Discovery research and wireframing for a new IT software
Burak Dogramaci
Overview 🔎
An IT software company was considering launching a new feature for a cloud service that IT professionals use to manage clients’ computers remotely. They wanted to validate the feature request, explore possible unmet needs from customers, and include the right functionalities in the next update to ensure customer satisfaction.
They contacted me to plan and run a user interview study, report our findings, and create wireframes along with the user flow of the feature before committing their development budget.
Deliverables 📦
Information Architecture
User Interviews
Research Analysis
User Flows
Lo-Fi Wireframes
Research Report Presentation
Process 🛣
I facilitated at least 30-minute conversations with real customers of the software product, gathering audio recordings and research notes. I discussed their expectations, how they use the current product, their day-to-day job experience, and their work environment to discover unmet needs, understand how the new feature could improve their workflow, and identify possible opportunities for future exploration.
Socialising research insights 🗣️
After the data-gathering process, I started analyzing and categorizing the data using user research tools. I prepared a presentation deck to share our findings with the stakeholders and presented our insights during a playback session. The next step was to use these insights to create user flows and wireframes for the feature they wanted to build.I analyzed the current navigation and user flows of their software to streamline the process and designed wireframes to assist their development teams.
Wireframing and design deliverables 🖥️
For a quick developer handoff, I provided wireframes that aligned with their internal design framework to communicate design decisions easily and accommodate their limited development budget.
Wireflows proposed as a result of our research
Results 📈
Through my research and analysis, I helped the client identify quick wins, allowing them to reprioritize their roadmap and deliver more value to their customers swiftly. One key takeaway from the research was the critical importance of reports in IT software, highlighting the necessity for robust reporting features. The discovery research validated the need for the new updater feature, demonstrating its potential to significantly improve IT managers' workflows. This evidence helped project stakeholders secure budget approval from their decision-makers.
As a result, the client has prioritized the development of a new reporting feature, which is currently being built, while the updater feature remains on the roadmap for future implementation.
Additionally, I shared a well-organized research operations kit after the project, providing the client with a comprehensive guide to streamline future research initiatives.
From Mark Wu Head of UX @Avast:
Burak engaged the right stakeholders and understood the context to enable a quick start on understanding the problem and begin suggesting solutions. He was attentive, personable, professional and knowledgable. Well-organised with great communication, Burak was able to round off the research and move into UX Design processes whilst keeping the team informed. He eventually developed a dev-ready project and still offered to provide support, proving his customer centric approach applies not just to his UX work but with the teams and clients he works with. I have no hesitation in recommending Burak!
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Posted May 10, 2023
How can you use discovery research and strategic UX design to get insights, validation and direction from customers and get buy-in from internal stakeholders
