WORKCHAT

Understanding what people need to work together


Focus Groups | Usability Testing

My Role

  • Focus Group
  • Usability Testing

Timeline

2 weeks

Platform

Web

Context

Workchat (real name redacted) is an online team collaboration tool for work. You can communicate within your company through a familiar interface.

The Goals

What do we want to find out to meet business goals?

Client Goals:

  • Customer Conversion
  • Eliminate any confusion with the product

Research Goals:

  • What is an important work tool? Why?
  • What are the initial impressions of the prototype?
  • What are notable behaviors, preferences, barriers and technologies that impact the usage?
  • What are the needs and opportunities to inform strategy?

Research Process

Which method is appropriate for getting the results we want?

  • Focus Groups (Week 1)
    • This method was chosen to get quick feedback on how people currently collaborate with their co-workers and what kind of tool is important to them.

  • Usability Testing (Week 2)
    • This method was use to test the prototype the client already had. This helps quickly identifying the problems users will face and we can understand attitudes that comes with it.

Recruiting

The best types of people to recruit for this study

User Demographics

  • 5 Non-Users
    • People who doesn't use a competitor application to collaborate

  • 5 Competitor Users
    • People who uses a competitor application to collaborate (e.g., Slack, WebEx, Microsoft Teams, Skype)

  • The client was only looking for people who were located in the SF Bay Area for right now
  • All industries were welcomed
  • No limitations on how technologically savvy the user is
  • All had to have used a computer for work

Key Insights

What was found from the different methods?

Primary Findings from Focus Group

  • Users care about Speed, Efficiency, Reliability, and the ability to integrate other applications they are currently using
  • Email and Phone is still a big part of people's work lives

Primary Findings from Usability Testing

  • Most people could understand the difference between POST and Chat features, but they can't think of a scenario where they would utilize the POST feature
  • People notice icons more, but they could not understand the connection between the icons and the chat window title. This is more related to how people perceive icons