Welcome to another UX New Zealand 2019 speaker interview. In the lead up to the conference (which is just around the corner!), we’re catching up with the people who’ll be sharing their stories with you in October.

Today, we chat to product design managers Sophie Taylor (ST) and Julie Jeon (JJ).

Thanks for taking the time to talk to me Sophie and Julie. Let’s start off with your history. How did you get started? What originally got you into product design?

JJ: It was a surprise! Throughout my time at university, I was gearing up to become a book/publication designer. After a sequence of unanticipated events, I found myself working at Trade Me on the mobile apps. I had a pretty solid plan around what I’d do after my studies at the time but it was the first unplanned decision I made, probably in my whole life, and I’m really glad I took this path. In hindsight, a lot of things I’d think about when designing a book (like how a reader would interact and navigate through the book and presenting the information clearly) were all very relevant to product design. I was also a big stats nerd during school, and I was happy I could revive that through the measure and learn approach you’d take working in product.

ST: My pathway to design was via some pretty nasty homemade cards. You know the ones; all three primary colors and too much glitter? As a kid, I couldn't get enough of the stuff, and despite the questionable taste of my creations, I was captivated by the process of making things. As I grew up this stuck with me. When I landed at university I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do and it was in the design department where I found I could learn about an endless range of topics while solving problems and making things. That in combination with a computer science paper landed me squarely in the digital world and that is where I have been ever since.

Can you speak to product design at Xero? How has it evolved in the time that you’ve been there? How do you see it changing?

ST and JJ: As the company has grown, so has the size and number of teams we are working with. Going from collaborating with a few people to a whole room of people has changed our approach. We’ve adapted and made new ways to share knowledge and work together as a bigger team, from plain old documentation, to sessions that focus on improving the design process and how to best work with development teams as designers.

Julie – You say you aspire to be a good coach to others. How does this manifest in your day-to-day?

JJ: For me, it’s been about spending time with people to encourage but mainly to listen. It goes for the talented and smart designers I’ve had the pleasure of working with, but also with the development teams and product people. I don’t think I approach people with an intent to ‘coach’ them, it’s more about working and getting better together as a team or discipline.

Julie – What are you passionate about outside of your day-to-day in product design?

JJ: In my spare time I exchange letters to my pen pals who are scattered all around the world from Tokyo, San Francisco to Toronto and more. It’s a privilege to be able to be a part of and get a glimpse into the various life stages that my friends are at. I’m also very much obsessed with my small indoor garden and making sure my kitten doesn’t eat any of it.

Sophie – Working at both TradeMe and Xero you’ve worked in two of the biggest tech companies in Wellington. How do they differ?

ST: I think the main thing is the subject matter, both were fascinating dives into domains with very different users. It was such an amazing opportunity at Trade Me to work on a local product that so many of our family and friends use and care about. At Xero it has been a real treat getting work on a global product and all of the challenges that come along with that.

Sophie – You’re a self-described tinkerer. What do you like to tinker with?

ST: I like a good project, anything from our vege garden, house renovations through to a fiber optic light dress my friend Lisa and I made for the LUX light festival a few years back.

What do you think is the single biggest challenge for multidisciplinary teams?

ST and JJ: Finding productive ways to solve problems together from start to finish is a big challenge which requires a lot of thinking ahead and preparation. But when it happens, it’s well worth the effort. Coming to agreement around what’s most valuable to solve first, making sure everyone is getting the opportunity to be part of the process to define the solution, deciding what to ship and evaluating if it actually solves the problem are some of the things that benefit from teams working together on. All of these steps need to be done in a way that’s right for the team to get the best outcome.

What do you think is the biggest mistake that organizations make when assembling multidisciplinary teams?

ST and JJ: It can be really difficult for a team if they don’t have a shared purpose. When a team is clear on the problem they are faced with, they can figure out a way to solve it that makes the best use of the strengths of the team, as well as the individuals within it. If a shared purpose is the foundation, a team with diverse perspectives ensures there are a wide range of ideas, approaches and risks identified during the process. This is more than just different disciplines too – this could be things like personality and working style as well as gender, age, and ethnicity.

