UX Research: Best Career for an Enneagram Type 9?

Are you an Enneagram Type 9 trying to figure out what you want to do for a living? Have you googled something along the lines of “enneagram type 9 careers” and taken a peek at different lists of careers that are supposedly well-suited to this personality type? I have. And I’d like to submit a career for your consideration that I haven’t yet seen on any Enneagram Type 9 job list: UX Research.

Let me start off by saying that I’m biased here. I’m an Enneagram Type 9 (or “Nine”) who is also a UX Researcher. Life many people, I struggled with figuring out what I wanted to do in terms of career. I’ve tried many different jobs and none of them felt completely right until I found my current role.

Among the different jobs I’ve had before were also a couple different UX Research roles. These roles never felt completely right and it’s because they didn’t let me use my strengths fully: either because I was part of an organization with poor leadership that didn’t know what it was doing, or because I was spending too much time on adjacent tasks of the UX Research process and not on the tasks that let me use my strengths. The ideal UX Research role isn’t just the title and responsibilities but also things like the people you work with, whether the role is in line with your values, and yes, money. However, knowing if you even want to be a UX Researcher is a step in the right direction.

I believe that UX Research could be an ideal career for a Nine because their strengths allow them to excel at what UX Researchers need to be good at: empathy. Nines’ superpower is empathy and UX Research requires a great deal of empathy for the user.

More specifically:

1. Nines have a calming, grounded, peaceful presence that puts participants at ease and allows them to open up during user interviews. This calming presence is also a useful asset for project management: setting up and seeing a project through from start to finish. All types of things come up during interviews and projects, and when things go wrong, a Nine’s grounding quality helps keep things on track.

2. Nines are understanding:

“Nines are able to listen to differences and understand multiple perspectives, with a great skill in synthesis and finding. Nines are empathetic, unbiased, and can find patterns.”

This quote is taken directly from a description of the Enneagram Type 9, and it also perfectly captures what a UX Researcher does on a project: they listen to research participants, analyze their findings to generate insights, and present these insights in a report.

3. Nines are supportive and will advocate for the user.

What happens after the user interviews, the analysis, and report? UX Researchers need to present their findings to internal stakeholders or clients. Just because the research is complete doesn’t necessarily mean that change will come from it. A presentation is an opportunity for the Nine to advocate for the users they spoke to.

Think of it like this: you do a bunch of research and you find out that users have difficulty doing something. It leads to frustration and the interview with you was the user’s chance to be heard by someone who could make a difference. Advocating for others is something that Nines shine at and they can do that by communicating their findings to those that can make changes and improve the user experience.

Find out more about UX Research here.

Find out more about the Enneagram here.

Or just like, Google them.

Reach out to me if you want to see the chart I put together mapping Enneagram Type 9 strengths to each phase of the UX Research process (because we UX Researchers do love a good chart).