Building research guidelines to drive insights
To address challenges in user interview consistency and knowledge transfer, I collaborated with the design team to develop structured UX research guidelines. These frameworks enabled effective data gathering and analysis, ensuring aligned decision-making and impactful outcomes.
Company:
Torre
Role:
UX Researcher
Tools:
FigJam, Notion, Zoom
Context
At Torre, understanding the needs, values, and pain points of our users is central to the product creation process. Value testing plays a critical role in identifying opportunities to enhance our offerings and develop new products.
One of the most insightful methods we use is in-depth user interviews. These one-on-one sessions allow a UX researcher to explore participants’ thoughts and experiences in detail.
For Torre, these interviews focus on understanding the recruitment and job-seeking processes of our two primary user groups: talent seekers and job seekers. By hearing their unique perspectives, we aim to uncover actionable insights that inform both product design and strategy.
Problem
While we understood the job-to-be-done for each user type at Torre, the lack of a structured framework or guidelines for conducting in-depth interviews created several challenges:
Knowledge transfer: It was difficult to share insights with other team members or onboard new designers effectively.
Inconsistent data: The information gathered during interviews lacked a standardized structure, making it hard to compare and analyze findings from past interviews.
Misaligned questions: Interview questions were tailored only to user type, without considering the user’s specific stage in the funnel, limiting our ability to address nuanced needs and pain points.
Solution
Step 1: Research
We began by conducting research on value-testing methods, frameworks, and guidelines. Each design team member explored resources, including:
Books like Inspired, The Mom Test, and Just Enough Research.
Articles from UX research leaders like the Nielsen Norman Group and the Interaction Design Foundation.
Personal experiences and tips from conducting value tests or in-depth interviews in the past.
Step 2: Ideation
Using the insights gathered, the team aligned on the best ideas to incorporate into the guidelines. Key considerations included:
Defining different types of value: functional, social, monetary, and psychological.
Structuring interviews for optimal length and effectiveness.
Standardizing documentation into structured databases for consistent analysis.
Customizing guidelines based on user types and their funnel stages.
Addressing cognitive biases to ensure unbiased data collection.
Providing tips for team members new to value testing.
Step 3: Creating the guidelines
We developed the Monthly Values and Exploratory Research Sessions (MOVERS) guidelines, structured into four sections:
Introduction and objective: Defining participant numbers, recruitment methods, information storage, and aligning interview goals.
Pre-interview: Guidelines for observer inclusion, participant checks, cognitive bias awareness, and preparing for interviews.
Interview: Steps for introductions, building rapport, suggested and must-ask questions, value-finding experiments, and gathering referrals or testimonials.
Post-interview: Follow-up processes and structured data compilation.
After weeks of collaboration and refinement, we launched the first version of the guidelines and began testing them in practice.
Key takeaways
The guidelines also enable the product team to create more accurate client archetypes, helping to identify key insights, patterns, and trends from Torre's users.
The guidelines have become a core resource for the design team when conducting value testing.
Account managers and customer service representatives now review them as part of their onboarding process to improve how they gather user insights during interactions.