Working on my first UX research project: the process

Phew! It has been quite a while since I have been able to write here. I have been struggling to balance getting a Law degree and pursuing a career in Product design. Trust me, it has not been the easiest of challenges, but I would definitely survive.

About two-three weeks ago, we were given a group task by our tutors in Asa Coterie to provide a solution to the design challenge “how can we improve women’s access to finance?”. This was a fun but quite stressful experience. At first, my team and I were confused about what angle we should come from. Should we come from the angle of increasing financial literacy for women? Or from one of the angles of making accounts easier to open for women, making it easier for women to have access to credit or making crypto-investments more inclusive for women?

We started with creating a research plan where everyone was involved in the whole drafting process of the justification for the study, objectives of the study, things we were interested in learning about, the research questions we wanted to provide answers to, the hypotheses people formed about the problem, the methodology we chose, the participation criterion and the schedule of the project.

To streamline our research, we decided to focus on improving crypto-investments for women by understanding what challenges prevent women from investing and if the available crypto-investment options are inclusive for women. Because of how technical the subject of crypto is, we decided to focus our research on educated women between the ages of 20–35 in fields ranging from Health, Education, Finance and Law. We conducted interviews with these women to find out their understanding of financial freedom, saving and crypto-investments.

A tweet that inspired our choice and helped serve as a part of our secondary research.

After conducting the interviews, we transcribed them and employed the qualitative analysis research method to analyze the interviews. From the answers that our interviewees provided, we were able to provide answers to our research questions. We were able to conclude that although crypto-investment options may be 60% inclusive for women, 60% of women do not understand how it works. Using Jeff Gothelf’s Model Lean UX Canvas, we created ours and the solution we opted for was building a news and opinions website where understanding cryptocurrency could be simplified for women. The website also contains the podcast feature to ensure accessibility and a forum for women to share ideas with other women. Our expected outcome is that women would be able to understand cryptocurrency to a large extent and they can manage their cryptocurrencies themselves.

We then created the wireframes, which I was primarily responsible for creating. We delivered the presentation to our tutors who had a lot of really nice comments on it and definitely pointed out areas for improvement. Looking back now, the process is something I would love to experience over and over again. The whole stress was worth it. I really enjoyed conducting the interviews and creating the wireframes, those were the highlights for me.

Key takeouts for me would be that you should not assume anything for your user because the truth is that you are not your user. Also, in my opinion, it is better to carry out secondary research before primary research because it gives you clearer insights on how to go about your project. Finally, your idea may not be the best in the team; always be willing to listen to other people.