Research at Dataquest

Background

As Dataquest's first user research hire, one of my first goals was to develop a user research function that would help us become a more aligned and user-centric organization.

Methods

First, to identify how user research should fit into our organization, I held internal interviews with leadership. From the interviews, it was clear that user research needed to be collaborative and transparent, and embedded in the product team (rather than a shared service, for now!).

Over the course of the first six months, I built:

• A user research repository and tagging taxonomy in EnjoyHQ where anyone could review previous interviews, easily find quotes, and search the EnjoyHQ stories to answer their questions.

• A lightweight process for recruiting and scheduling weekly user interviews, which anyone from the organization could observe.

• Collaborative user research activities such as post-interview debriefs and "mini-observation" sessions during our Monday status calls.

Outcomes

In the first six months, the Dataquest team observed more than 40 user interviews, and we are began to leverage user research to prioritize and build features and set long-term strategic direction.

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