Summary

As a UX Researcher on the product design team, I played an active role in conducting user research and working with teams cross-functionally.

I designed a centralized research database, organized feature requests and design files, established best practices across multiple platforms, and managed multiple research plans simultaneously to meet both customer and team needs.

My major responsibilities included assisting the product team with feature enhancements, design validation, and advocating for design prioritization via data-driven insights and user research.

The Problem: Practice What Your SaaS Preaches

Spekit offers a solution that allows its users to be self-sufficient, productive, and empowered. But what happens when your internal teams are lost and experiencing a disconnect between cross-functional teams and collaboration? How do you improve the product team's workflow and get back to prioritizing the user? And more importantly, how do you future-proof it?

First, Centralize Your Research

Before I could kick off any research projects, I needed to tackle the challenge of organizing Spekit's customer feedback and requests into a new insights library.

This centralized hub hosted on Airtable would soon house thousands of items consisting of user contact information, feedback, feature requests, interview artifacts, and more, making it easily accessible and collaboration-friendly for more than just the product team.

Next, Redefine Your Best Practices

I was determined to improve product team collaboration, one platform at a time. By cleaning up and streamlining the team's collaboration platforms, such as Canny, Figma, and Jira, the team could be more efficient and meet roadmap deadlines.

I researched guidelines and best practices, observed how the team worked together, noted where opportunities to improve were, and outlined clear steps for submitting and tagging tickets, organizing requests.

The result: team alignment and easier communication, clear ownership and project status, effortless navigation, and optimized workflows to prioritize designs and projects.

Finally, The Research

Over the course of 12 weeks, I conducted numerous research projects simultaneously of both Spekit users as well as internal teams and operations.

I created research plans, explored hypotheses, crafted surveys, wrote interview scripts, set up testing environments, validated designs and synthesized results (all in the name of learning enablement!) before handing off my valuable insights to the product team and stakeholders.

Conclusion

By the end of my internship, I had accomplished many successful research handoffs, discovered the importance of team collaboration while in a virtual environment, and effectively established strategies that the Spekit team could utilize for years to come.

And remember, the success of a product is an ever-evolving team effort that requires flexibility, innovation, support, and persistence!