Favorite thing about living in Wellington?

JJ: The easy access to nature is my favourite thing about Wellington. There’s always a hilly walk nearby, whether you’re in the city or out in the suburbs. I live near Wrights Hill out in Karori, so we’re always in the company of tūī and kākā out in our garden.

ST: Mine too! We are so lucky to live in a city where just down the road there are a number of beautiful walks to choose from. I am also a big fan of food and here in Wellington we are spoilt for choice.

Thanks for your time both, and see you at UXNZ!

UX New Zealand is just around the corner. Whether you're new to UX or a seasoned professional, you'll gain valuable insights and inspiration - and have fun along the way! Learn more on the UXNZ website.

There has been a flurry of new faces in the Optimal Workshop office since the beginning of the year, myself included! One of the more recent additions is Andy (not to be confused with our CEO Andrew) who has stepped into the role of product manager. I caught up with Andy to hear about how he’s making use of OptimalSort to fast-track the process of prioritizing product improvements.

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I was also keen to learn more about how he ensures our users are at the forefront throughout the prioritization process.Only a few weeks in, it’s no surprise that the current challenges of the product manager role are quite different to what they’ll be in a year or two. Aside from learning all he can about Optimal Workshop and our suite of tools, Andy says that the greatest task he currently faces is prioritizing the infinite list of things that we could do. There's certainly no shortage of high value ideas!

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Product improvement prioritization: a plethora of methods

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So, what’s the best approach for prioritization, especially when everything is brand new to you? Andy says that despite his experience working with a variety of people and different techniques, he’s found that there’s no single, perfect answer. Factors that could favor a particular technique over another range from company strategy, type of product or project, team structure, and time constraints. Just to illustrate the range of potential approaches, this guide by Daniel Zacarias, a freelance product management consultant, discusses no less than 20 popular product prioritization techniques! Above all, a product manager should never make decisions in isolation; you can only be successful if you bring in experts on the business direction and the technical considerations — and of course your users!

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Fact-packed prioritization with card sorting

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For his first pass at tackling the lengthy list of improvements, Andy settled on running a prioritization exercise in OptimalSort. As an added benefit, this gave him the chance to familiarize himself with one of Optimal Workshop’s tools from a user’s perspective.In preparation for the sort, Andy ran quick interviews with members across the Optimal Workshop team in order to understand what they saw as the top priority features. The Customer Success and User Research teams, in particular, were encouraged to contribute suggestions directly from the wealth of user feedback that they receive.

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From these suggestions, Andy eliminated any duplicates and created a list of 30 items that covered the top priority features. He then created a closed card sort with these items and asked the whole team to to rank cards as ‘Most important’, ‘Very important’, and ‘Important’. He also added the options ‘Not sure what these cards mean’ and ‘No opinion on these cards’.

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He provided descriptions to give a short explanation of each feature, and set the survey options so that participants were required to sort all cards. Although this is not compulsory for an internal prioritization sort such as this, particularly if your participants are motivated to provide feedback, it can ensure that you gather as much feedback as possible.

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The benefit of using OptimalSort to prioritize product improvements was that it allowed Andy to efficiently tap into the collective knowledge of the whole team. He admits that he could have approached the activity by running a series of more focussed, detailed meetings with key decision makers, but this wouldn’t have allowed him to engage the whole team and may have taken him longer to arrive at similar insights.

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Ranking the results of the prioritization sort 🥇

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Following an initial review of the prioritization sort results, there were some clear areas of agreement across the team. Topping the lot was implementing the improvements to Reframer that our research has identified as critical. Other clear priorities were increasing the functionality of Chalkmark and streamlining the process of upgrading surveys, so that users can carry this out themselves.Outside of this, the other priorities were not quite as evident. Andy decided to apply a two-tiered approach for ranking the sorted cards by including:

1. any card that was placed in the ‘Most important’ group by at least two people,
2. and any card whose weighted priority was 20 or greater. (He calculated the weighted priority by multiplying the total of each card placed in ‘Most important’, ‘Very important’ and ‘Important’ by four, two and one, respectively.)

