ResearchOps: Development of a UXR Playbook
Background + Problem
Every year, the company I worked for retained student-interns for approximately eight months. In partnership with universities, students complete end-to-end research, from planning to storytelling. For this project, I provided mentorship, and education, as well as hands-on research.
As part of a larger initiative to decipher “Design Maturity,” the purpose of this research was to survey the landscape among Researchers and Service Designers. Its goal was to understand the current state of practice on the ground. Additionally, we aimed to concept test a potential resource for practitioners.
This project focused internally, on a large Design function within a multinational company. Specifically, it focused on Designers working in the Discovery business unit.
Approach
To understand the lay-of-the-land among my fellow practitioners, I chose in-depth, one hour long interviews focused on learning about their roles and their practice. As part of the interviews, we also sought to understand desirability for a practitioner playbook (guiding one through their work with best practices, methodological heuristics). I chose to use qualitative concept testing with a lo-fi prototype — literally a mocked-up Word document.
As our research continued and we learned there was in fact desirability for such a resource, our approach also included usability testing once a higher-fidelity prototype was developed.
Team structure
On this project I was the lead Researcher, leading a Master-level intern. I interacted with other practitioners, implementing research at first, then handing it over to the student on the team. While at first I presented ideas to leadership, I also turned over this responsibility. I learned quickly I could set up frameworks for my team member under which she could diligently work.
Findings + Impact
A reminder that this project was part of a larger Design Maturity effort, just the first step. And as such its purpose was to understand the current landscape among practitioners and their desire for a potential playbook resource. Also, because the details of outcomes are confidential, I’ll address findings at a high-level:
From interviews we learned about the barriers that affect both organization culture and organizational processes, which in turn affect design quality.
The usability test informed us about multiple changes including:
A name change to the overall resource: should be more inclusive.
Navigational changes were needed to provide location context.
Layout changes like banner reduction and color blocking were used to create order and make information more readable.
Discussion guide
Prototype used in usability testing