A UX Research Case Study
Findr: Research exploration just one click away.
About Findr.
Findr revolutionizes academic paper analysis by providing researchers with an intuitive tool to upload documents, generate crucial insights and summaries, annotate and note key information, and ask co-pilot for detailed explanations, ultimately accelerating research comprehension.
Project Details
Problem statement
Through our previous research, we found out that deciding the right research paper is a time-consuming process. It happens during the literature review stage and involves opening multiple browser tabs- often leaving the research lost in a labyrinth of information which is hard to get out of.
Deep diving into the problem
Instead of jumping straight into a solution, we decided to talk to our academic researchers to understand their literature review process more in-depth, in order to estimate the scope of a browser plug-in.
Our role: The user behaviour team’s role was to find out the journey users go through in the literature review phase and how a browser plugin can expedite the process.
Research questions to address
How do users conduct literature review and exploration?
What are the issues users faced while engaging in literature review?
How can we streamline related resource discovery during literature review?
Phase 1.
When I first came on board, the product team had a decent concept of how they wanted the plugin to be like. But instead of blindly charging ahead, we decided to take a more Sherlock Holmes approach and conduct some fundamental research to identify the pain points of researchers.
Meanwhile, our design team was already hard at work crafting a plugin. For this, we followed the steps in design thinking.
Target Group
We chose the following groups to interview for our study:
Interview Schedule
Could you take me through the process of doing literature review?
How do you discover papers/resources related to your research project?
During this process, how do you explore resources related to your topic?
How do you decide which paper to choose for further exploration?
Could you take me through one example?
Do you face any challenges during this process?
Timeline of the study
The process panned out across over a duration of four weeks as given below.
User Journey Map: Academic Researcher's Journey in literature exploration
We also conducted a competitor's audit to identify the trends in design and functionality in browser plugins that can allow for related literature exploration. Find the full audit here.
First mock-ups.
After we discussed the insights with our product team, we decided the user-flow for the plugin (this is a snapshot from the process)
Designs.
Despite my role centering on research and insight synthesis, the mockup design process felt largely collaborative. We finalized on certain elements such as:
Research paper tags
Summaries
Filters
Sort by
Open access tags
Category filters
(The picture over here is just a simulation of what we were trying to build)
Due to confidentiality reasons, I am unable to report usability test findings in this report. I will be happy to discuss this personally.
We revisited the flow multiple times to ensure that the design adheres to industry standard design principles and that it follows the user flow we intend it to. 👉🏼
We set it up for usability testing. In that, we prepared a simple task : Find a literature relevant to your topic. We sought their feedback on the categories, information architecture, features, etc. 👉🏼
We reiterated.
We saw a 20% overall increase in engagement on the plugin leading to 30% increase in the monthly sign-ups on our platform.
Additionally, we received positive feedback in our interview studies. In one of our studies, 7 out of 10 participants expressed the need for the browser plugin for resource exploration.
My learnings
My initial focus was understanding the user's mindset. I developed the ability to empathize with user frustrations regarding product performance, effectively communicate to gather their needs and pain points, and maintain focus throughout the conversation. This experience significantly honed my user interaction skills.
I also discovered the importance of data representation for stakeholder engagement. Effectively communicating the diverse yet shared experiences of users to designers and product managers was a key challenge and a rewarding aspect of this work. My aim was to create a resource that would serve as a guiding reference for stakeholders in the coming months.
Collaborating with designers exposed me to new design principles. Additionally, I learned a new framework for competitor analysis, gaining valuable insights into the competitive landscape.
Finally, I observed that final decisions are a result of a dynamic interplay: 50% user feedback, 5% design considerations, and 45% marketing benefits
With this, we come to an end to my UX research case study, thank you for reading through it and being patient. If you have feedback for me, please do not hesitate to reach out to aditiroychoudhury@gmail.com.
