Research Methods – Vanessa's Wonderland

🧐 I plan research like a "crime investigation" and execute it with rigor.

While a detailed research roadmap helps prepare myself and the whole team to align on the objectives, I often flexibly adjust the sequence and even choice of methods based on the requests and research problems at the moment. The core of my research mindset is “investigating” particular problems by piecing up different sources of data. Therefore, the “data” to look for is not bounded by certain research methods, but by a simple question: what data can offer me evidence to reveal the “crime scene”–what really happened, what contributes to the result, and how should we do better next time to prevent it? That leads to decisions such as: is primary research a must? Who has the knowledge to answer my questions? How should I collect their insight? Therefore, you may often see me performing multiple methods at the same time or inserting ad hoc supplemental research into the original plan.

Note: Images are intentionally presented in low resolution.

Example: Research methods during the product iteration phase

This diagram shows the past research work of the GARD project at NCATS/NIH. Constant iteration has been conducted over the years to better understand and improve how users interact with the website. After taking over the research work in January 2023, I drafted a new research roadmap for the upcoming year with the leading objectives of evaluating previous iteration efforts as well as uncovering areas less emphasized before.

Besides conducting similar activities such as survey iteration & analysis, competitive analysis, and heuristic evaluation, I introduced three major changes in this round of iteration:

While reviewing previous research work, I noticed that connections between users and the Contact Center were neglected. So I included this new direction in the research objectives, using Salesforce data and interviews with information specialists to uncover the patterns.
I defined a dedicated data tracking plan to collect evidence from the backend (Google Analytics). In collaboration with the data analyst, several new events were set up to reflect users’ specific behaviors when browsing the website.
In response to the constant traffic drop over the months, I performed audits on the website’s SEO performance and checked Google Analytics data to detect the issues.

Below are three screenshots from the initial UX research roadmap. Deliverables of various research methods can be found on the Research Deliverables page.