This case study showcases work that was done on a freelance basis. The company name and some sensitive information have been omitted.

Challenge: In-depth user research was not conducted for the MVP version of the platform. The stakeholder saw a need to explore what could be gained from doing focused research on the platform’s ideal users.

My approach: Conduct interviews with users who met the demographics of a proto-persona that had been previously developed. I also considered the stakeholder’s goals and business needs when selecting interview participants and creating the interview discussion guide.

Jump to a section in this case study!

Research: Explore & Empathize - user interviews, affinity map, and research report

Research: Identify & Humanize - persona and journey map

Conclusion & Communication

Explore & Empathize

User Interviews

I began the research phase by collecting and analyzing qualitative data from user interviews. Conducting interviews with the platform’s ideal users served as a great way to better understand the experiences, motivations, and pain points that users in the company's defined user demographics are facing. This information would also help me understand if the current product helps to meet the needs of that demographic. 

I created a discussion guide with questions that would guide my remote interviews. I asked questions related to a variety of topics such as:

• Goal setting

• Task tracking

• Cross-functional project planning

• Motivation

• Team communication

After each interview was conducted I watched the recording and fleshed out my notes. From my notes, I transcribed the data from all of the interviews onto digital sticky notes so that I could start affinity mapping.

Below is an image of the four largest categories or themes that I found when sorting through the interview data.

Affinity mapping helped me sort over 130 pieces of data, and form insights that reflected the user needs, motivations, and pain points.

Research Report

A slide deck was a visual and digestible way to communicate my research finds to the stakeholder.

Click through the deck below to see interviewee demographics, insights related to each theme, and recommended next steps.

Identify & Humanize

Persona

Lena is the human face of the user research I conducted. She serves as a representation of who the learning and development platform needs to serve, and who to consider when updating and adding new features to the product.

Journey Map

After defining the primary persona I was interested in diving deeper into the platform. I was curious to know how a user would experience it and what challenges they would face. I created a current state journey map to get a better understanding of how each of the major touch points was experienced.

The major things I discovered were that there was a need for:

• Clearer more descriptive language throughout the platform

• Tooltips or some type of onboarding for first-time users

Conclusion & Communication

Throughout each stage of this project, it was important to stay in close communication with the stakeholder, who was the founder and my main point of contact. Before I took on this project I made sure to have a clear understanding of their expectations and needs. In our discovery call, I asked clarifying questions such as:

• What do you want to find out about potential users?

• What are your most pertinent business goals?

• What would success look like for this project?

The user research I conducted and the subsequent insights and deliverables that were created gave the stakeholder a data-backed understanding of their ideal users. It also pinpointed areas of the current product that could be improved to better serve the user.

Here is what they said about my work,

“Excellent work, thoroughness, communication and execution. What more can you ask for? I was able to outline our needs with Sara and she was able to implement her impactful research process with no check-ins needed. She actually provided more insight than we asked for. Above and beyond shall be applauded.”