User Research to Inform Product Design
Joan Morris DiMicco, Nancy K. Mann · 2016
A product team launched a new type of product, an interactive data dashboard. They were designed and built because customers had asked for them, but once launched, customers were not using them. Our user experience team offered to help the product team investigate the issue of low usage and, after getting the full support from the product executive, we collected customer feedback, identified core user personas, and made recommendations for next steps and design approaches. While this work led to some changes and one new dashboard, the impact on the overall product was minimal. Why? This case studies explores the underlying issues of why user research done right does not always influence product software development.