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By applying the following criteria to the sort results, Andy was left with a solid list of 15 priority features to take forward. While there’s still more work to be done in terms of integrating these priorities into the product roadmap, the prioritization sort got Andy to the point where he could start having more useful conversations. In addition, he said the exercise gave him confidence in understanding the areas that need more investigation.

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Improving the process of prioritizing with card sorting 🃏

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Is there anything that we’d do differently when using card sorting for future prioritization exercises? For our next exercise, Andy recommended ensuring each card represented a feature of a similar size. For this initial sort, some cards described smaller, specific features, while others were larger and less well-defined, which meant it could be difficult to compare them side by side in terms of priority.

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Thinking back, a ‘Not important’ category could also have been useful. He had initially shied away from doing this, as each card had come from at least one team member’s top five priorities. Andy now recognizes this could have actually encouraged good debate if some team members thought a particular feature was a priority, whereas others ranked it as ‘Not important’.

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For the purposes of this sort, he didn’t make use of the card ranking feature which shows the order in which each participant sorted a card within a category. However, he thinks this would be invaluable if he was looking to carry out finer analysis for future prioritization sorts.

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Prioritizing with a public roadmap 🛣️

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While this initial prioritization sort included indirect user feedback via the Customer Success and User Research teams, it would also be invaluable to run a similar exercise with users themselves. In the longer-term, Andy mentioned he’d love to look into developing a customer-facing roadmap and voting system, similar to those run by companies such as Atlassian.

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"It’s a product manager’s dream to have a community of highly engaged users and for them to be able to view and directly feedback on the development pipeline. People then have visibility over the range of requests, can see how others’ receive their requests and can often answer each other’s questions," Andy explains.

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Have you ever used OptimalSort for a prioritization exercise? What other methods do you use to prioritize what needs to be done? Have you worked somewhere with a customer-facing product road map and how did this work for you? We’d love to learn about your ideas and experience, so leave us a comment below!

User research is vital to the product development process as it helps product teams understand their users' needs, behaviors, preferences, and pain points. By gathering insights from various research methods, such as user interviews, surveys, usability testing, and analytics data, product teams can make informed decisions based on evidence, rather than assumptions or personal opinions.

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A UX research repository is a centralized database that stores all user research conducted by a product team, making it easily accessible and shareable across the entire team. There are many benefits to having a UX research repository, such as saving time and resources, enabling data-driven decision-making, and keeping everyone on the product team informed about user needs and preferences.

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Specialized tools, like the Treejack tool, can make UX research easier, quicker, and more collaborative. In this article, we’ll discuss a bunch of tools and how they can (and should!) contribute to a centralized UX research repository.

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Why a UX Research Repository is Necessary for Product Teams

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A centralized UX research repository is a valuable asset for product teams to store and access research data related to user experience. It enables product managers and development teams to better understand their user's behavior, preferences, and expectations, which in turn enables them to make informed design and development decisions.

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One of the key benefits of UX research repositories, like the Reframer tool, is that it saves time and resources. By storing user research data in one central location, teams can easily access and reuse existing research data. This saves them from having to conduct the same research repeatedly, which can be a waste of precious time and resources. Additionally, a centralized UX research repository can help teams to identify gaps in their research and prioritize areas for future research.

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Another advantage of a UX research repository is that it facilitates collaboration across the entire team. With a central repository, research findings can be shared and discussed, enabling cross-functional collaboration. This promotes transparency and helps to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals. It also helps to avoid duplication of effort, as team members can easily see what others have done, and what is still required.

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Additionally, a UX research repository helps to ensure consistency in research practices. By defining research methodology, protocols, and use of prescribed specialized tools, product teams can collect data systematically and compare findings across different studies. This helps to ensure that the insights gained from user research are reliable and accurate, which in turn can be used to guide design decisions.

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The Benefits of a UX Research Repository for Product Managers

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A UX research repository helps product managers in several ways, including supporting informed product decisions, enhancing the user experience, and providing stakeholders with evidence-based research.

