What are the most important factors in choosing a service provider?
Bar graph showing communication, reliability & trust, and service progress tracking as the top three factors
List of opportunities that arose from the study insights
What are the most important factors in choosing a service provider?
Foundational Discovery to Drive Revenue
Project: Discover what drives clients to select a service provider for a new service vertical
Problem: Newly acquired company was unaccustomed to serving the luxury market. Clients were entrenched with their preferred service providers
Solution: Identified service "attach" drivers, collaborated with product, sales, and service delivery teams to determine how best to execute. Redesigned feedback instruments to drive actionable data into these teams.
Methods: In-depth interviews, multi-role workflow mapping, service gap analysis, design and content collaboration, data analysis and survey instrumentation
Impact: Increased revenue in the short-term with acquired provider, eventually resulted in a shift away from M&A to deliver via a digital service partner exchange, enabling luxury providers to opt-in to platform.
How might we save time, effort and expense?
A list of learnings
A list of opportunities that resulted from this study
How might we save time, effort and expense?
How Might Users Save Time, Effort, and Expense?
Project: Foundational discovery into saving time, effort and expense in service delivery through digital platform development.
Problem: Integrate existing technological process into an existing digital platform to incorporate a multi-variate service, engaging many parties, into a complex workflow. Digital product team needed to understand how to create platform efficiencies to drive improved service delivery and increased revenue.
Solution: Identified breakdowns in time, effort, and expense. Collaborated on potential solutions to each with attention to regulatory risk. Insights revealed challenges in integration efficiency, information architecture, and usage maturity. Proposed solutions for information transfer across multi-variate workflow. Identified disjointedness in integrated digital ecosystem.
Methods: Roundtable discussions, contextual observation & inquiry, workflow and information mapping
Impact: Created digital service tracking functionality, integrated into existing platform. Identified possible expansion of fledgling revenue stream - now in high growth mode. Built awareness around risk potential.
Workplace Utilization Project
Project: Workplace utilization study focused on use of shared space.
Problem: Company needed to know their utilization of shared spaces including conference rooms, break rooms, and hoteling spaces.
Solution: Data showed under-utilization of large conference space and a greater need for small meeting rooms and/or hoteling stations. Company was able to reallocate space thereby reducing their monthly capital outlay while providing employees the spaces they needed to work collaboratively and efficiently.
Methods: Workplace utilization research, stakeholder interviews, targeted activity analysis, data analysis, data visualization
Site Redesign & Brand Update
Project: Update a text-heavy, older styled website for online readability and better delivery of brand message.
Problem: The current website was built in the early 2000’s and all updates were built upon the original styling. Content was primarily text. IA was layers deep. Analytics showed very few views beyond the highest level pages.
Solution: Define message architecture and style guide. Wireframe in response to team’s ideas and ideate until a design is agreed upon. Design graphic elements to replace text and wrangle content and implement system of content governance. Support site build.
Methods: Message architecture, style guide, and persona development, content audit, content strategy, content governance, site blueprint and site mapping, wireframing, sketching and ideation
(Architectural renderings done by teammates)
User Journey Study
Project: Research to open opportunities into a new specialty area for the firm.
Problem: The firm was presented with an RFP for a new project in a closely related discipline, but one they had not yet serviced. The goals were to answer the RFP, to be invited to interview and to win the project.
Solution: Reviewed prior related project work, drew parallels with relevant detail and made it to the next round. Demonstrated significant knowledge of this specialty discipline, common user needs and concerns, and how the firm’s prior project work could be applied to win the project. Project stakeholders connected to our user-centered focus and we won the project.
Methods: Competitive analysis, secondary user-research, process mapping, on-site observation, design charrettes, presentation to project stakeholders
(Architectural renderings completed by teammates)
Viability Study for Redesign
Project: Determine the viability of adapting existing built space for use as a medical treatment facility.
Problem: Determine whether or not a building scheduled for demolition could be re-purposed. Included both the physical and functional program needs.
Solution: Conducted site visits and user interviews in similar facilities within the county. Validated necessary “staff to patient” and “service area to patient” ratios. Working collaboratively with designer and medical planner, (for code requirements,) defined the functional program and presented plan options for consideration to client and county project stakeholders
Methods: User interviews, site observations, job shadowing, stakeholder interviews, programmatic research, iterative design
Voice Interface - Perception vs Satisfaction
Project: Determine the correlation between users’ perceptions of and satisfaction with voice command technologies.
Problem: Confirm or contest the hypothesis that users’ perceptions and expectations of voice command technologies has a correlated impact on their satisfaction with and adoption of voice interfaces.
Solution: Conduct a multi-phase user research study to discover how users' perceptions affect their satisfaction level with Voice Command Technology
Methods: Literature review, user observation, user interviews, diary study, user surveys, results analysis, video analysis, video highlight selection and production, graduate research approval and acceptance, mainstream publication of findings
Publication: UXmatters.com article June 2015
Usability Study into Customer Behavior
Project: Conduct User Research to address Hotelier’s business goals for in-app and online performance.
Problem: Customers are starting the reservation process by searching for available rooms, but abandoning the process before completing their reservation. Hotelier wants to understand customer behaviors.
Solution: Conduct user research, including user interviews, to better understand customers’ behaviors. Present findings and recommend next steps.
Methods: User interviews, analysis, and presentation, including highlight video production
Design for an Underserved Market
Project: Design the Information Architecture for new online retail site.
Problem: Identify underserved markets and determine how the site might be built around their needs.
Solution: Define the needs of the underserved markets through user interviews, persona development and tree test analysis. Develop a site structure that addresses those needs.
Methods: User interviews, audience profile definition, persona development, click-test analysis, tree-jack analysis, IA design, wireframe development.