The Problem

HearHere is a California-based startup that noticed many people don’t feel a strong sense of connection with the locations that they travel through and to. One of the primary reasons for this disconnect is that people often know little about the unique history and culture of these locations – which the startup plans to solve by creating a location-based storytelling platform.

My Role

As a User Experience (UX) Researcher, I was tasked with conducting a comprehensive user research study for the HearHere team. I worked closely with one of the startup’s co-founders to align on the research strategy and goals, and carried out all the research activities shown in the chart below. Being a client-facing role, I regularly updated the co-founder on the study’s progress and collaboratively discussed the findings and impacts with him.

My Research Approach

Research Goals

Prior to starting the study, I first met with the co-founder to discuss and align on the goals and outcomes their team was looking for. In this meeting we came up with a number of research activities that we believed would get us the desired results, and thus developed the research strategy shown in the chart above.

User Surveys

To begin the research study, I sent out a screener survey to find participants matching the desired characteristics of HearHere’s target market. As the HearHere team had already done preliminary market research, the co-founder and I discussed those findings to come up with our desired characteristics.

Desired User Characteristics:

• Travels frequently; preferably by driving (i.e. road trips)

• Has a wide variety of travel interests such as sightseeing, exploring new places, and learning about local cultures and history

• Regularly uses audio platforms; preferably ones with spoken-word audio (such as talk radio, podcasts, audiobooks, etc.)

• Has experience with (or is open to the idea of) using tour guides

Example Survey Questions and Quantitative Analysis of the Results:

Breakdown of interview structure:

• Background questions – to understand the user’s general behavior and interests

• Road trip questions – to gain insight into the user’s thoughts and behaviors regarding road trips and traveling, and learn about their goals and frustrations related to traveling

• Audio platform questions – to gain insight into the user’s thoughts and behaviors regarding the audio platforms they use (and why), and learn about their favorite and most frustrating features of audio platforms

• App demo questions – to get the user’s thoughts and feedback on the beta version of the app

• Debrief questions – to cover closing thoughts on anything discussed during the interview

Affinity Maps

After completing the user interviews, I organized my interview notes into an affinity map to look for common themes among the users’ behaviors, interests, and frustrations - as they related to both travel and audio experiences. Below are some examples of mapping categories and their corresponding user notes (different colors represent different test users).

App Demo Feedback

Additionally, I grouped the app demo feedback from users into affinity maps as well. In analyzing this feedback, I organized the notes into three different categories: user first impressions, what users liked, and what users recommended. Below are some of the top highlights from the findings:

Empathy Maps

Through the affinity maps I was able to find similarities in users’ behaviors and interests, but a deeper level of understanding would still be needed to begin identifying different types of users. Therefore, I created empathy maps to begin grouping together similar users’ thoughts, feelings, goals, and frustrations – which led to the foundations of the four different user types:

User Personas

Using the combined data from my affinity and empathy maps above, I created user personas so that I could convey my research findings in a summarized and memorable format. By providing each persona with their own biographical details, this will help the HearHere team build a stronger sense of connection with their users. Additionally, the persona is a great reference which summarizes the users’ goals, pains, travel styles, and potential user scenarios.

Results

By providing the HearHere team with all the research data gathered above, I was able to give them the information they needed to reach their goals which were specified earlier in the “Research Goals” section. In the list below, I highlight those initial goals and how they were addressed in the study.

• Create user personas to identify the user’s goals, needs, and wants from the app

  • Personas include sections on “User Goals” and “Pains & Concerns”, which provide insight into the users’ goals, needs, and wants

  • Providing personas with pictures and biographical information will help them become more memorable, so the HearHere team can build a stronger sense of connection with users

• Personas will be used to influence updates to the app’s design, and in creating marketing strategies

  • User feedback from the app demos can be used to make updates to the current app design

  • Detailed personas will help the HearHere team remember who they are designing their app for, and therefore can help guide their design decisions for future app updates

  • As the persona demographics align with real test users, this provides HearHere with demographic information that they can use to help determine who to target with their marketing campaigns

  • Persona “User Scenarios” provide HearHere team with insight as to how and when a user might use their app, so the team can develop marketing strategies that fit expected user scenarios

Client Feedback

Success Metrics

Based upon discussions with HearHere’s co-founder and the provided research details, below are some of the top metrics that can be used to measure the app’s success:

• Number of app downloads, users, and subscribers

• Marketing conversion rates (by marketing channel)

• User growth and retention rates

• User activity rates (how often users are using the app)

• Number of likes and feedback on individual stories

• Ratings and feedback on the overall app (from the Apple App Store)

• Review feedback provided by users on social media platforms

• Company revenue and profit margins

Next Steps

Some of the key next steps to take this project further are as follows:

• Discuss and iterate on app design based upon user feedback from demos

• Finish gathering/uploading base library of story content to be available at launch (mid-2020)

• Integrate user personas into marketing strategy for the app launch plan

Lessons Learned

Some of the key highlights I’ve learned from my time with this project are:

• Gained research experience working on a startup app prior to launch

• Widened my perspective of user personas to see their value for marketing purposes