At Tallwave, I authored a user research playbook to democratize, standardize, and optimize user research practices within the UX team. The playbook was incorporated into Community of Practice coaching sessions, enabling widespread adoption and enhancement of user research processes, pushing the best of democratization.
Case Study Overview
- Tallwave is a customer experience (CX) agency.
- I authored a comprehensive UX research playbook at Tallwave (a design agency) to standardize research practices across clients, which included the top banks in the US, a natural gas company and others.
- The playbook was a tool to help democratization, a method used to spread user research knowledge throughout an organization.
- The playbook delves into user research theory, methodologies, and methods while providing an industry-based analysis of user research. It further details the concepts described on the Research Process page.
- The playbook is Tallwave IP (my former manager is excited about its release; recommendation available upon request) and I can share more excerpts upon request.
Playbook Dissemination
- Best practices of user research democratization in a UX strategy vary based on organizational environments. At Tallwave, I was told to teach user research to the best of my knowledge to the UX designers that were interested. This book is a tool for that goal, as is democratization itself.
- To disseminate the playbook, I conducted weekly teamwide user research coaching sessions.
- In these sessions, we would cover one chapter and discuss how concepts of in that chapter were being activated in different client projects or could be activated.
- This book served as a customized boot camp for Tallwave UX designers, addressing their specific research needs, the types of research conducted at Tallwave or needed by Tallwave clients, and common questions and concerns regarding user research within the team.
Book Contents
- The playbook itself is Tallwave IP (my former manager is excited about its release; recommendation available upon request) and I can share more excerpts upon request.
- Chapters generally followed the following organization:
- Theory section (often with flowcharts for processes/workflows and mind maps to explain concepts).
- Practical section (often with templatized approach and Loom videos).
- Further Learning section (with books, articles, YouTube videos, and podcast episodes or podcast channels).
