5 Lessons I Learned as a UX Researcher at a Fortune 500 Company
I have been working as a UX researcher at a Fortune 500 company with a small and capable UX team in an agile software development environment. I develop, conduct, and analyze qualitative and quantitative UX research studies. I would like to summarize my experience thus far into five lessons I have learned here.
Lesson #1: Usability benchmarking is priceless
Usability research that benchmarks your digital experience against competitors resonates deeply with stakeholders. When this information is presented well, not only does it help stakeholders see where we stand in the industry but also provides context for suggested recommendations. Allowing them to see the whole picture leads to better UX decisions.
Along with gathering rich qualitative data on what contributes to a positive experience, I also gather a quantitative measure called the system usability scale (SUS). This allows me to measure perceived usability and compare it with those of competitors. My approach to conducting this type of a competitive assessment begins with identifying the areas I want to conduct testing on. For example, if I am testing the experience of a homeowner browsing shingles, I may want to test the following categories across all competitors:
- Findability: How easy/difficult is it to find the [company name]’s roofing website?
- Location: How easy/difficult is it to browse shingles sold in my area?
- Compare: How easy/difficult is it to compare shingles I like?
After that, I write tasks that allow for apples-to-apples comparison across all competitor websites in each of the areas I previously identified. Depending on the type of research, I write screener questions to limit participants to only those who closely match our user base, which in this case would be homeowners currently in the market for shingles. Each participant would interact with only one of the websites. After completing the tasks, they would answer the SUS questionnaire to rate their experience on the website.
The SUS metric made comparing and benchmarking easy to present to stakeholders and helped them visualize where we stood in the industry. The success of this type of research gave rise to requests for more competitive usability assessments and could also be applied to different business segments such as insulation. Click here to read a case study of one of my usability assessment projects.
Lesson #2: Be a strategic screener
When conducting unmoderated user research, I often use tools like UserTesting.com and Optimal Workshop. These kinds of user testing tools are great when it comes to gathering rich qualitative data on a target audience that you are able to easily screen with a few simple questions. The drawback of using these tools is that many of the participants you reach may be professional test takers who take usability tests for a living. In such situations, good screener questions are essential to ensure you are reaching a participant pool that is most similar to your user base.
When writing screener questions, I try to write them in such a way that testers will not be able to anticipate which answers would qualify them to take the test in the event that he/she was not from our intended target audience. For example, if I want to target only current homeowners, I would not directly ask if they own a house. Instead, I would give them a list of options and ask them to select the one that best describes their current living situation. The options would range from renting an apartment to sharing a dorm room. Only participants selecting the true homeowner selection would qualify.
Lesson #3: Not everyone knows UX
As a UX professional we constantly live in an environment where we live, breathe, and consume UX. Sometimes we get so caught up in our world of empathy and design thinking that we forget not everybody lives in the same world. Many times we have to work with people from different teams/departments and sometimes we even have to collaborate with them on user research projects. Things that we may take as common knowledge may be completely foreign to people who are from different worlds. As a UX professional it is your job to be empathetic towards them and take this as an opportunity to enlighten them.
Once I was conducting a moderated usability testing session on a prototype in its initial stage of design. A couple customer support professionals were playing the role of the moderator while I observed and took notes. One of the cons of moderated sessions is that, instead of letting the participant go through the task (which sometimes means watching them struggle so that you can uncover any flaws of the design), the moderator helps out the participant and tells them what to do. This leads to biased results. After the first testing session, I realized my mistake of not preparing the moderators with usability testing best practices. As customer support professionals, it was in their nature to help out the customer and guide them. After that session, I always make sure to set out some time to make sure all parties involved in user testing are well-prepared beforehand.
Lesson #4: Stakeholders don’t always know what they want
Much like what we say about users, sometimes stakeholders are not able to clearly articulate or understand their own needs. It takes some digging into to understand what is triggering them to reach out to the UX team and what needs they want to address.
I remember a time when I was in a meeting with stakeholders that were very eager to conduct user research. They were throwing out all kinds of different ideas; each idea was a research study of its own. Their desired objectives were unclear. Leaving the meeting a little overwhelmed, I translated the ideas mentioned in the meeting into research questions and specific objective(s) each question targeted. I shared this with the stakeholders for feedback to get a sense of what objectives they wanted to accomplish. Allowing them to see the objectives each study targeted and letting them decide which were most important to them was very effective in gaining clarity of what problem stakeholders wanted to solve.
Lesson #5: Be proactive in applying the results of your research
Presenting research findings effectively may be the most challenging and rewarding part of my work. Never underestimate the use of charts and graphs to convey information. Furthermore, I always include a recommendation section in my research reports/presentations. For each problem point that I uncover from my research, I offer solutions to address it. Synthesizing your research and presenting findings as actionable recommendations is essential.
Your research is only as important as the outcome it brings about. You have to be proactive in reaching out to different team members and ensure your research is correctly interpreted and included in the product development process. We had biweekly meetings with members from design and development departments to discuss research insights for projects in the upcoming sprint.
Overall, I found these five lessons to be extremely important during my experience here. As I continue to apply these lessons to my work, I hope to learn more and improve at my craft. I would love to learn more from you. What are some lessons you have learned as a UX professional? Leave a comment below or reach out to me on social media.
