Future UX priorities for a team of 40 downsizing to 7
Due to confidentiality agreements for research participants and the product, I am unable to show the deliverables in detail within this portfolio. However, I would be delighted to walk you through the process and share insights during an in-person or virtual meeting.
Intensive Two-Month Sprint: UX Analysis, User Testing, Community Engagement, and Workshops
In light of a major budget cut and team restructuring, my goal was to produce the most valuable UX artefacts for the future product roadmap within 2 months. With the team size shrinking from 40 to 7, it was crucial to identify high-impact UX issues and provide actionable design research and solutions.
My objective was to assist the remaining team in creating impactful features despite the significant resource reduction.
Critical UX issues that needs to be addressed
Onboarding and ID Verification: Users found the onboarding and ID verification process lengthy and challenging, with only 20% reaching the highest level of verification.
Product Understanding: Users did not understand the purpose and value of the product, leading to low motivation to complete the verification process.
Health Information Sharing: Sharing personal health information was sensitive, particularly for families with high health needs, and needed to be secure.
Overcome obstacles
0 prior user research and testing for the product.
Tight deadlines prevented the team from addressing current issues before producing more features.
Lengthy participant recruitment process due to government paperwork.
The team was working at full capacity while also preparing resources for the reduced team.
We need to diversify our user research pools as we want to make health information accessible for those whose voices need to be heard e.g. Pasifika, Māori, youth, elders, etc.
Let's create something valuable within 2 months!
User testing for current flow and identifying critical issues
To familiarise myself with the product, I conducted a UX and accessibility audit using my own account, identifying user pain points, dead ends, and critical usability issues. It took me several hours across several days to finish my onboarding process as a user with a foreign passport. My live testing experience helps me empathise with users who faced similar barriers in getting themselves verify their identity.
Image: Research finding synthesis on an A3
We conducted 1:1 user testing for the current onboarding process with 7 people. This revealed the current linear pathway to sign up for an account did not allow users to prepare the necessary documentation for their ID verification. Additionally, the content on the page wasn't helpful for users to understand where they are and what they are doing. Alongside a Senior Service Designer, I developed a concept to address user issues from our user testing sessions.
Utilise opportunities from a community engagement session as a focus group feedback
We want to talk to users again. But given the constraints in recruiting users due to processes and paperwork, we collaborated with the Digital Enabling Team and leveraged opportunities from their community engagement sessions as focus groups. I created simple mock-ups with three screens, then printed them out in actual phone size. We then tested them during this session to obtain quick feedback.
Image: Community engagement research setup
Image: Print out mockups
Image: Final prototype
Incorporating insights from user testing and focus groups, we refined the designs through multiple iterations. The new design offered more flexible pathways for onboarding, allowing users to prepare documentation as needed.
So many problems to address, not enough people in the team left
Amidst a major budget cut and team downsizing, the product owner asked me to facilitate a workshop to capture intellectual properties and inputs from the original team of 40. Everyone contributed their thoughts and ideas on what they hope they have more time to work on, what they think is important to address next.
I synthesised our workshop and research findings and helped the product owner integrate them into a new product roadmap, considering the reduced team size.
Image: Workshop Miro board with everyone input on the first section on the left, and synthesis on the right
Outcomes and deliverables
Comprehensive User Research: Documented findings from extensive research and testing that can be used as input for future development and consideration.
Future Improvement Suggestions: Provided actionable UX recommendations for future enhancements and research. Anyone who picks up the project will be provided with all the information they need to work on.
Successful Workshop: Facilitated a workshop capturing diverse insights from team members, resulting in valuable suggestions for the future roadmap. Stakeholders appreciated the practical and strategic insights. A closure for all team members who had to say farewell the project they have been working so hard on.