Research SaaS Start-Up

Challenge

Although this organization was focused on researchers, they had never had a dedicated researcher in their organization. Therefore, there were two key challenges that had to be considered in this project:

• Create a baseline understanding of the research ecosystem (researchers, stakeholders, decision makers, influencers) that could be leveraged for future product decisions.

• Change perceptions on existing assumptions and domain knowledge about researchers within the organization.

Impact

• Personas, user journey and user needs created a shared understanding that helped prioritize product strategy outcomes.

• Outcomes catalyzed creation of 2021 product strategy to incorporate desirability (personas, journey), feasibility and viability (needs)

• Shared language helped reframe assumptions on existing knowledge and increased empathy and understanding for the full researcher ecosystem.

• Ensured that 2021 product initiatives had focus to ensure highest impact to product and customer base.

Solution

• Foundational exploratory research with 45 different users across the research ecosystem

• Defined user needs, personas and user journey to create a shared understanding of outcomes

• 350+ atomic insights created to be leveraged for future research and product activities

• Incorporated outcomes into Notion for reusability and reference across knowledge base

• Co-design and prioritization of potential solutions with team

• Ensured all team members joined at least two research sessions to build stronger empathy for different users within the ecosystem

Role

• User research lead on interviews, synthesis and outcome creation

• Research operations, including creation of customer recruitment panel (400+ users), scheduling and incentive management

• Support design in concept creation and ideation

• Product manager proxy in product strategy development to ensure that customer needs were advocated through prioritization decisions