A large healthcare client has a need to update their internally facing enterprise software to enable employees to better find cost savings on bulk medical supplies.
MY ROLE
What was the ask for a UX Researcher on this engagement?
This client had many product teams working on different features of one product offering at one time. They were operating in a code fast, fail fast mentality. My role was brought in to standardize research practices at a high level between multiple teams so that they could validate their concepts before development and facilitate discussions on feature priority.
METHODOLOGIES
At what point in the product lifecycle is user research the most effective?
Research can be helpful at any point in the product lifecycle! Methodology is usually dictated by what you are trying to learn about your product. It was my job in this engagement to educate my client on the different research methodologies available to them and which would be the best fir for where they were in the process.
For those that were just starting out I would lead them down a more generative research path where we would focus on user's attitude towards a certain subject. If there was already a concept in place that's when we would use methods that focused on behavioral evaluation of the user.
RESEARCH LIFECYCLE
How can a product team expect to engage with a UX Researcher in a sustainable and repeatable format?
I shared this typical timeline with each of my product teams so they could understand what steps are involved in the research life cycle. This timeline was a high level way for teams to understand what happens from the point where they engage me all the way to sharing final research results with the team.
ORGANIZATIONAL ARTIFACTS
What templates can be shared with the products teams to standardize the UX Research process?
When attempting to implement a standard process between several product teams I found it was crucial to maintain organizational documents that were also transparent to the product teams.
Research Intake Form
I set up a research intake form that required Product Owners to have thought through basic questions that I would need answered in order to conduct a research study. Having Product owners come to the table with basic research questions answered allowed us to spend more time discussing what they hoped to learn from the study so that I could better help them achieve their product goals.
Study Tracking Schedule
Once I had set up a way to receive new research requests I then put together a spreadsheet to track when tests could be accomplished. This allowed me to be transparent with the amount of studies I was conducting and when I could have studies scheduled to be completed. This document is immensely helpful when talking through priorities for different teams and how they could adjust to get the most pressing research needs addressed first.
Research Cadence
Another artifact I refined was a schedule of how long the typical research cycle would take. This was an effective tool for sharing the invisible tasks that go into preparing for a great study. It allowed me yo justify why I needed the time I requested to complete studies and what the product team's level of involvement was at each step.
