Case Studies
Nov. 2022-April 2023
Understanding new customer segments
An e-commerce company created an internal-facing product to help operations managers better connect with their associates and was aiming to transition this product to their corporate population. They needed help understanding the perspectives and behaviors of corporate managers to inform the design and build of this new user experience and interface.
Research questions: What features do corporate managers want and need? How might we create a product that serves as the centralized tool for managers to track their interactions with their direct reports?
As the user researcher, I led the project’s qualitative and quantitative research efforts.
I conducted surveys (via Qualtrics), in-depth interviews, and a focus group to define managers’ perceptions of the product, identify existing pain points, and highlight opportunities to create a more delightful experience. Additionally, the in-depth interviews and focus groups explored managers’ philosophies around managing their teams and the approaches they take to connect with their direct reports.
*Participant recruitment was completed prior to my involvement in the study and consisted of corporate managers who opted-in to participate.
I defined the features and tools managers want and need to effectively perform their duties and uncovered the nuances that exist within their relationships with their direct reports. The research insights from this project informed the long-term product development roadmap and subsequently resulted in two additional research projects that uncovered additional product design and development opportunities for new customer segments.
Mar.-May 2022
Digital adult financial wellness
Financial wellness company that originate as a B2B service was aiming to branch into the B2C market and transform their offerings. Their current onboarding process had friction which prevented users from completing the process. They needed help creating a stickier onboarding experience and envisioning their future direction as a B2C company.
Research questions: How might we create an onboarding experience that users will convince users that our value is worth their time? How might we create an ecosystem that users want to engage with on a daily basis?
As the design researcher, I led the project’s qualitative research efforts.
I conducted in-depth interviews with current members and the client’s leadership team to define stakeholders’ perceptions of the product, existing pain points, and their wish lists. These interviews also explored how people perceived, earned, and behaved around money and their finances. I also helped facilitate a Design Sprint to create an onboarding prototype with the client. I recruited users (via userinterviews.com) and led high-fidelity prototype interviews. The prototype interviews involved iterative testing on the stickiness of the onboarding process and validated our hypotheses about future B2C features. These interviews also explored the users’ lives, their financial perspectives, and experiences with money.
I defined the target user persona for the B2C launch and identified what motivates them to use a digital tool for financial wellness. I helped ideate features that would keep these users actively engaged and inspired to share with their networks. We also identified target price points for membership tiers. The new, stickier onboarding experience was successfully launched and the clients’ product roadmap is designed around the user persona I defined and design team’s overall recommendations.
Nov. 2021-Feb. 2022
User experience for marketing data reporting
The marketing team at a Fortune 500 multinational banking service needed user experience research to improve their reporting processes so they could efficiently create credit card marketing campaigns. My team served as consultants to offer viable solutions, but the client’s engineers were responsible for building the digital tool.
Research question: How might we create a smoother user process that results in consistent reporting?
I was the design researcher and led initial in-depth interviews with key marketers and other stakeholders. I assisted with conducting expert interviews to understand the multi-level process of generating data reports as well as usability and user experience interviews to identify internal process flows, existing pain points, and wish lists.
We identified internal communication and software pain points that were the sources of the marketers’ woes. My team created a user flow diagram that denoted the origin points of data and traced their movement when reports are generated. We created a customized data governance plan specifically for the Marketing vertical.
May-Jun. 2021
Digital financial literacy & banking for kids/teens
A startup company hired my team to design and build their digital financial literacy/banking service. Their goal was to identify the key personas of kids/teens who would use their service and create sticky offerings that encouraged active use.
Research questions: How might we create a digital tool that teaches financial literacy without feeling like a course or lecture? How might we create an ecosystem that users want to engage with on a daily basis?
I was the design researcher and led the project’s qualitative research efforts. I recruited participants and conducted in-depth and low-fidelity prototype interviews with kids/teens and their parents. The in-depth interviews explored how the kids/teens best learned as well as how they earned, perceived, and behaved around money. I also delved into their parents’ financial ideologies and behaviors. The prototype interviews involved iterative testing to determine the stickiness and appeal of the hypothesized financial literacy and banking features. I participated in a truncated Design Sprint (1 day) with key stakeholders. Because the participants were minors, I took great care to ensure the project ethics were recognized and followed.
I helped define the target user personas for the app’s launch and identified what would motivate these young people to actively engage with the app. I also helped define what would motivate parents to purchase this digital tool for their children. The client designed their product around our deliverables and will launch their service in mid-2022.
2008-2020
International fieldwork
From 2008-2020, I designed, coordinated, and executed research projects in the Caribbean and Ethiopia. In these projects, I collected and synthesized data from informal, free-list, and in-depth interviews, as well as questionnaires, photo recognition tasks, focus groups, and ethnographic participant observation. These projects resulted in my master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation.
During this time, I also managed a projects funded by the National Science Foundation which entailed managing the finances and coordinating the logistics for international fieldwork teams, as well as mentoring junior researchers.