The value of diverse User Research methods in creating new products in the startup sector.
Role Senior UX Researcher
Context Professional Work/ Internship
Period 2019-2021
What is Idem Spark? (Problem Spaces)
At some point in life, everyone grapples with the challenge of maintaining their health and wellness. This struggle is particularly pronounced for women aged 18-35, given the societal pressures dictating certain appearance standards. Busy professionals and college students, in particular, find it challenging to allocate sufficient time, energy, and resources to their well-being.Idem Spark's mission is to address this issue.
We aspire to initiate a widespread conversation among women, focusing on emotional, mental, and physical health. Acknowledging the prevalent struggles, we are dedicated to delivering innovative wellness solutions in ways previously unexplored.
Why User Experience Research?
We conduct user experience research to align our products with the mission statement mentioned above. Our key objectives in launching and executing research initiatives are:
1. Identify the primary wellness challenges faced by our target demographic (women ages 18-35).
2. Provide solutions to address these wellness issues by connecting users to third-party partner resources or Idem Spark's Rockstar workshops.
3. Cultivate meaningful, long-term relationships with our community/user base.
Early Stage Solutions: Secondary Research
As a recently established startup, our design and product teams found it imperative to develop new products and incentives to engage our customers.
Through user interviews, analysis of trend data from secondary sources (such as Consumer Reports, Harvard Business Review, and eMarketer), and conducting heuristic reviews on competitors, we successfully assessed user sentiment within our product's market space.
The following slideshow is a list of the companies and products we thoroughly researched:"
Jenny Craig is the classic example of a wellness brand that has a prominent, friendly figure that patrons can look towards. Similar brands that follow the "Jenny Craig" blueprint are "Goop" by Gwyneth Paltrow and "Centr" by Chris Hemsworth. Idem Spark is meant to be a casual brand that users can connect to, so our Chief Swagger Officer, Anniedi Essien, is our Jenny.
Noom is another company that is in-line with Idem Spark's vision. Their instagram posts/stories in particular are much like the type of food posts we share, and we do occasionally repost their stories as well. Overall, noom is a good model to follow for marketing the all too important food aspect of wellness.
Weight Watchers has long been a household name, but that does not mean it's a perfect product. If we take a look at the weight watchers home page, we get a corporate color scheme and a message that is out of touch with today's weight loss culture. The current era is about body positivity and overall wellness. Weight watches whole platform is based on outdated conventions on weight loss, which doesn't mesh well with today's market. If we look further into the demographics, Weight Watchers is woefully unpopular with the 18-35 demographic we're trying to hit, although it still remains an ideal model business in some aspects.
Athleta is more in-line with the message we try to promote at idem spark. Although, their brand is focused on clothing as opposed to overall wellness, they still promote a message of body positivity and diversity. They are also a very sought-after brand in today's zeitgeist. This is a brand that we could like for inspiration and would make an ideal partership/sponsor in future endeavors.
In the early phases of the startup's creation, we looked outwards for inspiration. We saw Curvy Con as a prototype for the type of image we strived for Idem Spark to have. Curvy Con is a platform for plus-sized fashion influencers and their followers to connect at a 2-day convention. They promote "health at every size" and have been featured on major platforms like Oprah. We look forward to connecting with Curvy Con in future promotional offers, once the the pandemic is over and conventions are commonplace again.
Product-Stage Solutions: User Interviews and customer experience surveys
See below.
Primary Research Method
I was tasked to conduct surveys that would later inform business strategy for the company. These surveys were sent both to "general" users who registered an email with the company and "rockstar" users who were more invested in our programs and had already paid a significant sum of money for our services.
In total, I recruited the opinions of 7 rockstars users (using sogosurvey.com) and asked them questions focused on:
- How they feel about their current offerings (customer satisfaction).
- How long they would foresee needing/wanting the help of Idem Spark.
- If they would prefer 1-on-1 or group focused activities in the future.
- What products they are looking for.
- How they fit in with the Idem Spark community.
- Where they first learned about Idem Spark.
Survey
Primary Research Method
I was tasked to conduct surveys that would later inform business strategy for the company. These surveys were sent both to "general" users who registered an email with the company and "rockstar" users who were more invested in our programs and had already paid a significant sum of money for our services.
In total, I recruited the opinions of 7 rockstars users (using sogosurvey.com) and asked them questions focused on:
User Interview
Product-Design-Research Alignment Tools: Persona
How might we better understand our users and which solutions are most appropriate for their lifestyles?
The Personas
Personas were designed so the team better understand the types of users that use/will use our product. Our company story is based on an imaginary user named "Imabong." I boiled the story of Imabong into a persona and developed a few other hypothetical users to make personas out of as well.
