Summer 2019
Strategic research into an unknown development process.
Generative UX Research
Challenge
Better understand the people and stages involved in a process that D2L are not experts in.
17 weeks
Duration
D2L Co-op
Project Type
RealTimeBoard & Excel
Tools
My Role
In this project, I worked very closely with a product designer and checked-in with our a UX Researcher for their opinion to ensure we were on track. Most of the work was split and done in tandem rather than discrete roles. Areas of divergence were in that I focused on the process mapping analysis while he focused on pulling insights from the preliminary semi-structured interviews.
Team Members
Mike Stulberg (Product Designer @ D2L)
Solution
A detailed infographic mapping steps
attributes we found to be key to the
process at hand according to use-case
Given that at the end of this project, I would be going back to school and Mike would be taking a sabbatical, we needed to make sure our communication piece stood on its own to convey all we learned.
-Process
How we got there.
-Context
Where It All Started.
D2L has multiple projects that have started development that are not only targeted as a newer demographic but also an aspect of a process that they don’t have much information about — that was the main prompt for this research.
-Plan
Where I came in.
After being put onto a related project, the need for this research became especially clear for Mike so he came to me with a plan — I began developing interview question.
Research Method
Mike proposed an hour long interview with around 16 participants across a 3-part sample (later further expanded) and a 30 minute activity in-which participants map out a process relevant to our topic that the were a part of.
Collaborative Process Mapping
During the interview one of us would open RealTimeBoard (a digital white-boarding tool) and screen share with the participant.
-Collect Data
Collect Data
Over the course of a few weeks we conducted 17 interviews in which we mapped our various individuals processes.
Compiling Notes
After each interview I compiled and organized a copy of the original board to include notes from the transcript that may have been missed and colour coded by category prompt.
-So MUCH Synthesis
Generalization
Once getting into the abstraction phase I wanted to break out the information even further so I added in more categories. Alongside the reorganization, the statements were all generalized in preparation for later grouping stages.
Katrina Behnke 2019