Almaty Management University has launched an educational module "UX-Research"

The AlmaU School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, together with the Design Thinking Center (Asia), will introduce AlmaU students to tools for organizing CX / UX research and help them develop analytical skills and competencies that are in demand on the market.

The experimental educational module "UX Research" is available to 2nd and 3rd year students of the university of all specialties and schools (faculties) in the second semester of study. There will be no standard lectures and seminars in the program: training is based on active doing - within the safe environment of the design workshop, it will not be scary to make mistakes.

The speakers of the module were experts in the field of user-oriented product development: UX or UX research team leaders Dinara Abdildinova from Kolesa Group, Samal Karimova from Kaspi.kz, Valeria Kostyuchenko from CenterCredit Bank, CX development team leaders Aliya Orumbayeva from DAR and Renata Khafizova from inDrive, product owners Dmitry Vatyutov from V.Tech and Sabina Amanov from Citix, product designer Yaroslav Samoilov from Halyk Bank, UX writer Efrat Garaev from Tele2 and Altel, and UX researchers Alua Nurakhan from Kolesa Group and Eli Beksultan from Design Thinking Center, Asia.

— LinkedIn analysts note that jobs and job responsibilities change even if a person does not change jobs. Developing and improving skills has become the key to staying competitive, says Ksenia Yuzhaninova-Karadenizli, Executive Director of the Almaty Management University School of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. — By launching this educational module, we wanted students to be ready for real projects and challenges of the modern product and service development cycle.

In general, customer and user experience research (CX/UX research) focuses on learning what customers and users really want. In the workshops, students will learn the basic methods for studying user experience, go through the phases of Discover (Identification), Explore (Study), Test (Testing), Listen (Listening), and also complete a research project based on a real brief of the customer company.

In addition, the module involves getting to know other members of the product team — a UX writer, a UX/UI designer, a developer, and a product owner, as well as excursions to leading Kazakh companies.

“By studying the labor market in Kazakhstan, we can replace the fact that often a UX designer in a company also plays the role of a UX researcher,” said Eli Beksultan, Managing Director of Design Thinking Center, Asia. But the main goal of a UX designer is to develop a product based on the ideas provided by the UX researcher and members of the product team. It is very important for these specialists to work closely with each other.

Product teams and companies in general in Kazakhstan will be increasingly transformed, putting their customer and user first. And rightly so: according to Deloitte, personalized service is the most important factor in determining customer satisfaction. In this context, the educational module "UX Research" seems to be especially relevant: it will help accelerate the process of building customer-centricity in Kazakhstani companies.