Using research to improve employee wellbeing
Role
UX Designer / UX Researcher
Company
Healthy Workers (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
Context
The company
Healthy Workers is a startup focused on improving work environments to optimize employee engagement and productivity. By combining environmental data with science-based people analytics we uncover actionable insights for office managers. This makes it possible for companies to invest in the best interventions that suit their employees.
Platform
Managers dashboard
Responsive web dashboard for managers to analyze employees’ feedback and review sensor data for their building (temperature, humidity, air quality, etc.).Employee app
Mobile app for employees to share their work experience.
Managers update employees on improvements through comments and messages.Anywhere app
Responsive web solution for employees working remotely.
Users answer three questions and get tips and insights to improve their situation.
Challenge
Bringing the user to the center of the product development process
When I joined Healthy Workers, they were in a crucial moment of scaling up; the product and team had been growing and delivery was the highest priority. With only one designer on the team, the design focus was mostly on UI Design so my challenge became to be the user champion in our company.
Issues to address
No consistent user research or user testing
A few meetings with users had been done, but there was no consistent user research or testing practice.Product requirements mainly led by Business goals
Low collaboration between design, sales and business to validate product requirements with users.Lack of a UX design strategy
No clear plan in place to integrate research and testing as a part of the UX process of validating assumptions and feed back into the product vision.
Process
Research and testing as part of the Definition of Done for design
With the purpose to include user research and testing at different levels and steps of our design process, we decided to include validation as part of our Definition of Done for design.
This meant making use of different types of user research methods and Lean UX experiments to assess the efficacy of our solutions. The type of test, participants and level of complexity was determined by the testing goals and the design artifacts created.
As part of our principles, we adopted the following:
Always validate assumptions
Regardless of the task at hand, perform some level of testing to validate design choices and possible biases.For new features and epics, start with research
Before jumping into design (or writing out requirements), a research plan needs to be in place to include the user’s perspective from the start.For user stories, iterate with user testing
Bring the users voice to the design process early on to validate assumptions and identify possible challenges.
Outcome
Using research during discovery phase to inform the product roadmap
To integrate research from the get-go we knew we couldn’t just focus on testing finished prototypes from design, but that requirements had to be validated at some level as well.
This meant that designers, the product owner and other relevant colleagues, such as our wellbeing specialist, started to collaborate to refine upcoming features and our product backlog.
We planned new user stories to include User Research for all new features and made Research part of our company OKRs, which fostered thinking about our users, in all areas of the company.
These changes also allowed planning for more in depth research and new methods in our team, such as Design Sprints and Workshops.
Promoting and sharing the power of user testing by starting small
To start flexing our user testing muscle in the design team, we
began performing small usability studies such as A/B testing an interface design, card sorting sessions and other short usability tests that would bring the user perspective to our designs.
This helped us gain confidence in putting our designs to the test and improve our level of comfort with testing and talking to users. Sharing the results from these tests with the development team, and the rest of the company, also helped bring a new perspective to our product discussions.
Talking to users and putting our designs to the test
To extend our efforts further we started doing interviews with internal business colleagues (sales, HR, marketing); peeps who didn’t work close the product team and could share valuable feedback with fresh eyes.
Next, we started collaborating with our Customer Success Manager to use onboarding sessions with new clients to join in and meet with users who would be using our platform.
Through enthusiastic Managers using our product we were able to reach out to active users of our platform. We organized interview sessions with both employees and managers, to ask them about their experience and test new concepts with interactive prototypes.
Performing in depth interviews to understand our users better
Understanding our users needs was one of the most important goals for the design team. With the purpose to clearly identify jobs-to-be-done in our product, and validate our current solution, we decided to build a thorough research plan that included interviews and usability testing to perform with a group of clients and active users of our platform.
We made a plan with the goals to understand:
Who our users are
To have a clear idea of who we are building our solution for. This will help us formulate personas based on real users, to guide our design choices when building new features.The context of our users
Including how they interact with our current solution, which other tools they might use next to ours and overall clarity of their habits and mental models.Our users’ goals and priorities
With the purpose to identify the features that we need to build and which ones are more important for our users, according to their roles.
Using remote testing to reach more participants, all over the world
When the COVID-19 hit The Netherlands and all work was moved from the office to our homes, we decided to also move our testing online.
We started using Lookback to send tests to our pool of users testers, so they could choose to record themselves doing the task on their own time; or schedule a meeting with us to do the test live and record it through a videocall.
For people who choose to schedule a videocall with us, we also had an open calendar set with Doodle, so we could at any time arrange a meeting with our users at a convenient time.
Making user testing an automated, ongoing process
Having learn how difficult it can be to reach out to users, we wanted to make sure we had a way to increase our pool of user testers and not have to struggle every time we needed to recruit people. First step was setting a form in our website we could use to invite clients, investors, and enthusiasts to share their feedback with us by joining our group of user testers.
When new people sign up they receive an email welcoming them to our group and explaining a bit more how they can get ready for their first test. When they receive an invitation to do a test, they can choose to do it themselves through Lookback or schedule a call with us through Doodle.
Making insights actionable
Insights collected from every round of user testing are analyzed and organized in a Findings Report, so they can be reviewed by everyone in the company. The level of depth depending on the type of research carried out.
For the development team, a working document is created, outlining the issues found and possible recommendations to address these, considering the effort it would take. This helps the Product Owner prioritize fixes and improvements in upcoming sprints.
To keep our users front and center, main findings from our research are also shared on Company Updates, allowing everyone outside the product team to continue to deepen their knowledge of our users and product.
Complementing our insights with metrics
To complement the learning we gathered from talking to users, we also started to gather quantitative data through analytic tools like Firebase, Google Analytics, and Hotjar.
Early on, design would contribute proposing metrics to be collected through these tools so we could round up our view on how people use our products.
Some of the data we would keep an eye on was funnel analysis, most used devices, drop-out points, and other relevant data that could also inform UI Design.
Lessons learned
Building a product that people love to use, cannot be done in a vacuum. You cannot solve a problem without bringing the voice of those you are trying to help to the table.
Research and Testing comes in many sizes, there is always a step you can take towards understanding your users’ perspective, may it be an automated short test, having an online conversation with them, or even reaching out to your Customer Success / Support colleagues to get their perspective. Any testing, is better than no testing at all.
It is also really important to have a plan on how to feed your learning back into the product so the impact of testing can be seen on each Sprint demo.