COMPANY X
Creating successful UX processes in conservative organisations
PROBLEM SPACE
Stakeholders of Company X created a new, exciting product. This product had a launch date and needed digital accompaniment. The challenge was discovering what this digital accompaniment could be and how to make it successful and bring value to the users whilst operating conservative outlooks inhouse.
I joined six people cross-functional team to create a new to-the-market digital accompaniment in Company’s X conservative industry.
OUTCOMES
I ran the discovery phase of a multi-million new-to-the-market launch project. I was trusted to lead user research, data analysis, user testing, and vendor & stakeholder management. With the team, we achieved tremendous progress:
I negotiated vendor contracts and managed 3rd party relationships, which helped to speed up first discovery and user testing.
I planned, designed and led UX research, which helped us understand the key personas' needs.
I tested a number of prototypes with 2 key markets to find the optimal features.
With the engineering team, we built the product based on the previously underutilised but rich data available at Company X.
ROLE
Lead UX Researcher & UX Designer
INFLUENCE
Company-wide
Industry changing
TEAM
UI Designer
Front-end engineer
Back-end engineer
Data scientist
Project Manager
DURATION
2020 December - 2021 October (11 months)
LONG STORY SHORT
Background
Many companies have massive, valuable, rich data sources at their disposal.. but sometimes they need help understanding how best to use that information.
Similarly, stakeholders of Company X had fantastic but underutilised data resources. They also had a product launch scheduled for 2022. But there was a problem - how to build a user-friendly product based on data that has great potential but has not been used in this innovative way?
Is there anything that you can do with rich but under-utilised data?
A conservative challenge 👀
Be prepared to think outside the box 📦
After the initial project kick-off, it became clear that regulations would challenge starting and running user research in-house.
Nevertheless, problems like that serve as a disguise for creative solutions. In order to solve this problem, I advised partnering up with vendors in order to get access to the end-users. After initial internal negotiations, I got the green light. It was a great win! 3rd party providers guaranteed the needed anonymity, and in turn, we were able to interview and get the gold dust from the user insights.
After 1530 minutes of user interviews and ±860 post-it notes, I managed to discover 3 important findings👇🏽
Agile user testing sessions
Once the first prototypes were completed, I then tested them multiple times with 26+ users in 2 different markets ✨
The findings were incredibly insightful:
The primary feature of the website, which we thought would be a hit, was useful only for the curious users, who represented a fracture of the user group. The majority of the users wanted to access the data straight away.
The majority of users wanted information to be grouped into specific categories (we displayed that data individually).
We also discovered that the interaction with this tool would happen a couple of times a month, which then helped us to create appropriate success metrics.
Feedback from user testing was inspiring
It was uplifting to hear users say: “When is this platform going to be available? I want to use it in my department.”
OUTCOMES
Negotiated vendor contracts and managed 3rd party relationships, which helped to speed up discovery and user testing.
Tested and verified final prototype.
Built the product based on the previously under-utilised but rich data available at the Company X.
Company X operates in a confidential and conservative industry. Once the website gets publicly published, I will post the link to it here.
Final thoughts to take away.
It all begins with an idea. All good ideas need to be verified. User research helps to do so. Without checking the initial idea with the primary users, we would have built a product that the users don't need. Luckily, with the cross-functional team of 6, we found a middle ground between the business and the users' needs (and delivered it exceeding all expectations!).