Establishing UX Research Strategy

The Research

Since I was tasked with introducing user research into this team's processes, it was important that I gather baseline data to demonstrate improvement over time as new designs are rolled out. For this, I conducted:

• Moderated usability testing interviews to deeply understand users' mental models and gather qualitative data
• Unmoderated usability testing to observe uninterrupted behavior and gain quantitative data

This mixed methods approach gave us a great foundation to build our knowledge base of the “why” behind the user survey data and NPS scores. I can now conduct these same tests at regular intervals to ensure that UX is tracking in a positive direction and to understand what changes the team can make to improve it.

In this first round of testing, I zeroed in on pain points in the user journey and made concrete recommendations for how to change the user interface (UI), functionality, information architecture, and copy to help more users successfully complete their tasks. I delivered my actionable findings to the team in an engaging presentation that elevated our consumers' voices and generated excitement for this continuous research framework.

The Results

UX research is now embedded into web team processes. Establishing this research framework has empowered the team to make regular improvements grounded in user feedback.

When the actionable recommendations from my first study were incorporated into new designs, I re-ran the test to compare how the new UI performed compared to the baseline. The design built based on my recommendations saw improvement in multiple quantitative measures including time on task, confidence, ease, clicks, and NPS, as well as garnered positive qualitative feedback in the form of verbatims that I shared back to the team.