included: recruiting study participants, assisting in writing study plans/ protocols, taking notes during study sessions, assisting with analysis and reporting.

After a year, I landed a full time UX Researcher role at Google. My day-to-day job consists of writing applied research plans/protocols, reviewing them with key stakeholders, conducting research sessions, analyzing data and creating reports to share back to key stakeholders. I primarily use qualitative applied research methodologies, such as user interviews or usability sessions, but also have experience with more quantitative methods such as surveys and log analysis.

The MS program at Palo Alto University contributed to my career by giving a strong foundation of knowledge in experimental research methods, statistics and clinical interviewing. I have been able to use these areas of knowledge in my day-to-day work as a UX Researcher through analyzing qualitative and quantitative user data as well as during user interviews. The MS program also taught me how to balance multiple projects at once, since I was attending the MS program while working full time."