Scenario:

Mike is a UX Researcher at a mid-sized software company. His day-to-day involves analyzing various types of customer data and turning them into insight reports for product managers and design teams.

Now, guess how much data he has to manage?

Those numbers definitely sound huge. So, how much time are they spending on the synthesis process for each project? What does their step-by-step workflow look like? What tools are they using, and what are their main pain points?

There were so many questions we wanted to explore, and we knew we had to dig deeper. That’s why we proposed using in-depth interviews as our primary research method.

Research methods: in-depth user interviews

Questions:

1. What is the step-by-step process that UX researchers follow when conducting research, starting from receiving a project?

2. How much time is typically spent on each phase of the research process?

3. What are the main pain points or challenges researchers encounter throughout this process?

4. What tools do UX researchers use during their workflow, and what are their preferences and frustrations with these tools?

5. What is our ideal customer profile?

Target participants:

1. Full-time mixed-methods or qualitative UX researchers/designers who need to conduct and synthesize user interviews on a frequent basis

2. Researchers from various industries, including:

   • Technology

   • Healthcare

   • Finance

   • E-commerce

3. Representing different company sizes:

   • Small startups (under 200 employees)

   • Medium companies(200-1000 employees)

   • Large enterprises (1,000+ employees)

Recruiting methods:

• Linkedin outreach (sent over 200 messages)

• UXR online conferences and events

• Used Apollo to source leads and send outreach emails

Thoughts:

We want to identify the segments to focus on, so we categorized the results by different customer groups, including mid-sized companies, small startups, and enterprise organizations. We also considered various industries, such as research/design agencies, software development, healthcare, and others.

Data synthesis process:

1. take down notes during the interviews and organize them into an Excel sheet (each column is an interview question, and record each participant’s answer in each column

2. Extract common themes across the interviewees

Key findings:

1. UX researchers find the research synthesis after interviews is very time-consuming and tedious which consist a lot of manual work

I have to do afterwards to like, go back and re-watch everything, and then drop down the notes. It's very time-consuming.

— Product designer at Mongo DB

The time it takes to tease through each interview and find common themes insights, and quotes is very tedious.

- UX Researcher at Powerback

Thoughts: We know that synthesis is a common pain point for UX researchers, but what exactly makes this step challenging? To break it down more specifically, we’ve created a comprehensive workflow that outlines the key issues faced during this phase.

First version: workflow

Notes:

After sharing our initial workflow with mentors and coaches at the NYU Entrepreneurship Institute, we got some great feedback. They thought the workflow was great and adding time for each step is smart, but needed more detail. Specifically, they suggested:

• Clarifying who the key collaborators are at each stage

• Listing out the tools being used for each task

• Pinpointing the unmet needs at each step

This will help us figure out where the real "fire-on-hair" problem is, so we can tackle it head-on. Taking that advice, we revised the workflow and created a second version that now includes:

• A detailed breakdown for each step: With time estimates and the roles involved (like researchers, designers, product managers, etc.)

• Tools used at each stage: Highlighting the software or platforms (like research and collaboration tools)

• Critical unmet needs: Identifying pain points or inefficiencies so we can target the most urgent issues

This updated version gives us a much clearer picture of where the biggest problems are and how we can solve them effectively.

Second version:

As you can see, the second version provides much more detail and clarity. The red text highlights the areas where users expressed their major pain points. Overall, we can break the workflow down into three phases: rewatching recordings, identifying themes, and creating reports/presentations.

Based on this workflow, we’ve identified three main pain points:

1. Find user quotes:

   This part is the most time-consuming and tedious for users. They’re looking for a tool that helps them easily locate specific time points and quotes for each question. As one user put it, “It’s so hard to locate which person, which paragraph, which sentence.”

——> Design Opporunity:
How might we design the report page to enable users to quickly and intuitively find quotes linked to their research questions?

2. Counting and identifying themes:

This is another significant pain point. Users want a tool that can automatically extract topics and themes, helping them overcome the dreaded blank page problem. This feature would allow them to modify the extracted content, saving a lot of time in the process.

——> Design Opportunity:

How might we create a solution that automates theme extraction, allowing users to efficiently edit the themes for their needs?

3. Presentation creation:

Here, the main challenges revolve around creating a compelling presentation and creating highlight reel videos. Users are seeking a more efficient way to manage this step.

——> Design Opportunity:
How can we design the report/presentation page to meet UXR’s needs for presentations and reports? What key elements should be included on the report page?