User Research at a Conference: Lessons Learned
I started my first new job in 8.5 years, at a new company, in a new country, to design a new product focused on helping people find jobs and companies they will love. Feels kind of meta, given that I had only really looked for a new job 3 times in the last 10 years. But I had just moved to the Bay area from Calgary, AB Canada where the job market is very different. I wanted to understand the people (job seekers, recruiters, hiring managers) their different motivations, contexts, delights and pain points.
Glassdoor has loads of existing research reports to review, ongoing usability studies to observe, journey maps, personas etc. But nothing beats talking to people first hand. Curiosity is such an integral part of design. Some of my best design nuggets have come from more open insight-driven research, uncovering nuances and helping to paint a more complete picture of the gap(s) a product is meant to fill. My last design team called these listening labs.
Shortly after starting I learned that Glassdoor’s Recruit conference was coming up and it would be a great opportunity to engage with attendees for future product insight/feedback. This conference is a huge event for talent acquisition & HR professionals looking to sharpen their hiring strategies to help their companies win, with exclusive content covering how to recruit the best people to fuel business success now and long into the future. A conference filled with the exact people we are designing for — YES!
Product research at a conference has a unique set of parameters. It is different from catching travelers in an airport (be prepared for loads of rejection), employees in a lunchroom (requires creative approaches to get people to engage), or scripted usability tests (you have a predetermined amount of time and generally less distractions).
We knew we would need to prepare a few things to engage participants and start the conversation.
What we prepared:
We would have 5–15 min for a quick conversation. That is not a lot of time. So we needed something to help focus our conversation. We created a 2 screen prototype in InVision to get some initial insight and feedback.
We prepared a script “talking guide” and a place to capture notes and some basic details about the participant. Our plan was to have a note-taker and an interviewer for each session. Our head of product was presenting during the conference and would be demoing the future of Glassdoor and finishing by inviting participants to stop by our product lab. We also had a form available to capture contact details from anyone who would be interested in future product testing/insight.
What actually happened:
The morning, as people arrived, was pretty slow. Our product lab was located right next to the conference space which was the optimal location for the rest of the day but meant that people didn’t really see us or know about us until after they attended their first session. Our luck changed when Glassdoor Head of Product, Annie Pearl, demoed the future of Glassdoor and invited participants to stop by our product lab. We were overwhelmed with interested and curious attendees! Our plan to work in pairs was pretty quickly scrapped. We generally took some notes between sessions on our trusty and now very important clipboards. We also commandeered a colleague to greet interested participants, capture any initial feedback, and take down their contact info if they were interested in future product feedback sessions.
We thought lunch would be our best opportunity to get insight but it proved to be one of our slowest times. People were using it to catch up on their email. However, we did manage to get some insight from people in the lunch line.
What we will do next time (recommendations):
- Maximize the short breaks between sessions.
Small increments of time between each session means a deluge of people all at once. I recommend dedicating someone to triage — taking names and helping gather initial info (if there is something the attendee wants to share or are excited to talk about) and one person available to answer basic product questions. - Get creative.
We now know that buffet lines are a great time to saddle up to someone and capture some quick insight. In the future, we’ll find ways to engage people in the morning when they first arrive. We can also tap into them in other ways at lunch, such as encouraging them to stop by afterwards as they enter the room. - Invite people to engage.
Annie Pearl’s shoutout was a luxury and something we might not have at another conference, but it had a huge impact so we will look for other ways to create a similar outcome.
What did we get out of it and was it worth it?
We spoke to approximately 30 people. We were able to validate our product direction, design approach and identified different priorities for different audiences. We captured some feedback on labels, the steps in our user flow, and the interface. We also walked away with a list of highly engaged users who were keen to be involved in future product testing.
In the end, I was surprised how many of the attendees were excited to talk to us. With this unique audience, we had people who were already engaged in our product and were curious about the future, being the ideal user testing ground. Research at this event ended up being highly valuable and we’ll be putting our lessons learned into play at the 2020 Glassdoor Recruit event.