These personas are based on interviews with existing users, as well as founding members of the company. Despite the limited scope of data, the personas have so far proven to be useful, and new users that have come into Idem Spark have generally fit within one of to three personas or were a hybrid between them. We went through several phases of personas that we used, and at one point I had nine different personas that I was designing around. Eventually, we boiled it down to just three core personas.
Late-Stage Solutions: Recurring Surveys and Monthly Interviews
Surveys were delivered to users on a bi monthly basis and analyzed on a monthly basis.
Interviews were conducted and analyzed on a monthly basis.
Mesuring Long Term Success
Over the course of my two years at the company, I achieved the following:
Created a weekly system for re-evaluating user needs through 'User Updates' presentations to familiarize stakeholders with personas and their updates, derived from research such as recurring surveys and bimonthly user interviews.
Introduced a system for conducting design sprints and fostered a culture of using collaborative, agile methods to address design and UX-related decisions.
Supported and facilitated the design of core products, incentives, and marketing material.
Utilized creative remote research methods to establish the brand’s 360 design guidelines, including color schemes, language, fonts, and the mission statement.
Goals
Signals
Metrics
Happiness
Engagement
Adoption
Retention
Task Success
For users to be satisfied and keep coming back, and for marketing and incentives to be effective in recruitng new users.
For users to keep interacting with content, coming to workshops, and responding to emails
New users see the value in the product. Existing users share with their friends.
Existing users resubscribe and respond to our posts. Existing users upgrade to "Rockstar" accounts.
Users reach their wellness goals. BONUS: Users "push the goalpost" after being successfull and happy with reaching their wellness goals.
- Responses from our surveys
- Comments on instagram posts
- Leaving user feedback
- Satisfaction surveys
- 5 Star Google Reviews
- Net Promoter Score
- Number of responses on Instagram posts
- Email blast responses
- Instagram Live views
- Instagram followers
- Number of views on posted videos
- Number of shares
- Instagram Followers
- Join Facebook Group
- Web Traffic
- Number of followers/ members
- Number of inquirys
- Amount of $ spent
- Staying active on socials
- Regularly visiting website
- Reguarly attending Rockstar seminars
- Churn rate
- Subscription renewal /upgrade rate
- Amount of $ spent
- Finding our product and content quickly
- Finding where to connect with other users
- Search exit rate
- Time to become a power user
- Number of new users
Interview
The interview was more broad than the survey, as I asked users (all female) aged 19-48 their opinions on health and wellness, and what types of services would help achieve those goals best. The interview took approximately 10-15 minutes with simple, yet profound questions to get users to open up the core of their issues. I asked:
- What's your motivation for bettering your health/wellness?
- What interests you more dieting more or exercising more?
- What are your current health and wellness solutions?
- What's your biggest "pain point" in your day-to-day wellness?
- How often do you watch videos or articles about health?
- Do you feel that the media fairly portrays women's body/health standards?
04. Design Solutions
To lay the groundwork, I was tasked to conduct surveys that would later inform business strategy for the company. These surveys were sent both to "general" users who registered an email with the company and "rockstar" users who were more invested in our programs and had already paid a significant sum of money for our services.
Exlcusive "SPARK!" spotify playlists, promotional codes, surveys were all perks that I developed for members to enjoy. To learn more, click either of the icons below.
Incentives
Marketing Strategy and Customer Outreach
Tn addition to my role as a design and research lead, I took charge of designing email blasts, Instagram posts, and content calendars for the company. Over the past two years, the content strategy I developed has been consistently used by the company, resulting in the growth of nearly 1000 organic Instagram followers. We have conducted three sets of surveys among current customers, providing valuable data that has significantly influenced the nature of services we deliver.
360 Branding
The four qualities that define 360 Brand Identity are verbal, visual, interactive, and sensory qualities. My job focused on the verbal and the visual qualities of Idem's identity. The verbal qualities we came up with focused on maintaining an overall positive, encouraging demeanor with our customers. We made sure to use consistent language and verbiage with words like "rockstar," "superstar," "groove," and "vibe." The visual qualities of our 360 identity are defined below with our text/style guide and some sample posts we used for marketing.
More About Me
I'm a UX Researcher and Web Designer.
My job is to make your next experience
better than your last.
See My Work!With over seven years of experience in freelance, internships, and professional research design, I apply behavioral science and systemic design thinking to address real-world challenges. As a designer, my objective is to craft seamless end-to-end user experiences through digital transformation. I find joy in working in UX, and I am driven by the belief that human-centric design has the power to enhance our world.
I invite you to explore my portfolio to see the tangible impact of my work!
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