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it can happen, but it shouldn’t be everything that happens;when it happens, makes sure that you have research in place to be able to help at a strategic level. Dual track research helps a lot here;make sure there is clarity about the goals: e.g. if a feature has to be built “because Competitor X has it”, make sure that the expected outcomes are clearly defined. Or in the example of the SASS, there is a monetary story there (the company needs a better evaluation). That is an unmet need that has to be discussed about and used as an outcome, so something useful can be built instead of just any SASS.
Scaling User Research. A Q&A with Fidelity’s Jen Cardello
Note: the presentation is way more interesting than the Q&A. The Q&A part is not really interesting at all. I just wrote down the 4 more interesting questions/answers.
Intro
Growing your user research capability is more than just adding researchers to your team. It’s about dramatically increasing the value your research brings to the rest of the organization, which starts with a strategic approach to defining the problems your teams need to solve.
Jen Cardello, VP of UX Research and Insights at Fidelity Investments, has done just this with her teams. In this hour-long Q&A, we’ll discuss how she pulled it off and answer your questions on how you can achieve the same results in your organization.
Carefully watch Jen’s 45-minute presentation here below on how she scaled user research at Fidelity, then go to the Q&A.
Q&A
Is usefulness more important that usability?
Both usability and usefulness are needed, but depending on the sector usefulness can be more important are more critical than usability: if you have many squads working on different things, it’s easy for them to start working in a “solution seeking a problem” mode, which can create a lot of waste. It’s very important to focus on what really useful, so usefulness in that sense must come first as a prioritisation criteria: first we have to decide what are the useful things to build, and then make them usable. Also, in the market you can tweak the usability, but it’s really hard to tweak the usefulness of something that’s not useful.
In other sectors usability is key, for example in the medical sector, where usability problems in a device can lead to patient harm.
How do you organise a dual track process that is both reactive and proactive?
At Fidelity, they pair up researchers that work on two-week sprints. The researchers are journey based.
How do you avoid things being built just because somebody said so?
Sometimes you can’t, because there are a lot of reasons why they may happen, e.g. the company needs a SASS before an IPO and it will help with a better evaluation. What is important is:
How much of your work is building relationships inside the organisation?
The vast majority of it, because to work strategically you need people to work together.
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