Questions and Answers Forum

Background

A crucial step in a merger or aquisition between two large corporations are the rounds of questions and answers. I led design iteration and identified user research needs on an underserved product that needed a lot of love. This was a software feature the company I worked for never truly understood from their customers' perspective. As design lead, that's where I started.

Research

The first thing the product managers and I did was make list of all the things we thought needed to go into the forum. I made a prototype and we reviewed it with bankers, a key user of this software. We thought we new what users needed and learned we knew very little.

So I asked a researcher to help us figure out what problems our users have during questions and answers as well as what features do they desire most from a software solution. Two surveys were launched for each of these queries. We launched them specifically with our European customers as we had learned they would be most likely to use it, not Americans.

With this data and some organization of the other user types besides bankers, we were ready for some informed design interation.

Design and Testing

I led design interation and collaborated with a group of designers. After many rounds, a prototype was built that was taken to London to share with internal stakeholders and clients. It was reviewed in a moderated usability review.

They poked some holes in the prototype, but the ultimate feeling was satisfaction. The things that users wanted to do, they were able to do. The stage was set for prepping the design for development. I partnered with a product manager to write development stories with corresponding design documentation.