embedding user centric culture
A process I did using user centric design methodology, from understanding problem to exploring solutions in order to improve the status quo of user centricity at FlixBus. As a UX Researcher, I highlighted my process of 'understanding the problem' by conducting in-depth interviews with colleagues from tech and business.
Role
UX Researcher
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Skills
Interviewing, synthesis, prototyping, facilitation, collaboration, advocacy
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Deliverables:
Extremes, proto persona, prioritisation matrix
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Output
Training program, redesigned confluence page, UX Research guidelines and templates
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Tools
Post.its, Confluence, Excel, Powerpoint, Ms. Teams
Collaboration
UX Researchers, Agile Coaches, Product Managers, Team leads and team members of Operations
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What
A strategy built in order to achieve user centric culture at FlixBus
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Why
User centric culture is essential in order to achieve efficiency when building product and service
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STATUS QUO
Solutions are based on hunch and assumptions, not based on understanding better users / customers needs
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Challenge
How might we make people practice user centricity to solve problem at work?
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Opportunity
Interest from people in the company to integrate user centricity in the teams processes through learning UX Research
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Start with understanding the status quo through conducting foundational research to understand tech & business process
In the nutshell, the process looks like this: Business Analyst receive requests from stakeholders and then they collect those requests into requirements to be pitched as a business idea to product managers. From doing research on Business Analysts and Product Managers, we started to see the gap:
We collected a few data from research:
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In-Depth Interview
Interview with 6 Product Managers and 6 business analysts to understand their process and to identify the gap in it
We asked:
please explain to us how your product development process is looking like, and which part of it that is still you think could be optimised
Results:
Product Managers: they're missing discovery research in the early stage of product development
Business Analysts: missing the discovery research in order to find the right problem to solve
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Survey
We did a survey on 27 business operations leaders to understand if they have already integrated qualitative and quantitative research in their processes
We asked:
"Do you collect data on your customer needs via market / user research?"
Then they need to evaluate through rating the scale from 1-7 (1 for never, 7 for always)
Results:
Low adoption of qualitative and quantitative research in their process (3,5 out of 7, ideally high would be above 4)
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Then, we try to understand the opportunity by gathering inputs from our team's feedback survey. We see people are interested to be trained about UX-related topics...
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Team leads asked for training about understanding better Stakeholders Needs and Request so the team can work more efficiently by delivering impactful results
2 out of 27 team leads from operations asked for training for their team members on how to ask questions to stakeholders to elicit better the problems to solve
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Team members asked for training about UX Research methods
Six team members from different business operations teams asked to be trained to be able in conducting their own research
Considering the status quo and the opportunity, we have our challenge: "How might we make people learn and practice user-centricity at work?"
We decided to do our first research on the team members as they are the ones who have to deal with probing questions to stakeholders and at the same time wanted to learn about UX Research.
We started to have this question:
"How people learn and practice user centricity at work?" and then we interviewed 3 Business Analysts from different Operations teams.
This is my process:
1. Define extremes
I profiled my colleagues to understand better different background, needs and motivations through defining extremes, then I recruited 3 people to interview based on these extremes:
2. Interview
I asked these questions to them to discover their needs and pain points when wanting to learn about UX and at the same time to ask for their approaches to put it in practice at work
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3. Synthesis
I clustered their answers using affinity diagram
4. I turned those insights into personas
We describe the personas bahaviors, pain points and needs & goals
5. I mapped the findings into into actionable insights to develop solutions
We collected 6 actionable insights:
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To start applying user centricity at work, teams need methods and best practices from experts
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To self reflect, get a guidance and get inspired, teams need to connect with the experts/mentors
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To make progress and gain confidence in applying user centricity, teams need to work on different projects
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To get different perspective, teams need collaboration
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To make the company more user-centric, teams need to be helpful by showing stakeholders the UX-based approach to solve their problem
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To enjoy the learning process, teams need to stay foolish and keep discovering the unknowns
Next step is to experiment with solutions by creating problem statements & hypotheses, then protoype and test