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One of the significant advantages of a UX research repository is that it provides product managers with a wealth of data to make informed product decisions. Through usability testing, user interviews, and first-click testing (check out the Chalkmark tool), product managers can gain insights into how users interact with their products, what they like and dislike, and how they use them. By storing all this data in a central repository, product managers can quickly access all research data, not just their own, to inform their decisions about product development and design.

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Another advantage of a UX research repository is that it helps to enhance user experience. Using video clips and other multimedia, product managers can share research findings with their team members and stakeholders, making it easier to understand user needs and preferences. This helps ensure that the product design is aligned with user needs, resulting in a better user experience.

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Finally, a UX research repository provides stakeholders with evidence-based research to support product decisions. By presenting research findings to stakeholders, product managers can confidently stand behind future recommendations and iterations. This evidence-based approach helps to demonstrate that decisions are grounded in data and not just intuition or opinion.

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The Role of Specialized Tools in UX Research

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Specialized tools are essential for conducting high-quality UX research as they provide User Researchers with powerful data collection, analysis, and visualization features. These tools are particularly useful for conducting usability testing, user interviews, and surveys, as they help researchers to gather reliable and accurate data from users. Integrating these specialized tools into a UX research repository can help product teams to streamline their research process and facilitate collaboration within the team.

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One such specialized tool is Treejack, which helps researchers to test the information architecture of a product or website. By using Treejack, researchers can review how users interact with navigation, site structure, and content, to ensure users can quickly and easily find the information they need. The results can then be stored in a UX research repository, allowing the team to access and analyze the data at any time.

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Chalkmark is another tool that can enhance the quality of research by providing heatmaps and click-density grids of user interactions. These interactions can be tested on mockups and wireframes. Chalkmark helps researchers to identify where users are clicking and which areas are receiving the most attention, providing valuable insights for product design. By integrating Chalkmark into a UX research repository, product teams can store and access the data, making it easier to share insights and collaborate on product development.

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Another useful tool is Reframer, which helps researchers to capture insights from user interviews and user testing sessions. Reframer enables researchers to record and transcribe interviews, tag key insights, and share findings with the team - acting as a functional research repository.

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The Role of User Interviews and Usability Testing in UX Research

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User interviews and usability testing are used in UX research to gather insights into user behavior, needs, and preferences. User interviews involve a one-on-one conversation between a User Researcher and a participant, where the researcher asks open-ended questions to understand the user's perspective. Usability testing, on the other hand, involves observing users as they interact with a product to identify usability issues.

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Specialized tools play a crucial role in conducting user interviews and usability testing efficiently and effectively. These tools can help with data collection, organization, and analysis, making the research process more streamlined and insightful.

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OptimalSort is a specialized tool that aids in conducting card sorting activities for usability testing. Card sorting involves asking users to organize concepts or items into categories to understand how they think about and categorize information. The OptimalSort tool enables researchers to conduct card sorting activities remotely and collect data on how participants group and label items. The tool also generates data visualizations and reports that can be added to the UX research repository for further analysis.

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Optimal Workshop’s Reframer tool, mentioned earlier, has been designed specifically to enable researchers to capture and organize interview data in real-time. Researchers can tag and categorize interview data, making it easier to analyze and identify patterns across participants. It then stores this information in a centralized location for all research insights.  Reframer also generates reports and data visualizations, making data efficient to share and analyze across teams.

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Conclusion

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A UX research repository empowers entire teams to make informed product decisions, enhance user experiences, and provide stakeholders with evidence-based research. They can also support awareness and participation in UX among senior leaders, encouraging further research. 

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Teams are increasingly using specialized tools like Treejack, Chalkmark, OptimalSort, and Reframer to conduct high-quality UX research as they provide powerful data collection, analysis, and visualization features. By using these tools together, product teams can streamline their research process and facilitate improved collaboration within the team. 

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Are you interested in the benefits of a UX research repository? Check out how Optimal Workshop’s specialized research tools can add value to not only the quality of your data, but how your team collects, analyzes, and shares the results!