Updated: Sep 1, 2023
I was commissioned as 1 of 6 poets in the City of Cambridge, to write poetry inspired by the lives and work of 2 BIPOC scientists.
As part of the commission, I presented my work in the Boston Literary Festival.
This experience was my first professional writing gig, and it felt amazing to represent the words and lives of BIPOC scientists through my words.
You can read more about the project here: https://www.poetryofscience.org/poets
My poems are here:
In February 2022, as part of theblackproject's Black History Month's Celebration, I participated in a panel talking about my experience writing the poems.
See the webinar here:
Updated: Aug 25, 2023
After observing that Yape's design team was struggling with retaining user interest during studies, I researched pain points in the recruitment journey and designed a guide with best practices for the team.
Key Skills: Qualitative Interviews, User Journeys, Data Synthesis
Tools: Miro, PowerPoint
Timeline: 2 months
Snapshot of Guidebook Layout.
Each section is separated into an objective, followed by a list of good habits collected through team feedback to inspire trust from users, and mental frameworks.
Process & Results
Scope
Who
Product Designers & Researchers at Yape of varying skill levels - from veteran researchers who have interacted with many types of users, to new designers on the team recruiting users for their first usability study.
Why
A direct need was identified in the team after various designers expressed that recruitment was the least favorite job, and the most time consuming in their research process. Designers were losing days of work because users were not committing to a scheduled interview.
How
Qualitative interviews with varying designers on the team to collect best practices in recruitment to motivate the user to participate in a study with us.
Project Overview
After bringing up to my supervisor the issue that, after supporting the interviews of designers, there was a pain point that needed to be researched. One of my colleagues asked, "Why doesn't someone do a research project about why our users aren't coming?!. I told my boss that I'd be interested in exploring and we set some meetings to set the scope.
Step 1.
Hypothesized the user recruitment journey based on personal experience
Identified 6 main steps and created questions around those steps
Reviewed with supervisor
Created concise guiding question, "What are the best practices?"
Step 2.
Contacted designers to obtain their personal experience
Interviewed 8 designers, business analysts, and researchers of varying levels of experience
Synthesized 30 minute interviews
Identified potential solutions
Step 3.
Identify common patterns
Categorized common pain points into a modified user journey
Identified > 15 proposed solutions and created a timeline of potential solutions, based on feasibility
Categorized solutions based on what step of the user journey they could address
Step 4.
Iterate with designers
Set up an individual meeting with a new designers to obtain feedback
Obtained collaborative data (e.g. sound clips, sample emails) from designers
Presented resulting user journey to > 150 designers during internal Day of Design
Step 5.
Share with wide network of internal designers and present work as a work in progress
Presented final draft of User Recruitment practices to Yape Designers and Researchers as a result of their trust in me, result of the ideas they've spearheaded.
Scope, Research (2 weeks)
Snapshot of collected interview data, & hypothesized user journey.
User Journey
6-step journey identified
~15 questions crafted around these steps, both open-ended and stemming from hypotheses of pain points
"Trust from User" a primary focal point
Primary Research
8 one-on-one interviews
Data Synthesis + Guide + User Journey crafted on Miro
Data Synthesis (1 week)
Journey Mapping
Grouped pain points roughly around hypothesized journey map
Iterated journey map ~steps~ based on data
Separated process recommendations, user feelings, and tangible good practices.
Created cleaner interface that presented pain points along the 6 identified points in the journey
Synthesized ~30 recommendations into action items to improve pain points
One action item was to create a guide for Yape designers guiding them through common questions in the process. I took lead on that.
Design, Iteration, Design... (3 weeks)
After presenting my findings to my supervisor, she decided the initiative would become a part of a larger initiative to improve recruitment in our team, starting with the designer guide.
Design
Created the guide in Miro to encourage constant updating from the designers in Yape
Researched playbooks & guides as part of DesignOps, and chose a common layout for readable interface
Centered recommendations around common pains in each user journey's step.
Choosing content to include
Created PDF summarizing research process and findings
Scheduled 2 one-on-one feedback sessions with designers to review content from PDF & Miro
Volunteered to present findings to >150 designers during Dia de Diseno (Day of Design), receiving collective feedback on the content and additional examples of how other teams in the corporation improved their retention of users.
Sharing Final Guide (1 week)
Presented final guide, called Reclutamiento - Pautas & Buenas Practicas (Recruitment - Guidelines and Good Practices) in a 1 hr presentation to the Yape UX/UI/and SXD designers.
Explained why I built the guide, how to use, and how the team could keep building off of the guide so it becomes a constant work in progress in the team.
Also left as documentation the final PDF with the story of how the good practices were reached, for future iteration of the guide.
Thank you to the Yape team for their support!