This project is confidential, so I can only share a broad overview here. Please don't hesitate to connect, and I'd be happy to discuss the design process in greater depth
Overview
Objective
Discover the needs of our target group of users and test if and how our UI designs could help them solve their problems.
Role
UX researcher. Setting up the user research, analysing the results, sharing them within the organisation.
Methods
In-person user interviews, online user interviews, affinity mapping
Tools
Figma, Teams, sketchbook/notebook, Dovetail
01
How
Arrange interviews
We got some help from the product managers in arranging interview candidates, as we needed to do quite a lot of interviews in a short time frame. In the beginning we had some struggles with making sure we got unbiased candidates, as the project was very confidential and we got referred to a lot of candidates who were close to the company. In the end we managed to sort it out by showing how important it is to have unbiased candidates.
02
Perform interviews
We did the interviews with a semi-structured approach. We had a list of questions we wanted to have answers to, but let the conversation flow naturally and asked in-depth questions when needed. Of course we made sure to have answers to all our original questions when the interview was done. At the end we showed the user a UI prototype, let them explore it, and gave them some tasks. This way we could figure out what they expected, what they needed in an app and if the app could satisfy their needs.
03
Collect & analyse data
All the interview notes were collected in Dovetail. As we did more online interviews for this research, we also included the recordings and literal transcriptions of each interview. The notes were tagged and we used an affinity map to categorise all highlights.
04
Share insights
To share the insights we created a research report. This was shared with senior management who took it to the board of investors. This report outlined the research methods, the pains & gains of each type of user, the positive & negative comments we got when presenting users with the UI prototype, suggestions by users and the design team's recommendations.
Results
Reflection
♟️ Despite encountering internal political challenges, our team navigated constraints to ensure comprehensive user research. While initially limited to UI-level testing due to circumstances, we proactively expanded our efforts to validate the application's value proposition. Although we encountered obstacles within the organisation, our strategic approach allowed us to persist and achieve valuable insights through this extended research process.
💡 Even though our research strongly indicated that the user needs were not being met by the application, there was a strong bias within the organisation to keep the project going. Luckily the board of investors was interested in doing more user research, as it was their money on the line. This extra research finally convinced them to pull the plug, and this saved the company a lot of money. The research also indicated some previously undiscovered user needs that could be met with a future application.
What I learned
☀️ Research is about finding out the truth, even if it's inconvenient for an organisation or higher-ups. If I had to do it over, I would have pushed hard for validating the value proposition right at the beginning of the project, and I would have regarded that as a strict condition for me to keep working on the project.
🛡️ Sticking to the truth, being transparent and doing your work well keeps you out of harms way when political games are being played. People will notice and defend you.
✨ The political struggles prevented any meaningful development of the application, but it improved the quality of the research results. We had to make sure our research data was water-tight and very detailed, we had to clearly document and explain every one of our methods and processes and we had to defend it.