Building A Design Research Function
Built the first design research function for a Singapore Fintech company, enabling consistent design research practices and democratisation of research resources.
Objectives
To build the first design research function for a Singapore Fintech company that provides an online platform for investing in tokenised private market investment products. Standardise design research processes and tools, and to democratise design research across the whole company.
Solutions
Standardised research methodologies and processes through creating process documentation, templates, checklists, etc.
Established a process for recruiting clients as research participants
Developed four bespoke Investor Personas via affinity analysis of the data from client interviews
Created an Excel-based repository for research findings based on the principles of atomic research
Set up a Design Research Knowledge Base using Confluence, which is accessible by all employees in the company
Impact
Led the of the largest research participant recruitment campaign in the history of the company
The four bespoke investor personas developed will enable the business to target specific client types in future product and design strategies
Improve efficiency of future research work through the standardisation of research processes and participant recruitment process
Creation of the Design Research Knowledge Base using Confluence and Research Findings Depository allows research knowledge to be readily shared across the entire company
Timeframe
10 months
My Role
Design Researcher
Type of Research
N/A
Research Methods Used
N/A
Timeline
Challenges
Below is a list of challenges I faced and solved when I set out to build the design research function for the company.
1
Challenge
There was no consistent way of conducting and recording the results of design research
Action Taken
Standardised research methodologies and processes through creating process documentation, templates, checklists, etc.
2
Challenge
Design research was mostly conducted using internal users (e.g. members of client-facing team) as proxy of clients, and might not truly reflect the needs or mindset of the actual users.
Action Taken
Established a process for recruiting investors on the platform as participants for research. This involved cross-function collaboration with Marketing, Finance, Financial Operations, and Client-Facing teams, as I had to set up an incentive program whereby investment credits were offered to participants. Help from other teams were required to approve the budget for the reward credits, promoting the campaign, allocating the credits to participants.
I led four rounds of participant recruitment over 6 months, resulting in 25 investors recruited to participate in research projects including client interviews, usability tests and concept tests.
3
Challenge
There were no defined personas for the company's clients, hence making it difficult for designers to know who they were designing for.
Action Taken
Prior to me joining the company, they had engaged the management consultancy McKinsey to advise on their business strategy. McKinsey had shared a set of High Net Worth Client personas they had previously created using data collated from hundreds of high net worth clients for another financial institution.
After performing affinity analysis on the data gathered from my 25 client interviews, I found that the personas emerging were similar to the High Net Worth Client personas. I was able to align certain traits of the participants to those High Net Worth personas, allowing me to create four Investor Personas bespoke for the company.
4
Challenge
Research findings were often buried in reports which can get lost after the research was performed and presented.
Action Taken
Created an Excel-based repository for research findings based on the principles of atomic research. Below is a deep-dive into how the repository works.
What is Atomic Research
When I was researching ways to create a research finding repository, I came across an article in Medium written by Daniel Pidcock about Atomic Research, and became greatly impressed by the concept.
Basically, Atomic Research involves breaking down research findings into their building blocks:
Each nugget of information is tagged in such a way to enable others to extract the information suited for their research needs.
How the Research Findings Repository Works
Step 1
For each piece of research finding, the following information is added to the Excel-based repository:
ield Name | Example Entry |
Project | Product Detail Page Revamp |
Research Method | Usability Test |
Observation / feedback | When user read "gearing ratio of 68%", he said "it scared me a bit" - he didn’t understand the importance of this information |
Insight | Financial metrics without context can create confusion and uncertainty |
Step 2
Each piece of finding is assigned specific “Tags” from a pre-set list. Example:
Step 3
All the research findings are summarised using pivot tables, allowing the findings to be grouped by the various “tags”.
Step 4
A user of the repository can search for all research findings related to a particular “tag” as a result.
Step 5
Instructions on how to update the repository were made readily available via multiple channels:
i_
A dedicated page on the Design Research Knowledge Base
ii_
A recording of a presentation I did on this topic saved on the Knowledge Base
iii_
The “Instructions” tab of the Research FindingsRepository file
5
Challenge
Design research knowledge and outcome were siloed within the design team, when the information can benefit teams across the company - e.g. product managers, marketing team.
Action Taken
Facilitated the sharing of research knowledge and findings through the set up of a Design Research Knowledge Base using Confluence, which is accessible by all employees in the company.
