As a Product Design Research Intern at Asurion, I led exploratory and evaluative research projects, leveraging qualitative and quantitative methods such as diary studies, surveys, design sessions, and workshops with across 2 domains—Asurion Photos and Secure+. View the case studies below.
Note. Deliverables and insights for the following projects are confidential. Feel free to contact me for more information.
Case Study #1: Exploratory Research
Background
Asurion Photos, a photo storage app, is a day-one benefit for Asurion Home+ subscribers. Their primary value propositions are
1. Unlimited photo and video storage
2. Automatic backups
3. Optimize device storage
4. Secure, encrypted data
Business Ask
Asurion Photos stakeholders were primarily interested in validating whether they built the “right” thing, but needed a foundational understanding of user needs and the human motivation that drives the usage of photo storage apps.
Stakeholders were eager to use qualitative insights to inform messaging and feature development with the ultimate goal of increasing user adoption and decreasing Home+ churn.
Research Objective
Understand the relationship between people, their, photos, and their phones, learn about how users interact with competitor apps, understand what security means regarding photos, and discover what users’ top-desired features are.
Method
9-part diary study which yielded a total of 147 photo, video, and written entries over 2 weeks. The user experience research platform that I utilized was dscout.
Sample
13 participants from dscout’s panel were selected of a pool of 100 who completed the screener. Participants were selected based on level of expressiveness, introspection, and thoughtfulness to ensure high quality insights.
Timeline
Stakeholder interviews — 1 week
Research planning and design — 2 weeks
Study running — 2 weeks
Synthesis — 2.5 weeks
Shareout preparing and presenting — 1 week
Stakeholders
Sr. Director/Head of Product, Digital Services
Director of Product Design, Digital Services
Sr. Manager of Product Design, Asurion Photos
Sr. Product Managers, Asurion Photos*
Product Managers, Asurion Photos*
Designers, Asurion Photos*
*2 senior product managers, 2 product managers, 3 designers across 4 Asurion Photos journey teams
Key Outputs
An overall understanding of user needs, desires, and motivations to be translated into effective messaging for each journey team, feature development, and human-centered design.
A thorough slide deck that can be referenced by stakeholders beyond my tenure as an intern for future product decisions.
The insights that I uncovered were used to directly inform product and design decisions for Asurion Photos.
Case Study #2: Evaluative Research
Project Summary
I facilitated a 2-day company-wide app audit workshop in collaboration with UX Designers. Participants (employees across the organization, including non-designers) were exposed to every flow from the Asurion Photos app and covered them in sticky notes to identify valuable features, room for improvement in our UX/UI, and more. Participants also completed a qualitative survey to expand on their callouts.
Business Ask
Asurion Photos stakeholders were primarily interested in discovering what product decisions need to be prioritized and what parts of the app need improvement.
Research Objective
Identify where customers might get lost in flows, UI design inconsistencies, inconsistent usage of components, brand elements, valuable features, sentiment and tone of content, information that customers want to see before downloading the app, and learn any other thoughts that participants had about the app.
Method
2-day in-person app audit workshop (participants make callouts via sticky notes on printed flows), qualitative 9-question survey. Pictures above!
Sample
~100 employees across Asurion participated, 37 completed surveys
Participants visited after they saw fliers that we hung in high-traffic areas throughout office, Slack/Microsoft Teams messages promoting the event, and Outlook invitations.
Key Outputs
Internal visibility for the Asurion Photos app
An understanding of what customers want to help Asurion Photos stakeholders prioritize development and product decisions before the product is offshored
Identification of bugs for engineering team to fix
A thorough slide deck that can be referenced by stakeholders beyond my tenure as an intern for future product decisions
Personal Learnings
Stakeholder management
Advocate for customers
Ask better questions to minimize non-productive insights
Introduce the concept of sticky note feedback to non-UX professionals
Accommodate participants with varying communication styles
Qualitative survey design
Synthesis of hundreds of sticky notes